2003, Ballantine Books, NY, The Bloody Crown of Conan, pages xiii-xvi
In the introduction to this ultra-violent volume Burke uses quotes from the author explaining his process in letters to fellow authors.
Here is what Howard has to say about writing civilized’ characters, “I find their ways and thoughts and ambitions perfectly alien and baffling.”
Howard literally could not fathom materialism and hierarchies based on material accumulation. He did gather a closer appreciation for manipulation of the masses by masterminds and portrayed them intensely in his fiction.
In this essay G.K. Chesterton, whose Ballad of the White Horse was a poem that inspired Howard deeply, and Howard himself are quoted on the means by which an author like Howard used fantasy to preserve the tradition and essence of the historical past.
Chesterton: “It is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.”
Howard: “Every urge in me is to write realism.”
Burke quotes from an essay on Conan by Charles Hoffman [which I would dearly like to read] who argued for ‘Conan the Existentialist,' who ‘can be hired but not bought,’ who feels no loyalty to rules imposed by authority or tradition, choosing to live by rules that help him ‘maintain order in a world tilting toward insanity.’
Burke combines his own analysis of Howard’s best know creation to present Conan as an archetypical American character such as Eastwood’s ‘Man with No Name,’ a character archetype quickly losing ground in our time, but surviving in Howard’s ever more highly regarded short prose.
His conclusion addresses the popularity of Howard’s characters among artist and writers:
“…Conan’s appeal. Our destiny, he says, does not lie in the stars, or in our noble blood, but in our willingness to create ourselves…Conan is confronted with choices and makes his decisions not on the basis of some ‘noble destiny’ to be fulfilled but in what seems, to him, the right course of action at the time.”
Rusty Burke closes with a parting sketch of Conan as his own man, with a sense of right and wrong, a regular guy with off-center beliefs, a strict internal code of behavior, and an extraordinary ability to act unilaterally.
Conan is, in essence, the fantasy of every man who smarts under injustice.
Nobody will ever come close to Robert E. Howard and his Conan stories.
Amen brother.
James, Howards views on materialism, and hierarchies accumulated wealth is why I like the man. Ray Bradbury stated that mans soul purpose was to procreate, I would add to protect, if women have a center, and are central to the universe, and are the future, according to his beliefs then we must have created civilization for our wives and daughters, mothers, girlfriends, to keep them occupied, because sometime I return to the wild,if you don't they turn you bat shit crazy, also some men have this hole in their souls, or heart, that can never be filled, they have to own it all or control all it seems that Conan has a different view, his job is to balance the scales maybe?
You are the first I know of, Ishmael, to make the case for Conan as the balancer of the scales of Fate.
He does fill that role in most stories, most notably in the best, the Tower of the Elephant.
I like the concept and think it fits.