I say that this type of writing [ putting oneself in the story] is natural, I do not see a problem with any author doing it. Do we as readers or movie goers never imagine ourselves as the hero? when i was young , I wanted to be Flash Gordon, Tarzan , or a Johnny Carter when i read the stories or viewed the movies . It would have been great to be a swashbuckling Errol Flynn and always get the girl .It would be natural for the author to see himself the hero ,as the reader sees himself in the story as well . -----Actually he did put howard above other pulp writers!---------Anyway thanks for printing this----Ralph
OK, here's the text: WARNING: THIS IS NOT ESPECIALLY COMPLIMENTARY, PRETTY INSULTIVE, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ IT, DON'T READ IT. Superman on a Psychotic Bender SKULL FACE AND OTHERS. By Robert E. Howard. 474 pp. Sauk City, Wis. : Arkham House. $5. By H. R. HAYS THE collected stories of Robert E. Howard range from the standard "weird tales" pattern (the monster unloosed and its final destruction, or the destruction of the dabbler in the occult) to a kind of action story in costume set in a prehistoric world of Lemuria and Atlantis invented by the author. Howard used a good deal of the Lovecraft cosmogony and demonology, but his own contribution was a sadistic conquerer [sic] who, when cracking heads did not solve his difficulties, had recourse to magic and the aid of Lovecraft's Elder Gods. The stories are written on a competent pulp level (a higher level, by the way, than that of some best sellers) and are allied to the Superman genre which pours forth in countless comic books and radio serials. Since this genre commands an incredibly large audience in the United States and seems to be an American phenomenon, its sociological and psychological significance cannot be lightly brushed away. E. Hoffman Price contributes a biographical sketch of Howard which is remarkably revealing. Howard, it seems, spent all of his life in the small town of Cross Plains, Tex. A sensitive boy, he was apparently bullied by his schoolmates. He began writing successfully at a very early age but felt that his profession was looked down upon by his neighbors. When Price met him he carried a loaded revolver wherever he went and talked of nonexistent "enemies. " Upon the death of his mother in l936 he committed suicide with the same revolver. Howard's heroes were consequently wish-projections of himself. All of the frustrations of his own life were conquered in a dream world of magic and heroic carnage. In exactly the same way Superman compensates for all the bewilderment and frustration in which the semi-literate product of the Industrial age finds himself enmeshed. The problem of evil is solved by an impossibly omnipotent hero. Now if anything like democracy is to prevail in modern life it means that a heavy burden of responsibility is thrown upon the average citizen. It means that he must take a realistic interest in the difficulties of living. But the prevalence of Superman as reading matter for adults indicates a complete evasion of this responsibility. Howard's life is like a fable illustrating the sad consequences of this situation. Living in the never-never land of Conan and King Kull, he slaughtered enemies by the dozen. He was fearless, inscrutable, desired by all women. Single-handed he toppled rulers from their thrones and built empires of oriental splendor. Even the menace of the supernatural was vanquished by magic that he alone was able to control. In the real world, however, he had no resources. When he was faced with the loss of maternal protection he took the way of self-destruction. Thus the hero-literature of the pulps and the comics is symptomatic of a profound contradiction. On the one hand it is testimony to insecurity and apprehension, and on the other it is a degraded echo of the epic. But the ancient hero story was a glorification of significant elements in the culture that produced it. Mr. Howard's heroes project the immature fantasy of a split mind and logically pave the way to schizophrenia.
