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Fantasy and Human Experience

by Clark Ashton Smith


I should like to point out a few considerations which, apparently, have been
overlooked by Mr. Julian Gray in his thoughtful and well-written criticism of
science fiction in the letter columns of the June Amazing Stories.

    To begin with, it seems to me that his definition of literature as being
exclusively a study of human reactions and character- development is rather
narrow and limited. Literature can be, and does, many things; and one of its
most glorious prerogatives is the exercise of imagination on things that lie
beyond human experience--the adventuring of fantasy into the awful, sublime and
infinite cosmos outside the human aquarium. In this genre, of which science
fiction is one branch, the main interest lies in other elements than mere
character-reaction and development, such as would properly be emphasized in a
tale of ordinary events and conditions.

    Of course, science-fiction can, has been, and will be written with a
close attention to verisimilitude in such matters. But for the initiate in this
type of fiction, and highly imaginative and fantastic fiction in general, the
real thrill comes from the description of the ultrahuman events, forces and
scenes, which properly dwarf the terrene actors to comparative insignificance.
For many people--probably more than Mr. Gray realizes--imaginative stories offer
a welcome and salutary release from the somewhat oppressive tyranny of the
homocentrie, and help to correct the deeply introverted, ingrowing values that
are fostered by present-day "humanism" and realistic literature with its
unhealthy materialism and earth-bound trend. Science fiction, at its best, is
akin to sublime and exalted poetry, in its evocation of tremendous,
non-anthropomorphic imageries. To demand in such tales the intensive earthly
observation of a hardy is idle and beside the point; and one who approaches them
from this angle will miss the true value and beauty.

    It seems to me, too, that Mr. Gray makes a pretty sweeping statement in
Ills remarks about science fiction authors. Doubtless there are hacks in this
branch of writing, as in all others; but, on the other hand, there are sincere
imaginative artists. One only has to Willie A. Merritt (at least in his earlier
work, such as the original novelette version of "The Moon Pool"), Stanton
Coblentz, who has written some gorgeous fantastic satires, John Tame, a master
of authentic science, and H. P. Lovecraft, whose "The Color Out of Space" goes
infinitely beyond anything of H. G. Wells in its sheer imaginative scope and
creation of atmosphere. To say that science fiction writers are "men of doubtful
education and still more doubtful intelligence" because they prefer imaginative
happenings, cosmic forces, atmosphere, etc., to psychological analysis, is an
utterly pointless arid senseless statement. But, since there is a fixed gulf,
wider and deeper than Erebus, between imaginative people and those who lack
imagination, it is no doubt equally senseless to argue this question.

    Certainly, however, one must admit that there is vast room for
improvement in the general body of science-fiction. This improvemeat, it seems
to me, could lie ill the direction of more skilful and finished writing, the
exclusion of the trite and overworked, and the elimination of many stories
which, on close analysis, are revealed as mere gangster tales or ordinary
adventure stories with a futuristic or ultra-planetary setting. A few editorial
measures of this sort would go far to remove the reproach which can justly be
brought against science-fiction magazines. As a well- wisher, a reader--and also
a writer of this genre--I sincerely hope that such an improvement will in time
be brought about.

    There is one other matter that I should like to touch upon. Mr. Gray's
preliminary remarks about the general development of literature. To judge from
these, one would think that the world's literature is marked off in perfectly
distinct, geological strata! and that all the former, more primitive layers are
now hermetically sealed beneath a deep and solid stratum of realism. This,
however, is not the case. Romanticism, both in novels and short magazine
stories, is still the most popular and widely read genre; and as for the
supernatural, which Mr. Gray puts at the Archean bottom--well, even that
despised branch of literary endeavor is having its innings, both with writers
and readers. Apart from folk-lore, the literature of the supernatural is almost
a modern invention anyway; and some of the best work in that genre is being done
at the present time. Realism, even though it is the only form favored by the
alleged "quality magazines" and the self-appointed critical pontiffs, certainly
doesn't have the field to itself. And I think one can safely predict that it
never will. The intolerable conditions of modern life and mechanistic
civilization, will, one thinks, be more and more conducive to the development of
a literature of imaginative "escape."

    There is still another angle which occurs to me, apropos of Mr. Gray's
letter. After all, why shouldn't literature, or at least one literary genre,
emphasize what he calls the "inhuman," which, more properly, is the non-human or
extra-human? Isn't it only the damnable, preposterous and pernicious egomania of
the race, which refuses to admit anything but man's own feelings, desires, aims
and actions as worthy of consideration?

    This egomania, alas! is manifested in other ways than through
literature, and lies at the bottom of that ruthless aggrandization, that
maltreatment of weaker life-forms, that presumptuous meddling with the delicate
balance of planetary forces, which may sweep our present-day civilization into
the limbo of the dinosaurs. I fear that many super-scientific tales, which
depict a world-wide catastrophe as the result of human meddling with nature, may
prove to be all too prophetic. Any type of writing that would serve even in the
smallest degree as a brake on the madly careening wheels of this racial
egomania, is, it seems to me, more than praiseworthy from a moral standpoint if
from none other.

                                                         Clark Ashton Smith
                                                         Auburn, California


P.S. On re-reading Mr. Gray's letter, I find that I have forgotten to mention
the matter of H. G. Wells, which he brings up. Doubtless it is the particular
trend of Wells' mental development that has led him, in later years, to abandon
the writing of science fiction for that of sociological novels. Wells, when he
wrote the marvelous "Time Machine," "The War of the Worlds," and other fine
fantasies, had in him much of the artist, perhaps a little of the poet. These,
however, have been progressively smothered and drowned out by the growth of the
pedagogue, the utilitarian "humanist.''

    As to Aldous Huxley, I have not read his "Brave New World," which, I
should judge from reviews, is marked by the same congenital pornography as
Huxley's ordinary novels. Satire, of course, is a well-recognized function of
much science fiction, and perhaps some of it has been a little too subtle for
Mr. Gray's apprehension. He seems to have missed Stanton Coblentz, of whom I
have already spoken. If I cared to, I could name others in whom the satire is
even more subtle and implicit.

    If Mr. Gray should find my language somewhat violently polemical in
places, he must realize that I have merely availed myself of that parliamentary
privilege which he, in his own letter, has already avowedly pre-empted.

    In conclusion, let me recommend to Mr. Gray, and to others who are
similarly minded, the perusal of imaginative fiction for what it really is
rather than for what it isn't. Also, he should realize that there are
intelligent (and not necessarily immature) people who have the courage to
dissent from the limited and grossly materialistic definition of literature
which he has laid down, and who, moreover, are not overawed by the burden of
present-day authority.


[Originally from: Amazing Stories, "Discussions," October 1932, pp. 670-71. This
version from: Planets and Dimensions, Ed. Charles K Wolfe. Mirage Press 1973.]


Appendix from Planets and Dimensions Mirage Press 1973.

While his printed debate with P. Schulyer Miller was going on, CAS published
another long essay-letter in Amazing Stories, 1932. This essay, too, was in
response to another letter about science fiction theory. In the June, 1932,
issue of Amazing Stories a reader named Julian Gray published, under the title
"We Still Feel Science Fiction Will Play an Important Role in the Literature of
Tomorrow," a lengthy letter which was an attack on the escapist quality of
science fiction and fantasy. Gray pointed out that most popular science fiction
still produced stories of fantastic doings in far-off lands which completely
ignored the human for the inhuman; most science fiction writers were hacks, and
blood and action prevailed all too often. The main reason for this was that
science fiction writers lacked conception of the literary form of the short
story and the novel; the proper intent of a story was "to show a cross-section
of a man's life, at a point where be is faced with some problem" which tests
him, and to portray "the breakdown or building up of his character, or the way
he reacts to the test. . . ." CAS naturally took issue with this rather narrow
definition of literature (cf. his comments on the need for literature to lead
the imagination outward, in "On Garbage-Mongering") and responded in the letter
here published as "Fantasy and Experience." Its original appearance was in the
"Discussions" column in Amazing Stories, October 1932, where it appeared under
the editor's title, "An Answer to Mr. Julian Gray's Recent Criticism in Our
Discussion Columns." CAS's letter was followed by a lengthy editor's note (the
editor of Amazing at this time was T. O'Conor Sloane) which said, in part: "We
certainly agree with you in your criticism of the special type of modern
fictional literature. Science-fiction does its part to lift up stories and
romances out of the rut of realism, which, as you practically say, are to be
judged by ingrowing values. You will be surprised if you know how many books of
science-fiction have come out year by year. One would suppose that no one would
take it up except such writers as H. G. Wells and we know that there is no
living Jules Verne and even Mr. Wells is flying off more or less on a tangent in
what he considers important subjects. . . . It does us good to read over your
notes on authors and comments. We have always felt that our American writers, if
anything, surpassed the English authors decidedly in this line of fiction. . ."