Quixote,
Let me take a shot at this for you. If I understand your first
question, its which writer portrays Conan in a similar vein to the way REH
did it, not necessarily writes like REH in general (and if I've got that
wrong, let me know). Assuming that is right, that's where the discussion
heads south with lots of folks here. See, comic book style character-based
works live on the premise of having lots of different folks write their own
take on the character, which gives the fans an ongoing character, and lots
to talk about, compare, etc., and the fans love it.
For most of the folks here, they have come to realize that they like
REH as a writer, for whatever reason. That the writer is much more
important to them than one particular character out of his collection.
Whether it is his style of writing, his themes, his creativity, his
underlying issues that quietly boil out, whatever, that is what gets these
folks going. So you have to understand, when you say "sounds like REH", the
reason REH's fans like REH goes a lot deeper than that. If REH doesn't ring
your chime any more than any other S&S writer, that's cool, its all a matter
of differing tastes, and ours ain't no better than yours, just different.
And for most of us that get off on REH, I doubt you'll find many who
have anything nice to say about Conan pastiches. LSDC correctly recognized
that Conan could be turned into a generic comic book style character. LSDC
really didn't get into REH much, though he claims to have, but he never
caught any of the depth of REH, just the pulpy prose. And he led the way to
the generic barbarian, brainless cardboard muscler, boringly and
repetitively told stories. LSDC was very big on the idea that S&S was just
for fun, no social issues to discuss, no hyping of barbarism being better
than civilization, the decay of current society, what it truly means to be
outside of society, and on and on, the themes that give much of REH's Conan
some fire that hits some folks.
Like several other folks here, I got started with Conan in the
Lancer/Ace series. And like many here, without anyone telling me anything,
it was immediately clear to me that REH wrote with something special, and
the rest of the stuff was just embarrassing tripe, using a cardboard
character in a stock formula with other cardboard characters. Yuck. But
not everyone is hit that way, and if you weren't, oh well.
So no, the movie won't have anything to do with REH, it'll be about
the brainless, lead-him-by-the-nose, barbarian, who can be manipulated and
used by everyone, in a story whose main purpose is to show lots of blood,
gore, muscles, and bare flesh. Not that those last four are bad, but sadly
that will be about as deep as it gets, and that is cheap and generic,
nothing special. About as anti-REH as you can get. If you haven't seen the
the script synopsis floating out there, check out some of the Conan sites,
someone will have it up, it is reallllly pathetic.
The upcoming movie won't be based on REH's novel, in any way, that's
not the topic for Milius. If by "inspired" you mean will it use name
"Conan" and the Hyborian world, yep. If you mean inspired by REH and his
view of Conan, nope, not even close. But that being said, it may still be a
great commercial success, there may be more Conan than REH fans out there.
And for that matter you may enjoy it tremendously, and that's OK, that's
your taste. But pity us REH fans, who would JUST ONCE like to see a REH
story committed to film, just once. Look at the success of Lord of the
Rings, and Harry Potter, sticking strictly to the original. Why won't they
do that with REH? Damn irritating.
And no, this isn't a Conan list, there are lots of those out there
if that is what you seek. Pastiche writers and their qualities has been
discussed hereabout a time or two before, and I think the short general
answer you'll get from at least a few folks is that Karl Edward Wagner got
the closest to REH, though I personally didn't like his bit at all, too
gloomy, I prefer Robert Jordan's take, certainly not REH, but entertaining,
if repetitive.
If you want to discuss REH sometime, head over to REHinnercircle in
yahoogroups, that's where all the scholars and innumerable others hang, this
list is almost nonexistent.
Paul Herman
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 10:33 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [rehfans] Is this REH group still working?? ...
For any of you that aren't purists, which other Conan writer sounds most
like
REH to you? Or who is your favorite? What do you think the new King Conan
movie will be like? Do you think that they will use Howard's actual novel
as
inspiration?
Quixote
