People I have gotten to read CAS do not like him cause he uses so many uncommon words.
Is everyone stupid or was CAS hard to read?

Like any poet, CAS has elements of eccentricity. His word usage could be counted as one. However, I really do not think that CAS is any harder or easier than any other poet. Look at Hopkins for example, one needs to put much more thought into a poem like "Carrion Comfort" than most poems, yet people do it for sheer enjoyment and challenge.

If one likes CAS's work, then adjusting to and enjoying the complexity of his language should be part of the journey. Certainly other poets need as much work to get accustomed to their language like, EE Cummings, Gertrude Stein, Mallarmé, etc.

So perhaps the answer to your question is that the people you've shown him to just need more motivation or reflection.

Anyone raised on King James and Shakespeare should have no problem with CAS. Unfortunately, to many people these might as well be in a foreign language. If you were stuck in front of a TV as a child instead of reading literature for pleasure, you are at a disadvantage. That's why so many adults are now devouring Harry Potter as if they've been starved their whole lives. It's truly effortless reading, but a decent enough story. Everyone needs a good fantasy adventure at some point in their lives, I would think. But to hear them talk--solemnly, and with such awe--you'd think nothing like it had ever been written before. Boy, what they have been missing...

Anyway, yeah, I get people looking over my shoulder and saying, "I don't even understand half of those words!" It's just too bad. Regards.
--

Michael Falconer - [ulmo.mux.net]
"Because by fate even the gods are cast down, weep ye all with me."

Yes, I am halfway through Bradbury's 451 and I think his world to some degree is coming true.
Thanks for the reply

I've never had a real problem thus far with CAS. I'm one of the lucky ones: I was raised on the Authorised version of the Bible, read all my life, especially poetry. Reading CAS, and reading his poetry, are now as natural as reading, say, a cornflake packet.

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

You have reminded me of a something Clark said on some occasion where we were discussing language, and it's capacity to color and evoke mood --
"If one finds something is 'over his head', he should stand up". Meaning obviously,
make the effort to acquire new knowledge, don't blame the writer - I might add, depth is usually acquired only by digging. Those of you who wrote of having known the KJV are quite right. The letters home written by 16 year olds during the Civil War in America were often masterpieces of prose; the generation for whom "fer shure" and
"whoa dude!" are the limit of their reach are indeed at a disadvantage. As to Harry Potter, you may have noted that, while entertaining (I would love to play Quidditch),
the films use much less complex vocabulary, including that just mentioned. Side bar: of course all of life would be more dramatic with a John Williams score accompanying one's sports or chess games - doesn't the first book (and film) do a nice job of demonstrating that adults can be "two-faced.?"

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You have reminded me of a something Clark said on some occasion where we were discussing language, and it's capacity to color and evoke mood -- "If one finds something is 'over his head', he should stand up". Meaning obviously,
make the effort to acquire new knowledge, don't blame the writer [...]

I can't help wondering, though: Would CAS have bothered to "stand up" to engage with, say, Finnegans Wake? Isn't it the prerogative of the individual to demur at making such an effort on the grounds of taste? While I would certainly not wish to excuse the philistinism of those who set aside a volume of CAS's poetry for reasons of its recondite vocabulary, I am sure that my own refusal to make the effort to engage with, say, Joyce would raise a sad smile and result in head-shaking on the parts of many intelligent contemporary readers.

At the end of the day, one's tastes reflect the type of life one embodies, and as few are fitted to appreciate CAS as are fitted to become astronauts. Those who are instinctively of the type to understand CAS's work will find him, and those who are not are right to pass him by, for whatever reasons.

Clark, easily read Joyce - once decoding Stream of consciousness writing
is quite simple -
the point is not that some may not by temperament or schooling find their way into a particular author, but that, having essayed the attempt, they bitch about it.

Choosing to "stand up" to encounter those things passing over one's head is how Clark educated himself - If he didn't get it, he worked at it until he did. He was more than passingly conversant with higher math,
the science and medicine of his time, and the emerging psychoanalysis
(whose fraudulant and arrogant aspects he recognized at once).

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Clark, easily read Joyce

It's interesting to know that CAS could "easily" read Joyce. I chose Finnegans Wake as my example, though, because, in addition to the stream of consciousness aspect, there is also that of multi-lingual puns, arcane allusions, etc.

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the point is not that some may not by temperament or schooling find their way into a particular author, but that, having essayed the attempt, they bitch about it.

To each his own point, I suppose. As I recall, in the original example, no one was necessarily complaining, per se, but was simply giving up on CAS's poetry and citing as the reason for that his difficult vocabulary. I was merely extending the original point by musing over the extent to which individuals' tastes, and even their character, determine what they consider worthwhile, and therefore what they will consider taking the trouble to master, since one cannot master everything.

CAS seems no harder to wade through than Gene Wolfe, who still sells a lot of books... I think. Well, he still writes and gets published. ;-]

geocorona Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CAS seems no harder to wade through than Gene
> Wolfe, who still sells a lot of books... I think.
> Well, he still writes and gets published. ;-]


The issue with Gene Wolf is textual structure not vocabulary. His early stuff was quite the regular fantasy\sci-fi stuff.

I admit i can enjoy something i don't understand; books and films that make no sense to me can still be a good ride.

There's lots of words in Smith I just gloss over and presume are contextually appropriate, and it doesn't really bother me that I have no idea what they mean, perhaps I'm just a lazy reader.

B.

Words do scare people; we live in a "dumbed down" age. If something isn't instantly accessible, many modern readers will reject, and turn to something which is. I've heard teachers saying that Lovecraft's language puts young people off, so clearly CAS doesn't stand a chance with the great mass of readers. However, there will always be those of us who relish exotic language.

The way in which Clark Ashton Smith wrote his stories was poetic in my view. However, I have never found his stories difficult to read. To be honest though, I have not read any of his poems so far. I believe that he wrote around 700 poems. Anyway, CAS was certainly a master of the english language. This is one of the features which makes his work stand out from the writings of so many others in the fantasy/horror genre. He also knew how to fire the imaginations of his readers.

Julian L Hawksworth

What nonsense! Clearly, CAS is an expert in using a rich choice of words in his stories of the violent and weird. No doubt, his poetry probably benefits from this exceptional talent as well (I have not read any of his poems as yet). Even when I read my first story by CAS, I never found his writing difficult to follow. In fact, there are some ocasions when I have found that his more archaic words help to add atmosphere to these stories. Looking forward to your replies in due course.

Julian L Hawksworth

Archaisms exist largely for people of different time periods -- those of who are ourselves "archaic" are likely to have a little less difficulty than those of you born since 1950 or so. Previous generations (and in terms of the schools in Placer county, mine was the last) regularly grew up on the King James biblical English, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, and Jonson -- I heard my first Anglo-Saxon on a recording of "Beowulf" in the seventh grade! This is not to say Clark didn't mine the dictionary, but the schooling he did have necessarily included readin Tennyson, Hawthorne, Irving, and Cooper, and his father was known to use florid forms of expression, and his mother the genteel elegance of the old Plantation South. These are all factors that are part of the mix that is blended a writer and personality that was both a true original, and "sui generis."

drf