Genius Loci by Clark Ashton Smith
Mar. 3rd, 2010 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish13/2/10 - 21/2/10 - Ill
22/2/10 - 2689 words on Pral-Vrai System
23/2/10 - 3/3/10 - Ill
Title - Genius Loci
Editor - Clark Ashtron Smith
ISBN - Not Given
The titular Genius Loci is a tale of the malevolent unseen, contemporary and Western, minding one much of Ashton Smith's contemporary and friend, H.P. Lovecraft. By contrast, The Willow Landscape is whimsical, Oriental and benevolent. The Ninth Skeleton is a surreal vision; The Phantoms of the Fire likewise ephemeral but wholly mundane in its spectres. The Eternal World is the exact opposite, striving to portray concepts that defy human understanding. Vulthoom is old-fashioned scifi, complete with Martians, yet founded upon a sense of cosmic scale that touches upon the chilling indifference of the vast and immortal. A Star-Change again calls to mind Lovecraft in its portrayal of the alien and distant, and produces horror from distorting the boundaries between Self and the utterly Other. The Primal City again reaches for the humbling indifference of the vast, but in a more historical setting.
The Disinterment of Venus and The Colossus of Ylourgne are both set in somewhere akin to medieval France; both are different forms of horror dressed in Christian morality, but the former concerns the allure of the female where the latter denies the power of God. The Satyr, set in the same fictional realm, seems utterly different, its short swerve of a plot concerning again the power of the flesh yet on a deeper and more primal level than The Disinterment of Venus.
The Garden of Adomphis moves to a darker, lusher, more Arabian setting, and concerns supernatural revenge. The Charnel God, set in the same world if not the same area, is more about the justice of a rather unpleasant deity. The Black Abbot of Puthuum, from the same world again, is a fantasy story with horror overtones. The Weaver in the Vault is clearly from the same bolt of cloth as The Black Abbot of Puthuum, yet cut to the same pattern as Vulthoom, if on a smaller and less impressive scale.
The greatest unifying factor is Ashton Smith's style - vocabulary-heavy, rich in imagery and in simile, fleshing out a background that is part-landscape and part-story. The three stories of the Averoigne setting, with its monasteries, forest barons and old spirits of deep oak, give a sense of being part of a greater tale, of being the folk-tales to some untold cycle of heroes and sorcerors. In short, Ashton Smith can construct worlds in his incidental prose, and in doing so not simply dump mileau information upon the reader but inform the current story with a sense of a world that lives, one of the hallmarks of a truly great writer.
Ashton Smith's vocabulary can be overwhelming at times, with the sense of paragraphs vanishing under a tide of words, and sometimes his word choice seems counterintuitive. At one point there is mention of "the apportioning of a wench"; either "apportioning" has changed its meaning since The Black Abbot of Puthuum was written or the unforunate woman met a messy end. Many other words are used in odd fashions likewise: at one point, "quaint breasts" are mentioned. Ashton Smith also errs in favour of the less vernacular words; "nictations" is used where "blinking" would have sufficed, and so on. This over-egging of the prose pudding may be off-putting to many readers, especially those used to a more modern, less verbose style. That said, if you like Lovecraft, you won't have a problem with Ashton Smith.
Ashton Smith does differ from Lovecraft, most obviously in his distinct fondness for the female form, often lovingly described, usually with a sense of the sensual and the sexual submerged beneath the surface of the prose. Ashton Smith is also capable of much more benign endings than Lovecraft, in that his tales are just as likely to end with the cosmic horror or vast-minded entity passing over the small and ignorant human as they are to end in some indifferent trampling or cruel consumption.
All in all, I would recommend Genius Loci - and, going out on a limb, pretty much anything by Clark Ashton Smith, despite these being the only works of his that I've read - to anyone who has enjoyed Lovecraft, to anyone who is thinking about trying Lovecraft but hasn't yet [and indeed starting with Ashton Smith may be easier], to anyone who likes to jump from genre to genre, and to anyone who wants to see some quite weirdly constructed sentences.
This book is:
* - for those who like Lovecraft
* - for those who like variety
* - for those who like weirdness
This book is not:
* - for those who dislike stopping to check the dictionary
* - for those who want straight-up simple stories
* - for those who dislike verbose or florid pose
22/2/10 - 2689 words on Pral-Vrai System
23/2/10 - 3/3/10 - Ill
Editor - Clark Ashtron Smith
ISBN - Not Given
"Clouds of thunder, darkling and withdrawn, shook their fulgurant lances on the far horizons, like some beleaguering Titan army." - The Colossus of YlourgneContents:
- Genius Loci
- The Willow Landscape
- The Ninth Skeleton
- The Phantoms of the Fire
- The Eternal World
- Vulthoom
- A Star-Change
- The Primal City
- The Disinterment of Venus
- The Colossus of Ylourgne
- The Satyr
- The Garden of Adomphis
- The Charnel God
- The Black Abbot of Puthuum
- The Weaver in the Vault
The titular Genius Loci is a tale of the malevolent unseen, contemporary and Western, minding one much of Ashton Smith's contemporary and friend, H.P. Lovecraft. By contrast, The Willow Landscape is whimsical, Oriental and benevolent. The Ninth Skeleton is a surreal vision; The Phantoms of the Fire likewise ephemeral but wholly mundane in its spectres. The Eternal World is the exact opposite, striving to portray concepts that defy human understanding. Vulthoom is old-fashioned scifi, complete with Martians, yet founded upon a sense of cosmic scale that touches upon the chilling indifference of the vast and immortal. A Star-Change again calls to mind Lovecraft in its portrayal of the alien and distant, and produces horror from distorting the boundaries between Self and the utterly Other. The Primal City again reaches for the humbling indifference of the vast, but in a more historical setting.
The Disinterment of Venus and The Colossus of Ylourgne are both set in somewhere akin to medieval France; both are different forms of horror dressed in Christian morality, but the former concerns the allure of the female where the latter denies the power of God. The Satyr, set in the same fictional realm, seems utterly different, its short swerve of a plot concerning again the power of the flesh yet on a deeper and more primal level than The Disinterment of Venus.
The Garden of Adomphis moves to a darker, lusher, more Arabian setting, and concerns supernatural revenge. The Charnel God, set in the same world if not the same area, is more about the justice of a rather unpleasant deity. The Black Abbot of Puthuum, from the same world again, is a fantasy story with horror overtones. The Weaver in the Vault is clearly from the same bolt of cloth as The Black Abbot of Puthuum, yet cut to the same pattern as Vulthoom, if on a smaller and less impressive scale.
The greatest unifying factor is Ashton Smith's style - vocabulary-heavy, rich in imagery and in simile, fleshing out a background that is part-landscape and part-story. The three stories of the Averoigne setting, with its monasteries, forest barons and old spirits of deep oak, give a sense of being part of a greater tale, of being the folk-tales to some untold cycle of heroes and sorcerors. In short, Ashton Smith can construct worlds in his incidental prose, and in doing so not simply dump mileau information upon the reader but inform the current story with a sense of a world that lives, one of the hallmarks of a truly great writer.
Ashton Smith's vocabulary can be overwhelming at times, with the sense of paragraphs vanishing under a tide of words, and sometimes his word choice seems counterintuitive. At one point there is mention of "the apportioning of a wench"; either "apportioning" has changed its meaning since The Black Abbot of Puthuum was written or the unforunate woman met a messy end. Many other words are used in odd fashions likewise: at one point, "quaint breasts" are mentioned. Ashton Smith also errs in favour of the less vernacular words; "nictations" is used where "blinking" would have sufficed, and so on. This over-egging of the prose pudding may be off-putting to many readers, especially those used to a more modern, less verbose style. That said, if you like Lovecraft, you won't have a problem with Ashton Smith.
Ashton Smith does differ from Lovecraft, most obviously in his distinct fondness for the female form, often lovingly described, usually with a sense of the sensual and the sexual submerged beneath the surface of the prose. Ashton Smith is also capable of much more benign endings than Lovecraft, in that his tales are just as likely to end with the cosmic horror or vast-minded entity passing over the small and ignorant human as they are to end in some indifferent trampling or cruel consumption.
All in all, I would recommend Genius Loci - and, going out on a limb, pretty much anything by Clark Ashton Smith, despite these being the only works of his that I've read - to anyone who has enjoyed Lovecraft, to anyone who is thinking about trying Lovecraft but hasn't yet [and indeed starting with Ashton Smith may be easier], to anyone who likes to jump from genre to genre, and to anyone who wants to see some quite weirdly constructed sentences.
This book is:
* - for those who like Lovecraft
* - for those who like variety
* - for those who like weirdness
This book is not:
* - for those who dislike stopping to check the dictionary
* - for those who want straight-up simple stories
* - for those who dislike verbose or florid pose
