Robert E. Howard: Respect After All These Years?

National Review Online posts a wonderful interview focusing on one of my favorite reads, Robert E. Howard, who is now the subject of a two-volume omnibus "best of" collection.  Ace of Spades HQ has more here, and I'll be returning to Ace's post towards the end of my 2-cents.  Howard's work is entering something of a literary revival, something I for one am glad to see, and think is long overdue.

Robert E. Howard, when he is known to people, is known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, and for better or worse, basically the entire "sword and sorcery" genre itself.  What's not so commonly known are his works of historical fiction, horror, westerns, poetry, and "modern day" (in 1920s-1930s terms) adventure.  One of my favorite, though lesser known characters of his is the dour Puritan, Solomon Kane View this photo whose restless nature drives him to seek out wrongs to right, evil to squash, violence and philosophizing reigns supreme.  Howard is also known as the creator of the Atlantean King Kull, and another less-known but favorite of mine, Bran Mak Morn, a Pictish king and bane of the conquering Romans holding the line on Hadrian's Wall.

Howard and the other writers of the "pulp" era have always been relegated to a literary backwater, in many ways deserved, as the scores of low-rent copycats, thieves, and pastiche hacks churned out cheap copy meant to sell magazines and cheap books with lurid (though usually compelling) cover art can easily demonstrate.  But in recent years, many of these writers have been elevated to literature, especially H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Like the barbarians of his stories, Howard's climb to civilization and respectability has been a long slog of it, in no small way aided over the years by some incredible artists, including one of my all-time favorites, Frank Frazetta, who in many ways created the "definitive" vision of the character of Conan, unfortunately sidelined by the rather sketchy movies featuring the "Governator". I will give credit where credit's due though, the music score for those films is pretty kick ass.

Besides the obvious appeal, Howard's writing is physically charged and immersive, the kind where you can't help but invest your mind and emotions in the events, the violence, the characters, and the world view of the barbarian, made even more compelling by the use of historical and semi-historical/legendary place names and countries, the invocation of a forgotten, distant past that might just have happened, during the "days before the waves drank Atlantis" and all that.

Now why the hell would someone just turned 30 even know about, let alone spending time reading a writer often charged with holding racist views (in all fairness, it's probably safe to say Howard's viewpoints were typical of his day and age, there never appeared to be any extra special malice or intent to them), a suicide, an unhealthy obsession with his ill mother, and other scandalous attributes?

If anything it's the one inescapable center of his world view, something that I think carries far more grains of truth to it than the civilized among us care to admit, and it's a world view whose warnings we would be wise to consider:

"The idea that is most often mentioned is his notion that civilizations always inevitably rise and fall: a young, vigorous race or nation of “barbarians” fights its way to civilization, sometimes building on the ruins of a decayed society it displaces; inevitably, though, when the people become comfortable, when they are no longer working constantly to build their society, they become first complacent, then indolent, and finally decadent, from which point the society decays to the point that a new young race of barbarians can overthrow or displace it."

Howard's hard to find poem "A Song of the Naked Lands" states this concept explicitly.  Now, as far as  the violence goes...

"Howard also saw that violence was the inevitable result of breakdowns in “civilized” societies. In his view, humans are really just apes who learned how to build things: when our societies begin to break down, we revert to our innate savagery. I’ve just been re-reading Leo Grin’s essay “The Reign of Blood” and I think he’s right that Howard sees man’s primal emotion as hate, and so when confronted with forces we see as hostile we see them as “something not only to be battled but to be hated.” I think anyone who has looked at what happens on the frontiers between societies in conflict would have to agree that Howard’s views were pretty dead-on. Even when the initial contacts are not hostile, man’s tendency to turn hatred on perceived threats frequently serves to escalate into conflict and ultimately violence"

The capacity for us to turn what by all means should be a calculated, logical scheme for dealing with threats to survival through emotionless violence into, well "personal", is where the seam between "civilized" and "barbaric" violence lies.  What this really says about us I haven't quite figured out yet, and I think it will take me decades more...

Where I differ, is that I don't see all violence as inherently evil, futile, or to be shunned.  Pacifism is as guilty of moral outrage and a cause of much useless pain and suffering as anything else, and I have never understood the blind obsessive belief that pacifism is inherently a moral good.  I find it to be moral cowardice more often than not. Violence is a tool of man, albeit one that often rules us instead of the other way around...I think Howard (himself a boxer of some renown) would look at is, not so much as a "thing" but a fact.  "We're humans, we fight, next slide."

Anyway, the next thing I want to look at hearkens to the perceptions of men, what can or can't be accomplished:

MILLER: How did Conan become such an iconic figure?

BURKE: Well, if I knew the answer to that, I should be able to pick out the next big iconic figure and invest heavily. But I think the answer probably lies in a phrase you used in your Wall Street Journal article last year: he came along at just the right time and really captured something of the zeitgeist. Charles Hoffman first made the claim back in the 1970s that Conan was an existential hero: Conan’s story is not that of a boy who sets out on a quest to fulfill some noble destiny (as in the story of young Arthur, or Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings), nor to find some Grail, but is the story of a man who recognizes that there is no inherent meaning in the world, that we make of ourselves what we can, and who seizes opportunities to become what he wishes to become. He is fiercely independent, and that is certainly a characteristic that a great many Conan and Howard fans share. He does not recognize authority as superior simply by virtue of its being in authority. He was a perfect anti-establishment figure, as well as one who seemed to embody the ideal of self-reliance while possessing a strong sense of morality 

I see Conan (and many of Howard's other heroes) as necessary counterparts to the Aragorns, the Arthurs, the great and pure heroes of the world, mainly because while they are icons worth looking up to, and worthy of emulation, there's more to it than that.  Conan seems more to be what most of us can be in life, making the best of our gifts, our situations, and prospering by our own efforts.  Character is a choice, character is destiny. I don't share the view that "there is no inherent meaning in the world", nor do I think there's anything wrong with "pursuing a quest".  I do however, think that "the quest" whatever it is, is not a path for everyone to follow.  Most importantly, while dim, Howard's views lack the detached, arrogant, amoral "cool" cynicism and outright nihilism found in much modern fantasy, especially with British author Michael Moorcock, author of the Howard/Conan-"parody", Elric of Melnibone.  Moorcock is the kind of author everyone thinks is exceptionally cool when they're in their irony-drenched, too-cool-for-school teens and early twenties, and then looks back on thinking "good grief what the hell was I thinking?"  Though the Elric books are compelling in their own right, Moorcock views, stated plainly in his vastly overrated book of criticism "Wizardy and Wild Romance" are relics of the '60s, and deserving of the long, slow, fade into obscurity.  But enough of that, someday I might resurrect the long email chain of a few years ago between Pidge, author John Ringo, and I about Moorcock as a series of posts but not now.

Getting back on track, I think Ace's comments bring good closure to the discussion, in a geeky fashion:

I guess Conan appeals partly for the same reason Firefly does: It's a pessimistic view of the world while a somewhat more positive depiction of actual people. Those with faith in organizations and causes may flock to Star Trek, while many of us are turned off by its antiseptic and gray view of humanity, preferring the dirtiness, horniness, and human-ness of Firefly. (One could say the same thing about the original appeal of Star Wars, as well - MOGS)

Conan wasn't fighting for a damn thing except himself, and, occasionally, a hottie or young warrior he took a shine to. At no point in any Conan story was there ever the promise of a coming utopia and final defeat of evil; evil always had to be fought, but it could never be conquered, and would be present so long as man existed. In National Review/WFB terms, there was no Immanentization of the eschaton in Hyboria, ever, and the very nature of the world precluded such a soft-headed notion of a Return to the Original State of Grace. Hyboria looked a lot like earth, in other words, at least as many saw it. (Thanks to Thomas D for the correction on that NRO/WFB catchphrase.)

To quote another author (though one admittedly I don't have much use for), "and so it goes."  I think Ace nails it with the description of what always made many of us, uncomfortable, about Star Trek, especially the later versions of it - the wishy-washy holier-than-thou attitude and "soft" socialism of the Federation - it always made the barbarian in me want to smash something :)

Now, on the interestingly "City of God" St Augustine-esque comments of the last paragraph, the Catholic in me thinks that when the Eschaton finally does occur, it's not so much a "return" to an "original state of grace", but perhaps a "New" one - you can't ever go home again, and honestly, why would we want to?  There's no utopia to be found, or one that can be created within our lifetimes that's for sure, I think the best we can do here is "hold the line", and maybe, just maybe, push it back a couple yards or miles on our best days.  Perhaps someday circumstances will change.  I don't see it. 

Fight on.

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