“The Conquering Sword of Conan”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Gregory Manchess

 

 

416 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345461537

 

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; The Conquering Sword of Conan, illustrated by Gregory Manchess, was the fifth volume to be published and, as the stories are published in the order Howard wrote them, it stands to reason that as his skill as a writer grew over time, as did the character of Conan. Volume three contains the short stories The Servants of Bit-Yakin (also published as Jewels of Gwahlur), Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger, Man-Eaters of Zamboula (also published as Shadows in Zamboula) and Red Nails; a bunch of notes and synopses on stores both published and not; a letter to P. Schuyler Miller (the American science fiction writer and critic) and another map of the Hyborian Age; along with appendices on the Hyborian Genesis Part III, notes on the Conan typescripts, the chronology of the tales and the original Howard texts, all by Patrice Louinet.

 

As mentioned in my review of Volume two (reviewed on _), by the time these stories were originally published, it would appear that Howard was growing tired of writing Conan stories, and while The Conquering Sword of Conan is perhaps the strongest of the three Conan-themed Del Rey volumes, one can see that Howard was yearning to expand into other genres: Beyond the Black River and Red Nails are consistently ranked amongst some of the best Conan stories that Howard ever wrote (a sentiment I agree with; I knew you’d care), but they could have just as easily been set on the dangerous frontier of the western United States in the former instance and in Aztec Mexico after the appearance of the conquistadors in latter (and, to carry this point just a little bit further, The Black Stranger could just as easily been set in the colonial America during the Golden Age of Piracy).

 

This last volume of Howard’s Conan books is an excellent send-off for this most famous of the man’s creations, and it has it all. The strength of the character is in his many contradictions: a man of brute strength and tender concerns, of savage passions and heartfelt compassion, of merciless drive and sentimental honor. The best characters have flaws and an arc in which we follow them as they grow and change. And Conan does that; he isn’t born perfect and does not become perfect, but he changes and becomes something greater at the end of his journey than he was at the beginning. THAT is proper storytelling; pity our modern-day mythmakers don’t do it better.

“Jane Austen at Home: A Biography”, by Lucy Worsley

 

400 pages, St. Martin’s Griffin, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1250799968

Jane Austen at Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley (i.e., The Queen of PBS) is as complete a biography of the Divine Jane as one could wish for. In her opening statement Lucy describes her purpose in focusing her biography of Jane on her many abodes, for “where you were born and who you were born to for most 18^th Century people delimited where you ended up”. Geography counts, folks. And from there we have a history of Jane’s life told through the medium of her never-ending quest for a permanent home of her very own. And there were many homes, make no mistake: often inadequate, never permanent and sometimes grim, all Jane ever wanted for herself, her mother and her constant companion, elder sister Cassandra (her brothers could always, and did, take care of themselves) was a safe haven in which she could live in at least a little comfort, afford a good lamp and writing materials and spread her creative wings.

And so, throughout Jane Austen at Home, we are treated to one detail after another of the many homes the Austen women occupied, their furnishings, gardens and neighborhoods, and even some of the more memorable neighbors and relations whom Jane knew. Through it all, we see how this constant changing of address affected Jane’s novels; their subject matter, their focus, their drive. Lucy describes all of the ups and downs of Jane’s life, the family celebrations and disasters, the turns of fortunes both good and ill and, perhaps most revealingly, the everyday aspects of men and women that Jane so realistically observed and captured in her novels. And of course, seeing as this is a book written by Lucy Worsley, it is shamelessly ebullient and often breathless (I guess we shouldn’t be surprised; after all, she warns us in the forward that “[t]his is, unashamedly, the story of my Jane, every word of it written with love”).

Lucy is also given to some speculative writing – there are a great many “she must have” and “I believe that” and “it is possible” peppered throughout the book – which is understandable, seeing as so much of Jane’s insightful (and acerbic) correspondence was burned by her devoted, discreet, overbearing (envious?) older sister, Cassandra, after her death (Lucy’s theory as to why Cassandra did this was to protect the rest of the Austen clan from Jane’s lashing tongue; the woman said what she thought, make no mistake). But Lucy’s speculation centers, above all, on Jane’s motives and emotions; while she was, throughout the whole of her too-brief life, wonderfully free and sharp in her opinions and observations in the letters that remain, she never said much about her feelings, except when shielded under cover of irony (many of her observations about potential mates falls under this category, the sincere wishes of Austenites to the contrary).

What about these potential mates, anyway? Did Jane really have to end life a spinster? Lucy argues that Jane chose spinsterhood to preserve her freedom as she simultaneously locates no fewer than nine – NINE! – potential husbands for Jane: Tom Lefroy (of course), Samuel Backall, William Digweed, Edward Bridges (this was the most serious after Lefroy), Harris Bigg-Wither, an unnamed seaside wooer, William Seymour (her brother Henry’s partner), William Gifford and Charles-Thomas Haden (this is one spinster who saw a whole lotta action). What to say about this? As usual, let’s turn to Jane: she wrote of her most self-effacing heroine, Anne Elliot, that “[s]he had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning”; Cassandra, reading the manuscript, underlined this passage and added: “Dear, dear Jane…this deserves to be written in letters of gold”.

Should we feel bad that Jane never married? I, for one, still do, even though, as Lucy points out, “[i]f she had married, she would doubtless have produced human rather than paper progeny”. Perhaps. Depending upon whom she managed to corral, she may have been able to hire all the help an upper-middle class matron could afford to care for the living little darlings while she continued to produce her literary little darlings. But this is all speculation, and we must cherish that which Jane gave to us: six of the most perfect books ever to grace the English language. Meanwhile, I prefer to remember Jane as Lucy would have us: “What Mrs. Luff’s grandmother clearly remembered was their description of Jane Austen in the act of ‘running across the field to call on her friends’. Let our final image of Jane be one of speed and power, not lying immovable upon her unfamiliar bed in the cramped rented upper room in Winchester, but instead running, running across the field to see her friends once again”. A better ending to an Austen novel one could hardly imagine.

“Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power”, by Christopher Clark

 

‎ 300 pages, Penguin UK, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0141039930

This is the third book by Christopher Clark that I have read: the first being Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (reviewed on July 23^rd, 2014) and the other The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (reviewed on January 7^th, 2023). And so when I saw that he had also written a biography about Kaiser Bill, I snatched it up. Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power is what you would expect from a book by Christopher Clark: well-documented, engaging and thorough – but the title should have told me that it was not what I thought it was going to be; namely, a biography of this most perplexing of modern(ish) rulers. This is because it is written from a political point of view with all the action going on in the Deutscher Reichstag, the fights occurring in the Bundesrat, relations between the Prussian political parties, the goings on between the German States and reforms (or lack thereof) over the course of the Kaiserreich.

Consequently, there is very little written about Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert – Kaiser Bill to us Yanks – concerning his private life, or his family and backgrounds, which I find very disappointing. There were, however, two revelations that were most useful. The first was that, while Wilhelm loved playing the soldier (especially dressing up in all of those uniforms) he was lousy at actual soldiering. All of those virtues one expects from a soldier – Duty, Honor, Loyalty, Competence, Selflessness, Integrity, to name a few – were not for him. It was mostly just show, and he loved playing his part. The second was that he was not a Nazi. Not that there has ever been a serious claim that the Last Kaiser sported a swastika, but Clark makes it clear that Wilhelm’s early cheerleading of the victory of German arms – especially over the French – was due to patriotism and not to championing the Little Corporal and his thugs.

There are other personal revelations, as well: his never-ending conflicts with his Anglophile parents, his envy of Bismarck and all that he accomplished, his love/hate attitude towards England and, especially, his uncle, King Edward VII, his increasing lack of any authority as the First World War progressed; all are amongst the intriguing facts that Clark brings to front. But make no mistake: this is a biography of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm II, By the Grace of God, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Count of Hohenzollern, Duke of Silesia and of the County of Glatz…and so on and so forth. As for Willy (as he was called in the family) there is precious little, which is a damn shame, for I would truly have loved to learn more of the private man with the shrunken arm who, while reviled as a warmonger, always sought a peaceful resolution to conflict. THAT is a man worth reading about.

“Cursed”, written by Thomas Wheeler, illustrated by Frank Miller

 

‎416 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-1534425330

Now, I have nothing against a little Arthurian reimagining – just read my review of A.A. Attanasio’s series, published on April 18^th, 2022. But then you knew that. But this…this…dreck. This woke shitball. This PC garbage masquerading as Arthurian mythos. This trash with a capital ‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P’ that stands for ‘Piss’. I am talking of course of Cursed, written by Thomas Wheeler but illustrated by Frank Miller, the first of what is obviously meant to be a multipart epic that, if there is any justice on this Earth, will never come to pass. I admit it, I was seduced by the “Illustrated by Frank Miller” in the title as I still remember his groundbreaking work on The Dark Knight Returns back in the Glorious 80s – that, and the fact that it was $2.99 at Ollie’s.

But what is it that makes Cursed so cursed? Well, I’ll tell ya: first, it has almost nothing to do with the original Arthurian myths. Oh, some of the characters pop-up, but not as they were originally imagined by those myth-tellers ages ago. Arthur is there, but as a young sell-sword, not the Once and Future King-to-Be. Merlin is there, too, but as a Druid who has lost his magic. Lancelot also pops up as The Weeping Monk who is not all that he seems. Percival – I mean, “Squirrel” as he is called here – is but a boy from whom, I imagine, more will be heard from later. Even Guinevere makes an appearance at the very end…as a Viking warrior (a Viking named “Guinevere”. Yeah, right). Oh, and Excalibur is also on board – but isn’t called Excalibur.

But they don’t matter. The only character who does is Nimue (that’s “ni-moo” to you and me) who is, if you’re up on your Arthurian mythos, The Lady of the Lake. That’s right: that strange woman lying in a pond distributing swords in some farcical aquatic ceremony is the star of Cursed. Why? Because she’s a Strong Diverse Female Character, of course; after all, the myths of King Arthur Et al. are just brimming with Straight White Dudes, while most of the females to be found are of the feminine, retiring, Damsel-to-be-Saved-and-then-Had type, which we can’t have any more. To compare this trash with Attanasio’s aforementioned work is to contrast the former author’s respect for the source material with Wheeler’s contempt for the same.

The naming conventions (aside from those lifted from Arthurian lore) are jarringly inconsistent with regard to origin and bespeak a haphazard approach to research that carries throughout, and not a single character in Cursed bears the slightest resemblance to their namesake, to the point where it becomes cringe-worthy in the extreme to even claim a connection between the myths and this crap. This whole doesn’t feel original, but rather like a hodgepodge of stuff in which the male author is doing his damnedest to be Woke by making his protagonist female, not because the story is enhanced in doing so, but because he feels like that a female-led Arthurian retelling is necessary to Right the Wrongs of the sexiest and Christian past.

And that’s where Wheeler differs again from Attanasio, for while the later included pagans and Norse Gods and a whole litany of other beings that would have been during the Time of Arthur, the Christians – who were just starting to rise and assert themselves in his telling – were treated with respect as one faction amongst many. Not Wheeler. To him, all Christian characters are evil, intent on wiping out the Fey (a more multicultural lot you couldn’t imagine) who are all Good and Kind and Peaceful and oh brother make it stop you bleeding heart piece of…okay, I’m back now. A more modern take – that is, craptacular – on the Arthurian Mythos than Cursed would be hard to imagine. Here’s to this dreck being a one and done, like the Netflix show it inspired.