Clark Ashton Smith

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Clark Ashton Smith (1912)

Clark Ashton Smith (born January 13, 1893 in Long Valley , California , † August 14, 1961 in Pacific Grove , California), also known by the acronym CA Smith , was an American writer, poet , sculptor and painter . Inspired by HP Lovecraft he turned away 1,925 of eerie to literature and wrote numerous short stories that are genres like fantasy and fantasy - science fiction and horror can be assigned and first in pulp magazines and later in own story collections in the publishing house Arkham House were published. With his colorful and ornamental prose he influenced authors such as Jack Vance , Bruce Sterling and Ray Bradbury .

Life and literary influences

Smith spent most of his life in the small town of Auburn, California , where he lived in a small cabin with his parents, Mary Frances "Fanny" (nee Gaylord) and Timeus Smith. Most of the time he lived in rather poverty, so that he was often forced to work as a fruit picker or forest worker in order to support himself and his parents.

He began writing short stories at the age of eleven, some of which were published in the literary magazine Overland Monthly , while others did not appear until after his death. The Black Diamonds was published in 2002, The Sword of Zagan in 2004. Both stories are set in medieval Arabia , similar to the stories from the Thousand and One Nights . These stories, as well as the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Dunsany , had a decisive influence on Smith's early works. Another influence on Smith's language and imagination came from William Beckford's Vathek , a colorful and exotic novel that tells the story of a caliph who makes a pact with Eblis , the ruler of Hell.

Smith's schooling was limited. He attended elementary school for only five years and then received home schooling due to a persistent illness; he did not attend any secondary school. He turned down a Guggenheim grant he had been offered . He preferred to develop his knowledge self-taught , reading several encyclopedias from start to finish. His fondness for unusual and remote expressions also goes back to this reading. Smith had a literary friendship with Lovecraft from 1922 until his death in 1937.

One of Smith's sponsors was the San Francisco- born poet George Sterling , whom he met in early 1911 and with whom he was friends until his suicide in November 1926. Sterling helped him with the publication of his first volume of poetry, which appeared in 1912 under the title The Star-Treader and Other Poems and which brought Smith a certain fame. Sterling called Smith the "Keats of the West Coast". Smith had met Sterling through a member of the Auburn Monday Night Club , where he had performed several of his poems with some success. After the publication of Ebony and Crystal (1922), he received a very appreciative letter from HP Lovecraft, which began a fifteen year correspondence.

After his marriage to Carol Jones Dorman on November 10, 1954, he moved to Pacific Grove, California with his wife and their children. In 2015 he received the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award posthumously .

plant

Smith was an artist who expressed himself in a variety of media. His work can be divided into three phases:

poetry

During this phase he published most of his poetry books, such as The Star-Treader and Other Poems , Odes and Sonnets , Ebony and Crystal and Sandalwood .

prose

In 1925, under the influence of Lovecraft, Smith turned to eerie literature and wrote over a hundred short stories by 1937. The Abominations of Yondo , dated February 5, 1925, is considered the first example of this. Lovecraft was impressed and sent the text to Farnsworth Wright , who, however, did not accept it for Weird Tales . Later, Smith was often counted among the three musketeers of Pulp Magazine, along with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard . It was not until April 1926 that the story appeared in the literary magazine Overland Monthly .

The stories set in mythical-fictional landscapes such as Hyperborea , Atlantis , the medieval stylized Averoigne or Zothique can be assigned predominantly to fantasy , even if they repeatedly take up motifs from science fiction and work with the means of horror. Some stories like Genius Loci , Saat aus dem Grabe (The Seed from the Sepulcher), Des Magiers Wiederkehr (The Return of the Sorcerer) and Aforgomonskette (The Chain of Aforgomon) belong to the fantastic literature .

sculpture

After 1935 his interest in writing waned and he turned to sculpture , mostly creating small grotesque figures out of soapstone . In addition, he made numerous drawings, oil and watercolor paintings depicting landscapes, portraits or creatures from the fantasy world.

reception

For Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith was one of the most gifted writers of his generation. As he found in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature , no living writer surpassed Smith in the "demonic strangeness and fertility of his designs." Who else would have seen and survived the “extravagant and feverishly distorted visions of infinite spheres and multiple dimensions” to be able to report on them. Nobody hits the tone of "cosmic horror" as well as he does.

Rein A. Zondergeld assigns many of Smith's stories and short stories to decadence poetry . The decadence strike down not only in the subject matter, but also in the language THAT CONDITION often mannered. His work is often rated higher than Lovecraft's by lovers of the genre. The author is most convincing not in fantasy, but in his fantastic stories such as Genius Loci and Saat aus dem Grave .

Ray Bradbury , who also published some early stories with Arkham House , described the great influence of Smith's tales, The City of the Singing Flame and Master of Asteroid . In one, he was impressed by the fantastic world of imagination, in the other by the portrayal of isolation and loneliness and influenced for the rest of his life.

The short story Des Magiers Wiederkehr served as a template for an episode of the anthology series Night Gallery presented by Rod Serling and was filmed with Vincent Price in a double role as John and Helman Carnby and Bill Bixby as narrator Ogden.

In 2015 Smith posthumously received the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award for forgotten or no longer adequately recognized science fiction authors.

literature

bibliography

Web links

Commons : Clark Ashton Smith  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Clark Ashton Smith  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steve Behrends: Clark Ashton Smith, A critical guide to the man and his work, Second Edition, Chapter Seven, Other weird fiction and horrors, Wildside Press LLC 2013, p. 11
  2. ↑ Steve Behrends: Clark Ashton Smith, A critical guide to the man and his work, Second Edition, Chapter Seven, Other weird fiction and horrors, Wildside Press LLC 2013, p. 20
  3. ↑ Steven Jones: The Forgotten Worlds of Klarkash Clay. In: Clark Ashton Smith, The City of Singing Flame, Collected Stories Volume 1, Festa Verlag, Leipzig 2011, p. 18
  4. ↑ Steve Behrends: Clark Ashton Smith, A critical guide to the man and his work, Second Edition, Chapter Seven, Other weird fiction and horrors, Wildside Press LLC 2013, p. 18
  5. ↑ Scott Connors, Ron Hilger: Notes on the narratives. In: Clark Ashton Smith: The City of Singing Flame, Collected Stories Volume 1. Festa Verlag, Leipzig 2011, p. 366.
  6. ^ A b Rein A. Zondergeld : Lexikon der phantastischen Literatur , Clark Ashton Smith, Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastische Bibliothek, Frankfurt 1983, p. 230
  7. ↑ HP Lovecraft : The literature of horror. The contemporary masters, Edition Phantasia, Linkenheim 1985, pp. 85–86
  8. ↑ Ray Bradbury: Letter on Clark Ashton Smith on eldrichdark.com ( accessed October 31, 2012)
  9. ↑ Steve Behrends: Clark Ashton Smith, A critical guide to the man and his work, Second Edition, Chapter Seven, Other weird fiction and horrors, Wildside Press LLC 2013, p. 101
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Clark Ashton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, CA (acronym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet, sculptor, painter, and writer of horror and science fiction short stories
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Long Valley , California
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1961
Place of death Pacific Grove , California