A decade ago, USA Today printed an article by
Mike Snider who wrote about Conan's reemergence as a
relevant subject in popular culture (hat tip to
SF Signal
for the story). In response to this article, I wrote a blog post advancing the argument that there are those of us who comment about popular culture
who think that Conan has never been an irrelevant figure in society.
How can a character who serves as the inspiration for an entire literary genre become truly
irrelevant? Every story about a sword wielding barbarian, no matter how
trite or bad, is at some level inspired by Robert E. Howard's creation.
At the time Snider wrote his article there was some exciting news for Conan fans.
Snider pointed to five recent developments that signal Conan's relevance:
- The PS3/XBOX 360 Video Game
- The "Conan The Phenomenon" hardcover by Paul Sammon
- The Savage Sword of Conan Trade Paperback Collection by Dark Horse
and
- The Conan movie by Millennium Films.
Those were important offerings for the Conan fan. Some where better than others, and I wrote some thoughts about
how the phenomenon knows as vast narrative hindered the film. What is also true is that having a plethora of Conan merchandise in the pipeline wasn't a new occurrence. Snider seemd to be under the misunderstanding that 2007 marked some kind of
sudden explosion in Conan related material.
Snider neglected to mention:
- Conan: The Ultimate Guide by Roy Thomas which released in September 2006
- The new Conan comic book series (first released in 2004) written by Kurt Busiek and illustrated by Cary Nord by Dark Horse
- The Mongoose Publishing Conan Roleplaying Game
not to mention
- The Age of Conan series of media tie-in novels published in 2005 and 2006
or
- Del Rey's publishing of Howard's Original Conan Stories released in 2003
In the years since Snider's article, we've seen:
- A second role playing game which earned over $500,000 on Kickstarter.
- The Conan board game which earned over $3 million on Kickstarter.
- Pulposaurus's upcoming pre-painted miniatures war game CROM: Conan Rise of Monsters.
- An upcoming feature length film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Son of Zorn, a sit-com inspired by Conan, He-man, and Thundarr the Barbarian.
The Conan explosion is perpetual and it isn't a new thing either, I could have pulled numerous
examples from the 90s or the 80s of Conan releases. Conan is always
lurking in the pop culture subconscious. We do a
disservice to Conan fans, both existent and emerging when we use Arnold
Schwarzenegger as the archetypal Conan representation, as Snider appears
to do in the article. Some like Arnold as archetype, but I find Conan
to be one of the most underestimated characters in American literature
(with
Natty Bumpo
being a close second) and the Governator's portrayal -- while fun --
lacks the depth the character actually has as a literary figure.
When it comes to depictions of
unreflective low art,
one need look no further than the commonly perceived opinions of Robert
Howard's Conan stories. If you ask the average man on the street to
describe a Conan narrative, you will likely be given a tale of lust and
violence. In the tale Conan will rescue some half-naked maiden from
some rampaging beast and the story will end with the woman becoming all
naked as she swoons at the hero's feet. In fact, a great deal of Conan
pastiche has been based on this very simple formula and even a couple of the original tales fit this mold. The largest
problem with such a vision is that it is not all that accurate when looking at Howard's tales of Conan as a whole. There are tales of this sort in the Conan oeuvre, but there are also tales of visionary wonder.
Like
most authors, whether they write literature or Literature, Howard's
writings reflect his own thoughts, experiences, and education. The
writing reflects the aesthetic tastes of the author, or his/her
understanding of a prospective audiences literary tastes. What makes
something worth reading again and again is when an author satisfies
those with "lower" tastes while providing them with some food for
thought. Howard is no exception. In fact, I was surprised while I was
rereading the first published Conan story, Howard's
The Phoenix on the Sword to find that the author seemed to be hinting at a theory of the value of literature and its role in society.
Howard's
Hyborean Age is a mythic world filled with magic and wonder, but it is
also a world based on the history of the real world. Howard combined
multiple eras of history so that societies whose "real world" existence
is separated by centuries could co-exist narratively. Conan's own
people, the Cimmerians, are based on a very real historical peoples.
Both Herodotus, in his Histories, and Plutarch, in his Lives, mention
the Cimmerian peoples (called Cimbri in Plutarch). In
The Phoenix on the Sword,
Howard appears to expect his audience to have at least a little
understanding of the historical Cimmerians in his conversation of the
role of literature in civilization. Conan, as protagonist, must hold
ideas which the reader sympathizes with for the particular narrative of
Phoenix to work.
So
what kind of people were the Cimmerians? According to Herodotus they
were a people who were pillagers and raiders, but not rulers.
For
the Cimmerian attack upon Ionia, which was earlier than Croesus, was
not a conquest of the cities, but only an inroad for plundering.
Herodotus, Histories, I, 6
What did they look like? According to Plutarch:
Their
great height, their black eyes and their name, Cimbri, which the
Germans use for brigands, led us merely to suppose that they were one of
those races of Germania who lived on the shores of the Western Ocean.
Others say that the huge expanse of Celtica stretches from the outer sea
and the western regions to the Palus Maeotis and borders on Asian
Scythia; that these two neighbouring nations joined forces and left
their land... And although each people had a different name, their army
was collectively called Celto-Scythian. According to others, some of the
Cimmerians, who were the first-to be known to the ancient Greeks...
took flight and were driven from their land by the Scythians. Plutarch, Life of Marius, XI
What was their temperament? According to Homer:
Thus
she brought us to the deep-Rowing River of Ocean and the frontiers of
the world, where the fog-bound Cimmerians live in the City of Perpetual
Mist. When the bright Sun climbs the sky and puts the stars to flight,
no ray from him can penetrate to them, nor can he see them as he drops
from heaven and sinks once more to the earth. For dreadful night has
spread her mantle over the heads of that unhappy folk. Homer, Odyssey, XI, 14
It is Homer's description of the Cimmerians that Howard uses in
Phoenix
to describe the mood of the people and to separate Conan from his kin.
When Conan is asked why the Cimmerians are such a brooding people,
Conan responds:
“Perhaps it’s the land they live in,”
answered the king. “A gloomier land never was – all of hills, darkly
wooded, under skies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down
the valleys.” –
Phoenix on the Sword
The
average Cimmerian is a dour and towering barbarian who destroys
civilization then returns to his gloomy homeland only to begin the
process again later. Howard's typical Cimmerian is similar to that of
the classical scholars, and presents a figure most unlikely to advance
the literary arts. But this is where Conan differs from his kin. In The
Phoenix on the Sword, Conan is an older man who has conquered on of the
greatest nations of the Hyborean Age expressly to free them from
tyrannical rule. He conquered to rule, and to liberate an oppressed
nation. A far cry from the typical barbarian. By separating Conan from
his kin, Howard simultaneously increases the audience's sympathy for
the barbarian king while enabling the character to advance a theory of
the value of literature.
The Phoenix on the Sword is the
tale of a plot to assassinate King Conan, a plot organized my a
Machiavellian figure named Ascalante who desires to assume the throne.
Ascalante is the product of civilization, but he is the antagonist of
the story and so Howard uses his opinions of the Arts as a way to
separate him from the audience's sympathy. When he describes a poet who
has been brought into his conspiracy he describes the poet in
pejorative terms. These terms evolve as the narrative moves from
unpublished draft to final published form. Ascalante originally
expresses his disdain for Rinaldo (the poet) in a long description:
“Rinaldo
– a mad poet full of hare-brained visions and out-worn chivalry. A
prime favorite with the people because of his songs which tear out their
heart-strings. He is our best bid for popularity.” – Ascalante in Phoenix on the Sword (unpublished First submitted draft)
By
the time the story is published the description is changed to the very
brief, "“…Rinaldo, the hair-brained minstrel.” [Ascalante in
Phoenix on the Sword(published)].
In the published form, Howard leaves out the value of Rinaldo's
participation in the plot because it is redundant with information
presented later in the story. When Ascalante is asked what value
Rinaldo has as a conspirator, Ascalante's response is similar in both
the published and unpublished text, but his hatred of Rinaldo is made
more clear in the draft than in the published text:
“Alone
of us all, Rinaldo has no personal ambition. He sees in Conan a
red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a
civilized land. He idealizes the king whom Conan killed to get the
crown, remembering only that he occasionally patronized the arts, and
forgetting the evils of his reign, and he is making the people forget.
Already they openly sing The Lament for the King in which Rinaldo lauds
the sainted villain and denounces Conan as ‘that black-hearted savage
from the abyss.’ Conan laughs, but the people snarl.” – Ascalante in Phoenix on the Sword (published)
“Rinaldo
– bah! I despise the man and admire him at the same time. He is your
true idealist. Alone of us all he has no personal ambition. He sees in
Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to
plunder a peaceful land. He thinks he sees barbarism triumphing over
culture. He already idealizes the king Conan killed, forgetting the
rogue’s real nature, remembering only that he occasionally patronized
the arts, and forgetting the evils under which the land groaned during
his reign, and he is making the people forget. Already they open sing
‘The Lament for the King’ in which Rinaldo lauds the saintly villain,
and denounces Conan as ‘that black-hearted savage from the abyss.’ Conan
laughs, but at the same time wonders why the people are turning against
him.” – Ascalante in Phoenix on the Sword (unpublished First submitted draft)
In
both descriptions the poet is shown to be a blind idealist. Rinaldo,
it appears, cannot look beyond the Cimmerian stereotypes as presented by
Plutarch and Herodotus. Howard doesn't require the reader to have
those preconceptions, but for the reader who has read Herodotus and
Plutarch the stereotype becomes even clearer. Also by editing down the
prose the author, either willingly or at editorial command, displays an
amount of trust that his audience can reach the proper conclusion that
barbarism typically destroys the valuable within civilization. What is
interesting is that while Rinaldo is a conspirator, the poet is an
antagonist, he is not a villain. He is a blind a foolish idealist, not
acting in his own self interest. Ascalante even goes on to describe
Rinaldo's motivations:
“Poets always hate
those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last
corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the
past and future. Rinaldo is a flaming torch of idealism, rising, as he
thinks, to overthrow a tyrant and liberate the people.” – Ascalante in Phoenix on the Sword (published)
“Because
he is a poet. Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is
always just behind the last corner or beyond the next. They escape the
present in dreams of the past and the future. Rinaldo is a flaming
torch of idealism and he sees himself as a hero, a stainless knight –
which after all he is! – rising to overthrow the tyrant and liberate the
people.” – Ascalante in Phoenix on the Sword (unpublished First submitted draft)
Ascalante
specifies what kind of idealists poets are. They seek an imagined
perfect society, and will always look for it no matter how good the
society they are currently in happens to be. But this is Ascalante, the
Machiavellian civilized man, and his opinion about what the value of
the poet is. For him the poet is an easily manipulable puppet. What
about the barbarian turned king, the protagonist, and oft argued proxy
for the author? (It should be noted that many argue that Conan often
reflects Howard's own views, this is not an original assertion on my
part.)
Conan adores the poet, and understands the
criticisms. He is aware that the poet's plays are leading many among
the people to despise him, but he too is persuaded of the need for
justice. When his chief adviser, Prospero, discusses disdain for
Rinaldo, Conan comes to the poet's (and poetry in general) defense. The
text is near identical in the published and unpublished format.
“Rinaldo
is largely responsible,” answered Prospero, drawing up his sword-belt
another notch. “He sings songs that make men mad. Hang him in his
jester’s garb to the highest tower in the city. Let him make rhymes for
the vultures.”
“No, Prospero, he’s beyond my reach. A great poet
is greater than any king. His songs are mightier than my scepter, for
he has hear ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for
me. I will die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo’s songs will live
forever.” – Phoenix on the Sword (unpublished first submitted draft)
“Rinaldo
is largely responsible,” answered Prospero, drawing up his sword-belt
another notch. “He sings songs that make men mad. Hang him in his
jester’s garb to the highest tower in the city. Let him make rimes for
the vultures.”
“No, Prospero, he’s beyond my reach. A great poet
is greater than any king. His songs are mightier than my scepter; for
he has near ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for
me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo’s songs will live for
ever.” – Phoenix on the Sword (published)
For
Conan, the atypical Cimmerian, poems and the arts have more power than
weapons or royal authority. Not only that, but it is right and just
that this is the case. Conan, the barbarian, is the defender of the
value of literature, while Ascalante, the civilized man, sees literature
as only a tool used to manipulate the foolish. Conan would seek to
discuss the past and future, the ideal ones, with the poet, while
Ascalante would merely use Rinaldo to destroy what he opposes. Conan's
conflict between desiring a free press and swift justice, and the
eventual melee that will result because of his favoring of the press,
are made clear in the poetic prologue to the final chapter of the
narrative.
What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs – I was a man before I was a king. – The Road of Kings – Phoenix on the Sword (published)
Surprisingly,
Conan's love of literature and the arts, and his defense of them, is so
deeply rooted that he initially refuses to kill Rinaldo when Rinaldo
attacks him. He still believes he can reason with the poet, it is only
when he is left no other alternative that he kills the poet (the text is
identical in both published and unpublished forms).
“He
rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his
sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open
hand sent him reeling to the floor.” – Phoenix on the Sword (published)
“He
straightened to meet the maddened rush of Rinaldo, who charged in wild
and wide open, armed only with a dagger. Conan leaped back, lifting his
ax.
‘Rinaldo!’ his voice was strident with desperate urgency. ‘Back! I would not slay you ..’
‘Die,
tyrant!’ screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himself headlong on the
king. Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too
late. Only when he felt the bite of the steel in his unprotected side
did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.
Rinaldo
dropped with his skull shattered and Conan reeled back against the
wall, blood spurting from between the fingers which gripped his wound.” –
Phoenix on the Sword (published)
What
is interesting in the narrative is that of all the conspirators, there
are twenty in all, none are able to injure Conan with the success of the
poet. The poet has both damaged Conan's regime and his body and yet
Conan was ever reluctant to, though in the end capable of, slay his
greatest enemy.
“’See first to the
dagger-wound in my side,’ he bade the court physicians. ‘Rinaldo wrote
me a deathly song there, and keen was the stylus.’
‘We should have hanged him long ago,’ gibbered Publius. ‘No good can come of poets..’” – Phoenix on the Sword (published)
What
does this tell us of Howard's thoughts regarding the arts? We know
that Conan loves them, but we also know how they were used to manipulate
the populace and how his own love for them almost cost him his life.
Is Howard trying to discuss how Plato's critique of the poets is a good
one, while at the same time defending the possible nobility of the poet
(as Aristotle does in his Rhetoric)? I think these are questions
intentionally posed in the narrative (I know...never guess at
intentionality), and make it clear why Conan's first story
The Phoenix on the Sword was so compelling to readers when they first read it.
It
should be noted that the story was originally submitted as a Kull tale,
though I have yet to analyze that draft like I have these two
subsequent writings. The Kull version was rejected by Weird Tales and
the final (rather than the first) Conan version was the first appearance
of what has become a culturally iconic figure.
