Dark Valley Destiny

by Unknown

  So distinctive, indeed, in both content and style are the stories of the Conan saga—combining as they do precipitous action, spirited iwordplay, blood-chilling magic, ghosts, monsters, and color-splashed lands of sunshine and shadow—that Howard is credited with starting in America the genre of heroic fantasy. He has, not without some justification, been castigated for excessive violence in his stories and for the emotional immaturity of his characters. But when the reader understands the suppressed violence in Howard's nature, the night terrors, the hatreds, the fears of enemies, and the isolation he endured, the wonder is that he could perceive the beauty of a sunrise or a flower or that he could Write with such understanding about animals.

  Because there is such a large element of subjectivity in judging a body of writing, even competent editors disagree about the quality of an author's work. We shall, therefore, merely point out certain strengths and weaknesses in Howard's mature writings and allow the reader to make his own judgments.

  The reader is immediately struck by the passionate intensity of the Conan stories, a power that derives from Howard's fears, hatreds, and abiding anger. A less emotionally-driven writer would find it almost impossible to achieve the same effect. Although the barbarian is clothed in the image of Robert Howard's father, in personality he is partly Howard himself and partly Howard's wish fulfillment—the man Howard thought he would have liked to be.

  Howard's fears are rooted in his very early childhood, in his Dark Valley days, where the encroaching woods brooded over his childish head and the creek, babbling beside his home, seemed a mighty river, whose swirling waters brought terror to his heart. These fears were compounded by his mother's timidity in an isolated region, where her husband's practice took him so far from home, and by her constant ill health, often masked by a denial and false jollity. It was compounded, too, by the huge man who was his father. The doctor's authoritative air made him seem almost superhuman; his quick and frequent angers gave him the aura of a god or a demon who could not be gainsaid.

  These fears revealed themselves in Howard's childhood night terrors, in his sleepwalking as a youth, in his poems of black despair, and in the nighted monsters against whom Conan was pitted, fighting for his life. Lovecraft said that Howard put himself into every story that he wrote. He did; and it is Howard's half-conscious sense of desperation thai allows us to shiver in an airless room, or climb the sheer face of a mountain, or struggle for breath within the coils of a giant serpent—in short, to share with Robert Howard the striving, the anguish, and the moments of success that he gives to Conan.

  Conan was a somber man, an angry man, a violent man. He did not fear death, or so he claimed; instead, he courted it, even when wealth and beautiful women beckoned him to a life of ease. For Conan the world was hard and unforgiving. It was up to him, alone, ill-clad, ill-armed, to carve his niche in it or die. Howard was expressing his spirit's heavy burden—his feeling of rejection by the world he knew—when he bestowed these attributes on his epic hero; and any reader old enough to have experienced good times and bad cannot fail to sense something of the tragedy that underlies the character of Conan. This underlying sense of man's struggle for survival against fearful odds endows Conan with a universality rarely found in the characters of modern escape literature.

  Hatred feeds on anger; on a steady diet of anger, hatred grows fat. This book has made manifest Howard's own pervasive hatreds. His alter ego, Conan, likewise hates and seeks to retaliate against his enemies. Although many of Conan's slayings seem justified, sometimes he deals out death for pure revenge, as when he crucified Constantius or when he threw his faithless love into a cesspor*. But whereas Conan externalized his hatreds or controlled them enough to rise to kinghood, his creator, Howard, turned his hatreds on himself and took his own life.

  Such passion makes good reading for people who have repressed violence in their natures or who live in violent times. Gentle heroes seldom are heroic figures; in fact, they tend to seem insipid to young people who are constantly exposed to violence on television and in the press. Had Conan and his creator been among the sensible people who accept the world as it is and abide by its limitations, the tales about the great barbarian would never have become heroic fantasy.

  Another reason for Conan's popularity toward the end of the twentieth century is, we think, that the great barbarian represents an ideal of masculine autonomy and a resistance to authority, which appeal to his predominantly male readership. And there is no question that, despite a goodly number of women devotees, the majority of the fans of the Conan saga are male. In a generation that has seen the rise of a militant

  Robert E. Howard in his twenties, with Hester Ervin Howard and Dr. Isaac M. Howard femininity and an enormous push toward an equal status for women, Conan—the footloose, independent male, who takes a woman's favors with impunity and who eschews any responsibility for the biological or social results of his sexual adventures—is the quintessence of the dominant, irresponsible man. Untold numbers of men, who nowadays help with the housework for a working wife or are told by psychologists and family-centered agencies to devote a part of each day to their offspring, are riveted to the presumed joys of an earlier age when women were subservient to the wishes of men, and unwanted children were nonexistent.

  Conan is, after all, a dream—a dream of an age when women were beautiful and compliant and men were strong and free enough to shape their own lives by brawn, skill, and determination. In moments of nostalgic daydreaming, young men—and those older men who suffer the yoke of technology as well as its rewards—must find the fantasy world of the Hyborian Age intriguing and consoling.

  Robert Howard told a lively story and involved his reader in the emotions of the hero and his creator. But other elements of greatness went into the making of the Conan saga. Howard was a poet, and in time he learned to write poetry in the form of prose. In many of his prose passages, there is a trace of the rhythm of Shakespeare and of the seventeenth-century King James Version of the Bible.

  We believe that this cadenced prose was probably an unconscious legacy from those Howard ancestors who made their homes on plantations in the piedmont belt of the Appalachian Mountains before they ventured into the the wild, new land of Texas. The slightly archaic remnant of the English of an earlier time survived into the twentieth century in the Piedmont region and, to some extent, survives there to this day. However Robert Howard acquired it, this marvelous speech rhythm, harking back to an earlier time, lends a dignity by association to many of the Conan stories. A passage such as that from the beginning of Conan the Conqueror (quoted earlier in this chapter) shows how simple words combined with a memorable speech pattern become a verbal work of art.

  For those averse to turning back, let us choose another paragraph, which, combining the rhythm with a hint of magic, sets a mood of mystery tinged with horror:

  Alone in the great sleeping chamber with its high golden dome, King Conan slumbered and dreamed. Through swirling gray mists he heard a curious call, faint and far, and though he did not understand it, it seemed not within his power to ignore it. Sword in hand, he went through the gray mist, as a man might walk through clouds, and the voice grew more distinct as he proceeded until he understood the word it spoke—it was his own name that was being called across the gulfs of Space or Time.30

  Other devices well-known to poets are generously sprinkled throughout Howard's stories. One is alliteration, a repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words. The following sentence may have been a spontaneous poetical usage, but many similar passages imply that Howard had picked up this literary device from the poet Swinburne, with whose work the Texan was familiar: "The catlike pad of his sandaled feet seemed startlingly loud in the stillness."31 In another situation, Howard combines alliteration with onomatopoeia, the use of words whose sounds suggest the sense of the words themselves: "Startlingly, shockingly, in the slumberous stillness, there had boomed the deep strident clangor of a great gong!"32

  Howard also
makes frequent use of personification. He gives a lifelike glow to inanimate objects by visualizing them as living beings. Since lonely people often endow things with the attributes of men and beasts, this figure of speech must have been especially congenial to him. An imaginary world in which inanimate objects or forces seem to move, see, smell, or touch is infinitely better-suited to sorcery than is a world in which a stone is a stone and the sun but a ball of hot gas around which our planet revolves. Thus Howard's gifted use of personification not only displays his skill with imagery but also highlights the fantastic quality of the saga.

  Some stunning examples of personification are: "The slim boat leaped and staggered," and "Darkness stalked on noiseless feet. . . ." and ". . . Great Thugra Khotan slept unmolested, while the lizards of desolation gnawed at the crumbling pillars. . . ."33

  Apart from his telling use of the various figures of speech, Robert Howard introduces a riot of color into his descriptions. What better way than this to unfold before the dazzled reader a land of rich beauty in a day when mighty-thewed men could set forth to win the world:

  Even now, when winter was crisping the leaves beyond the mountains, the tall rich grass waved upon the plains where grazed the horses and cattle for which Poitain was famed. Palm trees and orange groves smiled in the sun, and the gorgeous purple and gold and crimson towers of castles and cities reflected the golden light. It was a land of warmth and plenty, of beautiful women and ferocious warriors.34

  Jewels likewise set the reader's blood atingle. While there are innumerable references to stones of ruby, amethyst, and jade, one descriptive passage strews before our unbelieving eyes a whole cornucopia of gems. In "Black Colossus" the thief Shevatas, daring to enter a myth-famed tomb guarded by a serpent, comes upon a cache of treasure beyond his wildest imaginings:

  The treasure was there, heaped in staggering profusion—piles of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, turquoises, opals, emeralds; zikkurats of jade, jet, and lapis lazuli; pyramids of gold wedges; teocallis of silver ingots; jewel-hilted swords in cloth-of-gold sheaths; golden helmets with colored horsehair crests, or black and scarlet plumes; silver-scaled corselets; gem-crusted harness worn by warrior-kings three thousand years in their tombs; goblets carven of single jewels; skulls plated with gold, with moonstones for eyes; necklaces of human teeth set with jewels. The ivory floor was covered inches deep with gold dust that sparkled and shimmered under the crimson glow with a million scintillant lights.35

  Of all the gifts accorded to a storyteller, the ability to write fast-paced action is undoubtedly the greatest. This Howard achieved by two interrelated techniques: a blaze of activity at the start of the story and a continuing use of action verbs. No lengthy introductions slow up his tales; the reader is plunged immediately into the action. The following story, "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth," while not a Conan yarn, affords a stunning example of Howard's furious, galloping pace:

  Lightning dazzled the eyes of Turlogh O'Brien and his foot slipped in a smear of blood as he staggered on the reeling deck. The clashing of steel rivaled the bellowing of the thunder, and the screams of death cut through the roar of the waves and wind.36

  One of the most splendid of all the opening passages of the Conan saga may be found in "Queen of the Black Coast." Because of a slight misunderstanding with the law, Conan is forced to take the first ship outward bound. The story begins thus:

  Hoofs drummed down the street that sloped to the wharfs. The folk that yelled and scattered had only a fleeting glimpse of a mailed figure on a black stallion, a wide scarlet cloak flowing out on the wind. Far up the street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman did not look back. He swept out onto the wharfs and jerked the plunging stallion back on its haunches at the very lip of the pier. Seamen gaped up at him, as they stood to the sweep and striped sail of a high-prowed, broad-waisted galley. The master . . . yelled angrily as the horseman sprang from the saddle and with a long leap landed squarely on the mid-deck.37

  Brilliant and original as was much of Robert Howard's action, it must not be forgotten that many of his sets and much of his action are reminiscent of his favorite motion pictures. One of Howard's favorite pastimes was going to the movies; and scenes of Roman orgies, or Oriental bazaars, or medieval battles can be found, thinly disguised, in the Conan tales. Among the pictures he went to see a number of times was, according to Howard himself, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, aforementioned. Others, of which traces appear in the Conan tales, were without a doubt Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad, and The Black Pirate. Howard fans fortunate enough to have seen reruns of other early motion pictures of the sword-play type may recognize additional scenes woven into the fabric of the Conan saga.

  One final element of greatness in the Conan stories, although previously mentioned, deserves a high place in this analysis of the qualities evident in Robert Howard's heroic fantasy. Howard was a master at evoking amorphous horrors, knowing full well that an unseen menace 19 far more unsettling than one brought out into the light of day.

  In "The Scarlet Citadel," after his fellow kings lure him into captivity, they and the merciless wizard Tsotha confine King Conan in a dungeon. In time Conan unshackles his wrists and makes his way along a maze of tunnels, seeking an escape route. Suddenly he stumbles and his torch goes out. In utter darkness, far below the level of the streets, a strange wind ruffles his hair. He senses that he is standing at the rim of a deep well and backs away,

  . . . and as he did something floated up out of the well. What it was, Conan did not know. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he distinctly felt a presence—an invisible, intangible intelligence which hovered malignly near him. . . .

  He saw nothing; yet he sensed, somehow, an invisible, bodiless thing that hovered in the air, dripping slimily and mouthing obscenities that he could not hear but was in some instinctive way aware of. He swung viciously with his sword and it felt as if he were cleaving cobwebs. A cold horror shook him then, and he fled down the tunnel feeling a foul burning breath on his naked back as he ran.38

  Howard had his limitations, of course, but many of them he might have overcome had his career not ended so early. One of his weaknesses becomes manifest when he describes settings and action about which he knew little save from reading the stories of other writers. When, for example, Howard has his hero Donald MacDeesa shoot Tamerlane with a pistol a century and a half before pistols were invented, the bubble of illusion that every author tries so hard to inflate is pricked and burst.

  Howard himself realized this shortcoming. He remarked to Lovecraft that, since he had never been near Central Asia, his Turks and Mongols were simply Englishmen and Irishmen in turbans and sandals.39 Because the Conan stories were laid in an imaginary era and continent, Howard could devise a milieu to suit himself. This is one of the reasons why tales about the Cimmerian create the illusion of reality.

  Although Howard became highly skilled in the use of his native tongue, he knew little about other languages. He thus had a tin ear for names. Some names he used over and over. In other tales he chose very similar names for two or more characters, a practice already discussed.

  Much of this carelessness must be blamed on the haste with which he wrote. A writer for the pulp magazines had to turn out a large volume of copy to make even a modest living. Although Robert Howard was a spasmodic worker, when the Muse was at his shoulder, he often wrote for as much as eighteen hours at a stretch. He seldom wrote more than two drafts, except that with the Conan stories he chose the names more carefully and not infrequently changed a name for the better between a rough and final draft.

  Along with this lack of interest in names went an overuse of dialect. It was fashionable in Howard's day to write whole stories in semiphonetic spelling to indicate unusual dialects; in so doing he was just following the custom of the writers he had read. But because he lacked phonetic training, the indicated dialects were not true to life. Moreover, a generous use of dialect places a burden
on the reader, who has to struggle through pages of oddly-spelled words.

  In Howard's defense we must point out that he lacked the advantages of wide travel and a university education. Until 1930 he never read a book on the techniques of writing. He never attended a writer's conference and had few friends who knew anything at all about the writing of fiction. It is an indication of his genius that Howard was able to teach himself as much about professional writing as he did.

  Finally, Howard was at his best when he followed his own ideas, as in the Solomon Kane and Conan stories. He was at his worst when he consciously imitated other writers, such as Sax Rohmer in Skull-Face, Burroughs and London in Almuric, and Lovecraft in "The Children of the Night."

  But all these criticisms fade like morning mists before Howard's headlong rush of action, his rainbow-tinted prose, the intensity with which he wrote his own feelings into his stories, and, above all, his Hyborian world—that splendid creation—which ranks with Burroughs's Barsoom and Tolkien's Middle Earth as a major fictional achievement.

  XII. LOVE AND THE LONER

  These I will give you, Astair: an armlet of frozen gold

  Gods cut from living rock, and carven gems in an amber crock,

  And a purple woven Tyrian smock, and wine from a pirate's hold.

  Galleys shall break the crimson seas seeking delights for you; With silks and silvery fountain gleams I will weave a world that glows and seems

  A shimmering mist of rainbow dreams, scarlet and white and blue.1

  June 1932 brought Robert Howard one of the greatest disappointments of his life. His pen pal Lovecraft had become quite a traveler after the breakup of his marriage. He usually set out in the spring with a cheap suitcase and a satchel of black oilcloth, which contained among other things stationery, a diary, a small telescope, a can opener, and flatwear. He traveled with extreme economy, going by bus and buying return tickets before departure lest he be stranded by lack of funds.