Re: HP Lovecraft Vs Clark Ashton Smith
Posted by:
jdworth (IP Logged)
Date: 24 May, 2015 11:32PM
It seems to me that most of what we have above (though not all) comes down more to personal preference or (in some cases) personal limitations of a particular reader rather than a seasoned judgment on the relative merits of either writer. There is certainly nothing wrong with such preference, but I question it as a critical assessment in the wider sense. Each writer, though certainly influenced by poetry to a great degree, was attempting something different from the other, and I think each succeeded extremely well. Lovecraft more and more saw himself as a prose realist in the main when it came to his approach, whilst Smith was much more interested in stretching the possibilities of language and its ability to convey imagery and sensual experience. Lovecraft wasn't simply an antiquarian (and Poe was only one of many of his older influences, albeit a particularly important one; another, almost equally important, was Samuel Johnson, and yet another was Richard Steele, whose work, despite his preference for Addison's style, actually seems to have had a greater affinity to Lovecraft's own writing -- compare the papers of each for The Spectator, for example), he was a man whose outlook was deeply imbrued by the Georgian writers, particularly the essayists and poets; and this, naturally, has its reflection in his prose style as well; which, as has been pointed out, is an odd blending of the classical essay form and prose-poetic techniques (his various uses of certain cadences in the writing, as well as a sonorous word-choice to provide what has been called by many a sort of "incantatory effect"; his reliance on such things as chiasmus, assonance, etc. to provide a certain mood or emotive cue to the reader, as well the modulation from one such technique to another to aid in building a complex synthesis of several moods. Try reading Lovecraft aloud (sans the sort of scenery-chewing perfervid tone I find in far too many audio renditions of his work), and you may find a refreshing view of how powerful his prose can be.
Smith, on the other hand, was indeed in many ways more modern in his use of language; at least as far as utilizing poetic technique in his prose; but he, too, tended to use a great number of archaic, arcane, and even recondite words or phrases which few modern readers are likely to have encountered -- even rather widely-read ones. This is by no means an adverse criticism; at his best, Smith's prose works (his poetry is damn near in a class by itself) are scintillating examples of language pushed almost to its limits, an assault on the citadels of sense which can overwhelm and (as with William Blake) even make the reader almost intoxicated on the experience... a sort of Dionysian rather than Apollonian (HPL's favored dichotomy) approach.
In a way, it has always struck me as odd that Lovecraft had such a low opinion of Le Fanu given that there are (at least, so it seems to me) certain similarities in approach with their prose styles. While each in many ways is very direct about what would appear to be the horrors or wonders they are attempting to evoke, the actual strengths in their writing often lie in a rather more oblique approach to these matters, an approach which allows for a more cloudy, associative effect upon the reader's perceptions and apprehensions, one which, indeed, grows with each rereading and even by later pondering on certain phrases or words and the spreading ripples of their implications. Smith, it seems to me, does this as well, though from a different angle, thus achieving an effect which, while closely related, is nonetheless different, with different strengths.
In the end, though, I would say that both Smith and Lovecraft were, by dint of honing their particular use of language, almost perfectly suited for what each was attempting (and not infrequently succeeding) to do.
On the idea of Lovecraft's use of humor in his tales -- I would say it is definitely there, though seldom overt. He didn't care for overt use of humor, feeling it diluted the emotional response he was seeking to evoke; but carefully ironic use of language was certainly a part of his style -- again, in part the result of his early absorption of the Augustan writers (though, again, Poe was by no means averse to such usage himself). Hence, he didn't at all mind a bit of dry wit or a sly pun, so long as it did not break the mood. (The example of the penguins may -- I stress the may, though it would be perfectly in accord with his practice elsewhere -- be such a case, as it not only carries the connotation given above, but comes, as Lovecraft well knew, from a term meaning literally "of a cave". It may also be a link to the Gothic influence, as the grotesque, in both these senses, was a very prominent part of that movement -- see, particularly, the early works of Ann Radcliffe, such as The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. Such a multilayered pun was the sort of thing he relished; and, if it could be used in such a way as to enhance the weirdness, by way of incongruity, he was aiming for, all the better.)