Re: HP Lovecraft Vs Clark Ashton Smith
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 19 March, 2022 02:48PM
SeventhSon Wrote:
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> I like Lovecraft but I do think his style is far
> from perfect, first he does so much useless
> adjective excess, that I was often bored reading
> his work even for the first time. His Dunsany's
> imitations show his limitations as a "poet". On
> the other hand, I could learn CAS's best stuff by
> heart, as the best of a Poe or Shakespeare, it's
> amazing, it has it all, music, images, etc. Not
> many people can appreciate good poetry, or such
> kind of prose these days, so no surprise he is
> underrated, but he's definitely a better writer,
> one of the best of his century.
I agree. At his best, Smith's style and poetic imagination are of a higher caliber, and he was amazingly diverse. No two stories alike as with HPL and Poe. The horror element is where Lovecraft is seen as having the edge, yet his stories only rarely induce a feeling of dreadful suspense or terror. An excess of narrative rhetoric is involved, a sense of inevitability rather than shock. A minor flaw in the scheme of things? Maybe, but I think there are other flaws, summed up well by Gilles Menegaldo:. "Lovecraft can, , be criticized for a too 'intellectual' and somewhat contrived approach. Beneath an apparent diversity, a shimmering of forms and colours, the same schemas, the same stereotypes are often found, which reveals a somewhat mechanical utilisation of the theme and a certain paucity of inspiration. Lovecraft too often resorts to techniques which resemble somewhat tiresome mannerisms: repetitive descriptions, situations, even characters, which are too much of a type and destitute of psychological depth"
("The City in H.P. Lovecraft's Work" by Gilles Menegaldo, trans. by S.T. Joshi, in Lovecraft Studies #4, April 1, 1979).
jkh