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Post by deuce on Feb 16, 2016 21:13:55 GMT -5
Over the years, I've seen various people theorise about REH's views regarding this or that because of one line in a Conan yarn (or whatever). I think that a thread which discusses Howard's attitudes based on his letters and other solid sources could be interesting. You often see/hear/read someone saying that Robert E. Howard was a sexist and all of his work is "sexist" and "misogynistic". I often have the suspicion that the person stating such crap (if they've even read the stories) is pissed because REH's fictional female characters have flaws (just like men) and aren't all spunky genius warrior princesses. Here are two fine essays that look at what REH actually wrote about women: theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2010/06/howard-what-he-really-thought-of-women.htmlskullsinthestars.com/2011/03/28/what-did-robert-e-howard-think-of-women/ |
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Post by deuce on Feb 17, 2016 12:58:25 GMT -5
"All right. Let them remain bastards who wish; as for me, I want to know where I came from and why and what relation I hold to the rest of the universe. Maybe it isn’t necessary to life, that knowledge but as far as that goes, the average immigrant day laborer has sufficient knowledge for everyday life. No knowledge is wasted, no knowledge is useless and he who condemns the seeker for knowledge is a bigot and a fool."
- Robert E. Howard to Tevis Clyde Smith, week of 20 Feb 1928, CL1.170
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Post by deuce on Feb 18, 2016 12:20:00 GMT -5
REH in regard to big business and boom-towns: "I've lived in land boom towns, railroad boom towns, oil boom towns, where life was raw and primitive.... I've seen towns leap into being overnight and become deserted almost as quick.... I've seen whole towns debauched by an oil boom and boys and girls go to the devil wholesale. I've seen promising youths turn from respectable citizens to dope fiends, drunkards, gamblers and gangsters in a matter of months." (REH to HPL, ca. 10/30, REH Selected Letters 1923-1930, #47, p. 71) "This might offend men in the oil business, but it's the truth that I've seen more young people sent to the Devil through the debauching effects of an oil boom than all the other reasons put together. I know; I was a kid in a boom town myself. The average child of ten or twelve who's lived through a boom or so knows more vileness and bestial sinfulness than a man of thirty should know-whether he, or she, practice what they know or not. Glamor and filth! That's an oil boom. When I was a kid I worked in the tailoring business just as one terrific boom was dwindling out, and harlots used to give me dresses to be cleaned-sometimes they'd be in a mess from the wearer having been drunk and in the gutter. Beautiful silk and lace, delicate of texture and workmanship, but disgustingly soiled-such dresses always symbolized boom days and nights to me-shimmering, tantalizing, alluring things, bright as dreams, but stained with nameless filth." (REH to HPL, ca. 12/30, REH Selected Letters 1923-1930, #49, p. 82)  |
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Post by deuce on Feb 19, 2016 22:27:01 GMT -5
Over the years, I've seen various people theorise about REH's views regarding this or that because of one line in a Conan yarn (or whatever). I think that a thread which discusses Howard's attitudes based on his letters and other solid sources could be interesting. You often see/hear/read someone saying that Robert E. Howard was a sexist and all of his work is "sexist" and "misogynistic". I often have the suspicion that the person stating such crap (if they've even read the stories) is pissed because REH's fictional female characters have flaws (just like men) and aren't all spunky genius warrior princesses. Here are two fine essays that look at what REH actually wrote about women: theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2010/06/howard-what-he-really-thought-of-women.htmlskullsinthestars.com/2011/03/28/what-did-robert-e-howard-think-of-women/I had no idea that Keith Taylor was writing a piece on REH and the poetess, Sappho: www.rehtwogunraconteur.com/burning-sappho/More good quotes from Howard. |
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Post by deuce on Mar 10, 2016 13:30:02 GMT -5
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Post by lordyam on Mar 11, 2016 2:16:40 GMT -5
One thing that bugged me on an unusual level. Howard usually referred to females as "the girl". He does that to Salome and Valeria. It just seems....odd.
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Post by deuce on Mar 11, 2016 8:38:52 GMT -5
One thing that bugged me on an unusual level. Howard usually referred to females as "the girl". He does that to Salome and Valeria. It just seems....odd. Really? All of these quotes from REH and you discuss that? I guess a little discursion into linguistics is called for. Don't say you didn't ask for it. In the South and all through Texas (and many of the border states) a female of any age may be referred to as "girl" or its dialectical variant, "gal". This includes old women saying it about other old women. Before you get your undies in a twist about the tentacles of the "Patriarchy", the term "boy" (or it's variant, "[good] old boy") is used just as much, if not more. In fact, "lady" is often used in place of "girl", but the reciprocal "lord" never is. In the South, a man's best friend (who might be 100yrs old) could be referred to as a "[good] ol' boy". "Old boy", of course, was also used in the same way in Britain. Speaking of which, such usage is known to be quite ancient. "Knight" originally just meant "boy" in Old English. Thus, it's obvious that originally, battle-ready household troopers were referred to as "boys". So, equal opportunity "linguistic subjugation" and all that. You might try to find more substantive things to get "unusually bugged" about. Wow. |
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Post by lordyam on Mar 11, 2016 15:12:14 GMT -5
One thing that bugged me on an unusual level. Howard usually referred to females as "the girl". He does that to Salome and Valeria. It just seems....odd. Really? All of these quotes from REH and you discuss that? I guess a little discursion into linguistics is called for. Don't say you didn't ask for it. In the South and all through Texas (and many of the border states) a female of any age may be referred to as "girl" or its dialectical variant, "gal". This includes old women saying it about other old women. Before you get your undies in a twist about the tentacles of the "Patriarchy", the term "boy" (or it's variant, "[good] old boy") is used just as much, if not more. In fact, "lady" is often used in place of "girl", but the reciprocal "lord" never is. In the South, a man's best friend (who might be 100yrs old) could be referred to as a "[good] ol' boy". "Old boy", of course, was also used in the same way in Britain. Speaking of which, such usage is known to be quite ancient. "Knight" originally just meant "boy" in Old English. Thus, it's obvious that originally, battle-ready household troopers were referred to as "boys". So, equal opportunity "linguistic subjugation" and all that. You might try to find more substantive things to get "unusually bugged" about. Wow. I am aware it's not that big a deal. It just seemed odd to me. I'm not saying he was sexist. I wasn't aware of the linguistic stuff |
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Post by deuce on Mar 12, 2016 6:53:12 GMT -5
REH on the differences between the constabulary and citizens of Europe and those of Texas:
"I’m strikingly reminded of a case which occurred in San Antonio a week or so ago, when a special policeman, gone insane or maddened by marijuana, opened fire on a crowd in a cafe, without warning. But before he had time to do more than wound one man in the arm, somebody wrenched the gun out of his hand, and somebody smashed him on the jaw and knocked him stiff. Then came the cops and lugged their erring brother off to the hoosegow without any more disturbance. And somebody jerked off his belt and slung a tourniquet around the wounded man’s arm, and rushed him to a place where he could get first aid.
Judging from cases I’ve read of, if that had happened in Europe, the madman would have emptied his gun into the crowd without hindrance, while they milled wildly, scuppering a large number of them — and then the trained European police would have arrived with their eyes shut and their trigger fingers working at random and slaughtered several more; after which there would have been wholesale arrests and clubbings, with special attention given to old men, cripples, women and children, and some nation would have sent an ultimatum to some other nation, and sabers would have rattled loudly in their scabbards. Superiority!"
- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, December 1934, CL3.276-277
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Post by deuce on Mar 17, 2016 23:06:41 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on May 25, 2016 21:58:59 GMT -5
Their friendship was even strengthened by their combat, and their admiration for each other renewed as in the old days when warriors fought to a bloody draw on some wild battlefield and afterward swore everlasting friendship.
--Robert E. Howard, Post Oaks & Sand Roughs--
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Post by deuce on Sept 4, 2016 15:30:28 GMT -5
"Our purse may be empty, our back bare, but the Present is ours. The gold of sunset, the rose of dawn, the whisper of the night wind, the breezes in the grass and the trees—today the Universe is ours!"—Robert E. Howard
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Post by deuce on Sept 26, 2016 3:41:06 GMT -5
REH was being pestered by an obviously unbalanced fan. Howard had this to say about chain letters:
"He also sends me a damnable chain letter and tells me I dare not refuse to continue the chain. Like hell I don’t. I might excuse his insanity, but writers of chain-letters are a blight and a stumbling block on the road of progress."
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Post by deuce on Sept 30, 2016 7:02:36 GMT -5
When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in. -- Robert E. Howard, 1923
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2016 14:42:15 GMT -5
Robert E. Howard to Lovecraft (9 August 1932) concerning the legendary 'woman-desperado' Belle Starr (1848-1889)  Belle Starr at Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1886 'And Belle Star, the most famous woman-desperado of all the West - what sagas could be sung of her! Many the times she came into my aunt's millinery shop in the old Indian Territory, to purchase expensive and exclusive types of apparel fresh from the states. A handsome, quiet speaking, refined woman, my aunt said - she was of aristocratic blood, and natural refinement, for all she'd kill a man as quick as a rattler striking. Its a curious coincidence that two of the Southwest's most famous outlaws - Sam Boss and Belle Starr - were killed on their birthdays. Sometimes I feel as if the shotgun blast from the brush that mowed down Belle Starr, forecast the doom of the wild, mad, glorious, gory days of the frontier. She was more than the wicked woman pious people call her - more than merely a feminine outlaw - she was the very symbol of a free, wild, fierce race. Will Rogers, in jest, spoke of erecting a monument to Belle Starr. Oklahoma could do worse. Whatever she was or was not, she symbolized a colorful and virile phase of American evolution.'
A Means to Freedom, p.351 A couple of links en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Starrwww.legendsofamerica.com/we-bellestarr.html |
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