“Let us sit here and drink wine; fleeing is cursed thirsty work!”

-Two against Tyre

Unlike the Eastern-American literary pool, Howard, like his predecessor, Jack London, did not treat work as a disease, but as a proximate fact of survival and even employed it in this, perhaps his favorite idiom. It is interesting—and I believe London would concur—that when Howard employees the term he generally prefaces it with “cursed,” leaving no doubt, that while work is an aspect of the realistic hero’s quest to define himself, it falls as something of a curse upon his kind. Even Gilgamesh and Odysseus—the only kings among the canon of Arуan heroes—occupy themselves with work when necessary, counter to the Eastern American and British ideal of the hero of unsullied hands, from Washington, to Robert E. Lee, down to James Bond and an entire postmodern horde of elite hero imitators. Along with such American authors as London and Louis L. Amour, Howard has perhaps done the most to instill a sense of toil and grinding strife in his heroes.

Unlisted in any dictionary, this idiom, a favorite of Howards, served as the title of an album recorded by the English Rock Band Status Quo in 1994 and as the title of a book review by this author in 2013: Thirsty Work.