[j. d. worthington]

Stumbled across this thread in looking up some other things. I have a question: Have any of you read S. T. Joshi's chapter on Blackwood in his The Weird Tale? It's quite informative, and gives a great deal of insight into his work, and how he developed certain themes throughout his career, so that his "horror" tales were merely an aspect of his religious/mystical views. Very interesting, and can add an entirely new appreciation of a very special writer.

As for CAS; I've seldom had trouble feeling "overloaded" with his stories -- though some of his "science fiction" is, frankly, atrocious even when one considers that he meant most of this parodically, savaging the very magazines he was selling to (Smith had more than a bit of the misanthropist in him). Perhaps it's just that I encountered his work so young; or perhaps, when I re-encountered it at a later age, I was already so interested in the language and texture of writing, that I easily found his work to be highly poetical in approach -- he began as a poet, save for a few very early stories written under the obvious influence of Rudyard Kipling; so in most of his fantasy work, even in some in contemporary settings, he used that lapidary prose that's so influenced by that early bent. If you haven't read much of his poetry, Hippocampus Press is going to be putting out a 3-volume set of his complete poems over the next year or two; they already have a volume of his best fantastic poetry available; it's well worth reading.

On the subject of Blackwood -- have any of you ever read Jimbo or The Centaur? I got them a few months ago but haven't yet read them. I understand that The Centaur is almost like a "spiritual autobiography" of a novel, while Jimbo has a very ethereal touch in dealing with the mysticism of childhood. I'd be interested in anything you folks have to say about either of these.