An important date and some notable news to acknowledge this
week.
Christopher Tolkien, youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien and his
literary heir, passed away on January 16 at age 95.
Today, Jan. 22, is the birth of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936),
the man who of course delivered unto us sword-and-sorcery, and the likes of Conan
and Kull and Solomon Kane.
As should come as no surprise I’m a fan of both.
In
Flame and Crimson
I draw some sharp distinctions between sword-and-sorcery and high fantasy.
Genres are defined as much by what they are as what they exclude, and
sword-and-sorcery vs. high fantasy proved a useful comparison for helping me to
establish a working definition for the former. But I’ll also admit that these
distinctions are at times artificial and strained, and fall apart at the edges.
Far more important than the bucket in which you place it is the quality of a
given work. I’m obviously a big sword-and-sorcery fan, but I also admit that a
lot of it is not very good. I’m not a fan of most multi-volume fat fantasy, but
The Lord of the Rings is in my
opinion the greatest work of fantasy ever written, and in my younger days I read
the heck out of endless Dragonlance series, even (shudder) Dennis McKiernan’s
The
Iron Tower Trilogy.
I have to believe that if Howard ever had the chance to read
The Lord of the Rings or
The Silmarillion he’d be blown away. We
do have an account from L. Sprague de Camp that Tolkien “rather enjoyed” the
Conan stories (although some have speculated that Tolkien was merely being
polite). But Tolkien also appeared to have a limited exposure to REH,
having
only read perhaps “Shadows in the Moonlight” in the L. Sprague de Camp-edited
Swords & Sorcery. I believe if Tolkien were ever exposed to some of
Howard’s verse, for example lines like these:
Into the west, unknown
of man,
Ships have sailed since the world began.
Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote,
With dead hands fumbling his silken coat;
And follow the ships through the wind-blown wrack–
Follow the ships that come not back.
He would have found a kindred spirit.
Christopher Tolkien has received his share of criticism over
the years for being overly protective and litigious of his father’s works, and
Middle-Earth in general. Having seen the latest Hobbit films, I can’t say I
blame him. But Christopher was not just a preserver of the flame, he edited and
published multiple volumes of his father’s writings on the history of Middle-Earth,
stories from its elder Ages that otherwise would have been consigned to
gathering dust in old notebooks. He did so with extraordinary patience and care,
when he could have exploited his father’s legacy and sold the IP for millions.
Here are a few examples over on
Sacnoth’s
Scriptorium.
Christopher struggled with how to present his father’s
numerous notes and various and occasionally conflicting versions of
Middle-Earth’s history, and after believing he may have missed the mark in his single
narrative approach to The Silmarillion
with Guy Gavriel Kay, decided to go all in on his 12 volume History of
Middle-Earth. From volume 1, The Book of
Lost Tales:
There
are explorations to be conducted in this world with perfect right quite
irrespective of literary critical considerations; and it is proper to attempt
to comprehend its structure in its largest extent, from the myth of its
Creation. Every person, every feature of the imagined world that seemed
significant to its author is then worthy of attention in its own right, Manwe
or Feanor no less than Gandalf or Galadriel, the Silmarils no less than the
Rings.
Christopher’s work organizing and publishing these myths and
histories was appreciated by millions. Layer on his service in the Royal Air
Force during World War 2, and I have nothing but respect for the man.
So, respect to these deceased gentlemen. Though Howard,
Tolkien, and now Tolkien’s son and editor have passed into the West, their
works have achieved immortality.
