The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, by Robert E. Howard

Far back in Kane’s gloomy eyes, a scintillant light had begun to glimmer, like a witch’s torch glinting under fathoms of cold gray ice. His blood quickened. Adventure! The lure of life-risk and battle! The thrill of breathtaking, touch-and-go drama! Not that Kane recognized his sensations as such. He sincerely considered that he voiced his real feelings when he said:
“These things be deeds of some power of evil. The lords of darkness have laid a curse upon the country. A strong man is needed to combat Satan and his might. Therefore I go, who have defied him many a time.”

After viewing the not-bad movie Solomon Kane, which I reviewed recently, I decided to see whether there were any Kane stories I’d missed. I’d read one collection before, and thought that was all there was. But in fact, I discovered, Robert E. Howard wrote a number of Solomon Kane stories, enough to fill a book of reasonable length if you include the unfinished fragments, and that is what The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane is.
The stories start in Kane’s English homeland, where he battles various dark forces, but soon Howard takes him to continental Europe and then to Africa, where he stays for the rest of the book, except for a “homecoming” poem that rounds the collection out.
As you can judge from the snippet at the top of this post, Robert E. Howard was not a writer of elegance. His prose can clunk from time to time. But I have to say that I didn’t care. The man was unmatched in his ability to paint a weird scene, draw you into it, and engage you at every level. I read the book in great chunks, with immense visceral pleasure.
One surprising fact, which I learned in the excellent biographical sketch on Howard by Rusty Burke which is appended to the book, was that Howard was a fan of G. K. Chesterton. It’s apparent, though, that it wasn’t Chesterton’s theological writings that he liked, but his poetry, especially “The Ballad of the White Horse,” which he actually quotes at the section breaks in the story “The Moon of Skulls.” Despite being identified as a Puritan, Solomon Kane doesn’t actually think about theology much. He is even willing to use (though gingerly at first) a “ju-ju stick” given to him by an African witch doctor, though Howard softens the unorthodoxy of that choice later on by identifying the stick as being both the rod of Aaron and the staff of Solomon. In short, don’t look for Christian lessons here. This is pulp fiction from the 1930s, albeit top of the line pulp fiction.
Something should probably be said about Howard’s handling of race. Solomon Kane is not hostile to the black people he encounters. In fact he often acts as their protector, flying into volcanic rage over injustices and violence visited upon them. But he is patronizing in the extreme. The author’s view seems to be that Africans are a lower evolutionary form of human being, soon destined for extinction, and that it’s the duty of superior whites to look after them.
Lots of violence. The language was pretty mild, in the style of the times. And lots less sexual suggestiveness than in the Conan stories.
I should also mention that Gary Gianni’s illustrations for this book are simply wonderful – skillful line drawings in the old style of Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth. They are fully worthy of the material and add immensely to the effect of the prose.
Highly recommended, as pure entertainment.

11 Characteristics of Evil

  1. Evil intersperses cruelty with kindness.
  2. Evil assumes other people are as fake as It is.
  3. Evil likes to toy with other people’s boundaries.
  4. Evil takes a victim stance.
  5. Evil would rather kill the person doing the questioning than take a realistic look at itself.
  6. Evil does it for kicks.
  7. At it’s heart, Evil is parasitic.
  8. Evil is smooth-talking and impulsive.
  9. Evil, it would seem, reduces living things to commodities, especially those foolish enough to lick its knee.
  10. Evil ruins childhood and refuses kids the tools to grow up.
  11. Evil is mindless suffering and a blind compulsion to act out a painful past.

Koren Zailckas, who has written a novel about a smooth-talking, evil woman, gives us this list of Evil’s characteristics as seen in characters from 11 novels.

Star Wars as an Icelandic saga, and other matters

First, a brief commercial message. Due to a momentary technical lag in our diabolical plan to raise the prices on my two self-published e-books, Troll Valley remains for sale for the old $2.99 price at the time of this posting. I have no idea how long this will last, so if you want it at the old, low-self-esteem price, get it now.

Author Michael Z. Williamson sent me this link to a remarkable piece of writing by Jackson Crawford, who teaches Norse and Norwegian languages at UCLA. It’s a retelling of the Star Wars story as an Icelandic saga, and to my ear it seems letter-perfect. Also better than the movies.

But Lúkr took Artú’s bloody cape and there found the message written by Princess Leia. He began to read it. “I am no runemaster,” he said, “But these words say, ‘Help me, Víga-Óbívan Kvæggansson; you alone would dare to avenge me.’ I don’t know how to read any more words, because they are written poorly and hastily. What is this?”

Artú pretended not to speak Norse, and asked in Irish, “What is what?”

“What is what?” responded Thrípíó, “That was a question. What was written on that message which Princess Leia gave you?”

“That’s nothing,” said Artú, “An old message. I think that Princess Leia is long dead.” Thrípíó translated his words into Norse.

“Who is Princess Leia?” asked Lúkr, “What family is she from?”

How Much Do You Need to Know About Me?

Alissa Wilkinson writes about Christian artists who eschew identification as such:

Sometimes it’s because they’re afraid of being stigmatized, in some fields more than others. But just as often, what I hear is that they don’t because they’re afraid that the “Christian world” will glom onto them, making them the next poster child for the cause: “Look! Christians can be cool, too!” Then, precisely because the gears are ready and well-oiled, they fear they’ll be sucked into being packaged for “the Christian market.” (And often they want their art to be appreciated because it is well-made, not because a Christian made it and we all gotta stick together.)

(via Jeffrey Overstreet)

Creeping into the 21st century

C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere that for modern souls, the acquisition of new appliances, vehicles, and entertainment devices constituted “the very stages of their pilgrimage.” I bear that in mind as I announce my acquisition of a Kindle HD.

As you know if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve had a Kindle Keyboard (the generous gift of no less a figure than the learned Dr. Hunter Baker) for some years now, and have fallen wholly under its sway. I like its ergonomics, its lightness, and the opportunity, when I need a new book, to satisfy my jones in about a minute. I treasure my Kindle Keyboard, and have no plans to abandon it. In the single day I’ve owned my Fire, I’ve tried reading on it, and it’s fine. I’m sure I could transition to it as a regular reading device without trouble. But the battery on my old Kindle lasts longer, and the essential reading’s equally good.

The Kindle Fire HD is a genuine tablet, albeit a low-end, entry-level one. The first thing that impressed me was the graphics. What I see on my device doesn’t have the definition of the more expensive Kindles, but nevertheless it amazed me. I got a free month of Amazon Prime with my purchase, and I downloaded an episode of “Justified.” I was highly impressed with the speed and picture quality (though downloading YouTube videos can be annoyingly slow and page loading can be poky). Also impressive was the Dolby sound, which is amazingly good for such a small device.

I’m still learning to navigate on the thing, and experiencing the normal old dog’s problems. I like the way you can move around and zoom in on the screen with a finger swipe, and I think the whole thing will become pretty instinctive before long. For someone who’s always worked with Windows, the whole “Mojito” operating system involves a little techno-shock, but like all systems it makes its own kind of sense. The virtual keyboard is OK; it confounded me for a while but I think I’m catching on.

The main reason for the low price of this Kindle is that it doesn’t have either a camera or a microphone, so the buyer should be aware of that. I bought mine because I wanted more flexibility in accessing the web. I think I’ll even be able to do some of my graduate course work through it; at least that is my hope.

This is a preliminary evaluation. I’ll let you know if I change my mind about anything.