Microsoft Word - freedom_v13.doc
Page 51
Liang’s perspective. In this transaction the painting’s sentience heals the “double shadow” or split between art and nature, as the sentence simultaneously confirms and disenchants the text by intimating sexual relations and the return from aesthetic to bodily functions. This “sign of an entity” does not become a avatar of or portal to nothingness, but a more encompassing and satisfying form of human experience.
Or so Smith would have us believe. His pervasive nostalgia for a mythic con-
nectedness between aesthetic and worldly experience rejects realism in favor of the essential unity—the double-shadowed unity—of the symbol. The arc of these stories moves from exotic and grotesque worlds gradually into our own fictionalized world and through it to the “healthier” environment of the heart’s desire in an art that outlives life. His is a backward-journeying glance, toward an incipience expressed by a fondness for magical technology, the medieval, and the oriental. Like his contemporary Mauss, Smith regards magic and the imagination as essentially
non-intellectual, as a form of mana, a fluid quality of wealth or force that can be represented but not captured by the texts and substances that are its vehicles.
From such a perspective, the mana that informs or inhabits the text does not derive from human “experience, from analogical reasoning, or from scientific error” but constitutes a “milieu” that “avoids these rigid and abstract categories, which our language and reasoning impose” (Mauss 108).
This fluid, undulating perspective is what makes Smith a romantic symbolist
and liberates him to concentrate his art in mannerist high fantasy. His subject and style should thus be read as a conjuration not so much of aesthetic decadence as of mana, which is in Mauss’ words, “something mysterious and separate . . . a spiritual action that works at a distance and between sympathetic beings . . . a kind of internal, special world where everything happens as if mana alone were involved. . . . It is produced in a closed circuit, in which everything is mana and which is itself mana” (112). In other words, symbol is a form of solipsism, both communal and
individual, as well as a bridge to the transcendent Other. Smith cautions us against the solipsism, yet asserts the transcendence of this magical milieu and indulges it as a totality of being-in-the-world. Symbolist magic is a form of essentialism that moves through the text and—for better or worse—aspires to some scarcely perceived, tangible but inexpressible reality beyond mundane living. In this way, Smith also exhibits the New-Age or neopagan “turn” before it became possible for society to acknowledge and appropriate these philosophies by the commercialism that
Sorcerous Style: Clark Ashton Smith’s The Double Shadow
317
he so abhorred. Reading The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies is to be provoked and ensorcelled by mana.
Notes
1. The Auburn Journal apparently lacked a typeface with foreign characters or accent marks, although CAS intended them. I have restored the accents.
2. See Ong’s ground-breaking Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982); Kurzweil’s The Age of Intelligent Machines (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992); and Shlain’s The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (New York: Viking, 1998).
3. See especially H. P. A. Oskamp, The Voyage of Máel Dúin: A Study in Early Irish Voyage Literature (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1970), for details about the immrama. These voyages were generally marvel-filled island-hopping searches for the Celtic otherworld.
Works Cited
Ashley, Mike. “The Perils of Wonder: Clark Ashton Smith’s Experiences with Wonder Stories.” Dark Eidolon No. 2 (July 1989): 2–8.
Connors, Scott. Telephone interview. 4 June 2005.
Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. New York: Ben Abramson, 1945.
Mauss, Marcel. A General Theory of Magic. Trans. Robert Brain. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.
O’Keefe, Daniel Lawrence. Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic. New York: Vintage, 1983.
Sidney-Fryer, Donald. “A Statement for Imagination: George Sterling and Clark
Ashton Smith.” Romantist 6–8 (1982–84): 13–23.
Wolfe, Charles K. “CAS, A Note on the Aesthetics of Fantasy.” Dark Eidolon No. 2
(July 1989): 9–11.
Loss and Recuperation: A Model for Reading
Clark Ashton Smith’s “Xeethra”
Dan Clore
In his Structuralist Poetics Jonathan Culler describes a notion of “literary competence”—
the ability to decipher a work of literature as such (113–30). This involves various processes of “naturalization” by which the reader fits a text into an understandable framework, and thereby “recuperates” the work (described in some detail on 131–60).
Just as grammar makes explicit the way the linguistic competence of a native speaker allows her to understand an utterance, so criticism, Culler argues, should make explicit the literary competence used by effective readers. Using this idea, we can see how some critics and periods have devalued various kinds of literature because their dominant processes of recuperation and naturalization did not adequately deal with the works and genres at issue, just as using the grammar or vocabulary of the wrong language or dialect would lead to the misunderstanding of a linguistic utterance.
In this way the “new” critics, who used “ambiguity” or “irony” as their domi-
nant method of recuperation, gave the metaphysical poets a high place because of their emphasis on the conceit, but devalued the poetry of the romantics, who worked in a different vein. The new method proved useful where older models had failed, but failed where the same older models had succeeded. In just such a way have many modern critics devalued works of fantasy and weird fiction, because their primary methods of naturalization do not do justice to these kinds of text. These methods involve concentration on a work as a depiction of the “real” world, and a focus on character drawing as supreme value. Since fantasy and weird fiction does not depict the real world and its focus lies elsewhere than on character drawing, these methods can only show their works as “false” and “one-dimensional.”
Edmund Wilson, called the “Dean of American critics,” gives an excellent ex-
ample of this trend. He could not recoup Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings; it lacked proper characterization, did not develop its episodes correctly, and so on (see “Oo, Those Awful Orcs!” in Wilson). Likewise, the entire horror story genre excited his wrath. He did attempt to recoup Lovecraft by comparing the effects of the meteor-ite in “The Colour out of Space” with that of the atomic bomb (in Joshi 49), but that effort dooms itself to failure. Only by reading them as allegorical or psychological studies were fantasy or weird works ever sufficiently naturalized for Wilson.
He cited Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” as an allegory of a man going insane, held firmly to the view that the ghosts in James’s Turn of the Screw existed only in
Loss and Recuperation: A Model for Reading “Xeethra”
319
the mind of the governess-narrator, and even championed Cabell’s elegant fanta-
sies as expressions of the social attitudes of the South after the Civil War (see “The James Branch Cabell Case Reopened” in Wilson).
I believe that structural and semiotic analysis will help show the methods of
naturalization necessary to recuperate works of fantasy and the weird. Here I will use the method of Roland Barthes in his S/Z. While Barthes does not create a sys-tematic theory, one can deduce a clear methodology from the exhaustive example
he gives, together with the applications of it by Scholes (99–104) and Anderson (17–21). With this method I will analyze Clark Ashton Smith’s poignant story of loss, “Xeethra,” placing emphasis on those elements which distinguish the sort of analysis necessary to a fantastic text from that of a realistic work.
Barthes analyzes Balzac’s short story “Sarrasine”
by breaking it down into
units of reading, or lexias, which vary from a few words to over a paragraph in length. Each of these lexias he examines as carrying meaning through any of several codes. The majority of lexias, in fact, belong to more than one code.
Barthes distinguishes five codes in his analysis of “Sarrasine,” as follows:
The Proairetic Code or code of actions. This code includes all the actions that the various characters perform. It has great usefulness in describing plot. Adventure stories and heroic fantasies emphasize the proairetic code.
The Hermeneutic Code or code of enigmas. This includes all the various puzzles that a story poses for the reader. Barthes distinguishes eight stages of delay between the posing and solution of an enigma. Mystery stories emphasize this code; weird fiction often includes a strong element of the hermeneutic code as well.
The Semic Code or code of connotations. This includes connotations in general, and several subcodes as well. One, the code of character, occupies an especially important place in realist works. Barthes also mentions, but does little to describe, codes of the object and of atmosphere, which have a greater importance for fantastic literature.
The Referential Code or code of culture. In a sense, all the codes could belong here, as all ideas exist as cultural constructs. However, those things traditionally thought of as “cultural” belong to their own level of discourse. Barthes mentions, as subcodes of the cultural code, a Gnomic code of proverbs, codes of Medicine and
Psychology, codes of Art, of History, and others. A writer can use these either to reinforce his work’s verisimilitude by drawing on them to establish its “reality,” or he can use them to question the accepted ideas of his culture.
The Symbolic Code or code of symbols. This works through oppositions and media-tions. Two opposite images can symbolize almost any opposition. The sun and
moon, for example, appear in different traditions representing male and female, sister and brother, husband and wife, they may take the same sex and illustrate some other kind of opposition, and soon. Either of them can take either place; the sheer opposition of the two has more importance than any inherent similarity to the symbolized ideas (Culler 52). Most works including opposing symbols will also include a symbol that mediates between the two. Two kinds of mediatory images can occur: first, one
320 THE FREEDOM OF FANTASTIC THINGS
which mediates by lacking the distinctive qualities of both opposites—in “Sarrasine,”
Barthes argues, a castrato mediates between the two sexes. The other kind of mediation involves combination of both opposites—an hermaphrodite would serve as ex-
ample. Symbolic codes loom especially large in allegorical works.
Let us now see how these codes apply to the text of “Xeethra.”
The Proairetic Code. The major actions of both the protagonist and antagonist (Thasaidon, largely through his unnamed emissary) both concentrate on the tale’s theme of loss. Xeethra’s main actions all involve seeking. First, he sets out in search of pasture for his goats. He then stumbles across the mouth of a cave, and seeks inside for what he might find. Having taken the fruit, he remembers his life as King Amero of Calyz and sets out to find his lost kingdom. When he does find it, only a leper colony remains of it. The emissary of Thasaidon reappears and offers to make him king again, on the condition that he never regret it. He accepts, but when misfortunes befall his kingdom, he does regret his kingship and seeks out the life of a goatherd. He then returns to his life as Xeethra. He has now lost both the contentment he formerly knew as a goatherd and the splendor of his kingship and thus remains in the kingdom of Thasaidon.
The major actions of Thasaidon all involve the temptations that lead Xeethra
to his loss. He leads the goatherd to the opening of his domain with an illusory oasis, and, inside the cavern, tempts him with the dark fruit. The fruit, by making Xeethra remember his former life as King Amero, makes him lose the contentment of his life as goatherd and seek the city of Shathair. Finding the city proves a further loss. Finally, Thasaidon allows him to regain his kingship, on terms that cause him to lose the kingship, through the temptation of the Demon’s emissary as a shepherd luring him to a rural life. The actions of “Xeethra” show a remarkable unity that centers on the theme of loss.
The Hermeneutic Code. “ Xeethra” includes a strong enigmatic element. The enigmas begin with the quotation that heads the story, posing the question of what “subtle and manifold” snares the “Demon” will employ, and how he will follow his chosen victim
“from birth to death and from death to birth.” Further enigmas pose themselves as Xeethra discovers the newly opened cavern and smells the strange odors wafting out of it. Inside it, the strange light, the unnatural vegetation, all pose further enigmas. The two beings who appear after he has eaten the fruit, and the odd memories he begins to experience both heighten the enigmatic nature of the narrative.
Once he has regained his identity as Amero, the responses of others in reply to his questions as to its whereabouts add a further enigma. Through his search, the minor actions of others, who mock him, laugh at him because of his quest, or
merely eye him strangely, provide a strong counterpoint of enigma to the action of seeking. Finally, when he discovers Shathair, the Demon resolves the major enigmas of the story.
The Semic Code, in “Xeethra,” works most strongly on the codes of object and atmosphere, unlike realist works, which emphasize the codes of character. On the
Loss and Recuperation: A Model for Reading “Xeethra”
321
level of object, its importance begins inside the cavern that Xeethra discovers.
Here, the unnatural light that shines in the place and its station underground connote
The code of objects has further importance when Xeethra reaches Shathair.
He discovers a statue of a lion, now fallen into disrepair, connoting
The ruins of the city and the lepers that inhabit the place further add to the connotations of
The code of atmosphere pervades the entire tale. The proper names fall into
several groups of connotation. Some of them, such as Pornos, Carnamagos (“The
Treader of the Dust” mentions that a manuscript of his Testament surfaced in a
Graeco-Bactrian tomb), Thasaidon (cf. Poseidon), and Mykrasian, have a Greek
feel that connotes
Others, such as Calyz, Shathair, Sha-Karag, and Dhir, have a Semitico-Arabic feel that associates them with the Arabian Nights or Vathek, giving the connotation
Smith also employs a style that heavily emphasizes the code of connotations to
create atmosphere. The first paragraph of the tale provides an excellent example of his use of rhetorical devices:
Long had the wasting summer pastured its suns, like fiery red stallions, on the dun hills that crouched before the Mykrasian Mountains in wild easternmost Cincor.
The peak-fed torrents were become tenuous threads or far-sundered, fallen pools; the granite boulders were shaled by the heat; the bare earth was cracked and creviced; and the low, meager grasses were seared even to the roots.
This paragraph includes a flurry of rhetorical devices. The entire passage shows inversion of word order. The first sentence
combines a metaphor and a simile, in its description of the sun as horses pasturing, and another metaphor in its description of hills as “crouching.” Another figure, the conversion of a singular to a plural (“suns”), occurs as well. The second sentence includes alliteration (“torrents,” “tenuous,” “far-sundered,” “fallen,” “cracked and creviced”) and an extreme grammatical parallelism.
All these rhetorical devices connote
Individual word-choice carries a heavy load of connotation in this story as
well. Smith often uses archaic words or word-forms such as “levin,” “whelmed,”
“wonderment,” and “goodly,” which, through their usage conventions, carry con-
notations of
322 THE FREEDOM OF FANTASTIC THINGS
“unceremented,” and “postern” carry connotations of
tions than their more common congeners, as “verdurous,” “colossean,” and
others. This serves to convey the sense of strangeness while simultaneously preserving the sense for ordinary readers.
The Referential Code. On the level of the cultural codes, Smith includes items that help thematize the work for its reader, such as the comparison of the cave with the garden of Eden, and the hissing “as of serpents” that Xeethra hears
therein, which lead directly to the “forbidden fruit” imagery. Others, which include the word “Stygian” and the comparison of Thasaidon’s emissary to a “Terminus
reared in hell,” give connotations of