Smith and Lovecraft have been compared exhaustively here and in general, but would it be inaccurate to say Smith's fiction as well as his personal circumstances had as much and probably more in common with Robert E. Howard's life and works? Both REH and CAS came into their 20s in extraordinary social isolation, resulting in anti-social tendencies that were more pronounced than Lovecraft's, and in their works, each author used three scenarios to their best advantage: Zothique, Hyperborea, and Averoigne vrs. the Hyborian world, Atlantis, and the Seventeenth Century. Whereas, none of the stories of Lovecraft's dream world are considered among his best. REH and CAS were more the aesthetic rebels than HPL as well, but the difference is in degree not in kind.

jkh

Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Smith and Lovecraft have been compared
> exhaustively here and in general, but would it be
> inaccurate to say Smith's fiction as well as his
> personal circumstances had as much and probably
> more in common with Robert E. Howard's life and
> works? Both REH and CAS came into their 20s in
> extraordinary social isolation, resulting in
> anti-social tendencies that were more pronounced
> than Lovecraft's, and in their works, each author
> used three scenarios to their best advantage:
> Zothique, Hyperborea, and Averoigne vrs. the
> Hyborian world, Atlantis, and the Seventeenth
> Century. Whereas, none of the stories of
> Lovecraft's dream world are considered among his
> best. REH and CAS were more the aesthetic rebels
> than HPL as well, but the difference is in degree
> not in kind.

Now shifting over to comparing the personal backgrounds/life experiences of two authors, in this case Howard and Smith, and contrasting them with a third author, HPL, I'd say that as regards the comparison, from what little I know of REH's life, yes, he and CAS were similar. I grew up way out in the country but had a younger brother as I turned 6, and this socialized me, to a degree.

Then at 18 I moved to the SF Bay Area (Marin Co.) and became as you see me now, for whatever that's worth. :^)

I think their personalities were very different, though. Do you?

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 7 Aug 23 | 02:05PM by Sawfish.

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think their personalities were very different,
> though. Do you?


I used to enjoy REH's swashbuckling adventures when I was fresh out of high school, but grew bored of them shortly after. I'm no expert on REH, but from what I know of his life, he didn't seem to have much luck with women. CAS, on the other hand, had dozens of romances with the women of Auburn, and lived long enough to settle into a happy marriage. CAS didn't strike me as the violent type, either, though I do get the impression both he and REH had chips on their shoulders, regarding society.

I remember reading REH's letters to CAS, and they both shared a belief in supernatural and mystical forces, though neither of them cared for religion or systematized spiritualism.

It would be interesting to read the opinions of an expert on both. As I recall, CAS said he would have enjoyed lambasting civilization with REH.

On the subject of childhood, I was almost thoroughly isolated from society, despite growing up in sunny southern California, and neither of my parents were socially adjusted or sane people, so you can only imagine how I turned out. These days I socialize with free-thinking artistic types, whether they be romantic painters or punk rockers, and I think I could have gotten along with CAS, and possibly even REH. Lovecraft strikes me as pleasantly civil, but CAS and REH (what little I know of the latter) have this unique rough edge between strange and civil that I think I can relate with.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 7 Aug 23 | 03:16PM by Hespire.

Hespire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On the subject of childhood, I was almost
> thoroughly isolated from society, despite growing
> up in sunny southern California, and neither of my
> parents were socially adjusted or sane people, so
> you can only imagine how I turned out. These days
> I socialize with free-thinking artistic types,
> whether they be romantic painters or punk rockers,
> and I think I could have gotten along with CAS,
> and possibly even REH. Lovecraft strikes me as
> pleasantly civil, but CAS and REH (what little I
> know of the latter) have this unique rough edge
> between strange and civil that I think I can
> relate with.

Having 5 older siblings growing up in a small Ohio town, I have to wonder if the escapists of popular fiction under discussion appealed to me as an escape from responsibility, but my father developed mental illness resulting in divorce, so I can relate to your comment about liking people with rough edges to their personalities. After the divorce and for decades we/I moved around a lot, and it has never seemed normal to me to be as settled as I am now.I think Lovecraft's popularity isn't so much due to the cutting edge concepts so much as the traditional style and gothic feel of his writing. Smith and Howard were going against the grain more than Lovecraft was, and so I tend to agree with you that they would be more congenial company.

jkh

Hespire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > I think their personalities were very
> different,
> > though. Do you?
>
>
> I used to enjoy REH's swashbuckling adventures
> when I was fresh out of high school, but grew
> bored of them shortly after. I'm no expert on REH,
> but from what I know of his life, he didn't seem
> to have much luck with women. CAS, on the other
> hand, had dozens of romances with the women of
> Auburn, and lived long enough to settle into a
> happy marriage. CAS didn't strike me as the
> violent type, either, though I do get the
> impression both he and REH had chips on their
> shoulders, regarding society.
>
> I remember reading REH's letters to CAS, and they
> both shared a belief in supernatural and mystical
> forces, though neither of them cared for religion
> or systematized spiritualism.
>
> It would be interesting to read the opinions of an
> expert on both. As I recall, CAS said he would
> have enjoyed lambasting civilization with REH.

Yes, that revolt against the so-called civilization of America was a common passion for Smith and Howard. Smith's close friend E. Hoffmann Price was a motoring enthusiast and pulp writer who visited Howard and his parents, and his memoir describes the psychology of Howard's father in some detail. But in a letter Price wrote years later, he said that Howard suffered from a persecution complex... Still, I believe that he and Smith would have gotten along very well if they had ever met. That letter was published in James Van Hise's fanzine SWORDAND FANTASY, which has a great deal of content about Smith and Howard, as well as old reviews of Lovecraft .

jkh

Hespire has pretty much hit upon the salient points of convergence: Howard and Smith were extremely critical of society and to the degree that they felt themselves victimized, in effect, by cultural forces, and Lovecraft was more inclined to be stoical about his own frustrated ambition. Would that be fair to say,? Secondly, and aside from the similarity in their domestic situations, REH and CAS were more professional in their willingness to try their stories on different markets . Howard would have focused on Westerns more had he lived on, and done well enough there, which brings us to the Hespire's third point, these men's relations with the opposite sex. Again, that's something Smith and Howard could commiserate about, and I'll leave it there.

jkh

Would the following distinction be helpful for this discussion? (I take it the discussion concerns both the men in themselves and their works as independent artistic objects.)

A distinction has been made (by philosopher Charles Taylor) between the porous self and the buffered self. Most cultures throughout time and place have understood the self to be porous, that is, susceptible of influences from the gods or God, the stars, ancestors, and/or other "external" agencies. The porous self may seek the protection of one or more such agents. As a plus, the porous self has no problem with the matter of whether or not life is meaningful. It is connected with other agencies that, in some way or other, are also selves, and life is experienced as meaningful, though perhaps insecure. Human mediators of some kind may be valued -- shamans, oracles, soothsayers, priests, pastors. The self is not self-created and wholly self-determined. More about the porous self will appear in a separate thread on this concept.

The buffered self is basically an artifact of modern habits of thought. The buffered self does not recognize or feel contact with any nonhuman agencies such as I have just indicated. Moreover, the buffered self protects itself from other human selves by understanding relationships largely in terms of "contracts." That is why people now may choose to refer, not to a husband or wife, but to a "partner." A partnership recognizes limits, probably negotiated in some way, even between intimates, and partnerships may be dissolved fairly readily. Over against such relationships, the buffered self recognizes basically no limits to its autonomy. There is no God to whom the buffered self is seriously answerable, let alone spirits to be placated, astral configurations to be figured out, etc., etc. It used to be said by buffered selves that you "discover who you are," and society must grant you full freedom to do that. But now we go beyond that, and the buffered self says you "create who you are" or "invent who you are"; and it is intolerable if anyone encroaches on your freedom. Society must grant full "rights" for you to re-imagine yourself as you think best, even from a quite early age. The only real limit is your contract with others that ensures everyone else has the same freedom you do to invent himself/herself/themself/zeself, etc. Suicide is likely to be seen as a right.

Now Lovecraft is a beautiful example of a buffered self. Mechanistic materialism ensures that nothing and nobody can ever present his self with demands. He and he alone is master of himself. No knowledge that will ever be found will challenge this. All questions are answerable, or in principle are answerable, by the exercise of a broadly "scientific" outlook. Yet -- here's the thing. At the same time as Lovecraft enjoys the personal liberty inherent in freedom from claims of a Supreme Being, or inscrutable spirits or whatever, and as he enjoys expounding his philosophy to his penpals, Lovecraft yearns for mystery and wonder. And so he writes highly imaginative stories that, with another part of his mind, he dismisses as nothing but "Yog-Sothothery."

Lovecraft says the oldest emotion of mankind is fear. With one side of his mind he, however, is free from fear, because (he feels) he has seen what the universe is and himself in it (meaningless). Nothing really can surprise him. Unpleasant things may happen to happen; he already knows that; but there's nothing out there that's trying to get him. But he writes stories intended to evoke (temporarily) "fear" or "horror" (even while the reader sits comfortably in his easy chair with the copy of Weird Tales in hand).

OK. So that's Lovecraft. What about Smith and Howard? Are they basically like Lovecraft, actually fairly typical modern educated people, buffered selves? Or would either man perceive himself as a porous self; would either man feel that the pre-modern and (broadly speaking) religious outlook is basically more truthful than Lovecraft's materialism? (A "porous" materialism is self-contradictory.)

I hand the discussion over to you-all. I'll start a separate thread for the discussion of buffered vs. porous as a topic apart from these three authors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 9 Aug 23 | 10:37AM by Dale Nelson.

Hmmm... about six hours later no response, so maybe I can prod this discussion a little.

My sense with Howard is that he is actually a pretty typical modern person. He does not experience himself as receiving attention or value from any inscrutable agency. Heredity is extremely important to him, but it is not something finally mystical; it is just the accumulated experience of his ancestors transmitted to him down through the ages and giving him certain potentials, proclivities, liabilities (melancholy) and assets. The gun in his desk drawer (or wherever he kept it) symbolizes his unquestioned right to do with his own life as he pleases.

On heredity -- I think heredity was important to Lovecraft too, but more his sense of a cultural inheritance belonging to his Anglo-Saxon forbears. I don't think "blood" was nearly as important to Lovecraft as to Howard. But whether "cultural inheritance" or "blood," no reference to mystical entities was needed to account for one's identity, or any thing that happens. They were buffered against such experience like the rest of us who have had modern educations, etc.

Agreed?

What about Smith?

PS I know I'm writing a lot, but I don't want to lose awareness that (as I understand the concept -- again, it's not mine, but derived from Charles Taylor, whom I've scarcely read; I did read a book about his thought, or most of it) the porous self is porous not only vis-a-vis spirits, or God, or astral influences, or other non-human agents; in a culture that allows for "porosity," one may also be "porous" vis-a-vis other human beings in a way that cultures centered on the buffered self would not be quick to recognize.

On the Porous-Buffered dedicated thread, I mentioned a "paranormal" incident with my mother and her sister (and thereby tipped my hand as someone who regards the "porous" model as more accurate than the "buffered" although that prevails in modern Western culture). It could be that Howard's sense of "heredity" does allow for an element of porosity in his understanding of the human situation. If he regarded heredity in terms just of genetic coding, that fits within the outlook of the buffered self. It's just a part of nature, explicable in principle just like tornado formation or photosynthesis. But if he regarded a "racial inheritance" as an element of his personality, as his participation in the "spirit" of his predecessors, then that might be regarded as Howard allowing an element of "porosity." Did he regard his heredity as something greater than himself, in whose existence he participated, something greater than a mere accumulation of genes -- or however that was understood in those days before the discovery of DNA? Did he think in terms of a sort of spiritual essence greater than himself? His interest, in fiction, in reincarnation might suggest that. But his idea of reincarnation seems to have been a Westernized version, rather distinct from the way it's understood in the East, where it's (more or less) damnation: i.e. condemnation to the wearisome wheel of embodiment, rather than escape into utter transcendence.

I find this topic fascinating, and I wish I had more freetime to respond immediately to everyone. I'll jump back in later, but for now I'd like to leave behind this passage from Clark Ashton Smith, in a letter he wrote to August Derleth, dated April 13th, 1937:

Quote:

From what you say, it would seem that some remarkable inspiration, either subliminal or external, is involved. My theory (not favored by scientists!) is that some world, or many worlds, of pure mentation may exist. The individual mind may lapse into this common reservoir at death, just as the atoms of the individual body lapse into grosser elements. Therefore, no idea or image is ever lost from the universe. Living minds, subconsciously, may tap the reservoir according to their own degree and kind of receptivity. HPL would have argued that no mentation could survive the destruction of the physical brain; but against this it might be maintained that energy and matter, brain and ideation, can never quite be destroyed no matter what changes they undergo, The sea of Being persists, though the waves of individual entity rise and fall eternally, The truth about life and death is perhaps simpler and more complex than we dream.

Smith strikes me as fiercely individualistic, and he seemed strongly anti-religious, but on the other hand he was open to the idea of unseen mystical forces influencing the human world. In fact, in some other letters to Derleth and Lovecraft, he rejected the very idea of psychology, and preferred the idea that some strange unseen forces, wholly external from humanity, could be influencing human minds. He never defined just what these forces could be, but I doubt he defined them for himself. I'm not sure how porous or how buffered he was, but must been somewhere between the two.

As for REH, I'm having trouble finding the letter, but I recall him explaining to CAS his idea that humans may be governed by unseen forces, at all moments in time and space, to rise and fall from grace in some fatalistic cycle. If I can find it, I'll post it here too.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 9 Aug 23 | 05:58PM by Hespire.

Hespire, it sounds from that quotation like Smith didn't go along with the buffered outlook (hence his "not favored by scientists" admission). Rather, he thought that existence is such that human beings, whether or not they realize it, are embedded in, or participate in, some whole greater than oneself. My sense though is that he would deny agency to this transcendent mentation. That leaves the question, then, regarding how human beings would possess a faculty that is unknown to the ground of our thoughts.

I'm probably getting a little out of my depth here but I hope others, and yourself, will have a lot more to say.

I did think of something I read that (thought experiment!) I'd like to have HPL, CAS, and REH read, and then ask them, "What do you think of that?"

Here it is. (Click on the link.)

[www.theguardian.com]

I sent this to a friend who had asserted, "the mind resides somewhere in the skull." But can one still maintain that view, if someone's skull is filled mostly by water? (Granted -- it's not tap water!) Can one maintain that view, if someone having an organ transplant begins to experience strange desires that prove traceable to the dead donor? I pressed my friend, who basically indicated he didn't care to discuss the matter further.

Now I wonder if CAS would have been quite intrigued! But one suspects Lovecraft would have been uncomfortable with this sort of thing. Consider the abstract of this paper:

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein chose as his prime exemplar of certainty the fact that the skulls of normal people are filled with neural tissue, not sawdust. In 1980 the British pediatrician John Lorber reported that some normal adults, apparently cured of childhood hydrocephaly, had no more than 5 % of the volume of normal brain tissue. While initially disbelieved, Lorber’s observations have since been independently confirmed by clinicians in France and Brazil. Thus Wittgenstein’s certainty has become uncertain. Furthermore, the paradox that the human brain’s information content (memory) appears to exceed the storage capacity of even normal-sized brains, requires resolution. This article is one of a series on disparities between brain size and its assumed information content, as seen in cases of savant syndrome, microcephaly, and hydrocephaly, and with special reference to the Victorian era views of Conan Doyle, Samuel Butler, and Darwin’s research associate, George Romanes. The articles argue that, albeit unlikely, the scope of explanations must not exclude extracorporeal information storage.

Forsdyke, D. (2015). Wittgenstein’s Certainty is Uncertain: Brain Scans of Cured Hydrocephalics Challenge Cherished Assumptions Biological Theory DOI: 10.1007/s13752-015-0219-x

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> [www.theguardian.com]
> research.highereducation1

A queasy subject for someone with a normal brain(?) like me, but fascinating. I don't know a thing about the physical sciences, so I can't comment on how an organ transplant can also transfer a personality. Sounds like something from the pages of Weird Tales, though if it's recorded by respectable people in respectable sources, who can deny it??? All I know is it confounds my already flimsy understanding of what the "mind" is, though I've always dimly guessed there was more to the mind than the physical stuff seemingly holding it to our bodies. Although I lack a religion, I've always felt that my mind, or perhaps my soul, must transcend my body, like the Egyptian Ba can. I guess I always lived with the old folks' lack of interest in the mechanics of the material world, focusing more on the world as it seems to my senses.

> I sent this to a friend who had asserted, "the
> mind resides somewhere in the skull." But can one
> still maintain that view, if someone's skull is
> filled mostly by water? (Granted -- it's not tap
> water!) Can one maintain that view, if someone
> having an organ transplant begins to experience
> strange desires that prove traceable to the dead
> donor? I pressed my friend, who basically
> indicated he didn't care to discuss the matter
> further.

Ha! From CAS' and REH' letters, they both would have taken that as a sign of the materialist's prejudice against anything inexplicable. Though I must admit I can't make heads or tails of how this brain stuff works.

> Now I wonder if CAS would have been quite
> intrigued! But one suspects Lovecraft would have
> been uncomfortable with this sort of thing.
> Consider the abstract of this paper:
>
> The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein chose as his
> prime exemplar of certainty the fact that the
> skulls of normal people are filled with neural
> tissue, not sawdust. In 1980 the British
> pediatrician John Lorber reported that some normal
> adults, apparently cured of childhood
> hydrocephaly, had no more than 5 % of the volume
> of normal brain tissue. While initially
> disbelieved, Lorber’s observations have since
> been independently confirmed by clinicians in
> France and Brazil. Thus Wittgenstein’s certainty
> has become uncertain. Furthermore, the paradox
> that the human brain’s information content
> (memory) appears to exceed the storage capacity of
> even normal-sized brains, requires resolution.
> This article is one of a series on disparities
> between brain size and its assumed information
> content, as seen in cases of savant syndrome,
> microcephaly, and hydrocephaly, and with special
> reference to the Victorian era views of Conan
> Doyle, Samuel Butler, and Darwin’s research
> associate, George Romanes. The articles argue
> that, albeit unlikely, the scope of explanations
> must not exclude extracorporeal information
> storage.

I'm sure CAS and REH would have used this as proof that the human mind is beyond scientific categorization. One thing CAS especially hated about psychology was the tendency to categorize human and human behavior, and the rending of mystery from the natural world. HPL would have been astounded by this news, but would have dismissed any explanation that isn't firmly grounded in science, even in unknown science.

By the way, I couldn't find REH's letter regarding his belief in a sort of "fate" (I wonder if Kipling would know about it.), but I did find some passages from Hippocampus' Collected Letters regarding CAS' thoughts on spirituality, which may add another layer to the subject, though I wouldn't know how to piece anything together myself. What I can say confidently is that CAS was open to a spiritual layer of reality, but really despised the idea that it could cater so much to humanity. You're probably right that he imagined humans as being part of some vast, cosmic tapestry, but not necessarily the center of it:

Quote:

The Blackwood item, "The Woman's Ghost Story", though good in technique, was too professionally occultistic to please me greatly. The idea of an able-bodied male specter having to hang around and beg strangers to love him struck me as little less than puerile. It's just the sort of thing which makes me feel that spiritualism is about on par with fetishism--"human, all too human . . ." But there is a magnificent chance for tales dealing with a future state of life--tales that would break utterly with the mere extension of mundane emotions and morals beyond the grave."

From Clark Ashton Smith to H. P. Lovecraft, March 1932.

Quote:

"I cannot say that I believe in esoteric Buddhism or any other ism. It is all very interesting; and I do not doubt that mystics in many lands and ages have obtained a glimpse of something behind the veil. What I do question, however, is their interpretation of their visions, which, it seems to me, would inevitably be shaped and coloured by the personality and ethic prepossessions of the visionary. The infinite, translated into terms of the finite, is pretty sure to become distorted."

From Clark Ashton Smith to Richard Dodson, May 25th, 1933.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 9 Aug 23 | 11:19PM by Hespire.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hespire, it sounds from that quotation like Smith
> didn't go along with the buffered outlook (hence
> his "not favored by scientists" admission).
> Rather, he thought that existence is such that
> human beings, whether or not they realize it, are
> embedded in, or participate in, some whole greater
> than oneself. My sense though is that he would
> deny agency to this transcendent mentation. That
> leaves the question, then, regarding how human
> beings would possess a faculty that is unknown to
> the ground of our thoughts.
>
> I'm probably getting a little out of my depth here
> but I hope others, and yourself, will have a lot
> more to say.
>
> I did think of something I read that (thought
> experiment!) I'd like to have HPL, CAS, and REH
> read, and then ask them, "What do you think of
> that?"
>
> Here it is. (Click on the link.)
>
> [www.theguardian.com]
> research.highereducation1
>
> I sent this to a friend who had asserted, "the
> mind resides somewhere in the skull." But can one
> still maintain that view, if someone's skull is
> filled mostly by water? (Granted -- it's not tap
> water!) Can one maintain that view, if someone
> having an organ transplant begins to experience
> strange desires that prove traceable to the dead
> donor? I pressed my friend, who basically
> indicated he didn't care to discuss the matter
> further.
>
> Now I wonder if CAS would have been quite
> intrigued! But one suspects Lovecraft would have
> been uncomfortable with this sort of thing.
> Consider the abstract of this paper:
>
> The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein chose as his
> prime exemplar of certainty the fact that the
> skulls of normal people are filled with neural
> tissue, not sawdust. In 1980 the British
> pediatrician John Lorber reported that some normal
> adults, apparently cured of childhood
> hydrocephaly, had no more than 5 % of the volume
> of normal brain tissue. While initially
> disbelieved, Lorber’s observations have since
> been independently confirmed by clinicians in
> France and Brazil. Thus Wittgenstein’s certainty
> has become uncertain. Furthermore, the paradox
> that the human brain’s information content
> (memory) appears to exceed the storage capacity of
> even normal-sized brains, requires resolution.
> This article is one of a series on disparities
> between brain size and its assumed information
> content, as seen in cases of savant syndrome,
> microcephaly, and hydrocephaly, and with special
> reference to the Victorian era views of Conan
> Doyle, Samuel Butler, and Darwin’s research
> associate, George Romanes. The articles argue
> that, albeit unlikely, the scope of explanations
> must not exclude extracorporeal information
> storage.
>
> Forsdyke, D. (2015). Wittgenstein’s Certainty is
> Uncertain: Brain Scans of Cured Hydrocephalics
> Challenge Cherished Assumptions Biological Theory
> DOI: 10.1007/s13752-015-0219-x

Dale, let's accept for the sake of discussion that the "mind" has a non-physical dimension to it. It is more than simply the contents of the skull.

This then implies that this extra dimension is akin to what's commonly thought of as spiritual. It is a non-physical attribute that other such entities--those also possessing such "minds"--can readily recognize. There are varying opinions of from whence this attribute derives. I.e., is evidence of it carried in an individual's DNA? If so, this would be a physical marker for a non-physical attribute.

If it is not in any way indicated genetically, and has apparently no physical grounding, does it belong to the "physical" world, at all--and by this I mean is it connected to the physical world, but as yet undetected by such means as we possess to examine the physical world. In other words, it would be like Pluto's existence *before* first being observed in 1930: it existed (so far as we may infer), but was not known. Its existence might have been inferred mathematically from the orbits of other planetary bodies, but was itself unknown.

If it does not belong to the physical world, does it belong to any other organized domain? If so, is it evidence of the possibility of a deity in the broadest possible sense?

OK, let's continue with the existence of undetectable attributes of the human mind. This mind is differentiated from non-human minds by complexity, and especially complexity of sophisticated abstract thought. And yet I'm convince by life experience that many other animal species also possess some of this capability--it's a continuum of mental potency, in a sense. My cat does not believe in a deity, so far as I can tell--but is well aware that he can get into serious peril if he does not avoid certain situations. They're like his ten commandments, in a sense.

Continuing this idea of a continuum, do these other species' "minds" also have a non-physical attribute--one that can be inferred from observation, but cannot be measured or detected by any current means? Perhaps they have less of it, just as they seems to have less capacity for abstract thought.

Dale, we've exchanged. You'll know that I'm basically a materialist *by circumstance*. I'm not committed to it philosophically, but the vast bulk of my life experience--maybe all of it--is best explained by material phenomena. I'm looking here for a new world to explore. I'm looking for a non-deistic undetected non-physical dimension as it affects *all* of the observable physical world. If there's a continuum without a threshold, it implies that every physical object we can observe also has some non-physical attributes. This would include not only the higher animals, but insects, micro-organisms, plants, and inorganic objects like rocks.

But if there is indeed a threshold, above which the non-physical dimensions provide evidence that they exist, where is that threshold, and how did it come about?

Big, wide open door here... :^)

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sawfish, I'll attempt a response of sorts to your message over on the Porous-Buffered dedicated thread, so that this thread can remain mostly focused on CS, REH, HPL.

Hespire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to
> leave behind this passage from Clark Ashton Smith,
> in a letter he wrote to August Derleth, dated
> April 13th, 1937:
>
> From what you say, it would seem that some
> remarkable inspiration, either subliminal or
> external, is involved. My theory (not favored by
> scientists!) is that some world, or many worlds,
> of pure mentation may exist. The individual mind
> may lapse into this common reservoir at death,
> just as the atoms of the individual body lapse
> into grosser elements. Therefore, no idea or image
> is ever lost from the universe. Living minds,
> subconsciously, may tap the reservoir according to
> their own degree and kind of receptivity. HPL
> would have argued that no mentation could survive
> the destruction of the physical brain; but against
> this it might be maintained that energy and
> matter, brain and ideation, can never quite be
> destroyed no matter what changes they undergo, The
> sea of Being persists, though the waves of
> individual entity rise and fall eternally, The
> truth about life and death is perhaps simpler and
> more complex than we dream.
>

Does anyone want to explore this Smith passage as compared with HPL, REH? HPL is the only one of the three I feel like I know very well, and I think Smith's right about him, but was he?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Aug 23 | 10:03PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmmm... about six hours later no response, so
> maybe I can prod this discussion a little.
>
> My sense with Howard is that he is actually a
> pretty typical modern person. He does not
> experience himself as receiving attention or value
> from any inscrutable agency. Heredity is
> extremely important to him, but it is not
> something finally mystical; it is just the
> accumulated experience of his ancestors
> transmitted to him down through the ages and
> giving him certain potentials, proclivities,
> liabilities (melancholy) and assets. The gun in
> his desk drawer (or wherever he kept it)
> symbolizes his unquestioned right to do with his
> own life as he pleases.
>
> On heredity -- I think heredity was important to
> Lovecraft too, but more his sense of a cultural
> inheritance belonging to his Anglo-Saxon forbears.
> I don't think "blood" was nearly as important to
> Lovecraft as to Howard. But whether "cultural
> inheritance" or "blood," no reference to mystical
> entities was needed to account for one's identity,
> or any thing that happens. They were buffered
> against such experience like the rest of us who
> have had modern educations, etc.
>
> Agreed?
>
> What about Smith?


I agree with your perspective on Howard, Dale. If there is any one thing that characterizes the tone of his letters, from the few I've seen, it is what you've described -- fierce independence. All 3 of these writers needed that to cope with the economic depression. This distinguishes them from Ray Bradbury, and Fritz Leiber, who some would say surpassed them, certainly. Leiber struggled the loss of his spouse, and seems to have identified with Howard more than with the other two. I wonder if of all these writers the least prolific of them all, Lovecraft, will over time be more read for his letters than his fiction. About all of them have been published in durable scholarly editions, and it seems to me that their lasting influence may outlive that of his tales. I'm not taking anything away from his fiction. But I was early on exposed to the letters in my college library. If my guess is correct, HPL will be remembered as Samuel Johnson is-- the idiosyncratic scholar of a golden age of sorts in the development of the fantasy genres. Anecdotally, one of his letters to Elizabeth Toldridge, who challenged his materiallistic views a bit, revealed that I might be distantly related to Lovecraft's maternal line by marriage, through my own maternal Dutch grandmother. Lovecraft was relating some of his genealogical research to Ms. Toldridge about John Carter, who ran a printing establishment in Providence called Shakespeare's Head. One of his daughters married a guy named Walter Raleigh Danforth, (another name fictionally employed by HPL) and Danforth was the cousin of the father of Lovecraft's eldest aunt's husband. John Carter was also the brother-in-law of a Captain John Updike, who owned the house right next to Carter's printing business. HPL sketched the two houses (Updike's had been torn down), noting that the name Updike is "of remote Dutch derivation-- Op Dyck" (Selected Letters Ii, p. 354). So this made me curious since my grandma's maiden name was Updike, and I knew she had registered as a Daughter of the American Revolution. One of her six children, my Uncle Edward Deeds, mentioned his having done some research on the Updikes and had a photograph of an Updike family reunion. These are the kinds of things that abound in Lovecraft's letters, displaying his knowledge of New England history. In my graduate program I had a seminar on New England Regionalism in which I read two of Edith Wharton's novels, but Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Freeman appealed more to my Lovecraftian side.

jkh

Kipling, that's cool about your genealogical explorations, whether they lead to HPL in the end or not. I haven't gotten into genealogy yet, but my wife has and has enjoyed some surprises that came up. I do have a good start, though -- a former boss of my late father became a genealogy buff and did the research for Dad's side of my family -- just names. I don't know if any of them are those of interesting folks.

That's interesting about interest in Lovecraft's letters as maybe someday being greater than in his stories! I have wondered if a group of people now young who grew up on texting will, in years to come, perhaps be fascinated by the epistolary culture they never knew, and will feel strongly a regret that they have no files of letters from friends and family preserved throughout the years.

You may have seen statements about how some young people don't know how to address an envelope.

When I moved to a new town before my 14th birthday, my best friend and I began a correspondence that lasted for about 15 years (and we got back in touch years later). I had saved all of his letters, about 160 of them, and sent scans to him. Unfortunately, though he had saved my letters, his mom threw them away without his knowing about it.

Back to Lovecraft -- I wish someone would edit a one-volume anthology, 200-300 pages, of his letters that emphasized Lovecraft's walks, his reading, his antiquarian interests, his circle of friends, and the like. The enormous amount of material expounding mechanistic materialism could be dispatched in a page or two. The edition should have photographs from "then and now" of places he roamed around.

I read the first volume of Arkham's five of HPL's letters almost 50 years ago. My impression is that he maintains a persona from letter to letter. This isn't a criticism of what he was doing; he didn't represent himself (did he?) as writing to reveal himself so much as to set forth his opinions and a selection of his experiences. But put it this way: A Lovecraft letter could never "fall into the wrong hands" -- except letters in which he expressed an opinion of someone that he would not want that person to see.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 26 Aug 23 | 12:38PM by Dale Nelson.

Those letters of yours shouldn't have been tossed! The same thing happened to Henry S. Whitehead's correspondence--his housekeeper disposed of it all. Did you read anything by him? What's your opinion of Fritz Leiber? There is one book collecting Lovecraft's essays on his antiquarian ramblings, from Hippocampus Press.... but your idea for judiciously edited letter extracts is good.

jkh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 26 Aug 23 | 06:19PM by Kipling.

Back in the 1980s I did get one or two Whitehead books on interlibrary loan and read at least a bit of his fiction. I think it seemed OK to me, no captivating.

I read a lot of Leiber in the 1970s. He's not an author who has stuck with me, in general; but "A Pail of Air" is one of my favorite short stories, and I used to use it every semester when I taught Introduction to Literature and had a unit on science fiction. Much of his writing would be distasteful to me now, e.g. the late Fafhrd and Mouser story in which the heroes are hot for a girl who looks 13 years old.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Back in the 1980s I did get one or two Whitehead
> books on interlibrary loan and read at least a bit
> of his fiction. I think it seemed OK to me, no
> captivating.
>
> I read a lot of Leiber in the 1970s. He's not an
> author who has stuck with me, in general; but "A
> Pail of Air" is one of my favorite short stories,
> and I used to use it every semester when I taught
> Introduction to Literature and had a unit on
> science fiction. Much of his writing would be
> distasteful to me now, e.g. the late Fafhrd and
> Mouser story in which the heroes are hot for a
> girl who looks 13 years old.

Did you ever encounter Barry Malzberg?

Very constrained stylistic palette and this emphasized his themes of psychosis and paranoia, especially as mankind begins to explore space.

He was all about unreliable POV, too.

Very interesting but gets stale pretty quickly. Just as HArlan Ellison did, for me.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Dale Nelson Wrote:
------------------------------------------
>
> I read a lot of Leiber in the 1970s. He's not an
> author who has stuck with me, in general; but "A
> Pail of Air" is one of my favorite short stories,
> and I used to use it every semester when I taught
> Introduction to Literature and had a unit on
> science fiction. Much of his writing would be
> distasteful to me now, e.g. the late Fafhrd and
> Mouser story in which the heroes are hot for a
> girl who looks 13 years old.

Leiber moved from Chicago to San Francisco, where he wrote Our Lady of Darkness, which was a solid weird novel. Jack Koblas recalled going with a friend to see him. Koblas wrote about meeting and interviewing various pulp authors in his book The Lovecraft Circle and Others As I Remember Them. Charles De Vet told him about one sci-fi writer who wrote great letters, so they became friends, but in person the guy was a total buffoon. He would boast of sales of stories that hadn't been written yet, failed to thank De Vet's wife for a sumptuous dinner she cooked for him, and broke De Vet's windshield when it was caked with ice without apologizing, just Oops... "You got insurance"? He conned a rich man into investing in his idea of a device that would "take over for the heart" in the event of cardiac arrest (before pacemakers existed), and told De Vet he was marrying a rich girl with 4 kids, hadn't met her father yet, but would be taking control of the home she shared with her Father. De Vet said he felt that to be successful as a pulp writer you had to have an unrealistic idea about future events in your life, which is why he was "telling on" this deceased author friend of his. Funny stuff!

jkh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 27 Aug 23 | 06:39PM by Kipling.

The author in question is Rog Phillips, one of many pseudonyms of Roger Phillip Graham. Definitely not a buffoon,just had his weaknesses like anyone else. He was good. Wrote prolifically for AMAZING and then during the Cold War years for IF, OTHER WORLDS, FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, etcetera. Hugo-Nominated for 1959 short story ("Rat in the Skull"). The most significant figure figure in fandom as editor/columnist of "The Club House", convention planning & so on.

jkh



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 28 Aug 23 | 10:09AM by Kipling.

This bears reference to Clark Ashton Smith's abandonment of the pulp market game. I was at the Chicago World Fantasy Convention, where I got to see a few of his stunning watercolor landscape paintings up close. There was a Smith panel presentation and someone in the audience asked why Smith quit writing fiction prior to 1940. The panel, with Donald Sidney-Fryer, Roy Squires, and a couple of others shrugged off the suggestion that Lovecraft's death had something to do with it (you can guess who posed the suggestion). Of course Robert E. Howard had died also, so his and Lovecraft's deaths were naturally and deeply discouraging. But the real reasons were closer to home. He was sick of dealing with the pulp editors and there was no chance of it getting any better. He wasn't a sci-fi writer by choice anyway; he was drafted. What was the situation with Weird Tales at that time?

jkh

Kipling, I think that's a very plausible explanation. I had always gotten the idea that he was treating his short stories a lot the same way that an arts fair potter spun standard pots. They were production to allow him a level of income, and it might enable him to work on much more personally satisfying projects: new glazes, experimental forms.

An interesting data point would be if he established a domestic relationship at about the same time, thus alleviating him of the need to spin so many commercial-grade pots.

But damn! They were nice pots... :^)

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Kipling, I've been following this discussion with much interest, though with nothing much to add myself. I'm a huge admirer of CAS' watercolors, technical quality be damned, so I was curious to know if you remember any of those paintings from the convention. Any specific details? Anything especially note-worthy?

Regarding sci-fi, CAS occasionally complained about the very existence of sci-fi. He felt such stories had no justification (at least in the weird market) unless they were primarily atmospheric, much like his Martian tales. Sometimes I wonder how unique his science-fiction could have been if he were allowed to continue his early Yondo/Sadastor style, using the cosmos as a backdrop for otherworldly prose-poems. Certainly I've never seen anything like those two stories, nor his poems that use cosmic backdrops for scenes of a mythological rather than scientific spirit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 29 Aug 23 | 11:03AM by Hespire.