30 replies to this topic

[Ironhand]

I was reading some old Sumerian myths, and my impression was that in the oldest myths, the gods are really lame. Like the sun god, or the god who created the oceans, gets upset because some other god has a prettier house, gets jealous, and spends centuries plotting how to give the other god a hotfoot, or steal his sheep, or something. If those old primitive gods were such wusses, how could you expect them to create horrific monsters? They would be doing good if they could create a rabid dog. One of those puny old gods would have busted a gut trying to create a water buffalo.

Remember how The Hulk manhandled Loki?

Edited by Ironhand, 28 June 2012 - 05:22 AM.

[Kortoso]

St. George killed a dragon. Beowulf defeated Grendel. David slew Goliath. Conan, the underdog, wins in the same literary tradition that allows for the others mentioned to win. It's the way of the hero, if you want to get monomythic.

...

My take on this absolutely. I think that in the final analysis, Howard was interested in writing myths in the vein of the olden tales, not superhero comic books.

[RJMooreII]

Beowulf is not, by any means, 'an underdog'. He was a superhero, flat out. He had the strength of hundreds of men. Beowulf is more like Superman than Conan.

[Mark Finn]

Please try not to conflate my statements.

[thatericn]

From another thread:

Genetic engineering and cybernetics would make a machine that could smash Conan without slowing down. This is what always makes me call bullshit on 'the outer demons have to assume an Earthly form' in the Conan stories. So what? They could make themselves nanobots or invincible carbon-vanadium-iridium tanks. There's nothing other than plot reasoning to make them so weak - certainly Set could figure out how to build a hydrogen bomb after a few billion years. Hell, a college physics student and a couple of engineers could do it, now that the principle's understood.

This has always been the most glaring plot-induced-nonsense in a Howard story. Generally speaking I go along with much of it as semi-realistic, if a bit fantastic. But anything that can travel through dimensions and form complex, combined biological machines can VERY EASILY build a tank. Or a nuke. Or a supercarbon, hydrogen powered monster that could literally kill everyone on Earth by itself (given enough time). I guess you can rationalize it with some sort of superdimensional pact, but in that case why are modern humans allowed to be so much more powerful than them?

Lovecraft doesn't often have this problem. His truely outer-monsters (as opposed to Earthy-Alien stuff) really could just rip through human beings like carbon paper. So why doesn't Conan have to fight a Colour Out of Space? The only answer I can think of is "because he'd die and Howard didn't want to write that story".

And therefore, why I am interested in Bob Howard's work, characters and stories and am far less interested (actually, frankly, nearly completely disinterested) in Lovecraft.

Ask yourself - why two authors as divergent in world view as REH and J.R.R. Tolkien are cornerstone figures in the genre of modern fantasy?

I'll say that it is because of how they express humanity's struggle within and/or against the world. They write about people. Any "super heroic" traits or feats are the byproduct of the story.

Conan is the mightiest because Howard uses him as a counter against what he saw as the weakened, mediocre and eventually decadent decline of civilizations. Conan is the virile, but fading-into-history, true-to-himself reflection in the mirror for the last several generations of modern society to contemplate. JRRT's characters are always less powerful and more mundane as the ages go by - because he is expressing and communicating his feeling that mankind is spiritually declining, and his heroes take stands against a world that becomes less "magical," less "natural," and less connected to the Divine as modernity and its trappings expand.

These stories are about the hero - the monster is the antagonist, the foil. These stories are also honest - they tell you what they mean. These stories are also, importantly, immensely entertaining - REH was a born storyteller and JRRT with his love for language and folklore had a passion for the tales of the ages...

I'll leave the "my dad can beat your dad up" comparisons to the clueless fanboys. I'll "just" keep on enjoying the stories that amazing writers like Robert Howard gave to us. Or, as a certain wise character states, "He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom"

Edited by thatericn, 01 July 2012 - 10:44 AM.

[duaneshadow]

I like this cat. He upsets applecarts and asks awkward questions. good lad

I did a paper for my degree comparing Howard to Lovecraft and made the observation that the main difference is that Howard's lads almost always win whereas Lovecraft's always get eaten. I think it boiled down to a simple difference of view on life. Lovecraft was a pessimist, Howard felt that a man can take the world and shake it till it's spine comes loose. One of Lovecraft's protagonists would have been bubbling in The Scarlet Citadel when Conan threatens to varnish the floor with royal brains, or would have thrown old books at ascalante and his cronies while Conan asks 'who dies first' through mashed lips then brays the creature from the pit with his axe, even though it bounces off. They also didn't give a snot about life or death. they just were. Other than Kull who is a bit introspective at times they didn't spend a great deal of time navel gazing or worrying about stuff. They just got on with it.

Conan would have used the necronomicon to wipe his arse with or start a fire to cook his tea.

[deuce]

I like this cat. He upsets applecarts and asks awkward questions. good lad

I did a paper for my degree comparing Howard to Lovecraft and made the observation that the main difference is that Howard's lads almost always win whereas Lovecraft's always get eaten.

I agree that RJM has brought up some cool stuff on this forum.

However, I'm puzzled as to whether you're agreeing with his "awkward question" (which has been asked many times before) or not. His question boils down to "Why didn't Conan get killed by a shoggoth?" Also, "Why didn't Lovecraftian critters 'clear the earth' in Conan's era (if not long before)?"

Here's what I sent to REH scholar, Paul Herman, several years back:

" It's always been my contention that Howard's and HPL's stories take place in the same bleak, demon-haunted world, it's just that their protagonists react differently. None of REH's heroes is/are saving the world forever. They're just sticking their finger in the dike, holding the black flood of lost eons back for the moment. The thing is, "ultimate" victory or not, Howard's heroes are goin' to go down fighting. Influence appears to flow (somewhat) from REH to HPL in Lovecraft's later tales. The Lovecraft protagonists actually become proactive (at least occasionally)! You can see REH's influence on HPL in Dreams in the Witch-House (where the hero strangles the witch) and The Mound, where Zamacona fights his way back to the surface. REH combined the two types in his classic, Pigeons From Hell. Griswell is the Lovecraftian "observer". Buckner is the Howardian a$$-kicker."

I tthink it boiled down to a simple difference of view on life. Lovecraft was a pessimist, Howard felt that a man can take the world and shake it till it's spine comes loose.

Are you serious? Are you talking about Francis Wayland Thurston and Conan, or Lovecraft and REH? HPL lived to the age of 47 and died of a medical condition. Howard killed himself at the age of 30, with reasonable prospects of doing better in the future. If you're going that route, what about Randolph Carter versus Justin Geoffrey? Don't confuse the artist with the art.

Reading Howard's letters and Novalyne Price's account, I don't see how it can be argued that REH wasn't a "pessimist". There might be periods of hopeful euphoria, but that "Black Milesian blood" always kicked back in.

Howard, IMO, was a man who saw himself as "civilized", but wanted to get back to a more "barbaric/natural" state. If nothing else, he wanted to write about "barbaric" characters and let others see what HE saw. Lovecraft was a civilized man and was proud of it. He tried to enlist during WWI. HPL was no coward. He simply saw civilization as being the best thing that had happened to mankind.

As far as "taking the world until its spine shakes loose", I'd like to see an example of that in REH's Conan yarns (or any of Howard's yarns). Occasionally, Conan performs some act that "saves the world" (for the moment). Doing so never throws the world in his lap. Conan may act like he's got the world by the balls in (just about) every story (an essential trait for any alpha male) but he never pulls it off. Not quite.

Conan has "GIGANTIC melancholies". How so, if he knows, to the bottom of his soul, that the world is his plaything? Why bitch to Prospero? Why (in the submitted draft of PotS) drink oneself into a stupor to forget the futility of it all? The answer, the answer that protagonists in countless Howard yarns affirm again and again. is (IMO) "I may not win, but I won't go down easy. Whoever brings me down is gonna earn it". In The Phoenix on the Sword, Conan displays that exact attitude.

Conan, in that yarn and lots of others, had his share of luck. "Luck" is definitely a trait that Howard's protagonists possess. Through "luck", the world is saved from brutal domination/destruction numerous times in REH's tales. The same could be said of Lovecraft's stories, just that the protagonists aren't quite so bad-a$$.

One of Lovecraft's protagonists would have been bubbling in The Scarlet Citadel when Conan threatens to varnish the floor with royal brains, or would have thrown old books at ascalante and his cronies while Conan asks 'who dies first' through mashed lips then brays the creature from the pit with his axe, even though it bounces off.

WHICH one of Lovecraft's protagonists? To a certain extent, that's true (depending on how you define "protagonists"), but you're painting with a very broad brush. De Camp once claimed that Howard cut all of his protagonists from the same cloth. I guess you're in good company.

In The Call of Cthulhu, Legrasse and Johansen are quite proactive. Both times, the protagonists are (relatively) "outnumbered and alone", a phrase Mark Finn likes to use in connection with Robert E. Howard's protagonists.

In The Dunwich Horror (one of REH's favorites, BTW), the protagonists take on a cosmic horror that dwarfs anything Conan, Niord or Esau Cairn ever faced. They know they're on a suicide mission. They "man up" and send it to Hell. One can argue "self-preservation", but the same can be done for numerous REH protagonists. The fact remains that they stood and delivered. Just like Legrasse's men, definitely like the crew of the Emma. I'm a total sucker for last stands/forlorn hopes/balls-out belligerence. Legrasse, Johansen, Kings of the NIght, Red Blades of Black Cathay.

Johansen gave CTHULHU the effin' finger.

The software on the forum and the structure of your post prevents me from addressing all your points in one go. I'll compose another shortly.

[deuce]

I like this cat. He upsets applecarts and asks awkward questions. good lad

I did a paper for my degree comparing Howard to Lovecraft and made the observation that the main difference is that Howard's lads almost always win whereas Lovecraft's always get eaten.

Well, we're back to RMJ and his "questions". Like I said above, they boil down to "Why didn't Conan get killed by a shoggoth?" and "Why didn't the Old Ones 'clear the earth' in the time of Conan (if not before)?"

You are aware of Robert E. Howard's esteem for HP Lovecraft? If not, here's a link to something compiled by Rusty Burke:

http://www.rehupa.co...l.htm#Lovecraft, Howard Phillips. (1890-1937).

Howard said more than once that HPL was (in his opinion) the greatest living author. He said that to Lovecraft and he said it to Novalyne Price (who was no HPL fan and consistently spelled his name "Lovecourt"). At one point, he says that "Lovecourt" wrote the "greatest story ever" (or something to that effect). That fits in pretty well with what he told HPL and others. Two links that demonstrate the influence of The Call of Cthulhu upon REH:

http://www.thecimmer...skull-and-call/

http://www.thecimmer...as-of-infinity/

"Lovecraft's protagonists always get eaten". You realize how innacurate that is, right? About as accurate as someone saying that Howard's yarns are "always", "Grab a teat. Kill a monster."

I've already commented on The Call of Cthulhu and The Dunwich Horror in my post above. Other stories by HPL where the protagonists kick some ass include The Mound, The Horror in the Museum and Dreams in the Witch-House. The majority of HPL's narrators/protagonists don't get "eaten". If "eaten" is code for something else, lemme know.

"Howard's lads almost always win." Howard's ethos usually seemed to be: "Fight on no matter the odds," buit there are plenty of tales where REH's protagonists didn't "win". Not even close. REH's heroes (almost) always fight. They often survive. They rarely "win" (especially in the "long term").

Considering RMJ's "questions", this seems to be a good point to bring in some comments I posted when a forum member opined that "Conan could take Cthulhu". However, let's allow Ironhand point up a few pertinent facts first:

In HotD, Conan was defeated by a "waif from the outer darkness".

In TGitB, Conan ran from a son of Set, even though he had already killed it.

In PotS, Conan was very nearly defeated by the baboon-demon, except for some magical aid from a mage-lich.

Here's what I had to say:

Conan appeals to you because he "always" wins, right? You've basically said he does. I'm not seeing that, never have. Conan rarely "wins" completely. Never against foes as powerful as Cthulhu. As noted, Conan ran from a she-vampire and the corpse of a man-headed serpent.

It seems to me that once you "correlated the contents" of the respective oeuvres of REH and Lovecraft that you reached a bit of a crisis. Conan=invincible, Cthulhu=unstoppable. The two couldn't exist in the same universe then, right? ONE of the two had to "lose", and it COULD NOT be Conan.

As I've studied Howard's admiration for HPL's The Call of Cthulhu, I've come to the realization, or, at least, a suspicion (this is ALL just my opinion) that Howard tended to view Cthulhu as one of the primary exemplars of HPL's "hostile, uncaring universe". He certainly name-dropped the Big C in enough yarns (even when unnecessary).

Judging from his letters, Howard certainly bought into HPL's world-view as presented in the "Mythos" tales; at least to an extent. HPL saw the (usual) response in regards to recognition of the cosmos' utter disregard of our welfare (or even our existence) as madness. REH saw the response as "battle-madness" and a cold resolve to go down fighting. While I can't quote the exact letter, REH once wrote that he saw existence as "a caged wolf, biting against the iron bars of Fate"; "Fate" being HPL's mechanistic universe.

You see this in characters as disparate as Ridondo, Niord and Guzman of "Nekht Semerkeht".

REH was canny enough to let us glimpse the Mythos and get that frisson of uneasiness/horror, but still have Conan "win" or "survive" in the end. Like Reese's™, it's two great tastes that taste great together. He took off the gloves of kid-skin for tales like The Valley of the Worm or The Valley of the Lost.

REH's heroes aren't cool because they "WIN" (IMO). They're cool because they FIGHT ANYWAY, against impossible odds. They might die at any moment. The best part is THEY KNOW IT. That's just part of being a man, IMO.

In REH's "heroic" yarns, the hero is "outnumbered and alone" (a phrase Howard and Mark Finn have used). In many of Howard's other tales and almost all of HPL's, humanity is "outnumbered and alone" versus a bleak and hostile universe. Luck and human gumption is what keeps oblivion (or worse) at bay.

They also didn't give a snot about life or death. they just were. Other than Kull who is a bit introspective at times they didn't spend a great deal of time navel gazing or worrying about stuff. They just got on with it.

You'd have to give me a breakdown of HPL's protagonists in regard to their solipsism. Plenty of REH's protagonists "worried" or waxed philosophical (Robert E. Howard did plenty of that himself). Solomon Kane comes to mind.

Conan would have used the necronomicon to wipe his arse with or start a fire to cook his tea.

Actually, REH stated that Conan had read the Book of Skelos. You miight want to reread The Devil in Iron.

Duane, I've enjoyed a lot of your posts on this forum. Some insightful stuff. You might want to read a bit more of REH's letters and stories. Same goes for HPL. Just don't confuse the art with the artist.

Howard's thoughts on HPL: http://www.rehupa.co...l.htm#Lovecraft, Howard Phillips. (1890-1937).

[Fierro]

REH's heroes aren't cool because they "WIN" (IMO). They're cool because they FIGHT ANYWAY, against impossible odds. They might die at any moment. The best part is THEY KNOW IT. That's just part of being a man, IMO.

That's the ethic that infuses LOTR, as well, though I think Tolkien came at it in a different way. In either case, any kind of permanent victory is impossible — and beside the point. It's an ethic I find profoundly moving and highly useful.

[Ironhand]

With respect to the opinion that Conan could take Cthulhu, IMHO, Conan, if confronted by Cthulhu, would haved contrived to escape with skin and sanity intact, in contrast to almost any normal human being.

We like to think of Conan as being like a lion, but Conan could be a fox when totally outclassed.

Edited by Ironhand, 06 July 2012 - 08:33 AM.

[deuce]

With respect to the opinion that Conan could take Cthulhu, IMHO, Conan, if confronted by Cthulhu, would haved contrived to escape with skin and sanity intact, in contrast to almost any normal human being.

We like to think of Conan as being like a lion, but Conan could be a fox when totally outclassed.

That's kind of the point. Howard never tried to pit any of his characters against something of that level. The closest would be the shoggoth that killed Niord.

However, RJM's original concern seems to be that there's no "rational" reason why the monsters we see aren't more powerfu. IMO, when dealing with utterly non-human intellects, they don't necessarily have to "make sense".

Nothing HAS TO BE, not even in human tech. It took thousands of years for somebody to think of slapping stirrups on a saddle. It looks like a head-slap situation NOW, but it obviously wasn't that simple.

Bottom line, though, REH didn't want to kill off his series characters.