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Post by neilnv2 on Aug 21, 2016 6:45:58 GMT -5
icionrebelle.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-world-in-allits-coarseness-is.html
I'm posting this without comment as in one sense it goes way beyond a discussion of REH, in another sense it might fit his worldview (or that of his fans). I also got my wrists slapped as it's not "scholarly". Precisely.
To save hassle, here's a summary
Reading REH’s historical adventures of medieval/Ottoman times (Swordwoman and other Historical Adventures, Del Rey 1999), the strong sense I get is that he is describing destiny, fate, not cause-and-effect. Partly this is owing to the fact that in medieval times there were few preconceptions – there was just day-to-day action, flow and movement of people and things, what we see in paintings. One pictures the romantic Byronic hero, his shadow going before him, touched by ancestral tragedy, hobbling grimly into the twilight. The picture one has of fate is of a shadowy landscape, and there is a very good reason for that: a shadow is the negative to a positive.
Artistic depictions of the flittering Batman often use a lot of black to delineate the forms. Black is pure form, pure geometry, and we get a sense of enclosure (like the shadow thrown by a palm tree in an oasis). I’m being naïve because that’s all there is to it; black is not “intelligent”, it just is. Black is the absence of light, instinct, the feminine mystique. “She walks in beauty like the night” (Byron). Romance – and heroic romance – accord night a distinctive presence, as do fairy tales and the shadow-land illustrated by Gustav Dore, grey and sombre.
I did say “The ancient world is everything we are not”, and I mean something naïve. It is a world where contrast is more the reality, not just an interesting effect of light. Matter is as unstable as the passing of the day, but it is iconic and monumental. Where we have a material world they had a world of ideas held together by heraldic simplicity. That world was consequential because not actually material, a world defined by changing shadows. What that means is that the world is defined by the contrast between night and day and the drama of iconic form.
uk.pinterest.com/pin/261419953344160079/ Where you have the presence of iconic form, drama, heraldry, you have a much simpler view, because it is defined by simple forms and symbols. This world runs contrary to a logical one which – see link – is political and psychoanalytical. I see them as an invention of a logical world; inventions of complexity.
CODA
She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies And all that's best of dark and light Meet in her aspect and her eyes
The poem is romance, illogical opposing forces. In his "Annotated Guide", Robert Weinberg says, p120, "Much of the Conan saga is predicated on this notion (wish-fulfillment) and "Shadows in Zamboula" is a prime example of it." A lot of Weinberg's critique is very good - the emphasis on grimness and disdain for pastiche - but this phrase I ally with psychoanalytical. Conan is savage, direct, instinctive, a belief of REH not a wish. The world of poetic lust and iconic form is contrary to a logical world (of materialism and happiness).
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Post by neilnv2 on Aug 26, 2016 6:25:03 GMT -5
Well, this e-mail site is intended for REH Foundation inquiries and business with the REHF board. Might I suggest you send your nice essay above to any number of the REH sites found online? This is nice work and deserves some kind of audience.
All the best, Bill Cavalier REHF Membership Coordinator
On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 10:31 AM, neil mcewan <neilnv22@hotmail.co.uk> wrote: Howdy -
There is a picture one has of a western showdown with long shadows at twilight. Pictorial is the word, also poetic.
There are those who say REH is All-American, but I reckon that misses the poetry.
This is intended as a discussion on what constitutes American as related to REH whose work is almost 100 years gone.
I'm wondering if there could be a discussion on this? The wild west constitutes American lore. In the west there are outlaws, enemies of organized society, so therefore enemies of politics. Outlaws are friends to poetry and folk-songs. That is the Texas of REH.
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Post by deuce on Aug 26, 2016 11:03:39 GMT -5
Are you wanting to discuss the Wild West in general, or how REH saw it? Those are two different things.
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Post by neilnv2 on Aug 27, 2016 9:17:01 GMT -5
Good question. It has to be the latter but I'm guessing based on what little I've read. The wild west as I see it is a dream or myth of primal forces: Law/disorder, peace/violence. That could become pragmatic or you could emphasize the poetry, as REH I'm supposing did.
Poetry is an act of balance. I liken it to "thingness" (Heidegger). Liza Minnelli has a quote: before her performance at the Lyceum, they decamped to a building opposite and were surprised to see broads in boas wandering around. “This is a hooker hotel”. Looking down on the crowds opposite Minnelli sees people in tuxes drinking champagne. “This is the life, I love it!” Meaning, untidiness, disorder, contrast.. I'm taking this wider because that to me is the dream of the wild west: it's not Greenwich Village, it's disorder.
REH they say was grim but law and peace to me is a deadly labyrinth. REH is poetically expressive, his world is simple and strong and you could say the same of the wild west. Wild and free, disordered. REH represents that in fantasy which to me is the dream, not the political complex one. It's a philosophical point that the dream is the reality. Disorder is necessary for order.
PS This relates to Dionysus and goddesses of fertility (Daphne of the laurel). I realize Howard wasn't a classicist, but these are ancient pre-classical myths. The Greek tragedies derive from that partially.
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Post by neilnv2 on Apr 10, 2017 6:25:20 GMT -5
The savagery of Rome is something else. A new book on the Praetorian Guard (Praetorian, Yale, Guy de la Bedoyere) describes how they killed and proclaimed Emperors. It struck me this is a safeguard against tyranny. Whether Howard knew and approved of the Praetorians I don't know, but I can't really see him disliking savagery. Rome wasn't all legionaries it seems rehsongcycle.com/alternates_outtake
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Post by neilnv2 on May 14, 2017 9:03:40 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/alternates7_outtake I've put something here on this. It's the great American milieu that gave rise to the Junto and 30s pulps. It's almost a paradigm of America and its fictioneers, not only pulps. Howard is more that type of writer than he is "pure fantasy".
On the Puritan front, the film was disappointing. What happened to accuracy?
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Post by neilnv2 on May 23, 2017 5:48:22 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/alternates8_outtake For any who care to explore it, Medievalism to me is the age of symbolism. The castle stronghold, the chivalrous knight, the damsel in distress. It's an Apollonian vision as is Howard's fantasy. I admit to being a fan of BWS who brought symbolism-&-savagery to the Conan comic. "The Big Summary" rehsongcycle.com/the_big_summary
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Post by neilnv2 on May 28, 2017 8:20:31 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/newmed2_outtake
This is a link I'm sending to various parties. I realize it's going beyond a fansite, but do people realize how similar the views of old-timers of that era tend to be? I'm quoting CC Beck whose comments would be characterized as racist and so on (also Herge of Tintin). We live in a sort of "automatic" world where not much thought is needed. Is it a big con?
The muscular world of adventure is much simpler and more satisfying. The thought processes are different, so that is what the link is about.
Quote: “He let people come to him,” says De Niro. “And he got to a position where people would think it was an honour for him to take their money. That’s a classic con.” (on Madoff film)
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 1, 2017 7:30:59 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/newmed3_outtake
This is the follow-up, Cosmic Curmudgeon. I think Howard's poetic prose contains a cosmic sense of oneness, which is in the next installment.
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 2, 2017 10:00:46 GMT -5
PS I'm aware of the extreme abstraction of this post - that'll be remedied in the next one this weekend.
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 5, 2017 8:27:27 GMT -5
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 9, 2017 5:58:54 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/newmed5_outtake
(Next is "The House That Rand Built". I do relate some of it to Howard since Rand is the ne plus ultra of rational philosophers, and we live in her world)
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 10, 2017 10:11:04 GMT -5
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 17, 2017 5:28:46 GMT -5
rehsongcycle.com/newmed7_outtakePART 2 I made one change to Part 1 in para 2. I got The Fountainhead DVD, screenplay by Ayn Rand and, seeing as it's a romance, it's going to have "sex symbolized by man and woman" for obvious reasons. The film sort of sells it with glamour. I always assume websites can make changes. There are so many blogs out there I reckon a lot is correcting their own mistakes or misinterpretations or confusions.
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Post by neilnv2 on Jun 21, 2017 4:54:36 GMT -5
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