Hi all,
I emailed the following to Nick Owchar after reading his review and the Cimmerian post:
Hi Nick,
I'm pleased you and the L.A. Times are taking note of the brilliant Clark Ashton Smith, but I'm hoping you'll check out this link for a clear enumeration of some of the things you got wrong in an otherwise welcome review:
[
www.thecimmerian.com]
"Reckless" and "messy" are particularly regrettable epithets for Smith, whose painstaking attention to the color and rhythm of words is well known (and clear from the stories). Smith himself addressed a New York Times review in the 1940s for taking him to task about his style. Here's an excerpt:
Marjorie Farber said of Smith's prose style (in a 1944 New York Times review of Lost Worlds): "Another feature of this style is its use of two words in place of one: 'consider or conjecture,' 'speed and celerity of motion.' Why Mr. Smith failed to say a 'mouth of amazing and astounding capacity' I don't know; perhaps he was in a hurry.â€
Smith's response to this was:
“I too was rather amused by the N. Y. Times review; especially by the complacency with which the lady displays her ignorance of the finer shades of meaning in English words. One might well 'consider' without conjecturing at all; and vice versa. Even her attempt at sarcasm falls down, since 'amazing' is far from synonymous with 'astounding,' the first meaning to perplex or confuse with fear, terror, wonder, etc., and the latter to overwhelm or stun with awe, etc. But of course such nuances are lost on the average reader.â€
Mr. Owchar wrote back:
Thanks Gary,
Your comments are much much appreciated. I hope I didn’t come off like the snarky Ms Farber! Thanks also for the link to the Cimmerian.
Nick
One thing I regret is that I couldn't find my copy of the full letter in which Smith expanded on his use of words and Farber's misreading. It wasn't in the Selected Letters or Freedom of Fantastic Things but is in one of those CAS Studies-type zines from a while back. Anyway, I think Owchar's heart is in the right place.
Gary