Author Profile - Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith came from a poor background and spent much of his early life trying to earn money for his family. But even while young he displayed a love of story and a passion for language. Some of his earliest works were written as a teenager and they were strongly influenced by the Arabian Tales, an influence that would linger.
He abandoned prose for some years and was a fairly successful poet. After his first published volume he was taken under the arm by George Sterling and mingled with fellow poets of the time including Ambrose Bierce.
Nowadays he’s remembered for his short fiction works which he wrote primarily for pulp magazines like Weird Tales. In fact, in terms of the ‘weird’ fiction of the pulp era he was one of the three heavyweights along with Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, and while those two may be better known these days I would argue Smith is the better writer of the group.
The ties between the three, while primarily through letters, were highly influential however as they borrowed names and ideas from each other frequently. So the building and weaving of certain famous or infamous mythos began. Smith set many tales in Hyboria which shared and helped build Howard’s Hyperborean setting where Kull, Conan and Red Sonja ran about; and he used names from Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos thus building on their renown and our knowledge of them within that crazy mixed-up universe.
Smith’s stories I must admit are not strong in plot, some of them barely even have one. Take The Abomination of Yondo, it tells of a man exiled from a harsh country into a desert known to contain horrors. We learn a little of why he was exiled but not a great deal, otherwise he simply walks on, encounters one monstrosity, continues on then encounters something so utterly terrifying he flees back to face torture and execution to escape the mad fear. Not much of a plot, but as we read it we drink in the details of the desert and its horrors, we sense the dread and the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
And that’s the key to Smith’s fiction – atmosphere. He creates the world we are reading about so vividly it really is like visiting the places ourselves. His use of language is rich and exorbitant, you may need a dictionary at times I know I did, and he clear took great delight in playing with words to build up these fantastic vistas and horrific scenes of death and worse. Make no mistake, these stories can be highly macabre, some seem to exist for no other reason than creeping you out. In that regard he was something of a successor to Poe.
I could say lots more about him of course but the best way to experience his writing is for yourself and I highly, highly recommend you do.
Keep dreaming!
He abandoned prose for some years and was a fairly successful poet. After his first published volume he was taken under the arm by George Sterling and mingled with fellow poets of the time including Ambrose Bierce.
Nowadays he’s remembered for his short fiction works which he wrote primarily for pulp magazines like Weird Tales. In fact, in terms of the ‘weird’ fiction of the pulp era he was one of the three heavyweights along with Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, and while those two may be better known these days I would argue Smith is the better writer of the group.
The ties between the three, while primarily through letters, were highly influential however as they borrowed names and ideas from each other frequently. So the building and weaving of certain famous or infamous mythos began. Smith set many tales in Hyboria which shared and helped build Howard’s Hyperborean setting where Kull, Conan and Red Sonja ran about; and he used names from Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos thus building on their renown and our knowledge of them within that crazy mixed-up universe.
Smith’s stories I must admit are not strong in plot, some of them barely even have one. Take The Abomination of Yondo, it tells of a man exiled from a harsh country into a desert known to contain horrors. We learn a little of why he was exiled but not a great deal, otherwise he simply walks on, encounters one monstrosity, continues on then encounters something so utterly terrifying he flees back to face torture and execution to escape the mad fear. Not much of a plot, but as we read it we drink in the details of the desert and its horrors, we sense the dread and the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
And that’s the key to Smith’s fiction – atmosphere. He creates the world we are reading about so vividly it really is like visiting the places ourselves. His use of language is rich and exorbitant, you may need a dictionary at times I know I did, and he clear took great delight in playing with words to build up these fantastic vistas and horrific scenes of death and worse. Make no mistake, these stories can be highly macabre, some seem to exist for no other reason than creeping you out. In that regard he was something of a successor to Poe.
I could say lots more about him of course but the best way to experience his writing is for yourself and I highly, highly recommend you do.
Keep dreaming!
Comments
Post a Comment