"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
I really enjoyed The Tower of the Elephant and The Scarlet Citadel the best. This month is my first read ever of Robert E. Howard. What a career he would have had if he hadn't died so young!
The fact that he wrote that output and then was unfortunately done by 30 may have made him even more legendary. That said a Howard that would have lived in the 50s and 60s would have been pretty great because would he have created characters to mirror the times or would he still be doing Conan and his other characters and then see his fiction explode in comics, etc. I tell you what, I doubt he would have approved of his stuff mixed with others as the pastiche thing. No way.😮😮😮
I’m about half way through the whole Conan series and the only time I’ve actually laughed out loud was in Rogue when Conan described how he ended up in the dungeons; he won the fight against the city watch but was so drunk that in making his escape he ran head first into a wall at full speed and knocked himself out. Only Conan can defeat Conan. It’s a great character moment and gives that story a special place in my heart.
Great volume. The Tower of the Elephant is my favorite. Has a bit of everything that makes these stories so great. I always liked the bit of Hyborian Age history that’s given.
An excellent review. The first image of Conan that I ever saw was by Frank Frazetta, and that's the one that still sticks in my mind. Conan took the THRONE off the king's gory head ? That raises an interesting mental image... did he kill the king by bludgeoning him with his own chair ? Because the Frazetta version could probably do that. One reason for the many women in Conan stories might have been that magazines sold more copies if there was a half-naked woman on the cover. Someone could write an essay about why Howard's protagonists were always macho and muscular, while Lovecraft's were always overly sensitive intellectuals.
Nice overview! The Pool of the Black Ones is one of my favorites from this volume..for it's visceral description of the fight with the pirates and the Black Ones, to Howard's way of describing the Black Ones vileness and depravity. Still turns my stomach to this day!
Fun to hear you go through each of the stories, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian might be my favorite fantasy book of all time. Not only is the art fantastic (Mark Schultz's illustrations capture the image I have of the character perfectly) but the unedited text and footnotes are astounding. Odd as it may sound, Gods in the Bowl may be my favorite of all the Conan stories.
Great rundown of all the stories. This volume was my intro to Conan (and REH) and I think it's great for Conan newbies. It's very difficult to nominate my favourite, maybe the Scarlet Citadel.
You had me at Conan. I have this book and have read it. I agree with you about the amazing art and the wonder included here. "The Tower of the Elephant" remains my favorite. Peace.
Interesting that you bring up Buscema's image of Conan as the way you see him in your mind. I do the same for most of the stories. For the stories where he is younger, I tend to picture something more along the lines of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. The "Know, oh Prince ..." is one of the best, most evocative things ever written. It is magical, and immediately puts your mind where it needs to be. Conan does evolve over time, but even burdened with the crown he is still "likes-to-fight guy".
My intro to Conan was Conan the Destroyer then Conan the Barbarian, which I do love (especially the Barbarian). However, when I first read the orifinal tales, which was indeed the Del Rey set, its surprising looking back now how easily I, like you did, left those visuals and preconceptions behind and experienced an entirely new world of Conan.
I have a theory regarding Conan's personality that I've never really seen anybody else espouse, and it's all due to two details presented in his first adventure, "The Phoenix On The Sword." In the opening excerpt from The Nemedian Chronicles, Conan is said to be a man of great melancholies and of great mirth. What does that really mean? It means he's subject to huge mood-swings, where one minute he's roaring with laughter while hearing rude jokes told by fellow ale-quaffing soldiers . . . but the next he's a brooding, quite sad sack in the depths of depression. We also know that in a split second he can go from Zero to 100 with ultra-violence -- a barbarian instinct which probably saves his own life time and time again. In other words, he's BI-POLAR, and Mitra help thee if you're on the receiving end of his hair-trigger wrath. In the opening scene of "Phoenix" he's chatting with an Aquilonian who serves him, and they talk at one point about the time -- over 20 years earlier, maybe even 25 years prior -- when the Aquilonian settlement of Venarium built on territory Aquilonia had attempted to annex from their neighbor to the north, Cimmeria, had been sacked by howling barbarians . . . and King Conan admits to having been one of those blood-thirsty barbarians who sacked Venarium. Conan admits to having slaughtered women and children then, when caught up in the righteous (?) cause of defending their tribal lands from foreign encroachment. Women and children. Why would Conan have soon after developed a wanderlust, prompting him to tread the nations of the Hyborean Age under his sandaled feet? And why would he still find himself to be subject to mood-swings, where he has "great melancholies" every so often? What if his soul is haunted by the horrid memories of having slaughtered those women and children at Venarium. A guilt-complex he can never be redeemed from. He, as a fiery-headed youth, full of piss and vinegar, had murdered helpless women and children. How does one live with such memories? I can see him undergoing a crisis of identity, coming to despise his own tribe for having been compelled to act so mercilessly against frontier families who could not have known how BARBARIC their Cimmerian neighbors could be. Conan, haunted by the memory of helpless women screaming, begging for mercy for them and their BABIES, might very well have felt that he had to atone for his evil-yet-patriotic violence . . . by going to other lands and seeing the denizens of those countries as PEOPLE rather than as foes to be slain. He becomes a champion of sorts, a chivalrous man who goes out of his way to protect helpless women and children . . . perhaps hoping that his efforts along that path might help to wash away the guilt he carries with him, the unforgivable memories of when he had been the monster destroying innocent lives. REH doesn't dwell on any such specific moments of sullen reflection regarding Conan's earliest 'adventure' at Venarium -- but, then, he doesn't really have to. He has Conan mention that incident in passing in the very FIRST conversation he writes Conan having, AFTER having those Nemedian Chronicles establish him as a man of great melancholies AND great mirth. Just those two elements are all we really need to see Conan as a man who has a hard time living with himself, with his evil memories of having been the Monster . . . a man who copes with that trauma by seeking out adventures which afford him the ability to be the slayer of monsters instead. To save the helpless women and children -- perhaps to make it possible for the ghosts of his own helpless victims to give him peace and not impinge upon his thoughts, which were wont to veer into the sullen, deep end of the pool. We see an example early on of Conan encountering Yag Kosha and feeling an overwhelming sense of shame at the cruelties which Yara had inflicted upon this elephant-headed alien. The 'thing' from elsewhere, unlike a Lovecraftian alien 'being', is not the scary creature to be feared: rather, it is the evil human Yara, whose capacity for cruelty knows no bounds, which makes Conan an all-too-willing emissary for one last enchantment the blinded, broken-bodied Yag Kosha has to present to the villain of the story. Conan starts the story being willing to risk his life to steal a vaunted jewel from the penthouse of some mysterious wizard's tower, to being the righteous avenger helping a Victim to get Justice and Vengeance against a cruel man. Conan, in the heat of the moment when he was on the brink of manhood, had committed cruel acts. But, unlike Yara, Conan couldn't bear the burden of such guilt, and spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it, in his own way. Though REH may not explicitly state that Conan had a tortured mind due to that guilt-complex from his teenaged years, we can read between-the-lines and see that this aspect MUST be recognized as a part of his personality. The ghosts of Venarium haunt him throughout his career, and every time he swings a sword at some Monster he's really trying to kill the Guilt he bears for having murdered helpless women and children before he knew better. That's MY take on REH's most successful character, anyway. There's more going on subtextually than meets the eye. That's one reason REH was the greatest pulp writer that ever was.
@@lordzaboem Thanks for the kudos . . . but there's a problem. I'm just now re-reading REH's Conan stories (in the same 3-volume DEL REY edition that Michael Vaughn is reading from for Cimmerian September), and the 1st story is, of course, "The Phoenix on the Sword" . . . and the first scene with Conan, chatting with Prospero, does NOT contain the reminiscence of the Sack of Venarium that I've misremembered being in this story. Because the brief mention of that incident from when Conan was not yet 15 years old, when he slaughtered men AND women AND children . . . was actually in "Beyond the Black River" which is in the 3rd (of 3) volumes, meaning it's a later-written Conan yarn. So . . . I have to re-evaluate my 'theory' regarding Conan's psychology, as supposedly hinted at from the get-go, as the Venarium incident doesn't get written about until later on in REH's career writing about Conan. The big question is: Did REH 'know' about Conan's slaughtering of women and children when he was a 14-year-old when he re-wrote the Kull tale "By This Axe I Rule!" as the Conan tale "The Phoenix on the Sword"? He DID begin "Phoenix" with that quote from the Nemedian Chronicles mentioning Conan's "gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth" -- which, in and of itself, more than suggests that he had a bi-polar personality disorder, one which very well MAY have resulted in a PTSD guilt-complex regarding a particularly harsh experience from his youth . . . but, then again, maybe REH, when writing his first Conan tale -- a re-write of that unsold Kull tale -- had NOT yet imagined or 'known' that Conan had cruelly ended the lives of women and children when he was 14. REH did give the impression that he wrote the stories almost as if the ghost of Conan were telling him about his adventures in a haphazard order -- not in any chronological order. So, was it only later on that he thought to add that Venarium episode to Conan's biography, having written some two-thirds of the Conan tales before ADDING that element to the mix of his psyche, or might that formative experience have been there all along, with REH figuring that he didn't need to have Conan explicitly mention it until the events of "Beyond the Black River" presented a logical circumstance where he would have cause to divulge that shocking detail of his Past? We'll never know, I suspect. And yet, I've always had a sense that Conan's "gigantic melancholies" had to have been the result of more than just the sullen climate of grey-skied Cimmeria. That chapter (i.e. Chapter 2 of "Phoenix") might seem to explain why all Cimmerians -- Conan included -- would have such a moody personality, but my gut still tells me that REH probably had a sense that Conan's formative barbarian life-experiences just had to have had something to do with those "gigantic melancholies" . . . so that it's no surprise that REH would eventually 'confess' that Conan, this barbarian protagonist he had 'invented' for this run of stories, had a Past that was kept secret from his readers -- a cruel, inhuman (or, all-too-human) side that he became ashamed of, that plagued his dreams, that wracked him with guilt. He had slaughtered helpless women and children, driven on by 'peer-pressure' since it had been a horde of Cimmerian tribes who had usually fought against each other but had then set aside their petty tribal feuds in order to unite to fight against a foreign nation's attempt to annex Cimmerian territory. A 'righteous' cause that sure as hell didn't feel right in retrospect. I still stand by my interpretation for Conan's motivation to leave Cimmeria behind, to seek out adventures in the other nations of Hyboria, seeing those peoples as PEOPLE and not necessarily as foes, as 'the Other' to be slaughtered mercilessly -- well, except when they deserved it. And he would no longer be a killer of women and children, perhaps to try to make up for his youthful cruelties at Venarium. Even if REH didn't consciously know about Venarium when he wrote "Phoenix" he probably knew about it subconsciously, and that traumatic event from his Past emerged eventually into conscious knowledge when the plot of "Beyond" called for it. Well, it's time to read another Conan story before beddy-bye!
That makes good sense. To be honest, I never really loved the idea of Conan as a King. Just didn't really see how it fit with the character, and I couldn't help but think of this in the "doylist" way and see it as just the early Conan (of Phoenix anyway) being "repurposed Kull". But I suppose if someone were ridden with guilt and melancholy over past deeds, and maybe thought that being a ruler of civilised men was the best way in his middle age to make a real difference in the world.
I like all the stories in this volume, a very enjoyable read, the fact youre taken all over the timeline of Conan's life is completely forgotten as the storytelling draws you in and youre in the moment where anything can happen and peril is believably real .. especially in Xuthal. The Vale of Lost Women wasnt bad, just wasnt as good as others. Fun nods to his friend Lovecraft hidden here and there.
I bought the Del Rey books (well, the first and last; still need the Bloody Crown) about a year ago. Started reading them this month both as an exercise to improve my own writing and to really delve into stories I had read infrequently when I was younger. I found your channel this evening and am deeply impressed by your love for the style and content of Howard's writing. A note I'd like to add is his vocabulary; Howard and Lovecraft had phenomenal vocabularies, and I make notes every time I read them to add to my own. I can only hope to emulate their talent and style with my own books. Keep up the great, insightful work, my friend. You definitely gained a new subscriber and fellow bibliophile!
Good afternoon Michael Truly a kitchen sink report. Great Work. I am going to have to read these again. I have been lucky enough to Read a lot of Robert E Howard, an interesting read,. The 1930s was a hugely creative time period, inspiring creativity that continues to this day. Cheers Al The Goldkeyfourcolorkidownunda
I am quite glad I stumbled upon this channel. I read the lancer Conan books 40 years ago. I acquired most of the lancer editions a few years ago with the intent of rereading the series, but never got around to it. Your channel inspired me to get the three Del Rey editions & am now going through the tales having a grand old time. I have always wanted to read Conan as originally written & now I am!
I've been working my way through the non-Conan/Kull/Morn Del Rey books right now (having read those three many times, and the others once or never). Maybe I'll take a break, switch over to Conan and read along while you're going through these. Total classics.
Thank you Cimmerian September! I have finished the first volume having only read a couple Conan stories before, and really enjoyed it. I thought the scarlet Citadel was epic!
In this volume my top 3 stories, in no particular order are: "Scarlet Citadel", Black Colossus", and "Iron Shadows in the Moon". My bottom 3 are: "God in the Bowl", Vale of Lost Women", and "Rogues in the House".
Once again, you have me beyond curious about a story or series I had no interest in whatsoever. Thank you for delving into Robert E .Howard's life. Such insight for such a young man! I am so sorry how his life ended, but considering he probably fit nowhere, it is easily seem. It is beyond tragic. With his knowledge of how stories would be told, how people change with responsibilities, we could ave used more of his maturity in the world. Now I want to read Conan. Thanks again.
I was so lucky that my first exposure to Conan, other than the Arnold movie, was REH. I don't have to carry any baggage from DeCamp and Carter, and it was such a great experience.
Those are definitely some of my favorites. Especially Rogues, Tower of the Elephant, and Scarlett Citadel. I actually haven't read Frost Giants Daughter or God in the Bowl yet. Definitely need to get to those. Thanks for the review!
I have a few titles on my list of to-read also. I think The Scarlett Citadel will be next. My current fav would have to be The Tower of the Elephant, hands down, trunks down.
After years of putting it off, I'm finally diving into my Conan volumes. Yours is in much better shape than mine! I'm still making my way through the first one as I am a slow reader, even slower than you it would seem. I am greatly enjoying it. These Conan stories are far better than I imagined! Robert E. Howard... you might be on to something, Mike. ;)
The God in the Bowl was a police procedural, before the term was even created. Howard was an amazing writer in so many ways. And in this instance, he was a groundbreaker as well. I think overall, it's in the bottom half of Conan stories. But if you read it as a sword and sorcery police procedural, it's a very good story.
Nice review. I have this volume, never got the other 2. I recently read The Hour of the Dragon, Howard's only full novel Conan story. I enjoyed it. Howard is one of my all time favorite writers.
You bring up a very interesting point, Michael. (Well...many interesting points.) So many pulp authors have largely faded away in time. I wonder if "Conan" and Robert E. Howard would have been forgotten had it not been for the Ace books of the late 60's and 70's? Fourteen year old me started reading and collecting the Ace books because of the fantastic Frazetta cover art, but continued because of the equally fantastic Howard stories.
For me, there were two things that got me interested in Conan in the late 90s/early 2000s. one was the 1982 film. The other was all the metal bands that made songs about Conan stories -- manilla Road in particular. So long as that kind of legacy continues, I don't think howard will really be forgotten.
I'm glad that the poem Cimeria got mentioned. There is some debate over how "Cimerian" is actually supposed to be pronounced. The first appearance of the word comes from this poem. It was written while Howard was on vacation on the banks of the Rio Grande River in south Texas. Although most readers equate Cimeria with Scotland where Howard's ancestors originated, I think of Cimeria as looking more like Texas or north Mexico which Howard could see across the river (maybe Mexico during a winter cold snap). I choose to pronounce Cimeria in the Spanish way with a soft C like in "cilindro." So yeah, it does sound a like Sumeria but for completely different reasons than any connection to Sumner.
I really love 'Rogues in the House". There are several really awesome stories in this first volume, but for me that one is just something really special. I think it was the first Conan story i read where i really went "Wow, this is GREAT!!". Also dig that he was probably influenced by Poe's murders in the Rue Morgue when he made this (hopefully that's not considered a spoiler!)...
You might be happy to know I have spread Cimmerian September to my facebook page. This December will be 91 years since his first appearance. In 9 years we should have a party for his 100th birthday!
I actually prefer the "chronological" Conan, which is how I read it, at least as it appears in the Gollancz collection. That way it all ends with Hour of the Dragon, which feels like a natural culmination.
I think Xuthal and Iron Shadows are very good stories that has everything great about Conan and Sword & Sorcery. Rogues In the House however is my favorite.
Oh woah!!!! “THE KITCHEN of the rustic lodge!! ……”super cool, super cool” this took me by surprise and InLOVE hearing you discuss those Delray editions I am going to get it. Ive been really slack.
I've never mentioned how effective the opening of your Robert E. Howard Show is Michael, an excellent combination of images and music that really grabs the viewer's attention. To your list of literary creations who have moved beyond their original text and creator I would add Victor Frankenstein's Creature, which has left Mary Shelley far behind in its advance into public consciousness (and even Victor himself - many people conflate the Monster and creator and refer to the Creature as "Frankenstein"). That's one crucial difference I feel between Kull and Conan: the Cimmerian over time grows into the responsibilities of ruling Aquilonia and its people whereas for Kull, these responsibilities always sit heavily on him and he seeks every reason he can to avoid them, something which his enemies use against him (see "The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune"). This doesn't mean Kull is a worse king but he is certainly a different king. "The Tower Of The Elephant" is in my top five Conan stories. "The Queen Of The Black Coast" is just outside the five because I've never liked the time jump between Conan meeting Belit and Belit's death.
The Vale of Lost Women is actually quite good (if you exclude the racism, which I am not happy for, but I am happy it is preserved for the sake of historical accuracy, if that makes sense), I like it more than Daugther of Ice Giant which I think is too short for the story to really shine.
Even if I was first and since forever familiar with Buscema or Arnold’s representations of Conan when I finally read a couple of stories to my surprise I pictured the character differently - not much as a barbarian to my surprise, but more sophisticated, leaner and more of stealth than brute force. But that’s me from reading just a couple of stories.
The Phoenix on the Sword was a rewrite of a King Kull story, By This Axe I Rule! The latter story is the one that Farnsworth Wright (then-editor of Weird Tales) wanted Howard to change. I still think Axe is a readable story, though. 😊🗡🗡🗡🗡
These stories really get the blood going. Definitely discovered them later than you and many others (I'd say early/mid 2000s) but I always get really excited reading them. In my opinion though, it's the ending of "Vale of Lost Women" that's the worst part. I didn't really need to hear the racism expressed from Conan's mouth and that's what we get when he basically says he only saved the girl because he didn't want to see her "plundered by black dogs" or something like that. I know Conan isn't exactly a typical hero and he can be ruthless and all but I think we at least usually respect him. In the story's favour is some very atmospheric writing, and I do always like a Conan story that's told largely from someone else's perspective (the woman in this case, which is an unusual touch), but that other stuff just makes this one really hard to take.
Also I won't belabour the point much more since we've already talked about this, but on this reading, I must say say I *still* prefer "Phoenix on the Sword" as the Kull story 'By His Axe I Rule". I'm not surprised that Conan decided to repurpose it when he created Conan, and I don't blame him, but for me, the only really great King of Aquilonia story is "Hour of the Dragon".
As good as some of the illustrations are.....that's just not Conan. If only Justin Sweet had done these as his work in the Kull editions were perfect for Howards world. Great video though!👍
The Pool of the Black One - shifting from sea bound sexualized possibility to intrusion in a stifling architectural containment of threat as perceivable, but unknowable. Racist? well, yes, but masterfully rendered. Creepy as f and resolved with an uncommonly vigorous attention to the logistics of body violence and desperation. There's a lot there. Interestingly, the whole scene is 'realistic' in so far as it depicts an emotively rendered tactile present and immediacy. Later stories suggest evil, granted through sorcery and control, is located in other realms such as hell and even other planets (?) Did Howard consider a shift into interplanetary plotting?
The Black ones in this story are not a human race, they are an otherwordly jet black. There is some period racism in other Howard stories but not in this case.
I'd rather read a Robert E. Howard potboiler than a potboiler by someone else. Vale of Lost Women is probably the worst Conan story but even it had its moments.
"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
I really enjoyed The Tower of the Elephant and The Scarlet Citadel the best. This month is my first read ever of Robert E. Howard. What a career he would have had if he hadn't died so young!
The fact that he wrote that output and then was unfortunately done by 30 may have made him even more legendary. That said a Howard that would have lived in the 50s and 60s would have been pretty great because would he have created characters to mirror the times or would he still be doing Conan and his other characters and then see his fiction explode in comics, etc. I tell you what, I doubt he would have approved of his stuff mixed with others as the pastiche thing. No way.😮😮😮
I got to admit tower of the elephant is probably my favorite Conan story
I’m about half way through the whole Conan series and the only time I’ve actually laughed out loud was in Rogue when Conan described how he ended up in the dungeons; he won the fight against the city watch but was so drunk that in making his escape he ran head first into a wall at full speed and knocked himself out. Only Conan can defeat Conan. It’s a great character moment and gives that story a special place in my heart.
Great volume. The Tower of the Elephant is my favorite. Has a bit of everything that makes these stories so great. I always liked the bit of Hyborian Age history that’s given.
An excellent review.
The first image of Conan that I ever saw was by Frank Frazetta, and that's the one that still sticks in my mind.
Conan took the THRONE off the king's gory head ? That raises an interesting mental image... did he kill the king by bludgeoning him with his own chair ? Because the Frazetta version could probably do that.
One reason for the many women in Conan stories might have been that magazines sold more copies if there was a half-naked woman on the cover.
Someone could write an essay about why Howard's protagonists were always macho and muscular, while Lovecraft's were always overly sensitive intellectuals.
The Tower of the Elephant was my favorite. I had a lot of fun reading this book.
Fantastic video, Michael. Your passion for Howard and Conan mirrors my own.
Nice overview! The Pool of the Black Ones is one of my favorites from this volume..for it's visceral description of the fight with the pirates and the Black Ones, to Howard's way of describing the Black Ones vileness and depravity. Still turns my stomach to this day!
Fun to hear you go through each of the stories, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian might be my favorite fantasy book of all time. Not only is the art fantastic (Mark Schultz's illustrations capture the image I have of the character perfectly) but the unedited text and footnotes are astounding. Odd as it may sound, Gods in the Bowl may be my favorite of all the Conan stories.
Great rundown of all the stories. This volume was my intro to Conan (and REH) and I think it's great for Conan newbies. It's very difficult to nominate my favourite, maybe the Scarlet Citadel.
You had me at Conan. I have this book and have read it. I agree with you about the amazing art and the wonder included here. "The Tower of the Elephant" remains my favorite. Peace.
Interesting that you bring up Buscema's image of Conan as the way you see him in your mind. I do the same for most of the stories. For the stories where he is younger, I tend to picture something more along the lines of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The "Know, oh Prince ..." is one of the best, most evocative things ever written. It is magical, and immediately puts your mind where it needs to be.
Conan does evolve over time, but even burdened with the crown he is still "likes-to-fight guy".
My intro to Conan was Conan the Destroyer then Conan the Barbarian, which I do love (especially the Barbarian).
However, when I first read the orifinal tales, which was indeed the Del Rey set, its surprising looking back now how easily I, like you did, left those visuals and preconceptions behind and experienced an entirely new world of Conan.
Todd here. Nice video M.K.V !! I love the old artwork on the covers of old Conan novels.
I have a theory regarding Conan's personality that I've never really seen anybody else espouse, and it's all due to two details presented in his first adventure, "The Phoenix On The Sword."
In the opening excerpt from The Nemedian Chronicles, Conan is said to be a man of great melancholies and of great mirth. What does that really mean? It means he's subject to huge mood-swings, where one minute he's roaring with laughter while hearing rude jokes told by fellow ale-quaffing soldiers . . . but the next he's a brooding, quite sad sack in the depths of depression. We also know that in a split second he can go from Zero to 100 with ultra-violence -- a barbarian instinct which probably saves his own life time and time again. In other words, he's BI-POLAR, and Mitra help thee if you're on the receiving end of his hair-trigger wrath.
In the opening scene of "Phoenix" he's chatting with an Aquilonian who serves him, and they talk at one point about the time -- over 20 years earlier, maybe even 25 years prior -- when the Aquilonian settlement of Venarium built on territory Aquilonia had attempted to annex from their neighbor to the north, Cimmeria, had been sacked by howling barbarians . . . and King Conan admits to having been one of those blood-thirsty barbarians who sacked Venarium.
Conan admits to having slaughtered women and children then, when caught up in the righteous (?) cause of defending their tribal lands from foreign encroachment. Women and children.
Why would Conan have soon after developed a wanderlust, prompting him to tread the nations of the Hyborean Age under his sandaled feet? And why would he still find himself to be subject to mood-swings, where he has "great melancholies" every so often?
What if his soul is haunted by the horrid memories of having slaughtered those women and children at Venarium. A guilt-complex he can never be redeemed from. He, as a fiery-headed youth, full of piss and vinegar, had murdered helpless women and children. How does one live with such memories?
I can see him undergoing a crisis of identity, coming to despise his own tribe for having been compelled to act so mercilessly against frontier families who could not have known how BARBARIC their Cimmerian neighbors could be. Conan, haunted by the memory of helpless women screaming, begging for mercy for them and their BABIES, might very well have felt that he had to atone for his evil-yet-patriotic violence . . . by going to other lands and seeing the denizens of those countries as PEOPLE rather than as foes to be slain. He becomes a champion of sorts, a chivalrous man who goes out of his way to protect helpless women and children . . . perhaps hoping that his efforts along that path might help to wash away the guilt he carries with him, the unforgivable memories of when he had been the monster destroying innocent lives.
REH doesn't dwell on any such specific moments of sullen reflection regarding Conan's earliest 'adventure' at Venarium -- but, then, he doesn't really have to. He has Conan mention that incident in passing in the very FIRST conversation he writes Conan having, AFTER having those Nemedian Chronicles establish him as a man of great melancholies AND great mirth. Just those two elements are all we really need to see Conan as a man who has a hard time living with himself, with his evil memories of having been the Monster . . . a man who copes with that trauma by seeking out adventures which afford him the ability to be the slayer of monsters instead. To save the helpless women and children -- perhaps to make it possible for the ghosts of his own helpless victims to give him peace and not impinge upon his thoughts, which were wont to veer into the sullen, deep end of the pool.
We see an example early on of Conan encountering Yag Kosha and feeling an overwhelming sense of shame at the cruelties which Yara had inflicted upon this elephant-headed alien. The 'thing' from elsewhere, unlike a Lovecraftian alien 'being', is not the scary creature to be feared: rather, it is the evil human Yara, whose capacity for cruelty knows no bounds, which makes Conan an all-too-willing emissary for one last enchantment the blinded, broken-bodied Yag Kosha has to present to the villain of the story. Conan starts the story being willing to risk his life to steal a vaunted jewel from the penthouse of some mysterious wizard's tower, to being the righteous avenger helping a Victim to get Justice and Vengeance against a cruel man.
Conan, in the heat of the moment when he was on the brink of manhood, had committed cruel acts. But, unlike Yara, Conan couldn't bear the burden of such guilt, and spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it, in his own way. Though REH may not explicitly state that Conan had a tortured mind due to that guilt-complex from his teenaged years, we can read between-the-lines and see that this aspect MUST be recognized as a part of his personality. The ghosts of Venarium haunt him throughout his career, and every time he swings a sword at some Monster he's really trying to kill the Guilt he bears for having murdered helpless women and children before he knew better.
That's MY take on REH's most successful character, anyway. There's more going on subtextually than meets the eye. That's one reason REH was the greatest pulp writer that ever was.
Fascinating interpretation, I'll likely be mulling that over for years.
@@lordzaboem Thanks for the kudos . . . but there's a problem.
I'm just now re-reading REH's Conan stories (in the same 3-volume DEL REY edition that Michael Vaughn is reading from for Cimmerian September), and the 1st story is, of course, "The Phoenix on the Sword" . . . and the first scene with Conan, chatting with Prospero, does NOT contain the reminiscence of the Sack of Venarium that I've misremembered being in this story.
Because the brief mention of that incident from when Conan was not yet 15 years old, when he slaughtered men AND women AND children . . . was actually in "Beyond the Black River" which is in the 3rd (of 3) volumes, meaning it's a later-written Conan yarn.
So . . . I have to re-evaluate my 'theory' regarding Conan's psychology, as supposedly hinted at from the get-go, as the Venarium incident doesn't get written about until later on in REH's career writing about Conan. The big question is: Did REH 'know' about Conan's slaughtering of women and children when he was a 14-year-old when he re-wrote the Kull tale "By This Axe I Rule!" as the Conan tale "The Phoenix on the Sword"? He DID begin "Phoenix" with that quote from the Nemedian Chronicles mentioning Conan's "gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth" -- which, in and of itself, more than suggests that he had a bi-polar personality disorder, one which very well MAY have resulted in a PTSD guilt-complex regarding a particularly harsh experience from his youth . . . but, then again, maybe REH, when writing his first Conan tale -- a re-write of that unsold Kull tale -- had NOT yet imagined or 'known' that Conan had cruelly ended the lives of women and children when he was 14.
REH did give the impression that he wrote the stories almost as if the ghost of Conan were telling him about his adventures in a haphazard order -- not in any chronological order. So, was it only later on that he thought to add that Venarium episode to Conan's biography, having written some two-thirds of the Conan tales before ADDING that element to the mix of his psyche, or might that formative experience have been there all along, with REH figuring that he didn't need to have Conan explicitly mention it until the events of "Beyond the Black River" presented a logical circumstance where he would have cause to divulge that shocking detail of his Past?
We'll never know, I suspect.
And yet, I've always had a sense that Conan's "gigantic melancholies" had to have been the result of more than just the sullen climate of grey-skied Cimmeria. That chapter (i.e. Chapter 2 of "Phoenix") might seem to explain why all Cimmerians -- Conan included -- would have such a moody personality, but my gut still tells me that REH probably had a sense that Conan's formative barbarian life-experiences just had to have had something to do with those "gigantic melancholies" . . . so that it's no surprise that REH would eventually 'confess' that Conan, this barbarian protagonist he had 'invented' for this run of stories, had a Past that was kept secret from his readers -- a cruel, inhuman (or, all-too-human) side that he became ashamed of, that plagued his dreams, that wracked him with guilt. He had slaughtered helpless women and children, driven on by 'peer-pressure' since it had been a horde of Cimmerian tribes who had usually fought against each other but had then set aside their petty tribal feuds in order to unite to fight against a foreign nation's attempt to annex Cimmerian territory. A 'righteous' cause that sure as hell didn't feel right in retrospect.
I still stand by my interpretation for Conan's motivation to leave Cimmeria behind, to seek out adventures in the other nations of Hyboria, seeing those peoples as PEOPLE and not necessarily as foes, as 'the Other' to be slaughtered mercilessly -- well, except when they deserved it. And he would no longer be a killer of women and children, perhaps to try to make up for his youthful cruelties at Venarium. Even if REH didn't consciously know about Venarium when he wrote "Phoenix" he probably knew about it subconsciously, and that traumatic event from his Past emerged eventually into conscious knowledge when the plot of "Beyond" called for it.
Well, it's time to read another Conan story before beddy-bye!
That makes good sense. To be honest, I never really loved the idea of Conan as a King. Just didn't really see how it fit with the character, and I couldn't help but think of this in the "doylist" way and see it as just the early Conan (of Phoenix anyway) being "repurposed Kull". But I suppose if someone were ridden with guilt and melancholy over past deeds, and maybe thought that being a ruler of civilised men was the best way in his middle age to make a real difference in the world.
🎵 It's the Robert E. Howard Show! 🎶 Hi Michael! I'm reading Hour Of The Dragon and, of course, really loving it! What a cool beginning, right?!
I like all the stories in this volume, a very enjoyable read, the fact youre taken all over the timeline of Conan's life is completely forgotten as the storytelling draws you in and youre in the moment where anything can happen and peril is believably real .. especially in Xuthal. The Vale of Lost Women wasnt bad, just wasnt as good as others. Fun nods to his friend Lovecraft hidden here and there.
I bought the Del Rey books (well, the first and last; still need the Bloody Crown) about a year ago. Started reading them this month both as an exercise to improve my own writing and to really delve into stories I had read infrequently when I was younger. I found your channel this evening and am deeply impressed by your love for the style and content of Howard's writing. A note I'd like to add is his vocabulary; Howard and Lovecraft had phenomenal vocabularies, and I make notes every time I read them to add to my own. I can only hope to emulate their talent and style with my own books. Keep up the great, insightful work, my friend. You definitely gained a new subscriber and fellow bibliophile!
Thanks!
Even his weakest stories are the best that's how good of a Writer he was
Good afternoon Michael
Truly a kitchen sink report. Great Work. I am going to have to read these again. I have been lucky enough to Read a lot of Robert E Howard, an interesting read,. The 1930s was a hugely creative time period, inspiring creativity that continues to this day.
Cheers Al The Goldkeyfourcolorkidownunda
I am quite glad I stumbled upon this channel. I read the lancer Conan books 40 years ago. I acquired most of the lancer editions a few years ago with the intent of rereading the series, but never got around to it. Your channel inspired me to get the three Del Rey editions & am now going through the tales having a grand old time. I have always wanted to read Conan as originally written & now I am!
I've been working my way through the non-Conan/Kull/Morn Del Rey books right now (having read those three many times, and the others once or never). Maybe I'll take a break, switch over to Conan and read along while you're going through these. Total classics.
Thank you Cimmerian September! I have finished the first volume having only read a couple Conan stories before, and really enjoyed it. I thought the scarlet Citadel was epic!
This is exactly what I've been waiting for.
In this volume my top 3 stories, in no particular order are: "Scarlet Citadel", Black Colossus", and "Iron Shadows in the Moon". My bottom 3 are: "God in the Bowl", Vale of Lost Women", and "Rogues in the House".
I'm revisiting the del rey Conan series this month and absolutely enjoying it!
Once again, you have me beyond curious about a story or series I had no interest in whatsoever. Thank you for delving into Robert E .Howard's life. Such insight for such a young man! I am so sorry how his life ended, but considering he probably fit nowhere, it is easily seem. It is beyond tragic. With his knowledge of how stories would be told, how people change with responsibilities, we could ave used more of his maturity in the world.
Now I want to read Conan. Thanks again.
The Pool of the Black One has always been the Conan story I felt was the most underrated. It is a top 5 Conan story for me.
I was just enjoying my copy of it! ⚔🍻
I was so lucky that my first exposure to Conan, other than the Arnold movie, was REH. I don't have to carry any baggage from DeCamp and Carter, and it was such a great experience.
The illustrations are superb. I love images of the lost cities. Just as I imagined.
I am glad I got my copy of the Del Rey Conan and REH books they are good to read.
Those are definitely some of my favorites. Especially Rogues, Tower of the Elephant, and Scarlett Citadel. I actually haven't read Frost Giants Daughter or God in the Bowl yet. Definitely need to get to those. Thanks for the review!
I have a few titles on my list of to-read also. I think The Scarlett Citadel will be next. My current fav would have to be The Tower of the Elephant, hands down, trunks down.
A very enjoyable look at the Conan stories and Howard, thank you.
After years of putting it off, I'm finally diving into my Conan volumes. Yours is in much better shape than mine! I'm still making my way through the first one as I am a slow reader, even slower than you it would seem. I am greatly enjoying it. These Conan stories are far better than I imagined! Robert E. Howard... you might be on to something, Mike. ;)
🎵 It’s time to sack the cities, it’s time to loot them right! It’s time to topple lich kings on the Conan show tonight! 🎵
It’s casual day at Vaughan Manor.
The God in the Bowl was a police procedural, before the term was even created. Howard was an amazing writer in so many ways. And in this instance, he was a groundbreaker as well. I think overall, it's in the bottom half of Conan stories. But if you read it as a sword and sorcery police procedural, it's a very good story.
Nice review. I have this volume, never got the other 2. I recently read The Hour of the Dragon, Howard's only full novel Conan story. I enjoyed it. Howard is one of my all time favorite writers.
You bring up a very interesting point, Michael. (Well...many interesting points.) So many pulp authors have largely faded away in time. I wonder if "Conan" and Robert E. Howard would have been forgotten had it not been for the Ace books of the late 60's and 70's? Fourteen year old me started reading and collecting the Ace books because of the fantastic Frazetta cover art, but continued because of the equally fantastic Howard stories.
For me, there were two things that got me interested in Conan in the late 90s/early 2000s. one was the 1982 film. The other was all the metal bands that made songs about Conan stories -- manilla Road in particular. So long as that kind of legacy continues, I don't think howard will really be forgotten.
Beautiful...... rest in power REH❤❤❤
I'm so glad that REH didn't live to see that 1992 Conan the Adventurer animated TV show.
I'm glad that the poem Cimeria got mentioned. There is some debate over how "Cimerian" is actually supposed to be pronounced. The first appearance of the word comes from this poem. It was written while Howard was on vacation on the banks of the Rio Grande River in south Texas. Although most readers equate Cimeria with Scotland where Howard's ancestors originated, I think of Cimeria as looking more like Texas or north Mexico which Howard could see across the river (maybe Mexico during a winter cold snap). I choose to pronounce Cimeria in the Spanish way with a soft C like in "cilindro." So yeah, it does sound a like Sumeria but for completely different reasons than any connection to Sumner.
I really love 'Rogues in the House". There are several really awesome stories in this first volume, but for me that one is just something really special. I think it was the first Conan story i read where i really went "Wow, this is GREAT!!". Also dig that he was probably influenced by Poe's murders in the Rue Morgue when he made this (hopefully that's not considered a spoiler!)...
I still think you should cap off Cimmerian September with a ranking of all the stories since they will be fresh in your mind.
Thanks Michael! Conan and Robert E Howard are my favorites!
Michael, this one was informative and lots of fun.
You might be happy to know I have spread Cimmerian September to my facebook page. This December will be 91 years since his first appearance. In 9 years we should have a party for his 100th birthday!
Yes!
Conan is so old that there could have been a soldier during WW2, who read these stories when he wasn’t killing Nazis. That’s so badass.
I love that first volume.
I actually prefer the "chronological" Conan, which is how I read it, at least as it appears in the Gollancz collection. That way it all ends with Hour of the Dragon, which feels like a natural culmination.
I think Xuthal and Iron Shadows are very good stories that has everything great about Conan and Sword & Sorcery.
Rogues In the House however is my favorite.
Oh woah!!!! “THE KITCHEN of the rustic lodge!! ……”super cool, super cool” this took me by surprise and InLOVE hearing you discuss those Delray editions I am going to get it. Ive been really slack.
Thank you.
I've never mentioned how effective the opening of your Robert E. Howard Show is Michael, an excellent combination of images and music that really grabs the viewer's attention.
To your list of literary creations who have moved beyond their original text and creator I would add Victor Frankenstein's Creature, which has left Mary Shelley far behind in its advance into public consciousness (and even Victor himself - many people conflate the Monster and creator and refer to the Creature as "Frankenstein").
That's one crucial difference I feel between Kull and Conan: the Cimmerian over time grows into the responsibilities of ruling Aquilonia and its people whereas for Kull, these responsibilities always sit heavily on him and he seeks every reason he can to avoid them, something which his enemies use against him (see "The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune"). This doesn't mean Kull is a worse king but he is certainly a different king.
"The Tower Of The Elephant" is in my top five Conan stories. "The Queen Of The Black Coast" is just outside the five because I've never liked the time jump between Conan meeting Belit and Belit's death.
Yeah, certainly true about Frankenstein. Thanks for the kind words about the opening.
The Vale of Lost Women is actually quite good (if you exclude the racism, which I am not happy for, but I am happy it is preserved for the sake of historical accuracy, if that makes sense), I like it more than Daugther of Ice Giant which I think is too short for the story to really shine.
All great Conan stories. Great ill or in that volume. Stories are available on audio on UA-cam.
Even if I was first and since forever familiar with Buscema or Arnold’s representations of Conan when I finally read a couple of stories to my surprise I pictured the character differently - not much as a barbarian to my surprise, but more sophisticated, leaner and more of stealth than brute force. But that’s me from reading just a couple of stories.
I am.....the average person.On the women front, Conan seems to be the Captain Kirk of Cimmeran!
I'm going on vacation in Cimmeria. My travel agent is Crom.
I gotta get the Del Rayes collection. I had Lancer and didn’t know that they weren’t the true REH stories (some were).
The Phoenix on the Sword was a rewrite of a King Kull story, By This Axe I Rule! The latter story is the one that Farnsworth Wright (then-editor of Weird Tales) wanted Howard to change. I still think Axe is a readable story, though. 😊🗡🗡🗡🗡
These stories really get the blood going. Definitely discovered them later than you and many others (I'd say early/mid 2000s) but I always get really excited reading them.
In my opinion though, it's the ending of "Vale of Lost Women" that's the worst part. I didn't really need to hear the racism expressed from Conan's mouth and that's what we get when he basically says he only saved the girl because he didn't want to see her "plundered by black dogs" or something like that. I know Conan isn't exactly a typical hero and he can be ruthless and all but I think we at least usually respect him. In the story's favour is some very atmospheric writing, and I do always like a Conan story that's told largely from someone else's perspective (the woman in this case, which is an unusual touch), but that other stuff just makes this one really hard to take.
Also I won't belabour the point much more since we've already talked about this, but on this reading, I must say say I *still* prefer "Phoenix on the Sword" as the Kull story 'By His Axe I Rule". I'm not surprised that Conan decided to repurpose it when he created Conan, and I don't blame him, but for me, the only really great King of Aquilonia story is "Hour of the Dragon".
This needs a repackaging with the current Conan the Barbarian comic artist Robert De La Torre redrawing the plates
It really doesn’t.
Hello Michael Hello. Conan is Cimmerian. He is not Sumerian 😂😂😂
Yes, Michael slips and says "Sumerian" a few times instead of "Cimmerian"
I thought Conan was a librarian.
As good as some of the illustrations are.....that's just not Conan. If only Justin Sweet had done these as his work in the Kull editions were perfect for Howards world. Great video though!👍
The Pool of the Black One - shifting from sea bound sexualized possibility to intrusion in a stifling architectural containment of threat as perceivable, but unknowable. Racist? well, yes, but masterfully rendered. Creepy as f and resolved with an uncommonly vigorous attention to the logistics of body violence and desperation. There's a lot there. Interestingly, the whole scene is 'realistic' in so far as it depicts an emotively rendered tactile present and immediacy. Later stories suggest evil, granted through sorcery and control, is located in other realms such as hell and even other planets (?) Did Howard consider a shift into interplanetary plotting?
Learn English, thanks.
The Black ones in this story are not a human race, they are an otherwordly jet black. There is some period racism in other Howard stories but not in this case.
I'd rather read a Robert E. Howard potboiler than a potboiler by someone else. Vale of Lost Women is probably the worst Conan story but even it had its moments.