Sawfish Wrote:
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> Last night I re-watched The Wicker Man (1973). A
> great film, ... in many ways.
>
> To me, I associate this with the strong, scary
> aspects of paganism.
>
> There are also lots of positive, uplifting
> elements, too.


I'm not sure I've ever seen THE WICKER MAN (1973) all the way through. But I always got the impression that the film-makers were more-than-half on the side of the Evil Pagans. The Nick Cage remake and the quasi-remake MIDSOMMAR, while different movies in many ways, had similarly ambiguous attitude. Which was effective for me because it really creeped me out (well okay, the Nick Cage version mostly made me laugh). But I wonder if I am shuddering with the film-makers, or at them.

A while back in this thread, there was some discussion of CAS' poem "Amithaine", which I've just recently re-read. I also came across comments from CAS on the same poem, which he included in a letter to August Derleth in 1950. To quote from that letter:

Quote:

...what would the typical science fiction fan make of a symbolism such as "Whose princes wage immortal wars / For beauty with the bale-red stars?" He'd probably think the "princes" were making war on Aldebaran, or Antares, or repelling invaders from Mars or Saturn! instead of battling against destiny as symbolized by the "stars" of astrology.

Interesting to note CAS' thoughts on what the "typical science fiction fan" might make of such a poem.

I included a longer quote from the same letter in a blog post:

[www.desertdweller.net]

eOldjoe Wrote:
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> A while back in this thread, there was some
> discussion of CAS' poem "Amithaine", which I've
> just recently re-read. I also came across
> comments from CAS on the same poem, which he
> included in a letter to August Derleth in 1950.
> To quote from that letter:
>
> ...what would the typical science fiction fan make
> of a symbolism such as "Whose princes wage
> immortal wars / For beauty with the bale-red
> stars?" He'd probably think the "princes" were
> making war on Aldebaran, or Antares, or repelling
> invaders from Mars or Saturn! instead of battling
> against destiny as symbolized by the "stars" of
> astrology.
>
> Interesting to note CAS' thoughts on what the
> "typical science fiction fan" might make of such a
> poem.

I agree with his conjecture that sci-fi fans might take it as a literal war against one of the red-colored astral bodies, bit I think CAS made a mistake by referring to the "stars" are "bale-red". He basically put it in the minds of the readers that the stars would be reddish, and if in fact he intended the reference to be more generally the bodies governing the Zodiac, he erred.

Me, because of the construction of the passage, I could see that the princes made war "for beauty"--i.e., the highest ephemeral aesthetic--against what seemed to me to be unnamed reddish, threatening symbolic stars.


>
> I included a longer quote from the same letter in
> a blog post:
>
> [www.desertdweller.net]
> l

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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CAS' other "mistake" might be that he made a long career out of aliens and fantastic planets. If Baudelaire, Bierce, Poe, or even Sterling mentioned wars on stars I would take them symbolically, but because CAS is famous for poems like "Hashish-Eater" and stories like "Sadastor" it's easy to imagine these princes battling literal hordes of invaders from other planets. Fortunately I don't think this detracts from the poem's meaning, even if it misses the nuance of his intent, because CAS' flights of fantasy usually transcend genre expectations, and he has expressed his passions effectively in more literal narratives.

It's nice learning his thoughts on one of his own poems though. Amithaine was always a favorite of mine.