[Howardiana] Check out what I got!

[thegreyelf]

I was going to put this under "Fiction"...but it's not fiction. If Marv thinks it's best under there, feel free to move it.

www.rehfoundation.org/?page_id=29

All three volumes.

Plus, it came with a facsimile of one of Howard's actual letters to H.P. Lovecraft. I am in seventh heaven. I've wanted a collection of Howard's letters since I was about 12 (yes, I was a weird kid). Now I have them. ALL of them.

Early reactions:

I'm not very far into this, yet--only a few letters into volume one. So far they've all been written to Tevis Clyde Smith, who was, as most of you probably know, a friend of Howard's from high school, and a fellow writer (though Smith never got as successful as Howard).

I should qualify this with two statements: First, I believe in judging works of literature and attitudes in the frame of the time and place in which they were written, and not by modern sensibilities. People have lambasted Howard for his racist views, but I don't think it's a fair assessment overall. I'm not saying he wasn't racist--he was. So were the VAST majority of people in Texas (and indeed, in the world) in the 1920s. Certainly there are a lot of racist people out there today, as well, but racism is not socially accepted in today's society as it was back then. People are products of their environments. Howard was no different. He didn't have the clear choice to not be racist as we do today. He was educated to be racist. It was everywhere around him. It was part and parcel of the unfortunate society in which he lived. Rather than condemning those attitudes because they clash with modern sensibilities, we need to look past them and see if there are other elements of value in what he wrote. Most Howard scholars believe there is.

Second, Howard was seventeen at the time these letters were written. He was a kid, not long out of school and trying to find his way in the world. Like most 17-year-olds, he was also a know-it-all and talked out of his ass. A lot. But then, I expect he did that throughout his life. He was a teller of tales, not a university professor.

Still, those two points aside, the racism inherent in these letters is shocking to modern eyes. At one point Howard asks Smith to imagine "all the white races of the world arrayed against all the dark," and says that a race war would be one he would enter without reservation. He goes on to say that he believes the white races would be completely wiped out by the "Oriental" races, that he believes the peoples of Asia are superior to the whites, but still, the stark drawing of lines is shocking to read. Again, I don't think it's fair to judge him personally based on these attitudes, but it's rough to see those words on a page.

In other areas, Howard's creativity and humor stands out very clearly. He included poetry in many of his letters, much of which so far as I know was never actually published, and a lot of which was really good. He includes a comic illustrating a stone-age courtship that had me laughing aloud, and a parody of Shakespeare that was also quite amusing.

His letters are very stream-of-consciousness, with him jumping from subject to subject at random, rambling a lot (but still being engaging) except when he gets on a rant about some aspect of history or culture about which he thinks he's an expert.

At the point where I am in the books, he has not yet gained any kind of success or notoriety so he hasn't anything substantial to say about writing.

So far the letters are quite fascinating to read.

[calithena]

Artists, like everyone else, can be bigots, abusers, supporters of totalitarian regimes, etc.

What is perhaps more controversial, but to me totally obvious, is that art, even great art, can incorporate and even advocate for bigotry, abuse, and the values of totalitarian regimes.

I'm sorry about that - it bugs me sometimes too - but that's how it is.

[thegreyelf]

Indeed. As I said, I'm not for judging Howard based on his attitudes. I would be much more likely to judge a MODERN writer for theirs. We live in a more enlightened age now (as hard as that may be to swallow, barbaric as our attitudes can be at times), where we now KNOW that bigotry is wrong and it is not socially acceptable. And yet, sadly, there are still some to cling to those sick ideals.

Howard, however, didn't "cling" to sick or socially unacceptable ideas. He was a product of his time and of his community. Nothing more, nothing less. As much as it might leave a bad taste in our mouth, his attitudes didn't make him a bad person any more than everyone else was a bad person at the time.

[geoffrey]

Nov 16, 2009 7:03:02 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

I'm not saying he wasn't racist--he was. So were the VAST majority of people in Texas (and indeed, in the world) in the 1920s.

Agreed.

I think it would be interesting to visit our descendants in the year 2109, and listen to their opinion of us. I suspect that they would find us shockingly uncivilized and barbaric.

[thegreyelf]

Hell, I live in the now and *I* find us shockingly uncivilized and barbaric!

[irdaranger]

Nov 16, 2009 7:03:02 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

He goes on to say that he believes the white races would be completely wiped out by the "Oriental" races

Well sure, if we were dumb enough to get in a land war in Asia. That's the #1 Classic Blunder.

[Finarvyn]

I may move this to "fiction" after all. Since it's relevant to an author of fiction rather than RPGs, it probably should go there.

Not anything new to add, but:

1. I do excuse REH somewhat for being a product of his times. I've always been bothered by REH's racist views of the world, but I have relatives in the Missouri and Oklahoma area and frankly that's the way a lot of people were back in those days. I'd like to hope that people now are more tolerant than they were a century ago.

2. I also recognize that REH wrote with a "flavor" that many folks won't like but that his characters probably reflected many of the attitudes that they would have had during the eras had they lived. His flavor also includes a lot of descriptive violence, sorcery, and other elements that some feel offensive. I guess if it offends you, don't read it.

3. All in all, I think that the greatness of REH's pen is better than the badness of his views. I might have a different view if I was of different ethnicity, but I like to hope that I would enjoy the stories no matter what my own background might be. I have many friends (and as a teacher many students) of varying ethnicities and cultural backgrounds and like to think that I'm open-minded enough to realize that they're just stories and not designed to be social commentary.

Whew.

Having said all that, I'm interested in further reviews. I'm so tempted to plunk down the cash for these books, but want to be sure that there is enough content I'll appreciate...

[bat]

Nov 16, 2009 13:02:56 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Hell, I live in the now and *I* find us shockingly uncivilized and barbaric!

Barbarism isn't the problem, civilization is. Barbarians respected each other and were honest, for the most part. It is those civilized and refined people that you need to watch out for. Look at political correctness. What does it solve? Nothing. It actually has a worse affect on people, making them pigeonhole and label others and forcing respect on those different from us. Respect is earned, regardless of who you are. I take everyone at face value, I don't stereotype those different from me, but I also can admit that stereotypes are real, that there are those that personify stereotypes, that is just humanity. I was raised colorblind to skin pigmentation, but I don't trust and respect everyone I encounter just because. I also hate terms like African-American, a politically correct term that is actually pointless. Charlize Theron was born in Africa, and she is quite pale. And many Americans of African descent only hold citizenship in America, now if you had two passports, I might buy into the African-American, Latino-American, Irish-American, etcetera, but without dual-citizenship it just sounds a bit silly and is not really accurate. And after September 11th, 2001, I think that everyone that is a US citizen should drop the titles and just be Americans.



edit: Nice score, though. I must say that I do cringe at some of Howard's writing. The repeated use of the 'n' word in stories like Pigeons From Hell really bothered me.

[Finarvyn]

Nov 28, 2009 1:21:53 GMT -6 bat said:

I must say that I do cringe at some of Howard's writing. The repeated use of the 'n' word in stories like Pigeons From Hell really bothered me.

This is where I get torn on the issue of sanatizing an author's work. In many ways I would enjoy reading REH's stories a lot more if some if the bigotry was cleaned out, but then maybe I would dislike them because I would know that they had been changed. (That's much of my complaint with the DeCamp versions from the 1960's and 1970's, where you can't tell what is actual Howard and what is someone else aping his work. And edits were done apparently at random to passages that needed no edits.)

In another thread I mentioned the Counter-Earth (Gor) books by John Norman. I think the same things can be said for them, and there are some fun adventure stories hidden in the midst of some very offensive material. I would enjoy reading just the stories without the baggage.

I have a similar view of movies, where characters often drop the F-bomb continually and the "edited for TV" versions of the movie are often more enjoyable to me than the original.

I'm not sure how far one goes with this process. As far as Howard's works go, they have been edited so long and I have wished for "actual" editions for such a long time that I sholdn't then complain about what is contained in an "actual" edition. I guess as an adult I can handle the original versions, warts and all, and I would rather see pure REH writing than something that has been changed to be more PC.

Just my two cents.

[thegreyelf]

See, Howard's use of what are now racial slurs doesn't bother me, because when he wrote the stories, these things weren't racial slurs--they were just what people called each other. The "n-word" was what people used instead of "African American," and not maliciously. It didn't carry the negative connotation with it that it carries today.

What I find most interesting about Howard is that as much flak as he takes for being racist, he often believes in the end that the white race is the inferior one. This becomes quite clear in his letters wherein he talks about the idea of a race war and says that while the whites would do a lot of damage going down, they'd get wiped out by the other races. What you said, bat, about barbarism vs. civilization is the heart and soul of Howard's work (as I'm sure you know). "As a rule, civilized men are less cordial than barbarians because they can be without having their skulls split."

[bat]

And I agree with both of you. My grandmother is still alive, was born in 1917 and has dropped the 'n' word a few times, but she is far from racist and has invited all of my friends, who hail from everywhere, including dark skinned people from Africa, into her home for meals and has treated everyone absolutely equally. That word isn't a slur to her, although she realizes it is now and tries to catch it, something that you grew up saying and thinking is okay is hard to shake when society changes.

And yes, I firmly believe in that quote from Howard. I believe myself that a lot of our problems are caused by people hiding behind the rules of society to impose their wills, knowing that they are protected from a good ass-kicking by laws and rules that are unnecessary when common sense should prevail.

[geoffrey]

People can be funny about names.

In the Plaza at Santa Fe, NM is a large, stone monument made in the 1800s celebrating the slaughter of a number of Native Americans (which tribe I can't remember). The monument is still prominently displayed in the Plaza. On the monument's inscription one of the words has been chiseled off. It mentions "XXXXX Indians", with the "XXXXX" being the chiseled-off part.

From the context, the chiseled-off word was undoubtedly "savage" (or something similar).

My wife and I howled with laughter at the incongruity: So it's OK to have a monument celebrating the slaughter of Indians, but it's not OK to call them names? ;D

Maybe I'm weird, but I'd much rather be called a name than be slaughtered.

[thegreyelf]

I've read a bit more. It's interesting to watch Howard mature as you read on. Keeping in mind that the letters begin when he's 17 years old, it's actually quite humorous to see some of the broad misconceptions the know-it-all kid had. At one point he sent a letter to Adventure Stories magazine asking for information on Mongolia: the letter is a numbered list of questions, one of which being along the lines of, "am I correct in believing that the sword is still the weapon of choice amongst their armored cavalry?"

The kid was entirely unaware that by 1923, there were no hordes of mongols riding horses across the steppes and terrorizing innocent villagers.

Later, he writes a similar letter to the same magazine about a different country (I forget which one, but it's full of equally outdated misconceptions), but this time respectfully requests that his name and address be withheld upon publication. That bit had me laughing aloud at the realization of how badly his first letter must've gotten him ridiculed. Of course, I then found myself feeling a bit guilty over laughing at his capricious youth; weren't we all teen-aged know-it-alls at one point? Heck, some of us just turned into adult know-it-alls when we got older! And anyone who knows about Howard knows he never really got over being a know-it-all; however, as he got older at least he upped his own education, and he was rather self-depreciating amongst his friends.

I'm still enjoying the letters immensely--I find myself fascinated with the personality of this writer whose work I've admired for a very long time, and as I go on I find it increasingly hard to swallow the fact that this guy killed himself. He's so full of life and vigor, and so lighthearted and eager to joke and laugh, it's not going to be easy to see the downward spiral that (I am guessing) accompanies his mother's illness years later.

[Thorulfr]

Dec 1, 2009 13:51:58 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

<snip> At one point he sent a letter to Adventure Stories magazine asking for information on Mongolia: the letter is a numbered list of questions, one of which being along the lines of, "am I correct in believing that the sword is still the weapon of choice amongst their armored cavalry?"

The kid was entirely unaware that by 1923, there were no hordes of mongols riding horses across the steppes and terrorizing innocent villagers.

Perhaps you forget that the sword and the lance were STILL used by horse-mounted cavalry, and would be for another 16 years (the valiant but futile defense by the Polish lancers against the Nazi tanks in 1939 put the final nail in that coffin.) I wish I could find a copy, but there is a famous photograph from WWI of a cavalry soldier, in stahlhelm and gasmask, armed with a lance and mounted on a horse, who was also wearing a gasmask. In fact, it was only 10 years before that a certain lieutenant (who was called the "Master of the Sword at the Mounted Service School" at Fort Riley, Kansas) in the U.S. Cavalry redesigned the issue saber. You might have heard of him: a Lt. George S. Patton - I understand that he achieved some small notoriety a few years later.

[thegreyelf]

No, I'm aware of all of that--I've always loved the story about the mounted cavalry dying in WWII when the Polish tried to use it against the Blitzkrieg...and got crushed.

(Actually that's something of a myth, but an amusing one. The Poles didn't actually charge tanks with their cavalry--they actually used it against German infantry, very effectively, until the Germans sent in armored cars. But yeah, the point is, WWII was the last time mounted cavalry was successfully used in a war--the Soviets actually successfully used it against Germany, in fact).

But the question Howard asked was clearly couched in his youthful enthusiastic misunderstanding that cultures advance out of the middle ages. He thought that Mongolia was still overrun by hordes of barbarians on horseback. In fact, his next few letters to Adventure Stories request that his name and address be withheld--presumably because he got made fun of for his initial question.

[Thorulfr]

Mar 25, 2010 7:00:33 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

But the question Howard asked was clearly couched in his youthful enthusiastic misunderstanding that cultures advance out of the middle ages. He thought that Mongolia was still overrun by hordes of barbarians on horseback. In fact, his next few letters to Adventure Stories request that his name and address be withheld--presumably because he got made fun of for his initial question.

Now that is interesting (since I don't have the context of the letters - I still have the five volumes of HPL letters to dig through in my "copious spare time" as Tom Lehrer so aptly put it.)
I still think that his youthful misunderstanding is not QUITE so misplaced - or at least understandable. The world had changed far more dramatically than we can really appreciate: the British Colonial Wars in Africa and Central Asia were still in living memory - more recent than WWII is to our own time.

Changing subject a bit - over on the yog-sothoth.com board, someone described the difference between HPL's and REH's approach to horror fiction with an anecdote: the two of them were apparently both involved with a 'round-robin fiction' project with some other writers. When it was Lovecraft's turn, he tried to end the story with the protagonist discovering that his mind had been imprisoned in the body of a monstrous worm-like creature, and went insane.
Howard's turn was next, and rather than starting a new story, he had the protagonist recover his wits, realize that in his new body was tremendously powerful, break out of the prison, conquer the beings that had imprisoned him, and ended the story with the erstwhile prisoner now being worshiped as a god.

Do you know what that story might have been, or where it may have been published?

[thegreyelf]

I don't--I've never heard that anecdote, but it sounds believable. Lovecraft had a fondness for nihilistic stories where characters can't handle "THE TRUTH" and quietly go mad as a result, where Howard's characters face the darkness, go stark, raving mad, then grab a sword over the fireplace and go down swinging.

So that sort of switch makes perfect sense.

[Matthew]

Cimmerian and I have been working on a project to adapt Howard's Hyborean armies to Field of Glory over on Dragonsfoot. As we are primarily using the original stories, it is interesting to see conflicting details and archaic terminology mixed together with reflections of the Hundred Years War. Howard's own knowledge of history and how it informed his imagination is certainly of significant interest.

[thegreyelf]

You could do much worse than picking up the Collected Letters, then. He spends a GREAT deal of time talking about history and his theories about race and warfare. Naturally, as he got older he became far more educated than in his early letters.

[geoffrey]

Mar 25, 2010 9:51:54 GMT -6 Thorulfr said:

Changing subject a bit - over on the yog-sothoth.com board, someone described the difference between HPL's and REH's approach to horror fiction with an anecdote: the two of them were apparently both involved with a 'round-robin fiction' project with some other writers. When it was Lovecraft's turn, he tried to end the story with the protagonist discovering that his mind had been imprisoned in the body of a monstrous worm-like creature, and went insane.
Howard's turn was next, and rather than starting a new story, he had the protagonist recover his wits, realize that in his new body was tremendously powerful, break out of the prison, conquer the beings that had imprisoned him, and ended the story with the erstwhile prisoner now being worshiped as a god.

Do you know what that story might have been, or where it may have been published?

That's pretty accurate. The story is entitled "The Challenge from Beyond". This 13-page story is in five parts as follows:

Part I by C. L. Moore (2 pages)
Part II by A. Merritt (2 pages)
Part III by H. P. Lovecraft (5 pages)
Part IV by R. E. Howard (2 pages)
Part V by Frank Belknap Long (2 pages)

The transition between Lovecraft's and Howard's parts of the story made my laugh out loud, their attitudes being so typical of each of them.

The story is collected in Nameless Cults: The Cthulhu Mythos Fiction of Robert E. Howard, published by Chaosium in 2001. The volume is 353 pages long and contains the following Howard stories:

The Black Stone
Worms of the Earth
The Little People
People of the Dark
The Children of the Night
The Thing on the Roof
The Abbey (finished by C. J. Henderson)
The Fire of Asshurbanipal
The Door to the World (finished by Joseph S. Pulver)
The Hoofed Thing
Dig Me No Grave
The House in the Oaks (finished by August Derleth)
The Black Bear Bites
The Shadow Kingdom
The Gods of Bal-Sagoth
Skull-Face
Black Eons (finished by Robert M. Price)
The Challenge from Beyond (with Moore, Merritt, Lovecraft, and Long)

The four stories that were finished by other writers include a note indicating exactly where Howard left-off and the other writer took up the pen. They didn't revise or recast what Howard wrote. They simply finished stories that Howard didn't complete. In any case, you can easily just stop reading where Howard stopped writing.

I highly recommended this volume. Here's a copy for $14:
www.abebooks.com/servlet/ShoppingBasket

[thegreyelf]

Is it!? I own Nameless Cults! I need to check that out.

[Thorulfr]

Mar 26, 2010 10:58:15 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Is it!? I own Nameless Cults! I need to check that out.

Excellent, I do, too. I'll have to dig it out of the 'Vault of Ages' that is my storage unit next time I'm over there.