Re: CAS as a participant in the R.H. Barlow/Derleth/Wandrei "feud"
Posted by:
Scott Connors (IP Logged)
Date: 24 April, 2004 12:24AM
Roger: I don't see either Derleth or Wandrei as "fiends," and I certainly don't regard Don Wandrei, a stand-up guy if there ever was one, as evil. What happened was a breakdown in communications, and this may be laid largely at Barlow's door. Part of the problem was that Barlow's home disintegrated in 1936 with the separation of his parents, and he was bouncing back and forth between Lakeport, Washington, D.C., Providence, New York City, Kansas City, Lakeport, CA, and Berkeley, often leaving caches of papers and books at locations where he could not access them. Add to that his basically dreamy and laid-back attitude with that of two poster boys for Type A Personality, Augie and the Donald, and a certain amount of friction is bound to build up. Derleth had the patience to deal with Barlow. Donald, on the other hand, detested Barlow for his mincing homosexuality (the 1930s were not noted for their tolerance of Gays) and his bolshevik politics. In addition, he and other friends of Lovecraft's were offended when Barlow would pull out the so-called "death diary" HPL kept in the hospital, which he was_carrying around with him_ like a rabbit's foot!Like I said, Barlow could tick people off without even trying. Sam Loveman, Hyman Bradofsky, and W. Paul Cook also had issues with Barlow. Regarding CAS and Barlow, I think that CAS was actually quite fond of Barlow, but found his alleged "looting" of HPL's library and lack of cooperation with Wandrei and Derleth (at least as they saw it) a betrayal of a sacred trust. By the time they were reconciled, Barlow was about to go to Mexico to do the work for which he is remembered today.
Kevin:
Read Dwayne Olson's afterword to DON'T DREAM and you will see that Wandrei's lawsuits against Arkham House were not attempts to make trouble, but rather were intended to preserve something for Derleth's children who, he feared, were being looted by an unscrupulous lawyer. (No, that is not being redundant!) I believe that April Derleth at least understands this, and she has since come to the same conclusion about that shyster.
When Don was hot, he was _hot_. I agree with you totally regarding "The Lady in Gray," and would add "The Painted Mirror" and "The Eye and the Finger" to the list as well. WEB OF EASTER ISLAND has some severe flaws, but portions of it are quite powerful. Wandrei was one of the few practioners of real cosmicism,ranking up there with HPL and CAS. True, he buried a lot of his talent in hackwork, but even some of that is quite exceptional. Both "The Red Brain" and "Colossus" are fantastic works of the imagination, ranking with Stapleton and Hodgson in their evocation of the immensity of space. My favorite stories by him, though, are the Ivy Frost detective tales he wrote for CLUES. Fedogan and Bremer has done one volume of them which is an absolute pleasure to read. They are exceedingly clever fusions of the hard-boiled detective and non-supernatural horror genres.
If Don was a misanthrope, it was because he was also an idealist who saw that mankind could never measure up to those ideals. Best, Scott