March 2018 - People of the Dark

[Jason Aiken]

Keeping with the same theme as "The Children of the Night"...

Etext: gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0607941h.html

[thedarkman]

Oooh, my favorite story!

[zarono]

So much great stuff packed into this short story, not only an action packed S&S tale but the angle of John O'Brien paying his ancient karmic debt adds something special.

[johnnypt]

This is an odd case where I think Roy Thomas's Conan-ization in SSOC #6 had a more Howard-ian ending than the actual Howard version! In the original, he pays his debt and that's kind of it. In Thomas's, there is a price that comes with it.

[Von K]

I'll have to schedule a re-read of this one, which I've not read in a few years, though the first line I remember verbatim.

[ChrisLAdams]

A most memorable tale, and certainly one of my favorites by Howard.  The story contains most all of the elements which drew me to Howard in the first place.

He does an excellent job building an atmosphere of horror, one I imagine HPL might have read with envy, the horrifically evolved, burrowing creatures of the cavern tunnels reminding me of the Martense family of The Lurking Fear which Howard might have read (LF was published first).

I also really enjoy Howard's use of primal ancestral or reincarnational memories, exhibited by John O'Brien in his recollection of being aforetimes the Gael, Conan the reaver.

With the hero of the tale not 'getting the girl' in either incarnation, one has to wonder if there were a ounce of experience ground into this unhappy (for John/Conan) event which Howard brought to life in such poignantly depicted prose.  Those primal emotions of the Gael's, and the equally strong desires and motives of the American, John O'Brian, were so well captured one understands Howard must have ran the gamut of these emotions himself.  Perhaps he stood on the porch at the bar by the side of the road, watching a girl he fancied climb into another man's Packard, while the fumes of alcohol and rage swept him up, causing him to later write a story of revenge.  Who can say?

In any event, its excellent.

[keith]

"I came to Dagon's Cave to kill Richard Brent."
From that terse, grim opening sentence the story moves with the usual speed and intensity of REH's work. It's one of his stories about the "Dark People" inspired by Arthur Machen's horror yarns on the same theme, like "The Shining Pyramid", but with REH's unique style. It's worthwhile to read it along with "The Children of the Night", "Worms of the Earth", and the Conrad and O'Donnel yarn, "The Dwellers Under the Tomb." It was clearly a theme that resonated with REH.

[ascalante]

What a crazy, enjoyable, imaginative, and gripping tale! It's amazing how it seamlessly bridges characters and location, ancient and modern. Howard continues to surprise me. So cool how Richard Brent experiences Conan's nearly identical situation. Conan's escape sequence was very thrilling and intense. Great story!!

[stubbs]

This is a fantastic tale. The sequences in the caves are brilliantly claustrophobic and I love how the "Little People" are returned to being something to fear, rather than jolly guys in green waistcoats.

[Von K]

In addition to a few general comments, I thought I’d mention an aspect of REH’s writing that I’ve not seen much featured before, and that is his sense of structure.

Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t yet read this yarn please don’t read further.

I initially thought that the Conan of tPotD was a partial influence on REH’s creation of Hyborian Age Conan, but now I’m not so sure. It was published in June 1932. According to Patrice Louinet in his essay Hyborian Genesis, REH started converting By This Axe I Rule into The Phoenix on the Sword in February of 1932 which was completed by March 1932 and published in December 1932. So it seems that REH was in fact probably using his already forming conception of Conan the Cimmerian as a basis for Conan the Reaver in The People of the Dark.

So, in tPotD we have a Conan who mentions Crom, and who is broadly similar to Conan the Cimmerian.

Edit: according to howardworks.com based on Rusty's timeline:

Circa January 1932
"The People of the Dark" sold to Clayton (Strange Tales)

This does seem to suggest that Conan the Reaver preceded REH's conception of Conan the Cimmerian.

And more from Patrice:

In October 1931, Howard completed the first version of a story titled People of the Dark and sent it to Clayton Publications’ new magazine, Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, a direct competitor to Weird Tales. Editor Harry Bates liked the story, but asked for some rewriting. Howard complied and a few weeks later Bates accepted the story, along with another tale Howard had sent him, The Cairn on the Headland.

People of the Dark is a remembrance/reincarnation story. In this first-person narrative, protagonist John O’Brien tells of re-experiencing an episode in the life of one of his previous incarnations, one “Conan of the Reavers,” a black-haired Gael who swears by the Celtic deity Crom. It is tempting indeed to see in this Conan a direct prototype for his more famous namesake (and in fact some commentators have done so), were it not for the fact that People of the Dark is a first-person remembrance/reincarnation story, while the Conan stories are not.

Or are they?

Hyborian Genesis

As usual REH tells a dynamic narrative packed with themes for such a short yarn (approx 7000+ words). Gaelic reavers, reincarnation, deja-vu, past life memories, a lost race driven underground, devolution, and a love triangle and rivalry linked by reincarnation across more than a millennium to play out to its karmic conclusion, to name a few.

Worms of the Earth was published in November 1932, where REH develops the Lost Race themes still further.

Structurally there are two plots, six major sequences with three sequences to each plot line. The sequences are arranged in an overall structure that is close to what I am familiar with as the ‘Fate’ structure.

In the Fate structure the tale begins near the end, either at the climax or just before, then it flips back into the past to slowly reveal the ‘fated’ events that led inevitably up to that point. Then it returns back to the present where the resolution is finally revealed.

You can see examples of similar variants of this structure being used elsewhere in Forrest Gump and the Firefly episode Out of Gas, for instance.

But REH doesn’t just use that structure, he also makes it more complex by layering the fated build-up sequence as the past life memory of a love triangle/rivalry echoed across more than a millennium, and fated to replay itself.

To the resolution then is added the karmic opportunity for John O’Brien to achieve redemption for his role in, essentially, driving Eleanor and Richard to their doom in their previous lives as Tamara and Vertorix.

In short - there’s some complex stuff going on here both thematically and structurally. Imho, The People of the Dark is a remarkable and well wrought yarn, with a heck of a lot packed into a mere 7000 or so words.

[Von K]

Hope I didn't bore you with talk of story structure. It can be a somewhat dry technical subject I guess. But a good sense of structure whether conscious or instinctive is important to any commercial writer who intends to be prolific, as Michael Moorcock once observed. I doubt if REH thought much consciously about it when writing this yarn, I'd guess his natural instincts just chose the best form to express the ideas he was working with.

The topic is related to the notion of story formulas, and REH was aware of which formulas tended to find favour with editors in several of the markets he wrote for. Here's Lester Dent's angle:

This is one opinion. It is the opinion of one who believes in formula and mechanical construction, for a pulp yarn.

It is the opinion of one believing:

1—Majority of pulps are formula.

2—Most editors who say they don’t want formula don’t know what they are talking about.

3—Some eds won’t buy anything but formula.

[ChrisLAdams]

Apr 7, 2018 3:03:09 GMT -5 Von K said:

Hope I didn't bore you with talk of story structure. It can be a somewhat dry technical subject I guess. But a good sense of structure whether conscious or instinctive is important to any commercial writer who intends to be prolific, as Michael Moorcock once observed. I doubt if REH thought much consciously about it when writing this yarn, I'd guess his natural instincts just chose the best form to express the ideas he was working with.

Au contraire, Von. Quite enjoyed your thoughtful dissection of the story, including your opinions as relates to the subject which are always well put and well thought.

[fernando]

Feb 15, 2018 7:56:57 GMT -5 johnnypt said:

This is an odd case where I think Roy Thomas's Conan-ization in SSOC #6 had a more Howard-ian ending than the actual Howard version! In the original, he pays his debt and that's kind of it. In Thomas's, there is a price that comes with it.

Indeed, but I prefer the less sad end of REH's version, where John O'Brien didn't "need" to die for paying his debt.

[Von K]

I agree Fernando, I prefer the published version of REH's ending to the change that Roy made, but it would be interesting to know whether Roy's ending came closer to the original written by REH:

Editor Harry Bates liked the story, but asked for some rewriting. Howard complied and a few weeks later Bates accepted the story, along with another tale Howard had sent him, The Cairn on the Headland.

Patrice Louinet - Hyborian Genesis

Does anyone know if Roy's ending was in fact based on REH's original first draft. Glen may well have let Roy see that version if he had it available.