3 replies to this topic

[keny from prague]

Didnt know which forum to place this question in and I'm guessing it has been asked before (but i couldn't find a thread).

When I started reading REH I figured Conan would be the sum of all of the characteristics of typical Howard characters. But the more I read, I see that Conan is not a "typical" example of a REH character. I mean he doesn't fit the more common traits of most characters. Conan is tough but so are many of the characters. Most REH characters seem to be a bit more stoic and introspective and less obsessed with women than Conan.

My question is: for you, who is the "most Howardian" character, the one who is the amalgamation of the most common character traits. If that is possible to say.

Hope this question is clear.

Edited by Axerules, 20 August 2012 - 05:50 AM.
Title fixed

[Hawkbrother]

Assume you must mean "Howardian." How is it people lose the ability to spell correctly on the Internet? Not that I haven't done it myself.
Good question. Could be that the different Howard characters all represent different facets of Howard himself.

[BarB]

Hi Keny from Prague,
Greetings from California....

I think Hawkbrother is right about the different facets of REH. I think this quote from Rusty Burke's "A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard" explains it really well:

"After Howard’s death, H.P. Lovecraft said that the secret to the vividness of Howard’s stories was “that he himself is in every one of them.” Less perceptive critics have suggested that Howard’s heroes were all essentially cut from the same cloth, but if this were true, Howard should have had no problem continuing to write stories about Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn and the like. Howard scholar Patrice Louinet has proposed what seems the best explanation for this: that the characters represent new stages of the writer’s own emotional growth. As a person matures, his basic nature or personality does not change dramatically (thus the similarities among the characters), but many of his ideas and his emotional responses to the world do change (and thus the contemplative and sometimes tentative Kull comes to be replaced by the more carefree and decisive Conan, to use one example). Howard sometimes lost touch with his characters, then, because he had psychologically outgrown them, and could therefore no longer write convincingly from their point of view."

Here is the link to read the whole "Short Bio." http://www.rehupa.com/?page_id=162

Of course in 1934, REH, the teller of tall tales, brought forth Breckenridge Elkins. The Short Bio says this about Breck:

"It’s a Steve Costigan yarn transplanted to a Western frontier town with dialogue that crackles with wit and an uncanny ear for local dialects. The story’s ["Mountain Man"] delightful, earthy sense of humor shows another side of Howard, and one with which most readers, who are inclined to think of him as dark and brooding, are sadly unfamiliar."

Of course along with Breck Elkins came Cap'n Kidd, who is one of my favorite REH characters. The only horse worthy of such a "bigger than life" character. The description of Breck's first ride on Cap'n Kidd still keeps me laughing out loud.

Fun question, Keny...
BB

Edited by BarB, 19 August 2012 - 09:03 PM.

[constantine]

And how about Giles Hobson in ''Gates of Empire''? The story is both humorous and somewhat epic and the protagonist stands out as a quite unique REH character. But if Howard deplored such types (and I really don't think he did), that was not shown in the tale. The jolly, fat fellow is not mocked through Howard's descriptions and Hobson is a match for any other character where drunkenness is concerned.