Conan

[GOLLUM]

There is no doubt that Wandering Star's publication of Howard's Conan is highly regarded but I received Victor Gollancz's 100th Anniversary Complete Chroincles Of Conan collection of the Conan tales including both the additional fragments and synopsis plus published Weird Tales stories which appeared in their Masterwork editions and it looks pretty good in terms of orginal material plus it also includes those revisions by DeCamp. It's apparently part of the project Karl Edward Wagner had been working on in terms of collecting all of the original Conan works prior to his death. There's also a handy essay by Stephen Jones on Howard and Conan.

 

[Somebloke]

Conan- while I find the plot devices hackneyed (evil sorcerer wants to do something terrible to beautiful naked woman) I absolutely love the way he writes- especially Conan. Is it possible to be jealous of a fictional character?

 

[j d worthington]

Conan- while I find the plot devices hackneyed (evil sorcerer wants to do something terrible to beautiful naked woman) I absolutely love the way he writes- especially Conan. Is it possible to be jealous of a fictional character?

You know, if you go back to Howard's own stories, there are actually darned few of them that have that as any sort of a plot device... and at least one of those ("The Jewels of Gwahlur") use it for parody... Howard even remarks how, when she's rescued, she goes into "the usual clench". Think of the Conan tales Howard himself wrote: "The Tower of the Elephant", "The God in the Bowl", "Rogues in the House", "The Frost Giant's Daughter", "Queen of the Black Coast", "The Vale of Lost Women", "Black Colossus", "Shadows in the Moonlight", "A Witch Shall Be Born", "Shadows in Zamboula", "The Devil in Iron", "The People of the Black Circle", "The Slithering Shadow", "The Pool of the Black One", "Red Nails", "The Jewels of Gwahlur", "Beyond the Black River", "The Black Stranger", "The Phoenix on the Sword", "The Scarlet Citadel", The Hour of the Dragon. Out of these, nine have something to do with a woman being a sacrifice of some sort, and in 4 of those, the "sorcerer" is actually either a sorceress or -- as in "The Vale of Lost Women" -- the spirits (plural) of long-dead women. It was actually those who wrote Howardian pastiche that began that nonsense; just as it was they who tended to make weaker and weaker women. (True, there are wallflowers in Howard, but he also had a thing for strong women, as an impartial survey of his fiction will attest. Go back to it "with new eyes", and you'll find out he had a remarkable number of very strong female characters who could do quite well on their own.) In fact, on quite a few occasions, it was the woman who saved Conan's bacon ... even in "Red Nails", it's Valeria that keeps Conan from falling prey to the witch at the end. Once more, I'm afraid that it's the lack of imagination of those who followed, not Howard himself, that's to blame for this idea. And that's just with the Conan stories... add in the others he wrote, and it becomes even more evident.

 

[Jaggy Jai]

Who cares if he had strong female characters......Conan was written for men, or people for people who find the idea of a strong man appealing, he did as he wished and that was his appeal. Wenching, drinking and fighting. I'm glad to be exposed to something that does not have a strong female lead, a token stereotypical man from all walks of ethnic life, a stupid fat man for comic relief. Conan was distant from these things I always felt. Modern takes on the character have mutilated him, a Conan cartoon series!!! I can understand an honest anime version with violence and innuendo intact.
I like a hard edge to my reading and general viewing. I only wish modern fantasy writers had the nerve to write what they really wanted to!!!!

 

[j d worthington]

Who cares if he had strong female characters......Conan was written for men, or people for people who find the idea of a strong man appealing, he did as he wished and that was his appeal.

Have to disagree with you on that, Jaggy Jai.... on several levels. Howard wrote his fiction to appeal to a mass audience, whether it be men or women -- and he had several women writers who were colleagues whom he admired, among them C. L. Moore, for their equally strong female characters. That he created a strong male character is undeniable -- but he did so because that was the type of fiction he'd grown up on, and that he preferred: the hero tale. There is no reason why any good fiction, including that featuring a strong, violent-tempered, often brooding barbarian cannot have good female characters as well. Frankly, the stereotypes I've seen in his followers when it comes to women have caused me to chip a lot of tooth enamel: they're either man-hating murderous b***hes, or they're so sweet I start checking to see if I might be becoming diabetic.

No, Howard was not out to limit his audience in any way... the broader the better. And, despite his somewhat odd relationship with women during his life, he made it quite clear that the women that attracted him most in life or in fiction were strong, often dangerous women -- which is why he created several characters of the type, from Valeria of the Red Brotherhood to Agnes d'Chastillon, to Red Sonya of Rogatino. Conan himself has a strong affinity toward women who can hold their own, as did many of Howard's male characters. Howard's strength was in creating memorable characters, of either sex, and in being able to create a vision of a world within a few words, so that the reader is almost immediately aware of the character's surroundings and can actually feel their presence.

 

[Jaggy Jai]

Yes but its the same old tale in my opinion.....the only time we brand a woman as strong is when she emulates the behaviour of man. Like I'm a powerful woman because I'm a pirate, I'm a strong woman because I'm a warrior, but they ultimately yeild to a stronger person, a man. I fail to see how any of them are strong in any sense.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes but its the same old tale in my opinion.....the only time we brand a woman as strong is when she emulates the behaviour of man. Like I'm a powerful woman because I'm a pirate, I'm a strong woman because I'm a warrior, but they ultimately yeild to a stronger person, a man. I fail to see how any of them are strong in any sense.

On this one, I'd like some clarification. When you say they "ultimately yield to a stronger person, a man"... I assume you mean Conan? Or are you referring to (in those stories where it's applicable) a sorcerer? I repeat: Conan has his bacon saved on more than one occasion by these women. And as for "ultimately yielding"... if you mean they become sexually involved, then how is that yielding rather than recognizing an equal? As far as behaving like men -- in a world that is male-dominated, that's about the only way a woman could establish her independence, by being tougher than the men around her... look at how it works so often in our own culture, with women trying to climb the corporate ladder in a still largely "good-ol'-boy" system ... they have to prove they have bigger cajones than the men they compete with.

I'm not saying Howard would have been a supporter of women's liberation (though I would say, from his letters, that it's definitely a possibility), but that he recognized that women who didn't wish to simply be at the beck-and-call of a lord and master most usually had to play the men's games and beat them at them if they wanted to maintain any autonomy at all. This couldn't help but bleed over into his fiction when it came to writing as many female characters as he did. Yes, he has his share of weeping wallflowers, and he often finds an opportunity to mix sympathy for them with somewhat caustic comments on them.

No, I think that, if you go back and reread the stories without the preconceptions, you'll find Howard had an awful lot of strong women -- very feminine, but they can stand their own either with or against the men, in many cases.

 

[BAYLOR]

Originally I read the ace 12 volume edition . Years later I read the original Howard stories as he originally wrote them. Quite a difference.

 

[J Riff]

Weird to see Conan and racism mentioned together, actually funny from my viewpoint. We read these over and over, and they were mild indeed as far as 'racism' goes. I think the world has not changed in a good way if people can't see stuff like this for what it is. Lovecraft, maybe, but even that 'racist' issue has been resolved.
Its weird seeing people coming in 50 yrs. later and 'making excuses' for what they perceive as 'racism' in a 50-yr. old work of FICTION.

Fiction. Look it up. Not the authors opinion, fiction.

 

[j d worthington]

Weird to see Conan and racism mentioned together, actually funny from my viewpoint. We read these over and over, and they were mild indeed as far as 'racism' goes. I think the world has not changed in a good way if people can't see stuff like this for what it is. Lovecraft, maybe, but even that 'racist' issue has been resolved.
Its weird seeing people coming in 50 yrs. later and 'making excuses' for what they perceive as 'racism' in a 50-yr. old work of FICTION.

Fiction. Look it up. Not the authors opinion, fiction.

Again, I'd have to strongly disagree with you here. A) In what way, precisely, has the issue of HPL's racism "been resolved"? So far as I'm aware (and I try to keep up with these things, being a student of Lovecraft as well as a writer concerned with his works) this is still a very thorny issue, and with good reason. HPL was quite blunt in his statement of his ethnic views in his letters to others, and it is obvious this is also what powers some of his most memorable works (such as "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"). B) How is it in any way harmful to a writer's reputation, if it is based solidly on talent and ability, to recognize the flaws in their work? Doesn't this enable us to see that work more justly and respect the person's abilities despite their flaws? Doesn't it, indeed, create more respect for their resourcefulness and creative ability to more than compensate for such in what they produced? To often, in fact, turn those very flaws into the generating factor of some of their most memorable fictions?

And, perhaps most importantly, C): Any fiction which is written with conviction and care and honesty, rather than strictly with an eye to financial gain and the main chance of the time -- not long-term -- tends to carry marks of the writer's own worldview in it. It cannot help but do so, as the writer uses their own experiences and emotions to inform what they write. This, in turn, is precisely what gives such fictional works their power -- that they are based on the inner core of a writer's emotional and mental life in one way or another, and therefore an examination of the issues which are important to that writer. Thus HPL wrote a great deal about things concerning the possibility of slipping back down the evolutionary ladder, including "miscegenation", because that was an intense concern of his. He also wrote about the insignificance of humankind in the cosmic sense because that was the very core of his philosophical views, and about traditionalism and history (the past, at any rate) as the one bulwark against an uncertain future... yet even that past has its threatening and unseen aspects. Moorcock writes about the eternal war to maintain the balance, whether that balance be between liberalism and conservatism, ignorance and knowledge, "Law" and "Chaos" (both of whom he sees as playing important roles in the struggle), the individual and society, or any other aspect of the struggle to maintain a reasonable level of existence in the midst of a universe which is, from the human perspective, often all too chaotic. The examples are endless.

So with Howard. And to argue that Howard didn't have "racist" views is simply to deny fact. That he occasionally had a sympathetic black character is true; but in the main, he was anything but sympathetic to blacks, or most other ethnicities, for that matter. I grant you that one must use care in assigning any particular character's views to an author -- they are not, after all, simply creating carbon copies of themselves, but a variety of types -- but any careful reading of a writer's work overall will reveal a great deal about that writer's own views on various matters, because they tend to crop up over and over again in one form or another. Fiction is not separate from life; it is an outgrowth of life and life's lessons, if it is to have any substance to it at all, and only that which has such substance tends to last and to resonate with future generations (which is why I specified "the main chance of the time" above), and only fiction which comes "from the heart", as it were -- in terms both Lovecraft and Wilde used, art, which is by definition self-expression -- has any chance of such survival. Granted, Howard was a "professional" writer in the general sense, but he more than once expressed his desire to produce work which was genuinely art, and would be remembered long after he was dead. He wasn't merely writing for a paycheck, but to express things he felt deeply as well and, good or bad, to deny these is to completely miss his achievement.

 

[J Riff]

Wow I guess you hadda be there. I mean, even in the 50s, where I was - HPS 'racism' was nothing, absolutely very mild indeed. They were burning these people ysee... and hanging them and like that. There's more racist people than HPL sitting in this coffee shop I'm in right now. I hear the forbidden words here all the time. N-word, C-word, P-word... Really often! Real 'racism' is when you import people into a culture to be used as slaves, and that still goes on in a modern cloaked way, in places like,say, here. )
The 'servant races' - if you can believe it, that's what they still think of them as, its their term (what remains of the rich white slaver families) for them.
Really! Texas is mild now JD, ya hafta get to de tir' wirl to really see this stuff happening.
Mind, everyone has been conditioned to not 'speak' the awful words anymore, though many still spew as vehemently as HPL ever did, they are not known authors or celebs or whatever.
Man, the Israeli guy at the corner here just hates the 'blacks' as they are termed here. Hates em and the minute they leave he cuts loose with the n-woid and crak jokes and perostitute jokes and he's prolly more offensive than HPL by a mile. Welcome to 2015.
They dint import these people for their brainpower. Today, they are imported based on demographics, which makes it possible to make them look pretty bad, yes?
So, maybe the 'blacks' these guys apparently didn't like - weren't particularly good people. Being as they were selected by the kind of people who wanted slaves for common tasks - no surprise.
I am just sick of this reverse-racism, bashing on some adventure writers that did some quality escape lit a hunnert years ago - as if we are modern advanced superior educated people now, when all I see is dumbing down and further exploitation. But then, I live in Canada. *)

 

[j d worthington]

For one thing, I was born in the 1950s, in Texas, where they were still lynching people from time to time -- I grew up just about 5 blocks from a KKK headquarters in a town where the cops were 3/4 KKKers. We had no blacks in our schools until the mid-1970s, the last year I was in the public school system, and then it was three -- count 'em, three -- students, and they were scared out of their minds (went down the halls with their backs to the lockers, just damn sure they were going to be jumped). Things took a loooong time to improve. So I've had my experience with the genuine article when it comes to racism. And no, "real" racism is not simply relegated to slavery and the like; racism is anything which denigrates a set of people based upon their ethnicity, whether that be Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or what have you. Racism is that which tends to keep a person down and not allow them the same opportunities because of the color of their skin. Racism is the snide epithets which belittle someone because they are of a different ethnic background from your own. (Or, for that matter, denigrating your own for that very same reason.)

As for the blacks "these guys" (If you are still referring to HPL & others, a bit unclear from your phrasing) didn't like not being "particularly good people" -- bosh! They didn't allow themselves to know these people in most cases; they judged them strictly on the fact they were black, or black and poor. And yes, they could get quite vicious (again, I suggest looking at HPL's letters for the most overt examples, but even in his fiction it comes out if you're at all paying attention. Think of "Buck Robinson, the 'Harlem Smoke'" in "Herbert West -- Reanimator", or the description of the ethnics in "The Horror at Red Hook", "The Street", etc. Or the choice of terms he uses to describe the inhabitants of Innsmouth and their behaviors. Or the terms he even uses for the shoggoths, using what were common terms for blacks, and made even more evidently so by comparison with his own terms in his letters and essays. No, this had nothing to do with the individuals, it had to do with their "race". The fact is, when HPL came to know any of these people better, he tended to find himself liking them as people, but this constantly conflicted with his preconceived ideas of people of each ethnic background (hence his comment about his friend Loveman's being a Jew, and his constant surprise at how he didn't fit what HPL thought of Jews -- something Lovecraft's wife discusses in her memoir of HPL). Bob Howard's descriptions of blacks in many of his stories leaves no doubt he felt they were essentially subhuman, at best "fine, healthy animals". How anyone could call this less than racism, even if it was a form of racism which was completely acceptable in their day, is beyond me. (And again, on the few occasions Howard knew a black person well, he found them to be an anomaly because they didn't fit his image of blacks. It never occurred to him to question his prejudice; he simply chalked it up to this individual being "different".) Just because something is considered acceptable does not mean it is right or ethical; it simply means the people of whatever time (including our own) are still clinging to traditional ways regardless of whether they are beneficial or malignant. In this case, I'd say the evidence is in that they are quite malignant, because they disenfranchise an entire ethnic group (or set of ethnic groups) of the human race.

I am well aware of the resurgence of ignorant racism in our society today -- I work with the public every day, and I see a great deal of it. But that by no means excuses these writers for harboring views which, even then, were becoming less and less tenable as the evidence rolled in, particularly as they prided themselves on keeping au courant with genuine scientific findings (though they were also prey to falling in line with pseudoscientific nonsense at times). And frankly, defending such views on the part of a writer simply because one enjoys their work shows an inability to separate one's personal like from one's critical judgment. To note and critique such views -- or any other flaws or strengths a writer possesses -- is much more honest and, it seems to me, much more respectful of them as human beings and creative artists, than to blindly defend them from that which is blatantly obvious to so many, not only of the laity, but of the best and brightest who have looked at these works, whether they are "fans" or otherwise. The latter do not duck the unpleasant side, but seek to understand its origins in these writers and how they transmuted even these things into powerful elements in their writing; in other words, to better understand and appreciate the creative genius of these undeniably talented individuals.

Without meaning to unduly cite my own work, I suggest you look up my essay "Sources of Anxiety in Lovecraft's 'Polaris'", which can be found in the Lovecraft Annual No. 6 (pp. 113-125), where I examine several different aspects of the anxiety of the narrator (including racism in the tale) and how they reflect Lovecraft's own concerns. I think you'll find that what I say about the use of critical judgment in such readings holds true, not only for that essay, but for the vast majority of those who devote their time to these writers. You might also want to take a look at Gavin Callaghan's H. P. Lovecraft's Dark Arcadia, or Robert Waugh's The Monster in the Mirror, for some in-depth examinations of such themes.

 

[J Riff]

I know JD. There's no argument here, I just have lots of steam to blow off most days. I've read the volumes of stuff written in here, back and forth on HPL and REH and you are right as usual, because your research is complete and thoughful and etc.
Still, the racism I see, now, today - stems from way up over our heads. These are the people who utilize other people, or groups of them, against others - they are the fathers and creators of racism. That's the types I'm in direct conflict with, today as a matter of fact but nevemind that(!^!^!^) I will not let the ^!^!%^% &!&^!^s get to me, not again.
Dang, I wish I had the time to read as much as I once did, with luck those times will return.

 

[Extollager]

By the way, as a side comment on racism and literature -- it's important to keep our history straight. I'm thinking of Shakespeare's Othello, with its black hero-villain. It can be hard for 21st-century readers not to import into the play some things that were not part of the original context. When Shakespeare wrote the play, (1) enslavement by white Englishmen of black people was in the future, unless I'm much mistaken, and certainly (2) the enormous boost that 19th-century science gave to racism was far away. Thus Shakespeare's audience (all or nearly all of which would have been white) would not have had the reactions towards a black man that we might expect. They would not have seen him, so far as I know, with the guilt or anxiety or resentment that would complicate the feelings of people used to thinking of black people as having experienced slavery. And they would not have thought of black people as "less evolved" and "closer to the ape" as became virtual scientific orthodoxy in the 19th century. It's true that Iago and his associate make snide remarks about "the thick-lips" and so on, but these are unsympathetic characters. Desdemona's father is distressed by the thought of her married to and sleeping with a black man (especially after he is provoked by Iago's lewd comments), but he is something of a figure of fun, the outraged daddy whose daughter turns out to have sexual feelings and a capacity to choose her own husband.

I'm not arguing that in Shakespeare's time there was no racism, but that we must be careful about projecting our racism into his time. If we're careless about this we can misread the play. I don't think the play should be staged in costumes from more recent historical times since that invites the audience to feel feelings that are, it seems, anachronistic.

 

[j d worthington]

@JRiff: I understand the feeling. And yes, we do seem to have a certain number of those "higher up" who are intent on creating scapegoats -- not surprising, as none of them seem to have a clue on what to do about any real issue, and it is established policy to create issues to take people's minds off the real ones in such a case -- but the issue itself does go beyond that, I think. There really is a resurgence of the sort of racism I had seen become pretty much moribund in my mid-adult years, and that is frankly disheartening. On the other hand, if I may interject another personal note: I grew up in Pasadena, Texas, which was second only to Vidor in this state for its reputation anent racism (not good). Some years ago, when I moved back down there to take care of my mother the last few years of her life, I found a considerable increase in the black population of the town (when I left there were only a handful of black families there), and all the signs of people having finally got over most of their ingrained prejudices and getting along simply like good neighbors. That was heartening.

When it comes to writers such as Howard, Lovecraft, etc., I think with this issue as with any other, HPL's friend W. Paul Cook summed it up in his "A Plea on Behalf of Lovecraft": "Irreparable harm is being done to Lovecraft by indiscriminate and even unintelligent praise; by lack of unbiased and intelligent criticism; and by a warped sense of what is due him in the way of publication of his works." This was published in 1945, when Cook already saw people who admired HPL coming to his defense whenever any adverse or even unbiased criticism was published, and it concerned him greatly that it could cause permanent damage to the reputation and memory of a very dear friend. As one who tended to come to his defense when I was much younger, I would heartily agree. The difference lies in walking the middle path of being able to view these things in perspective rather than in either denying them or becoming completely vituperative about the man because he had these faults (as, indeed, more than one of my friends has). Neither is helpful to a balanced assessment of a writer or his work, and history has shown that any writer worth their salt will be able to stand the gaff when it comes to such things. I've no fear that either HPL or REH will be denied their proper place because of these faults, any more than Poe, T. S. Elliot, or Ezra Pound have been. By all means, when you see someone going too far the other direction, speak out. But as far as acknowledging these things being there -- rest easy. As far as is possible when it comes to posterity's view of writers, the niche these gentlemen have carved out for themselves is secure.

@Extollager: I may myself be misremembering, but there was at least some ownership of black slaves by white Englishmen at the time (and before); but then again, the English weren't exactly kind to the Irish and Scots either (e.g., Spenser's actions in Ireland). At the same time, there was a distinct prejudice against blacks as inferior beings, something which was still very much in effect in our own colonial ancestors' time, with black slaves being brought in from the Indies for instance (think of Tituba, for a prominent example in our history). The ugliness was already there; it just wasn't as vehemently stated. That only became common when such prejudices began to be challenged and people began to, in the common phrase, "double down" where such things are concerned.

 

[BAYLOR]

I often wonder what Howard and Lovecraft have thought of a film like Twelve Years a Slave?

 

[Extollager]

I may myself be misremembering, but there was at least some ownership of black slaves by white Englishmen at the time (and before)...

What I have found suggests that Shakespeare basically died just in time, in the sense that within a few years of his death Englishmen did begin to use slaves in the colonies. But I haven't found substantiation for English slavery -- ownership of human beings -- in his lifetime. If you find any such evidence, please let me know (with your source).

 

[j d worthington]

What I have found suggests that Shakespeare basically died just in time, in the sense that within a few years of his death Englishmen did begin to use slaves in the colonies. But I haven't found substantiation for English slavery -- ownership of human beings -- in his lifetime. If you find any such evidence, please let me know (with your source).

I'll be happy to, once I have a chance (hopefully, on my next day off, sometime early next week -- again, I hope!!!). At any rate, at the moment, this remains based on my memory, so take it for what that's worth....

 

[BAYLOR]

I find that its best to enjoy what REH and HPL wrote. Nevermind the rest.

 

[BAYLOR]

Conan- while I find the plot devices hackneyed (evil sorcerer wants to do something terrible to beautiful naked woman) I absolutely love the way he writes- especially Conan. Is it possible to be jealous of a fictional character?

I know Im 9 years late but in answer to your question, Id have to say , it's very possible to be jealous of a fictional character.