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Post by robp on Dec 10, 2022 6:40:17 GMT -5
Some people still believe in De Camp's description of Howard as a crazy incel mama's boy it seems. I don't believe in De Camp's description. But some facts remain.
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Post by Char-Vell on Dec 10, 2022 7:42:24 GMT -5
Can we get rid of this thread if nothing happens this year? I say we we keep it around, it might gain sentience if it goes in circles long enough.
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Post by Char-Vell on Dec 10, 2022 7:53:24 GMT -5
I guess we don't know if Novalyne Ellis ever gave REH the groceries do we?
I've heard Howard traveled south of the border a bit, I like to think he got busy with some senoritas on those trips.
Setting aside all of that libidinous speculation. Howard was clearly a deeply troubled individual. He seemed to enjoy the idea of a "noble suicide", I read somewhere he was pretty suicidal over the death of his dog at one point.
My understanding is he stayed at home to serve as primary caregiver to his mother, due to the prolonged absences of Dr. Howard. His suicide was less a matter of him not being able to go on without his mother, but more him being freed from the responsibility of her care and able to do the deed.
Conan was the sort of man Howard aspired to be like, but like so many of us, could not approach that savage ideal.
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Post by bulbous on Dec 10, 2022 9:56:30 GMT -5
Fairly spot-on post, Char-vell. Not to digress too much from this thread, but I believe the evidence does point to Howard "partying" with working women. In his letters he talks about visiting the border "boys' towns", and in one of his letters talks about an interesting prostitute he enjoyed meeting and talking with in Acuna, IIRC. He also talks about some of the bawdy houses in the Cross Plains area that he and his friends went to. Also add in some of his poems talking about visiting prostitutes, and you get the idea that he was probablytalking from experience. I think I remember reading somewhere about de Camp when he was researching his bio of REH and had decided REH was a virgin and was talking to Howard's friends to confirm his supposition, they would try to tell de Camp differently, but de Camp wouldn't listen to them.
Hit the bell on the head with REH being the primary caretaker of his mother, and once she no longer needed him, he could give in to his depression and end his life as he said he was going to do for years.
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Post by BlackHeart on Dec 10, 2022 12:41:17 GMT -5
I guess we don't know if Novalyne Ellis ever gave REH the groceries do we? I've heard Howard traveled south of the border a bit, I like to think he got busy with some senoritas on those trips. Setting aside all of that libidinous speculation. Howard was clearly a deeply troubled individual. He seemed to enjoy the idea of a "noble suicide", I read somewhere he was pretty suicidal over the death of his dog at one point. My understanding is he stayed at home to serve as primary caregiver to his mother, due to the prolonged absences of Dr. Howard. His suicide was less a matter of him not being able to go on without his mother, but more him being freed from the responsibility of her care and able to do the deed. Conan was the sort of man Howard aspired to be like, but like so many of us, could not approach that savage ideal. Howard described the "bed adventures" of his characters with poetic passion and vividly. It takes more than imagination. No one who has not experienced something similar can't convey it so well, no matter how skilled with words he may be 😏 So, I have no doubt that Two-gun Bob was a stud 😎
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Post by kemp on Dec 10, 2022 17:15:40 GMT -5
Some people still believe in De Camp's description of Howard as a crazy incel mama's boy it seems. Interestingly enough Novalyne Price Ellis wrote about her experiences with REH, the collected essays and journals in the popular 'One Who Walked Alone – Robert E. Howard: The Final Years'. The sense of depression, but not 'crazyness'. Further, REH even admitted in some of his letters that he had a melancholic 'Irish' mood, his black moods that would occasionally grip him. isi.org/modern-age/the-dark-virtues-of-robert-e-howard/De Camps desciption of REH as 'maladjusted to the point of psychosis' was way off. REH was like everyone else, he had his bouts of depression, but it manifested in the way it did on that awful day, if things had gone a different way and REH did not make that final decision certain people would not have started that 'crazy inference'.
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Post by kemp on Dec 10, 2022 17:31:21 GMT -5
REH dated Novalyne Ellis, on and off, from what I have read so he wasn't completely 'girlfriend free', and in pre suburbia America many men lived with their parents well into adulthood. It's about REH's works, his larger than life characters, not about Howard's personal life, and personally, I think that was a low blow. It wasn't intended such, but facts are facts whether we like them or not. Howard was gifted with am amazing imagination with which he created incredibly vivid stories. Of coourse there are some aspects of REH in his characters, but they are fantasies, however vivid. It's ironic how Lovecraft is always seen as the hermit-like neurotic loner, when he travelled far more widely than Howard or Smith Maybe I shouldn't have said 'low blow', you were trying to make your own point after all, and you have every right to do so, but at the end of the day robp, do you really know of any literary creator that really lived the life of the 'alpha male' protagonists they created, whether that be Conan, Tarzan or that agent in his majesty's sercret service, and even Ian Fleming's work with the Naval Intelligence Division during the second world war was more administrative than anything else, he organised the specialist commando units, but did not not fight in the field, not to take away from his contributions. Imagine if Lovecraft had taken his own life. There would have been those that would have picked apart certain parts of his life, hermit-like neurotic loner, and you can imagine the rest.
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Post by karasuthecrow on Dec 10, 2022 17:47:01 GMT -5
Most of the crazy racist and hermit image that we have of Lovecraft was fabricated by Sprang L Camp on his horrible BIOGRAPHY
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Post by Jason Aiken on Dec 14, 2022 11:44:44 GMT -5
Should I close this fucking thread? I mean, this is dead, dead, dead. If it were ever alive in the first place. The Red Sonja movie....clearly isn't going to be doing live-action s&s any favors when it comes out... I give very low odds of seeing anything related to Conan in the next several years on any screen that isn't a YouTube RPG Video that someone uploads, or perhaps a new game.
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Post by johnnypt on Dec 14, 2022 11:59:14 GMT -5
Lock it up on December 31. Truth be told if they don't announce by a week from today, the holidays smother any news so they're not going to do it then. There WAS a new Hendrix album announced on December 18, 2017 so there's still a VERY slight chance...but doubtful.
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Post by terryallenuk on Dec 14, 2022 12:38:20 GMT -5
Wonder if we should mention the closure to Fredrik to see if we get a reaction LOL!
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Post by johnnypt on Dec 14, 2022 13:16:28 GMT -5
Wonder if we should mention the closure to Fredrik to see if we get a reaction LOL! "Hey Fred, we've decided to lock down our Netflix thread due to inactivity. Should we?"
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Post by terryallenuk on Dec 14, 2022 13:35:50 GMT -5
Wonder if we should mention the closure to Fredrik to see if we get a reaction LOL! "Hey Fred, we've decided to lock down our Netflix thread due to inactivity. Should we?" "But we're keeping Red Sonja as that's actually happening"
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Post by Jason Aiken on Dec 14, 2022 15:22:24 GMT -5
This will be the third dead thread in the pinned graveyard of failed Conan projects on this sub-forum. It's a shame.
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Post by BlackHeart on Dec 14, 2022 15:26:10 GMT -5
Wonder if we should mention the closure to Fredrik to see if we get a reaction LOL! "Hey Fred, we've decided to lock down our Netflix thread due to inactivity. Should we?" It's already done 👀
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