Dr Farmer has done a Q&A about CAS that I hope Boyd Pearson would like to use, and I was wondering whether anyone had more questions for him. If so, it's best if you've read the memoir in
The Sword of Zagan and are familiar with CAS's biography, so that you can ask things Dr Farmer hasn't already discussed somewhere else and is best-suited to know from his knowledge of CAS's final years. Speculatory questions are best avoided too. I suggest he sends any answers to me rather than posting them on the forum, so that everything can be published together.
For reference, these were my questions (I should have been more careful myself about avoiding duplication, speculation and so on). If you don't like them, here's your chance to come up with better ones -- and you will enjoy the answers I've already got.
Quote:
QUESTIONS ON CAS
There are millions of books in the world but only twenty-four hours in the day. Why should someone read Clark Ashton Smith?
Could you trace his modern and ancient influences?
CAS wrote in several genres and styles. Which do you think was his best?
What genres and stories was CAS most proud of himself and find most important?
Which books published since CAS's death do you wish you could have shared with him?
How much Tolkien and C.S. Lewis did CAS read, and what did he make of what he read?
Did CAS ever show any interest in Jung and his theories?
We're often guilty of what might be called chronocentrism when we look back and ask that artists conform to modern rules or concern themselves with what concerns us. How you do think CAS would have reacted to our modern obsessions with race and sex and our Sisyphean striving for equality between different groups?
Why do you think CAS is the neglected member of Weird Tales' Three Musketeers? Lovecraft has grown ever more famous since his death and Robert E. Howard is firmly established through Conan, but CAS remains obscure even to many fantasy and science-fiction fans.
George Orwell said that we often recall our dead friends or relatives in a characteristic pose or activity. If you agree, how do you see CAS?