Author! Author!: Shaping the Shapers

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, there is an element to life called Narrativium, a force that seeks to shape certain destinies along a pre-formed path. The third son must succeed in his endeavors; the despised but virtuous girl must marry happily ever after. That is the way the stories must go, and there are some people who use their knowledge of this for their own advantage. It is specifically stated that that is not the way things work here in the Roundworld, but I'm not so sure about that.

Narrativium -- especially in the lives of artists -- keeps trying to force the shapes of our lives into stories, and influences our interpretations of the lives of others. Occam's razor -- or an underlying cynicism about life -- always makes us take the main chance as far as famous writers go. Lewis Carroll must have been a pedophile and not simply a lonely man who made friends with little girls; Robert E. Howard must have been a momma's boy, and weak. In the case of Lewis Carroll, the evidence has been minutely sifted for one hundred and fifty years, and remains ambiguous at best. In the case of Howard, perhaps he always had a suicidal tendency that he refrained from acting on out of consideration for his mother. It need not necessarily been brought on by an Oedipal despair, though that is the narrative that many, even at the time, settled on. His philosophy -- the uncompromising, Nietzschean battle with life -- may have had as much to do with his suicide, but many would rather not consider this, as it is uncomfortably close to their own view of life. "It's a good philosophy, if you don't weaken, but he was weak, so the flaw was in him, not the philosophy."

Narrativium forces Bill Cosby into the role of America's Dad, and we are shocked when we discover how far he is from that role. Narrativium forces artists into a dance between their public image and their private selves, for the image becomes part of the narrative of the books, as if the artist's character is now an ingredient of the book's story itself. Even popular writers like J. K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman have occasionally offered unpopular statements that they have had to retract or explain away with cunning re-interpretations of their own words.

How far is an artist's self part of the work they present? How much is what he offers gold, and how much dross? All artists try to give us the gold of their character or wisdom and leave out the dross from their work; can it be judged by the junk in their lives, and entirely rejected because of what we see as personal flaws that are not even represented in the work? And how do we -- can we-- judge when a work is worth saving for the gold, and not rejected for the alloy of dross that has snuck in?

Author! Author!: Robert E. Howard

The Whole Wide World (1996) is based on the memoir of Novalyne Price, about her relationship with Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

When Novalyne (Renée Zellweger), a school teacher who has hopes of becoming an author herself, meets Bob Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio), an established pulp fiction writer, in small-town 1930's Texas, it seems like it could be a match made to order. The intelligent and curious Novalyne offers a form of intellectual stimulation that the thorny, somewhat reclusive Bob is lacking, as well as being a mildly free-spirited alternative to the local dating pool. He tries to mentor her on the method of trimming one's writing sails to navigate through the waters of publishing, at the same time revealing to her his rather Nietzschean philosophy and his muddled, mystical view of life. Novalyne finds herself growing closer and closer to Bob the more he opens up to her.

There is a bump in the road, however. Bob's mother is sick and dying, and many nights when Novalyne would rather go to the movies or to a dance, Bob feels he must stay at home to nurse her. When Novalyne insists he must make a greater commitment to their relationship, Bob refuses to be "tied down," and they part ways. Novalyne begins dating Bob's friend Truett, a more conventional partner and less eccentric than the moody Bob. Bob, seeing the two together, realizes that Novalyne might be worth modifying some of his behavior for, but efforts at a reconciliation fail.

It all comes to an end the night Bob's mother enters the coma that will lead to her inevitable death. Lacking any further deep ties to tether him to the world, full of the black despair and lonely pride to which his philosophy has inevitably led him, Bob commits suicide, leaving his emotionally distant father and Novalyne to puzzle over the life of the strange cuckoo that had been smuggled into their existence.

Conan the Chestertonian?

I was flipping through The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard (partially in anticipation of the Solomon Kane movie due out in October) when I noticed something that had never caught my attention before. Heading some of the sections of the longish story Moon of Skulls were verses quoted from G. K. Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse. I was astounded. If there were any two authors I would never have linked together, it would be these

two; I mean, Chesterton would have probably enjoyed Howard's adventure tales, but that the two-fisted Texan should have appreciated the jolly journalist is rather unexpected. But when you compare the two's poetry, you can see how Howard and Chesterton both utilize strong rhythms, alliteration, and gorgeous imagery. The appendices of the book includes "A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard", by Rusty Burke, where I learned more on the connection.

After quoting a letter of REH's to H. P. Lovecraft where Howard includes GKC on the list of poets he reads, Burke goes on to say:

"The same weekend he met Harold Preece in Austin, Howard had bought a copy of G. K. Chesterton's book-length epic poem, The Ballad of the White Horse, which brings together Celts, Romanized Britons, and Anglo-Saxons under King Alfred in a battle of Christians against the heathen Danish and Norse invaders of the 9th century. Howard enthusiastically praised the poem in a letter to Clyde Smith, sharing lengthy passages. It apparently inspired him to begin work on 'The Ballad of King Geraint,' in which he brings together representatives of various Celtic peoples of early Britain in a valiant 'last stand' against the invading Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Chesterton's idea of 'telescoping history,' that 'it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment.' must have appealed to Howard greatly, for this is precisely what he did in many of his fantasy adventures, particularly in the creation of Conan's Hyborian Age, in which we find many different historical eras and cultures, from medieval Europe (Aquilonia and Poitan) to the American frontier (the Pictish Wilderness and its borderlands), from Cossacks (the Kozaki) to Elizabethan pirates (the Free Brotherhood). Howard 'mix(ed) up the centuries while preserving the sentiment'; this 'telescoping' allowed him to portray what he saw as universal elements of human nature and historical patterns, as well as giving him virtually all of human history for a playground.'

To read the rest of Burke's entertaining and informative biography online, go to http://www.rehupa.com/short_bio.htm .

10 Books A Day: #14

Boxing Stories...Robert E. Howard...Bison Books/University Of Nebraska Press

The Best Of Robert E. Howard Volume I: Crimson Shadows...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Best Of Robert E. Howard Volume II: Grim Lands...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Conquering Sword Of Conan...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Bloody Crown Of Conan...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

Kull: Exile Of Atlantis...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

Bran Mak Morn: The Last King...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

The Horror Stories Of Robert E. Howard...Robert E. Howard...Del Rey

I didn't realize until I came to make this list that I had ten other trade paperback copies of Howard's work. The "Best Of" volumes contain short stories of various kinds; the three volumes on Conan contain all Howard's work on his barbarian creation; Kull is Conan's precursor both in Howard's Hyborian World and in creation; Bran Mak Morn is the last Pictish king in the time of the Roman invasion of Britain; and Solomon Kane is the Puritan adventurer who gets to have one of the greatest operatic lines Howard ever wrote: "Some fires may be hotter than others, but all flames-save those of Hell-may be quenched in blood!" The Del Rey volumes are all illustrated throughout by modern artists, but in the pulp style.

Howard is a fascinating study of contradictory characteristics. As a writer in a small town in the "wilderness" of Texas, he had neither the resources of a "civilized" city to draw on or the unlimited free frontier of which he dreamed. He admired "urbane" writers like H. P. Lovecraft and James Branch Cabell, but struggled to create his own flexible, snappy, modern style. A man who lived by his own romantic code of honor, and believed that in the end if it could not be defended by less "sophisticated" minds it must still be upheld by brawn and blood if felt in the heart. This is, I believe, a peculiarly acute Texan characteristic, and does not always endear us to the rest of the world; it can be seen today, I think, in the attitudes of Hank Hill on King of the Hill.

Favorite Poems: The Ghost Kings

In honor of the Conan action figure, a poem by his creator, Robert E. Howard, first published in Weird Tales in 1938. I first read it in an old issue of The Savage Sword of Conan.

The Ghost Kings

The ghost kings are marching: the midnight knows their tread,
From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead:
There are whisperings on the night-wind and the shuddering stars have fled.

A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead;
Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped;
There is silence in the valleys and the moon is rising red.

The ghost kings are marching down the ages' dusty maze;
The unseen feet are tramping through the moonlight's pallid haze,
Down the hollow clanging stairways of a million yesterdays.

The ghost kings are marching where the vague moon-vapor creeps,
While the night-wind to their coming, like a thund'rous herald sweeps;
They are clad in ancient grandeur, but the world, unheeding, sleeps.