The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies

 

The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let me let you in on a little cosmic secret: Clark Ashton Smith's writing is better than Lovecraft's. Way better. Alright, HPL got in on the game early, and it's obvious that CAS looked up to him in some ways. But let's not kid ourselves. In terms of pure writing ability, CAS >>>> HPL. That's not to say he's perfect. As you'll see in my notes below, Smith stumbles from time to time. But when considering the quality of his work as a whole, I find him a notch above the old man from Providence.

Let's start with the short stories.

The volume (and Smith's world) is introduced through "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros," a low-adventure story that blends tropes associated with cosmic horror and sword and sorcery rather seamlessly. One can already see, in this story, the influence Smith had on later writers. Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East comes to mind immediately.

"The Last Incantation" would be heartbreaking, if the heart in question wasn't already broken beyond all repair and recognition.

Smith out-Lovecrafts Lovecraft with "The Devotee of Evil". THIS is true cosmic horror, without the mis-steps of HPL. The mysterious remains so, unspeakable things remain un-uttered, and no name is given to the dark vibrations collected and transmitted by the devotee. The obfuscation, ironically, gives the horror here a crystalline clarity. This is among the best cosmic horror stories I've read.

Perhaps "The Uncharted Isle" loses some of its original power because the tropes used in it are now, well, tropes. It is a luxurious story, but easily predictable, with little new to offer those who have been steeped in weird fiction. Still, it's a good read. Perhaps if I had read this earlier in life it would have stood out to me more. As it is, it's not bad, not great.

"The Face By the River" rises above '50s horror comic hackneyed tropes only by mere inches. The last paragraph was the best part of the story. I only wish the rest was that good.

"The City of the Singing Flame" is one of the better stories of cosmic horror I have ever read. Tonally, it reminds me most of A Voyage to Arcturus. There is a beautiful ecstacy to this brand of horror, something terrifying not because of its darkness, but because of its chromatic, refulgent light. I am reminded of the carousel in Logan's Run. Here's a little snippet:

Wall on beetling wall, and spire on giant spire, it soared to confront the heavens, maintaining everywhere the severe and solemn lines of a wholly rectilinear architecture. It seemed to whelm and crush down the beholder with its stern and crag-like imminence.

I wonder if Dan O'Bannon was inspired by "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" when he wrote the screenplay for Alien. At least one important element seems to have been snatched right from these pages. It's an effective tale of horror mixed with science fiction. Heck, I might steal this idea next time I run the Mothership RPG. This is some good stuff!

"Ubbo-Sathla" is another story of curiosity turning to obsession to doom, but with the twist of something akin to transmigration of souls (metempsychosis). This was a good, old-fashioned weird story and I quite liked it. A step above Lovecraft in terms of writerly control and evocation of atmosphere, with the same level of weirdness.

"The Double Shadow" is what one traditionally thinks of when one thinks of CAS: sorcerous deviltries from time immemorial, necromantic rites, ages long since past (so long ago, in fact, that a long-dead ghost must be compelled to travel even further back into its pre-birth past), and dark abominations that even the greatest of sorcerers dare not invoke. Cosmic horror and ancient sorcery make for a heady admixture.

"The Maze of the Enchanter" speaks in the same voice as Jack Vance. Maybe that's coincidence, but the resemblance is uncanny. The same sort of strangeness, replete with transformations and hideous consequence, as well as winsome villains, resonates strongly with The Dying Earth. These are all good things, laudable, and slip into the dreamer's mind quite easily. Did I say "dreamer's"? Perhaps I mean "reader's". Or no.

The title story "The Dark Eidolon" is everything the weird fiction connoisseur could hope for. Mad wizards, decadent empires, gargantuan architecture, extravagant sin, devil-patrons, gigantic skeletons, crowned mummies of long-dead kings, and an age-old morality tale (though seemingly devoid of morals, except on the part of a devil!) make for heady reading that one drinks and drowns in, rather than simply reads.

The banal predictability of "The Weaver in the Vault" is more than offset by the luxuriant language and clever turns of phrase used to describe the setting and the action of three ill-fated warriors sent by their king to retrieve the mummy of his dynastic ancestor from the ruins of a fabled city of the dead. The Shakespearean affectations of the men's speech adds to the feeling of antiquity. Weirdness ensues (could it be any other way?).

"Xeethra" is a story of dream, of yearning, and of dashed hopes and the inevitability of decay and ruin. If I were to pick a tale to represent "nihilistic weird fiction," this might be it. It's a devastating story, made even more so by Smith's ability to lure the reader into a sense of comfort and even luxuriance, before stripping away the idyllic innocence he had already bestowed.

I would consider "The Treader of the Dust" a minor story in Smith's canon. There's nothing terribly original here, though it is weird and creepy. The mummy-cum-grey-alien-space-baby was a nice touch, but it was probably the only extraordinary thing here. The rest are pretty well-hackneyed weird fiction tropes. It'll do , if you need a fix, but no one is going to get addicted to Smith through this one, I'm afraid.

The moral of "Mother of Toads" - don't allow women who look (and smell and sound) like gigantic toads ensorcel you then sleep with you. Got it. Check. Not my favorite story, though it would make a great 1950's horror comic!

"Phoenix" is a classic piece of science fiction. A beautiful story with a predictable outcome, but told in such a soothing, almost solemn way. It's a joy to read.

Besides the short stories outlined (or critiqued?) above, there is a healthy dose of Prose Poems and Poetry.

All of the Prose Poems in this volume are excellent. I find myself increasingly fond of those two genre oddballs: novellas and prose poems. Smiths prose poems rank up there with Arthur Machen's Ornaments in Jade for sheer beauty, eloquence, evocation, and conciseness. The ideas behind the words are expansive beyond the page.

The poetry is good, some of it excellent, some of it repetitious almost to the point of self-referentiality.

"The Hashish-Eater; Or, The Apocalypse of Evil" is the type of epic poem you see tattooed across someone's back or airbrushed on the side of a conversion van or presented in an incredibly expensive edition book with gold leaf impressions and silk ribbons. To quote teenage me "it rules". I would spend good money for a beautifully-produced book containing this poem alone. Apparently CAS didn't like it much, feeling it too derivative of other poets (particularly Flaubert) and inadequate in presenting the true horror of understanding the vastness of the cosmos. But . . . well, he was wrong. If you're going to read any one piece of writing by Clark Ashton Smith, make it this poem!

All-in-all, this is a worthy collection. Though it lacks the tight cogency of, say, Zothique, it shows Smith's breadth of writerly skill and subject matter and is a fantastic introduction to this criminally-under-rated writer. There's a reason that this book has become one of the Penguin Classics. Here's to hoping that Penguin continues to produce more in this vein!



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