42 replies to this topic

[Hyborian Frog]

Have any of you read this book? Is it very scholarly? What do you like/dislike about the book?

Do you know of any other good criticism/biography books on REH?

The Barbaric Triumph: A Critical Anthology On The Writings Of Robert E. Howard
by Don Herron (Editor)
Wildside Press
ISBN: 0809515660

Edited by Kengo, 11 September 2005 - 04:34 AM.

[Kull1964]

Have any of you read this book?  Is it very scholarly?  What do you like/dislike about the book?

Do you know of any other good criticism/biography books on REH?

I'm halfway through the book and it's excellent, a great collection on Howard and his works who try to say something different from other analysis done in the past. And by the way, a "old" book that I can highly recommend you is The Dark Barbarian, the previous anthology of 8 essay edited by Don Herron. I got the original 1984 first edition but Wildside has re-printed this two years ago. It includes an excellent appendix about Howard's library and suicide, plus a long bibliography.
I've never read it, but many says that The Last Celt by Glen Lord is also a good book on Howard.

[Hyborian Frog]

And by the way, a "old" book that I can highly recommend you is The Dark Barbarian, the previous anthology of 8 essay edited by Don Herron. I got the original 1984 first edition but Wildside has re-printed this two years ago. It includes an excellent appendix about Howard's library and suicide, plus a long bibliography.

Was the first edition of The Dark Barbarian a hardcover?

Are the essays in this book different than the The Barbaric Triumph?

[Kull1964]

And by the way, a "old" book that I can highly recommend you is The Dark Barbarian, the previous anthology of 8 essay edited by Don Herron. I got the original 1984 first edition but Wildside has re-printed this two years ago. It includes an excellent appendix about Howard's library and suicide, plus a long bibliography.

Was the first edition of The Dark Barbarian a hardcover?

Are the essays in this book different than the The Barbaric Triumph?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, the first edition was hardcover (strangely with no jacket), an all-black cover with dark red titles. The essays are all different and by other authors (among them Fritz Leiber and Glen Lord), since this book is 20 year old!
Don't know if the new edition is updated (especially in the bibliography section), but I recommend you to read Barbaric Triumph first. If you like it, buy the other one too!

[Red Hand]

I haven't read either of these two books, but I can vouch for The Last Celt. It is an excellent book. Much info on REH with many letters written by him and even his own personal biography he wrote (worth the price of the book alone IMO). Full of old pics of Bob Howard as well as being a bibliography of his works as well.

This book is very difficult to find though (at least in hardback form which is what I have), so good luck. I paid $76 for my signed (by Glenn Lord) copy several years ago. Would have paid even more though if I'd had to.

Anyway, I'll have to look into these other two as well! Thanks for the heads up!

Edited by Red Hand, 11 September 2005 - 06:23 PM.

[Lionmane]

I think both books are must -reads for any REH fan. Good stuff in both of them. I haven't read The Last Celt, but I've heard it was good.
I can also reccomend the essay "Conan vs. Conantics" by Don Herron..it used to be on his website, www.donherron.com. Check it out.

[Mark_Hall]

Have any of you read this book?  Is it very scholarly?  What do you like/dislike about the book?

Do you know of any other good criticism/biography books on REH?

For two contrasting views of this book, see the reviews by Fred Blosser and ST Joshi in issue #8 of THE DARK MAN.

Best, MEH

[PainBrush]

Glanced over my bookshelves this morning to get out Dark Barbarian & Barb. Triumph (haven't read either in a month of moons) & another 2 that I forgot to mention above which have really good articles/essays about Howard & Conan are "The blade of Conan" & "The Spell of Conan" . Mine are Ace paperbacks , don't know if they're ever done by any other publishing house . They have mostly reprinted essays/etc. from G.Scithers Amra fanzine & from a few other sources , by Fritz Leiber , Decamp , Poul Anderson , P.S. Schuyler & a buncha other well known authors . You've prob. already heard of or have "the Book of Robert E. Howard" vol's 1 & 2 also ? Last Celt is still king of the mountain of all the above , & a huge book too .

Edited by PAINBRUSH, 12 September 2005 - 06:07 PM.

[Valin]

Glanced over my bookshelves this morning to get out Dark Barbarian & Barb. Triumph (haven't read either in a month of moons)  & another 2 that I forgot to mention above which have really good articles/essays about Howard & Conan are "The blade of Conan" & "The Spell of Conan" . Mine are Ace paperbacks , don't know if they're ever done by any other publishing house . They have mostly reprinted essays/etc. from G.Scithers Amra fanzine & from a few other sources , by Fritz Leiber , Decamp , Poul Anderson , P.S. Schuyler & a buncha other well known authors . You've prob. already heard of or have "the Book of Robert E. Howard" vol's 1 & 2 also ? Last Celt is still king of the mountain of all the above , & a huge book too .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's funny, but I just reread the two Ace books and "The Last Celt" a couple months ago. All very interesting and must-haves for REH fans.

[Hyborian Frog]

Barbarian Triumph is excellent. I think I'll pick up a copy of the Dark Barbarian as it has no overlap.

[Hyborian Frog]

Yes, the first edition was hardcover (strangely with no jacket), an all-black cover with dark red titles. The essays are all different and by other authors (among them Fritz Leiber and Glen Lord), since this book is 20 year old!
Don't know if the new edition is updated (especially in the bibliography section), but I recommend you to read Barbaric Triumph first. If you like it, buy the other one too! 

Check this out. I was roadtripping to Tulsa to visit my brother and I stopped at a used bookstore. Lo and Behold a mint Hardcover 1984 1st Edition of the Dark Barbarian was sitting on the shelf for a mere $3. That ranks up there with getting the Dune Encyclopedia at a used store in Denver.

[Mark Finn]

Check this out.  I was roadtripping to Tulsa to visit my brother and I stopped at a used bookstore.  Lo and Behold a mint Hardcover 1984 1st Edition of the Dark Barbarian was sitting on the shelf for a mere $3.  That ranks up there with getting the Dune Encyclopedia at a used store in Denver.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hell of a find! That's why I love used book stores. Great job. I'm officially jealous!

[Ghost Writer in Disguise]

For two contrasting views of this book, see the reviews by Fred Blosser and ST Joshi in issue #8 of THE DARK MAN.

I am surprised that that smelly little chutney-felcher Joshi would deign to appear in a magazine devoted to REH. Would I be surprised at what he wrote?

[PainBrush]

hahaaha , you just made beer squirt out of my nose , .....and I wasn't even drinking any !!!

[Mark Finn]

I am surprised that that smelly little chutney-felcher Joshi would deign to appear in a magazine devoted to REH. Would I be surprised at what he wrote?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, not really. It's pretty much the same old thing. He didn't pan the book, per se, he just felt like it didn't do it's intended job, i.e. prove the literary worth of REH.

It's in this capacity that I feel really sorry for him. He has beat the HPL drum, many times by himself, for better than twenty years, as THE best, most under-appreciated and overlooked Pulp Writer of all time. And in doing so, Joshi has won the battle of perception. Now you can find HPL under the Modern Library, Penguin, and other classic imprints.

Where Joshi runs afoul is in thinking that if Lovecraft is the best, then everyone else around Lovecraft was ****e. He's basically going home with the date that brung him, and in doing so, he's missing out on a lot of other pulp writers deserving of the classic moniker.

He's also kinda pomous and windbaggy, which doesn't help his case none.

[Ghost Writer in Disguise]

I once owned a copy of Joshi's Lovecraft hagiography. It need only be said that he was as worshipful of his subject as de Camp was disdainful. At least dear old de C., when discussing the stories, trails off in ellipses after summarizing the opening where Joshi burns the whole thing right down to the ending, spoiling it for those who haven't read them all yet. Doubtless he thinks we all should have before picking up his book.

Joshi suffers from a need to show his hero as a Profound Thinker, an effort I suspect HPL himself would find laughable. Indeed, Joshi has discerned a philosophical theme running through the Lovecraft Canon and has given it the name "Cosmicism" ( don't bother looking it up on Wiki; it ain't there ). It's little but atheistic determinism in new packaging, "old wine in new bottles," as somebody once said long ago. A theme I find running throughout Joshi's body of work is the persistent promoting of an atheist worldview ? not something I have a problem with but I have to wonder how it affects his critical work. Might there be a little more to his championing of Lovecraft and Bierce than just burnishing their literary reputations? Hastur knows Bierce's didn't need it anyway.

What is of interest to us here is what he says about REH, of course, and it is most unkind. Plagiarizing Edmund Wilson on Lovecraft, Joshi calls him "a little more interesting than his stories," and goes on to call his writing "subliterary hackwork." He notes the existence of Howard criticism ( such as this thread is about ) but says of those pursuing it that " they would make themselves seem slightly less ridiculous" if they would stop insisting that his work has any literary merit. ( Okay, I don't remember the exact words; like I said, I finally got rid of the book. )

I will give Joshi credit for one thing: I thoroughly enjoyed his disembowelling of Colin Wilson, a Newage slug desperately in need of it, but apart from one being a mystic muddlehead and the other a strident materialist, I'm not sure they're really all that different...

[Mark Finn]

I once owned a copy of Joshi's Lovecraft hagiography. It need only be said that he was as worshipful of his subject as de Camp was disdainful. At least dear old de C., when discussing the stories, trails off in ellipses after summarizing the opening where Joshi burns the whole thing right down to the ending, spoiling it for those who haven't read them all yet. Doubtless he thinks we all should have before picking up his book.

Joshi suffers from a need to show his hero as a Profound Thinker, an effort I suspect HPL himself would find laughable. Indeed, Joshi has discerned a philosophical theme running through the Lovecraft Canon and has given it the name "Cosmicism" ( don't bother looking it up on Wiki; it ain't there ). It's little but atheistic determinism in new packaging, "old wine in new bottles," as somebody once said long ago. A theme I find running throughout Joshi's body of work is the persistent promoting of an atheist worldview ? not something I have a problem with but I have to wonder how it affects his critical work. Might there be a little more to his championing of Lovecraft and Bierce than just burnishing their literary reputations? Hastur knows Bierce's didn't need it anyway.

What is of interest to us here is what he says about REH, of course, and it is most unkind. Plagiarizing Edmund Wilson on Lovecraft, Joshi calls him "a little more interesting than his stories," and goes on to call his writing "subliterary hackwork." He notes the existence of Howard criticism ( such as this thread is about ) but says of those pursuing it that " they would make themselves seem slightly less ridiculous" if they would stop insisting that his work has any literary merit. ( Okay, I don't remember the exact words; like I said, I finally got rid of the book. )

I will give Joshi credit for one thing: I thoroughly enjoyed his disembowelling of Colin Wilson, a Newage slug desperately in need of it, but apart from one being a mystic muddlehead and the other a strident materialist, I'm not sure they're really all that different...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'll be very interested to see what, if anything Joshi has to say about my book. I took a few shots at Lovecraft in the same vein that he took potshots at REH.

[Ghost Writer in Disguise]

I'll be very interested to see what, if anything Joshi has to say about my book. I took a few shots at Lovecraft in the same vein that he took potshots at REH.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good. I like HPL well enough but God he ain't.

[deuce]

I am surprised that that smelly little chutney-felcher Joshi would deign to appear in a magazine devoted to REH. Would I be surprised at what he wrote?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, not really. It's pretty much the same old thing. He didn't pan the book, per se, he just felt like it didn't do it's intended job, i.e. prove the literary worth of REH.

It's in this capacity that I feel really sorry for him. He has beat the HPL drum, many times by himself, for better than twenty years, as THE best, most under-appreciated and overlooked Pulp Writer of all time. And in doing so, Joshi has won the battle of perception. Now you can find HPL under the Modern Library, Penguin, and other classic imprints.

Where Joshi runs afoul is in thinking that if Lovecraft is the best, then everyone else around Lovecraft was ****e. He's basically going home with the date that brung him, and in doing so, he's missing out on a lot of other pulp writers deserving of the classic moniker.

He's also kinda pomous and windbaggy, which doesn't help his case none.

Joshi is just carryin' on from where Derleth, Bloch and Long left off (got quotes to back it up). Some REAL jealousy/sibling rivalry there ("sibling" in THEIR eyes). Funny thing is, HPL borrowed more of REH's stuff more often than all three of those hangers-on combined. It's too bad, since it seems obvious, IMO, that REH and HPL (and CAS) would never have wanted it that way. Whatever you might think of Lovecraft, I guarantee you that he wouldn't approve of Derleth and Joshi's disdain for Howard. Not in a million strange eons.

[Black Lotus]

Hey I saw that this was an available book in the public library. Was thinking of buying. Has anyone read it?..Any good?