Interleaved, below:
Oldjoe Wrote:
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> The Sojourner of Worlds Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It's interesting that Oldjoe sees both Desert
> > Dweller and The Prophet Speaks as being about a
> > conflict between art and the Mammondom while to
> me
> > it's about the individual versus the community,
> > the society, the throng. This too is very much
> in
> > line with both Smith's personal life and
> > preferences, as well as his more than
> occasional
> > tendencies to place the blame for the
> corruption
> > of an individual on his evil, rotten, decadent
> > surroundings rather than the individual
> himself.
> > There's a very strong anti-communal undertone
> to
> > his writings.
>
> You're quite right Sojourner to pick up on the
> "anti-communal undertone" present in many of CAS'
> writings. That's an aspect of his personality and
> his work that I do often think about when reading
> both his prose and his poetry. Steve Behrends has
> written an entire essay on that theme:
>
> [
www.eldritchdark.com]
> clark-ashton-smith%3A-cosmicist-or-misanthrope%3F
>
> I don't agree with all of Behrends' conclusions,
> but it's an interesting analysis all the same.
I found this to be a concretely supported and well-reasoned assessment of what informed CAS's outlook on life.
We have to face facts: very many CAS readers tend towards the ill-defined "touchy-feely" response, and this is to be expected among people who are drawn toward imaginative and dreamy reading material. But Behrends attempts to define with specificity the attributes of cosmicist and the misanthrope. He used HPL and CAS as concrete examples of each. Having read both authors really quite a bit, I think he captured the essence of HPL's view of mankinds's place in the cosmos, and with Smith, he got me to consider that he may have been an active misanthrope.
Personally, I'd like to see a bit more of this sort of analysis on ED. I know that many of us enjoy the dreamy aspects of CAS's narratives and poems--we get off on that which he so effectively evokes, but unless we attempt to identify what he does and how, we are in deep danger of having ED slide inexorably into yet another fan-boy site: you tell me how you felt on reading Poem A, and I'll respond with how I felt, and naturally since our emotional response if largely (and necessarily) private and individual, we'll simply be talking *at* each other, smiling and nodding in contented, but ill-defined fandom.
>
> > Speaking of art and Mammondom, you might be
> > interested in the Elder Sign episode dedicated
> to
> > The Planet of the Dead. They go a bit into this
> > topic, the role of a poet in a capitalist
> society,
> > etc. Story itself is one of Smith's finest, and
> he
> > draws some really interesting analogies and
> > contrasts.
>
> I used to listen to the Elder Sign podcast fairly
> regularly, but haven't been able to keep up with
> them recently. However I am very interested in
> hearing them discuss "The Planet of the Dead", so
> thanks for linking to that!
>
> > Another thing. You sound like an artist,
> Oldjoe.
> > Are you an artist? Anything you'd like to share
> > with us?
>
> I used to write a bit, but in the last few years
> I've been focusing more on music (classical
> guitar). I did have a poem published a couple of
> years ago in the Spectral Realms journal from
> Hippocampus Press. And in fact, that poem was a
> tribute to none other than CAS!
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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