By the time he had revised PHOENIX, he felt the need for some sort of sweepingAgreed.
historical base from which to "make stuff up" from later, hence the essay.
Of course he added much as he went along in each story (every author does), but he was careful (not lucky or aimless, but careful) not to contradict past "history" while elaborating. He wasn't perfect (as your Tamar example demonstrates),
One disagreement: I would never guess that Howard's changing of a single city name was an indication of him abandoning the concept of "global cohesiveness" just because the story was meant for England. I would chalk it up to his simply forgetting he had named the city in the earlier story before I would suppose that. I think you are reading to much into the "center of Ireland/Heart of Ahriman" connection, but who knows? I think connections like Dale Rippke noting similarities in the ways he described ancient Giant-Kings of Acheron/Stygia in various stories are much more illustrative of the "professionalism" you speak of.The change from Tamar to Tarantia was not a mistake; I explained my views on this in my essay "The Kings of the Night". Sure, changing one name does not seriously hurt the cohesiveness, but what I wanted to stress was that that cohesiveness was second to Howard, it came after his intentions for the story. Tamar would mean nothing to an English/Celtic reader; Tarantia (Tara), much more, since, as stated, the story had that Celtic background to it. If he had been "cohesiveness" obsessed, then he would have kept Tamar.
Perhaps my phrase "carefully" outlined was too much when referencing the Conan stories, but I maintain that Howard was the type of writer who usually had to know where he was going before embarking on the writing of a story. The fact that he often started outlines, even if they quickly petered out, shows that he valued getting some sort of structure into his head before writing, and that he had a much tougher time completing the story without this structure.Some of the time, yes, some other times, no. Take the example of "Rogues in the House": no synopsis, no draft. There are numerous examples of Howard starting a story and having no idea where he was going. Sometimes, this would work, such as in "Queen of the Black Coast", sometimes not, such as "Wolves beyond the Border".
To comment on "one who wrote alone", I would say,
from having spent the last several weeks immersed in the Conan drafts,
that REH had most of the stuff in his head, but with no particular outline.
It was a bit of a mess, if you want; when the plot was a bit more clear
in his head, he would write an outline to help him start the story;
the ending would come naturally. The evolution between the drafts is particularly
interesting; most of the times, there are little, if any, plot alterations,
and the changes concern mainly Howard's handling of certain scenes (and
sometimes dialogues). The evolution in the drafts of "The Scarlet Citadel",
especially the scenes in the citadel where Conan delivers Pelias, are particulalry
interesting in that respect. The penultmate draft is good, but not particularly
spectacular; it was only in the final draft that REH had Pelias make the
dead Shukeli open the door. The contrast between the two drafts is striking.
The final one is SO MUCH better. REH knew how to handle scenes, and many
of the Conan stories are famous for having memorable ones: Conan's crucifixion
in "A Witch Shall be Born", Conan throwing whatshername in the cesspool
in "Rogues in the House", Conan gorging food and wine when first presented
to the generals of the army in "Black Colossus". Most of the times, these
scenes only appear with the definitive version.
Now I am aware that Howard may have been exaggerating the meaning of "detailed", but the point for Mike to take back to his friends on the other list is that Howard didn't just aimlessly pick names out of the air without any reason or thought to consistency, which is what Mike seemed to assume. Even if he was inventing something on the spot, said invention got filtered through Howard's preconceived notions (largely established through The Hyborian Age essay way back in March 1932) of what the consistent history was. Again, he wasn't perfect in his use of names, etc., but there was thought behind it, a good deal of it. He didn't know much about the southern kingdoms, but whenever he did mention them, the names and people look and sound African, not Greek or whatever. That's my point, anyway.That's an interesting point. The choice of "African" examples is particularly striking in views of certain recent discoveries I made concerning "Vale of Lost Women", which was absolutely not inspired by any African locale, episode or whatnot, but by an American one.. The phrase "filtered through preconceived notions" is particularly apt. I had been working on that story for quite some time to establish its writing date; I had reread ten or fifteen times in the past four or five weeks, but never would I have imagined that the "meat" of the story could have been anything but pseudo-African until I almost mistakenly stumbled on its probable genesis. (Sorry, no divulging yet.)
To go off on a tangent...there can be much debate about how many plot points were blatantly "reused" (as blatantly as BY THIS AXE I RULE became PHOENIX ON THE SWORD) but I think most of it is speculation rather than fact. Some of the stories have striking similarities, but unless there are very convincing elements reproduced verbatim, then it's as facetious as saying that all of Howard's Irish heroes were the same because they all had straight black hair and icy blue eyes. I don't buy that Howard was as self-derivative as people make him out to be. Some, yes, but not nearly the wholesale reusing of so many stories that people say.I perfectly agree with you. However, I am sure you will agree that THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON is what it is because it voluntarily plunders from "Scarlet Citadel", "Black Colossus" and some elements of "Drums of Tombalku".
Just because many of his magic buildings were green stone or more than one Conan tale has a lost city or a reincarnating wizard doesn't strike me as any more derivative than Tolkien's putting every villain in, on, or under a mountain...Just a somewhat irrelevant note here; if I am correct, the greenish buildings/stones only appear in REH circa Aug 1932. That's not repetition to me, that's an unconscious obesssion, for whatever reason.
But I basically agree with your points, and am thankful for the clarifications.
Same here, and I enjoy the discussion a lot.
Patrice
