Supplement Four
Mongoose
I'm on to The Vale of Lost Women. I read the first chapter. Not too much more to go (short, short story).
My God, Howard can write! He is, without a doubt, ten times the writer than any of the pastiche writers are (and, that's coming from someone who likes most of the pastiche writers).
The difference in a great writer and a good writer is that a great writer will find a way (or naturally inject it into his story) to have his story say something about the human condition. There is more being said, or described, than just the plot. A good writer, on the other hand, will involve you in a good story--but, the story is just that. It doesn't really make you think of anything else but the action taking place.
Not all of Howard's writing does this. The Tower of the Elephant, for example, is really just an action tale. There's no greater insight into the human condition hidden among that tale's words.
But, in Vale, there sure it.
As I started it, I was reminded of another great pulp author, Ian Fleming, and his only James Bond novel not told from Bond's perspective: The Spy Who Loved Me. That's a fantastic novel. Bond doesn't even appear in the first third of the book. And, it's written in first person from a female's point of view. It was Fleming experimenting, and it's a great additon to his Bond tales.
The Vale of Lost Women reminds me of this because of Howard's chosen point of view. He chose to go with Livia's POV, not Conan's.
The one thing I find fantastic about the first part of the tale--the part that lifts the story from "good" to "great" and comments on the human condition, is the scene where Livia escapes to Conan's hut to convince him to kill the black chief and rescue her.
She rips her top, exposes her breasts, and lets Conan know that he can have her, a virgin, if he will just do as she asks.
I love what happens next. Conan explains to her that she is offering something that is no longer something she has the power to offer. In that land, Conan can take whatever he wants. He doesn't have to wait for consent.
It's amazing how, even in the circumstances she's in--brother hacked to bits in front of her, his parts thrown to the animals and devoured as she watched, slave of a black king in one of the most barbaric corners of the known world--she can conceive of not having that power over men...a power she's had since she reached puberty. That power of "consent" as she described it in her thoughts, where everything revolved around her.
That really says something--much more than what is happening in the story. It's a comment about the way some women manipulate in order to get what they want. It's about the power we men give them--the hold we allow them to have over us.
Wow.
In a Conan adventure tale.
That, my friends, is why Howard is one of the greats.
Stuff like that is probably why we're still reading him close to a hundred years (well, 70 or 80) after he wrote.
My God, Howard can write! He is, without a doubt, ten times the writer than any of the pastiche writers are (and, that's coming from someone who likes most of the pastiche writers).
The difference in a great writer and a good writer is that a great writer will find a way (or naturally inject it into his story) to have his story say something about the human condition. There is more being said, or described, than just the plot. A good writer, on the other hand, will involve you in a good story--but, the story is just that. It doesn't really make you think of anything else but the action taking place.
Not all of Howard's writing does this. The Tower of the Elephant, for example, is really just an action tale. There's no greater insight into the human condition hidden among that tale's words.
But, in Vale, there sure it.
As I started it, I was reminded of another great pulp author, Ian Fleming, and his only James Bond novel not told from Bond's perspective: The Spy Who Loved Me. That's a fantastic novel. Bond doesn't even appear in the first third of the book. And, it's written in first person from a female's point of view. It was Fleming experimenting, and it's a great additon to his Bond tales.
The Vale of Lost Women reminds me of this because of Howard's chosen point of view. He chose to go with Livia's POV, not Conan's.
The one thing I find fantastic about the first part of the tale--the part that lifts the story from "good" to "great" and comments on the human condition, is the scene where Livia escapes to Conan's hut to convince him to kill the black chief and rescue her.
She rips her top, exposes her breasts, and lets Conan know that he can have her, a virgin, if he will just do as she asks.
I love what happens next. Conan explains to her that she is offering something that is no longer something she has the power to offer. In that land, Conan can take whatever he wants. He doesn't have to wait for consent.
It's amazing how, even in the circumstances she's in--brother hacked to bits in front of her, his parts thrown to the animals and devoured as she watched, slave of a black king in one of the most barbaric corners of the known world--she can conceive of not having that power over men...a power she's had since she reached puberty. That power of "consent" as she described it in her thoughts, where everything revolved around her.
That really says something--much more than what is happening in the story. It's a comment about the way some women manipulate in order to get what they want. It's about the power we men give them--the hold we allow them to have over us.
Wow.
In a Conan adventure tale.
That, my friends, is why Howard is one of the greats.
Stuff like that is probably why we're still reading him close to a hundred years (well, 70 or 80) after he wrote.
