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Note, May 23, 2021: When I wrote this review, I stated that no one had ever published a complete collection of Howard's poetry. Actually, though I didn't know it then, one was published in 2009, so I've just updated the review to reflect this.
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relati Note, May 23, 2021: When I wrote this review, I stated that no one had ever published a complete collection of Howard's poetry. Actually, though I didn't know it then, one was published in 2009, so I've just updated the review to reflect this.
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relatively late in my reading life (though I now count him as a favorite author), and was introduced to Conan through the collection The Essential Conan. My review of that book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... , and many of the comments there are relevant here. Most of the stories assembled here, however, are earlier than the ones in the former collection; editor Patrice Louinet has brought together the first 13 Conan tales, arranged in the order that they were written (which isn't the same as the publication order; and some of these in fact were first published posthumously). The only material that appears in both volumes is the last story here, "The Devil in Iron," and Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age," which provided the pseudo-historical and geographical background for his Conan and Kull stories. These are set in a world of pagan cultures and civilizations which supposedly long preceded the historical ones in our real world, and which were allegedly destroyed in the latest of a series of apocalyptic cataclysms that altered the shape of the continents, but whose survivors were the ancestors of various races and cultures in our ancient world. REH wrote the essay fairly early in Conan's literary life, and the rough outlines of the "history" and geography it sketches were already in his mind when he typed the stories that preceded it. "In writing about him and his adventures in the various kingdoms of his Age," Howard wrote, "I have never violated the 'facts' or the spirit of the 'history' here set down, but have followed the lines of that history as closely as the writer of actual historical fiction follows the lines of actual history. I have used this 'history' as a guide in all the stories in this series that I have written."
In terms of their literary quality and style, IMO all of the stories here are remarkably consistent, and they exhibit craftsmanship of a high order. Conan is a very well realized, round and vibrant character; the supporting characterizations are not typically as deep, and some represent types, but they are effectively drawn and differentiated. Howard excels at inventive, consistently interesting story-telling, excellently paced and with skillful use of scene breaks. A lot of action is provided, (and it can be grisly-gory action). While his world-building doesn't quite equal Tolkien's (he never created actual languages for his various cultures), it comes close, with a highly textured imaginary world resting on a complex, eons-spanning back-story. Personally, I consider him one of the best English-language stylists I've ever encountered; his prose is lush, richly descriptive and artistic. A number of the Conan stories here consciously incorporate elements of his pen pal H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cosmology, with its uncritical evolutionism and its Elder Gods from outer space or other dimensions; but Howard is very much his own man, not a Lovecraft clone. Lovecraftian motifs are adopted as adjuncts to a decidedly different type of story-telling.
Reading these stories helps to greatly flesh out Conan's character development, although they're not told in the chronological order of his life. (The first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," is actually set in Conan's later life, after he has become king of Aquilonia and reigned for some years.) He's not an amoral thug; he has (as I noted from the stories in the other collection I read) his warrior code of honor, fairness, and loyalty where he thinks it's due, he won't betray a friend, and he notes in "The Vale of Lost Women" that "I never forced a woman against her consent." In both that story and the lead story, we also see that he grows morally from the experiences he undergoes. But his morality is basically the primitive morality of in-group --clan, ethnic group, war band-- against out-group; loyalty and moral considerations apply to one's own circle, but those outside it, in theory and sometimes in practice, are fair game for violence and predatory behavior. He's not an exponent of Christian moral sensibilities --not surprisingly, since he lives in a pre-Christian world. (That's why, among Howard's heroes, though I like and respect Conan, I personally prefer Solomon Kane over him, although that's not a majority position.)
In this book more so (at least to my perception) than in the other one, valid criticisms can be made on the grounds of racism and sexism. Portrayals of black characters aren't generally invidious, but Conan's remarks in "The Vale of Lost Women," where he explicitly grounds his willingness to rescue a white woman from a black man on their relative skin colors, is frankly racist, as is his "black sluts" comment. Conan's attitudes, of course, are not necessarily Howard's; in this and other respects, the author is creating a fictional character who's shaped by his milieu. (A world in which the white and black races live physically apart and only encounter each other as foreigners, and often as hostile foreigners, is apt to breed negative racial stereotypes, on both sides.) But it's still off-putting (and cost the book a star). From references elsewhere to the story "Queen of the Black Coast," I'd formed the impression that pirate queen Belit was black. Actually, although her crew is black and she operates off the coast of what is today Africa, she's herself a white Shemite. Her backstory is never explained, and to me her whiteness felt like an anomaly resorted to in order to keep Conan from having a romantic relationship with a black woman; so an opportunity to break literary ground was wasted there.
Also contrary to my previous assumptions, Belit isn't an action-heroine type; she directs physical action by her crew, but she doesn't take part in it herself, and she's more villainess than heroine: she's a self-servingly predatory pirate apparently in the game for the plunder, generally in the habit of slaughtering all the victims of her depredations with no mercy, and not particularly solicitous for the lives and safety of her own men, either. (In his pastiche Conan at the Demon's Gate, set not long after the events of this story and including several references to Belit, Roland Green endows her with an anti-slave traders agenda, but there's no indication of that here.) She's pretty much an incarnation of the pulp-era stereotype of the manipulative female villain, as is the title character of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and Thalis in "Xuthal of the Dusk." The "good" females, on the other hand, are largely passive "damsel in distress" types, also common in the pulp fiction of that day. (I agree with Louinet that the Xuthal story is a sort of inferior prototype of the last Conan story Howard wrote, "Red Nails," but Valeria's character there is a considerable advance over Natala's.) Several stories provide Conan with a romantic interest and an implied or stated sexual relationship (there's no explicit sex in the stories, however), but the female changes in each story, which creates the impression that females exist to be interchangeable transient partners for the male of the species. In fairness to Howard, the racial and gender portrayals here have to be considered as only a part of his corpus; for example, his Dark Agnes stories present a much more proto-feminist view of womanhood and its possibilities, as the shaman N'Longa, a valued friend and ally of Solomon Kane, embodies a distinctly different and more equalitarian view of blacks.
These caveats aside, I did really like and appreciate the stories here for the most part. "Xuthal of the Dusk," in particular, gives a markedly prescient picture of a community where virtually all of the populace live in a more or less constant state of stoned drug dependency, preferring soporific dreams of illusory bliss to any actual constructive activity --in other words, the exact vision that much of our political class and punditocracy want to visit on us. It's hard to pick out a single favorite selection; but if I had to, it would be "The Tower of the Elephant."
This collection also includes Howard's haunting poem "Cimmeria," written before any of the Conan stories and not mentioning Conan, but which can clearly be seen as a precursor of the literary vision behind the stories. (From what I've read of his poetry, I'd say REH had a major poetic talent; I agree with Lovecraft that a complete book-length collection of his poetry would be a worthwhile publication, so The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard is now on my to-read shelf.) The considerable appended material of first drafts or incomplete fragments of Conan stories is of interest to Howard scholars, but probably not to ordinary Howard fans (at least not to this one); and the several reproductions of Howard's sketches of maps of the Hyborian world aren't as clear or easy to refer to as the map in The Essential Conan based on them. But Louinet's Introduction and his appended "Hyborian Genesis," which explains the background of the corpus as a whole and the individual stories, are fascinating and informative. I was particularly interested, among other things, in the influence on Howard of both Plutarch and Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (where both the name Conan and the place name Cimmeria appear.) The many illustrations here by Mark Schultz (who discusses them in the Foreword) are also outstanding.
This is a thick, beautiful trade paperback volume, with production values that shout "QUALITY!" In short, this is a must-read for serious Howard fans, and indispensable for Howard scholars. ...more
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relati Note, May 23, 2021: When I wrote this review, I stated that no one had ever published a complete collection of Howard's poetry. Actually, though I didn't know it then, one was published in 2009, so I've just updated the review to reflect this.
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relatively late in my reading life (though I now count him as a favorite author), and was introduced to Conan through the collection The Essential Conan. My review of that book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... , and many of the comments there are relevant here. Most of the stories assembled here, however, are earlier than the ones in the former collection; editor Patrice Louinet has brought together the first 13 Conan tales, arranged in the order that they were written (which isn't the same as the publication order; and some of these in fact were first published posthumously). The only material that appears in both volumes is the last story here, "The Devil in Iron," and Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age," which provided the pseudo-historical and geographical background for his Conan and Kull stories. These are set in a world of pagan cultures and civilizations which supposedly long preceded the historical ones in our real world, and which were allegedly destroyed in the latest of a series of apocalyptic cataclysms that altered the shape of the continents, but whose survivors were the ancestors of various races and cultures in our ancient world. REH wrote the essay fairly early in Conan's literary life, and the rough outlines of the "history" and geography it sketches were already in his mind when he typed the stories that preceded it. "In writing about him and his adventures in the various kingdoms of his Age," Howard wrote, "I have never violated the 'facts' or the spirit of the 'history' here set down, but have followed the lines of that history as closely as the writer of actual historical fiction follows the lines of actual history. I have used this 'history' as a guide in all the stories in this series that I have written."
In terms of their literary quality and style, IMO all of the stories here are remarkably consistent, and they exhibit craftsmanship of a high order. Conan is a very well realized, round and vibrant character; the supporting characterizations are not typically as deep, and some represent types, but they are effectively drawn and differentiated. Howard excels at inventive, consistently interesting story-telling, excellently paced and with skillful use of scene breaks. A lot of action is provided, (and it can be grisly-gory action). While his world-building doesn't quite equal Tolkien's (he never created actual languages for his various cultures), it comes close, with a highly textured imaginary world resting on a complex, eons-spanning back-story. Personally, I consider him one of the best English-language stylists I've ever encountered; his prose is lush, richly descriptive and artistic. A number of the Conan stories here consciously incorporate elements of his pen pal H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cosmology, with its uncritical evolutionism and its Elder Gods from outer space or other dimensions; but Howard is very much his own man, not a Lovecraft clone. Lovecraftian motifs are adopted as adjuncts to a decidedly different type of story-telling.
Reading these stories helps to greatly flesh out Conan's character development, although they're not told in the chronological order of his life. (The first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," is actually set in Conan's later life, after he has become king of Aquilonia and reigned for some years.) He's not an amoral thug; he has (as I noted from the stories in the other collection I read) his warrior code of honor, fairness, and loyalty where he thinks it's due, he won't betray a friend, and he notes in "The Vale of Lost Women" that "I never forced a woman against her consent." In both that story and the lead story, we also see that he grows morally from the experiences he undergoes. But his morality is basically the primitive morality of in-group --clan, ethnic group, war band-- against out-group; loyalty and moral considerations apply to one's own circle, but those outside it, in theory and sometimes in practice, are fair game for violence and predatory behavior. He's not an exponent of Christian moral sensibilities --not surprisingly, since he lives in a pre-Christian world. (That's why, among Howard's heroes, though I like and respect Conan, I personally prefer Solomon Kane over him, although that's not a majority position.)
In this book more so (at least to my perception) than in the other one, valid criticisms can be made on the grounds of racism and sexism. Portrayals of black characters aren't generally invidious, but Conan's remarks in "The Vale of Lost Women," where he explicitly grounds his willingness to rescue a white woman from a black man on their relative skin colors, is frankly racist, as is his "black sluts" comment. Conan's attitudes, of course, are not necessarily Howard's; in this and other respects, the author is creating a fictional character who's shaped by his milieu. (A world in which the white and black races live physically apart and only encounter each other as foreigners, and often as hostile foreigners, is apt to breed negative racial stereotypes, on both sides.) But it's still off-putting (and cost the book a star). From references elsewhere to the story "Queen of the Black Coast," I'd formed the impression that pirate queen Belit was black. Actually, although her crew is black and she operates off the coast of what is today Africa, she's herself a white Shemite. Her backstory is never explained, and to me her whiteness felt like an anomaly resorted to in order to keep Conan from having a romantic relationship with a black woman; so an opportunity to break literary ground was wasted there.
Also contrary to my previous assumptions, Belit isn't an action-heroine type; she directs physical action by her crew, but she doesn't take part in it herself, and she's more villainess than heroine: she's a self-servingly predatory pirate apparently in the game for the plunder, generally in the habit of slaughtering all the victims of her depredations with no mercy, and not particularly solicitous for the lives and safety of her own men, either. (In his pastiche Conan at the Demon's Gate, set not long after the events of this story and including several references to Belit, Roland Green endows her with an anti-slave traders agenda, but there's no indication of that here.) She's pretty much an incarnation of the pulp-era stereotype of the manipulative female villain, as is the title character of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and Thalis in "Xuthal of the Dusk." The "good" females, on the other hand, are largely passive "damsel in distress" types, also common in the pulp fiction of that day. (I agree with Louinet that the Xuthal story is a sort of inferior prototype of the last Conan story Howard wrote, "Red Nails," but Valeria's character there is a considerable advance over Natala's.) Several stories provide Conan with a romantic interest and an implied or stated sexual relationship (there's no explicit sex in the stories, however), but the female changes in each story, which creates the impression that females exist to be interchangeable transient partners for the male of the species. In fairness to Howard, the racial and gender portrayals here have to be considered as only a part of his corpus; for example, his Dark Agnes stories present a much more proto-feminist view of womanhood and its possibilities, as the shaman N'Longa, a valued friend and ally of Solomon Kane, embodies a distinctly different and more equalitarian view of blacks.
These caveats aside, I did really like and appreciate the stories here for the most part. "Xuthal of the Dusk," in particular, gives a markedly prescient picture of a community where virtually all of the populace live in a more or less constant state of stoned drug dependency, preferring soporific dreams of illusory bliss to any actual constructive activity --in other words, the exact vision that much of our political class and punditocracy want to visit on us. It's hard to pick out a single favorite selection; but if I had to, it would be "The Tower of the Elephant."
This collection also includes Howard's haunting poem "Cimmeria," written before any of the Conan stories and not mentioning Conan, but which can clearly be seen as a precursor of the literary vision behind the stories. (From what I've read of his poetry, I'd say REH had a major poetic talent; I agree with Lovecraft that a complete book-length collection of his poetry would be a worthwhile publication, so The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard is now on my to-read shelf.) The considerable appended material of first drafts or incomplete fragments of Conan stories is of interest to Howard scholars, but probably not to ordinary Howard fans (at least not to this one); and the several reproductions of Howard's sketches of maps of the Hyborian world aren't as clear or easy to refer to as the map in The Essential Conan based on them. But Louinet's Introduction and his appended "Hyborian Genesis," which explains the background of the corpus as a whole and the individual stories, are fascinating and informative. I was particularly interested, among other things, in the influence on Howard of both Plutarch and Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (where both the name Conan and the place name Cimmeria appear.) The many illustrations here by Mark Schultz (who discusses them in the Foreword) are also outstanding.
This is a thick, beautiful trade paperback volume, with production values that shout "QUALITY!" In short, this is a must-read for serious Howard fans, and indispensable for Howard scholars. ...more
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