Stephen King on REH

Stephen King had … things to say about Robert E. Howard and sword-and-sorcery.  He mostly liked the former … not so much the latter.

If you own a copy of the Del Reys and their pure Howard texts, you've probably seen this positive, forceful quote placed prominently on display:

“In his best work, Howard's writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”

This is an excerpt from King's1981 survey of horror and dark fantasy Danse Macabre. In it King references Howard with praise, though has no use for the subgenre he spawned. 

From Flame and Crimson (pp. 180-181), King called sword-and-sorcery "a mediocre branch of fantasy that catered tales of power and wish-fulfillment for the powerless, “stories of strong-thewed barbarians whose extraordinary prowess at fighting is only excelled by their extraordinary prowess at fucking.” Added King, “This sort of fiction, commonly called ‘sword and sorcery’ by its fans, is not fantasy at its lowest, but it still has a pretty tacky feel; mostly it’s the Hardy Boys dressed up in animal skins and rated R.”  King mentions no individual works or authors of sword-and-sorcery in his savage broadside, save Howard, who he also praises as “the only writer who really got away with this stuff. … Howard overcame the limitations of his puerile material by the force and fury of his writing and by his imagination.” 

You can find more King commentary on REH here on the blog of Gary Romeo, who examines a flawed piece from King that appeared in the Jan. 1978 issue of the men’s magazine Oui. Though I must say King’s “mama’s boy” commentary sounds suspiciously like something he would have picked up from a DeCamp intro. Romeo gives us the full Danse Macabre quote from King, which is decidedly more mixed:

 “In his best work, Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks. Stories such as “The People of the Black Circle” glow with the fierce and eldritch light of his frenzied intensity. At his best, Howard was the Thomas Wolfe of fantasy, and most of his Conan tales seem to almost fall over themselves in their need to get out. Yet his other work was either unremarkable or just abysmal….The word will hurt and anger his legion of fans, but I don’t believe any other word fits.”

All this comes up here because as I continue to work my way through the The Stand I’ve encountered another REH reference. Harold Lauder, a troubled Gollum-like figure who hovered on the edge of “good” and might still have become that way, is jilted by Frances Goldsmith, gives in to his worst adolescent impulses, and ultimately throws his lot in with Vegas and Flagg and the wicked West.

Pre-superflu Lauder was once a reader of adventure fiction … then gave it up for the (imagined) company of girls:

At age sixteen he had given up Burroughs and Stevenson and Robert Howard in favor of other fantasies, fantasies that were both well loved and much hated—not of rockets or pirates but of girls in silk see-through pajamas kneeling before him on satin pillows while Harold the Great lolled naked on his throne, ready to chastise them with small leather whips, with silver-headed canes. They were bitter fantasies through which every pretty girl at Ogunquit High School had strolled one time or another.

Ah Harold, you shouldn’t have read Frannie’s diary…no turning back from that.

King is a king of pop culture references. Howard-heads, are you aware of any other REH references?

Anyway, well past the halfway mark of The Stand.