Indeed I'd argue REH wrote in a very hardboiled style. If you
think about his character of REH's Conan he's basically a
version of Richard Stark's Parker, or vice versa. A powerful
guy, with indefatigable determination. I'm going through the
Parker novels again and finding that as Stark developed the
character he dropped the 'sheer strength of muscle' in favour
of strength of will and wilyness (if thats a word). Conan and
Parker, like the unnamed protagonist of Akira Kurosawa's
YOJIMBO, are extremely competent, determined to get their way
and in possession of a strong goal. A strong goal in almost
every case is money. Money is of course only an means to an
end, a way of keeping score, a way of determining the
"winner". Parker, Conan and "Yojimbo" are all hardboiled
winners. Think Clint Eastwod in "Dirty Harry" minus the plot,
think Clint in "A fist full of Dollars" definitely. Think
Arnold Schwarzenegger holding the severed head of Thulsa
Doom.
Jesse
--- Mark Hall <
markhall@gol.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 7/26/2003, "Michael Robison" <
zspider@gte.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Jesse Willis wrote:
> >> The quote from "Heart of Darkness" reads
almost
> like
> >> Robert E. Howard's "Queen Of The Black
Coast"!
> >
> >**************
> >Darn, Jesse! The book sounded like an
interesting
> change of pace so
> >I looked it up on Abebooks and it must be one
of
> those hot collector
> >items. I couldn't touch it for less that
$18.
> >
> >miker
>
> You can get copies of REH's "Queen of the
Black
> Coast" for much
> cheaper than that. I forget which of the
Lancer/Ace
> Conan volumes it
> is in (edited by DeCamp); but they crop up on
eBay
> and abebooks for just
> a few books each. It is also collected in one
of
> the Gollancz/Millennium
> Fantasy Masterworks volumes by REH. I am at
work
> now and will check when
>
> I get home.
>
> In Don Herron's DARK BARBARIAN, one of the
essays
> there makes a very
> strong
> case for many of REH's stories being
"hard-boiled"
> in tone, plot, theme,
> etc.
>
> Best, Mark Hall
>
>
> Mark Hall
>
markhall@gol.com
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