“The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1: Crimson Shadows”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Jim & Ruth Keegan

 

503 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345490186

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1: Crimson Shadows, illustrated by Jim & Ruth Keegan, was the seventh volume to be published. Inside, readers will discover (or rediscover) such stories as Beyond the Black River, The Black Stone, The Curse of the Golden Skull, The Dark Man, The Fightin’est Pair, For the Love of Barbara Allen, The Grey God Passes, Hawk of the Hills, Kings of the Night, Lord of the Dead, The People of the Black Circle, Red Shadows, The Shadow Kingdom, Sharp’s Gun Serenade, The Valley of the Worm and Worms of the Earth, along with the poems A Word From the Outer Dark, An Echo From the Iron Harp The Dust Dance (version 1), The Ghost Kings, Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die, The Marching Song of Connacht, The One Black Stain, Recompense, The Song of a Mad Minstrel, The Song of the Last Briton and The Tide, along with one other piece, “You have built a world of paper and wood…”

Since I discovered that there was so much more to Robert E. Howard than Conan, my only regret is that I didn’t discover all of his other tales and characters sooner. Unlike the other volumes in the Del Rey collection of All Things Howard, Crimson Shadows doesn’t focus on just one character, but a slew: Conan, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Kull and other besides can all be found within, with Howard’s descriptive style and combination of (sometimes) historical facts with speculative fiction on display and making each tale different and unique. Compiling this collection couldn’t have been easy, but Rusty Burke assembled these sixteen tales and twelve poems in order to try and illustrate just how diverse and wide-ranging was Howard’s capacity for storytelling – but he had help, as Howard fans forwarded their selections as to what tales should be included in this particular volume, with nineteen of the top vote-getters included here. While the selection feels a bit slapdash at times, the quality of the stories never shirks.

While the aforementioned characters from above each make their expected appearances, there were some unexpected – not to say unknown – characters who are also well-represented in Crimson Shadows. The first is Sailor Steve Costigan and his best pal Mike in The Fightin’est Pair as the team find themselves in a literal dogfight – Mike is a bulldog, you see. One of Howard's many boxing yarns, The Fightin’est Pair displays a rather unexpected side of Howard’s writing, as he manages to covey, without getting overly weepy or sentimental, how a man who speaks to most other men through his fists can show love to an animal (this is a sentiment I suspect many men can relate to). Even more unexpected than this tale of canine solidarity was For the Love of Barbara Allen, a love story that unfolds across time told in the style of a Southern folktale. While I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite story from Howard’s immense repertoire, this particular piece would at least find pride of place in my Top Ten – oh, hell, Top Five.

But the most unexpected highlight of Crimson Shadows is a selection of Howard’s Lovecraftian horror – you read that correctly: Howard had a take on his friend and mentor’s sprawling mythos (to my certain knowledge the two never met; their mutual admiration society was carried out exclusively through the mail). Howard’s confidence – to say nothing of chutzpa – is astonishing, as he boldly made his own additions to the Lovecraftian Canon, such as the “Unaussprechlichen Kulten”, the “Nameless Cults” or the “Black Book”, that first appear here in The Black Stone and which would later be mentioned in several stories by Lovecraft himself – which should say something about what he thought of their quality and creativity. Seeing the respect each author had for the other’s work, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by Lovecraft’s embrace of his friend’s contribution to his dark universe; after all, it was just the kind of thing ole’ H.P. supported (one can only wonder what a Lovecraftian take on Conan or Kane would have looked like).

Howard was, then, a brilliant storyteller, displaying a wide-ranging capacity to create, adapt and draw his reader into worlds unthought-of, which this series more than illustrates.

“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”, by Roger Lewis

 

 

502 pages, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, ISBN-13: 978-1557832481

 

Dad loved Peter Sellers’ movies; they’d be the only ones he’d take my Mom out to see, much to her chagrin as she didn’t like them at all (or the Woody Allen films Dad dragged her to, either; Mom was just looking for a free meal, anyway). But just who in hell was Richard Henry…er, sorry, Peter Sellers anyway? Well, that name, for starters, offers an insight: “Peter” was originally for Richard’s elder brother, who was stillborn; his mum Peg just kept on keeping on with that name, however, and Richard became Peter by default. And so the man who could so seamlessly become one character after another had been doing so from birth when he assumed a dead brother’s identity. It could only screw him up and, brother, did it ever.

 

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers by Roger Lewis reads rather like an English roundabout: you get on thinking you’re going in one direction and end up in another; what I mean is that, while the book is more or less chronological, it is erratically so, as Lewis picks up on a topic and goes driving off in whatever direction he fancies, taking you along for the ride. While he eventually gets back onto the highway – while he eventually rejoins his original narrative – you, the reader/passenger, have been taken along the scenic route.

 

Because Lewis has written a kind of stream of consciousness meditation about an egomaniacal genius who was also “more seriously fucked up than a chameleon crossing a kilt”. This is not much of an exaggeration, as it turns out, for outside of his rolls Sellers was rather a prick, the rhetorical comet who streaks across the sky and burns out all too soon in a fiery burst – and if you’re too close to the blast, you’ll get burnt (just ask his four wives – Anne Howe, Britt Ekland, Miranda Macmillan and Lynne Frederick – or his three children – Michael, Victoria and Sarah).

 

Lewis gives us everything: from Sellers’ origins as part of an old-school traveling vaudeville family to his last fatal heart attack in the luxurious Dorchester Hotel, seemingly anything and everything that happened to his subject is recorded in all of its Technicolor horror. And don’t forget, it is a roundabout of a book to boot, going round and round and back and forth and hither and yon, all in pursuit of even the smallest of details. This is especially evident in how Lewis handles Sellers’ career, with a flop such as Casino Royale (1967) or the unreleased Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1974) getting as much attention as a hit like The Ladykillers (1955) or the legendary Dr. Strangelove (1964).

 

This is because, under Lewis’ pen, Sellers’ life and career are a kind of shorthand for the whole of the unique and peculiar British entertainment scene of which Sellers was such a part, if not the driving force (along with Alec Guinness, to whom Lewis links his subject, not always to Sellers’ advantage). We get great informative riffs on The Goon Show (1951-1960), Sellers first BBC radio job, to Ealing comedies, the Sixties and on almost every aspect of British cinematic and theatrical culture imaginable throughout (this last bit may be particularly irritating to those Yanks who don’t have a grounding in English humor – er, humour).

 

But stick with it, Dear Reader, for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a really stunning book, for all its very English eccentricities. This is, perhaps, because Lewis is obviously a fan, but a disillusioned one; I can just picture the author bent over his keyboard punching out word after word and grimacing the whole time as he exposes his subject for the pure genius and total shit that he truly was, God help him (I wonder what Dad would have thought about his favorite comedian if he had read this book?).

 

Underneath the vaulting verbiage and flowing imagery is a brilliant biography of a troubled artist who, at heart, didn’t know who he was, something that Sellers admitted repeatedly throughout his life. Chance the Gardner, one of Sellers’ last roles (and for which he was nominated for an Academy Award) appealed to him so much because, Lewis says, Sellers identified with this blank slate upon whom everyone projected what they wanted to see. And ultimately this biography plays out like one of its subject’s performances: manic, all-encompassing, liable to go off in a random direction without warning…and utterly unforgettable.

“Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766”, by Fred Anderson

 

912 pages, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0375706363

Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson manages to synthesize several lines of scholarship while also offering many new insights into what can truly be called the first real world war, as well as the decade that followed. While the war itself is front and center throughout a majority of the book, it is the politics behind, during and after the war that also find their place beneath his microscope, especially on how the war initiated a dispute about the very nature of the British Empire that continued even after the peace treaty and led, ultimately, to the American Revolution.

This is a venerable debate amongst academics of the Seven Years’ War and Revolution. One side argues that the Revolution was merely a kind of aftermath of the SYW, while the other emphasizes the Stamp Act and other boneheaded regulations. While the former concentrate on the financial burden and the new western migration that the War brought in its train, the latter portray the Revolution as a conflict over principle or at least ideology, viewing the rebels as deeply committed to the idea that the central government was subject to principled limitations, the founding idea of America, if you like.

Anderson doesn’t see these two concepts as being mutually exclusive. The key to his analysis is the effect the War had on city and country understandings of the Empire, for each drew quite different conclusions from the vanquishing of France: colonists thought their participation in the war had finally shown them to be equal members in the Empire, while the war confirmed Whitehall’s conclusion that the Empire was strictly a top-down affair. Thus, those pesky Parliamentary revenue acts were designed to raise money to support the continuing presence of the British military in America, forcing the colonists to pay in taxes what they previously viewed as gifts due only in times of war.

While Anderson seeks to accommodate these competing historical visions, he also finds time to expand his scope, such as when he explores the tension between European and American styles of warfare, the problems of supply, the role of the British military in America between the War and the Revolution and, especially, the role of Native Americans: here they share the stage with European and provincial characters as coequal players (the index alone refers to thirty Indian nations, and Anderson shows that there were divisions among them, although the War itself encouraged a “nativist” identity in the Ohio Valley).

Anderson extends the book’s reach beyond war’s end to evaluate the aftermath of the conflict, including the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act and all those Indian troubles, allowing him the opportunity to discuss some of the more contentious issues between Americans and Britons while also depicting how militarily overextended Britain had become in gaining the vast territories she had won during the war. Battles and campaigns are well explained by Anderson, but not at the expense of political decision making and diplomacy. The author provides his readers with descriptions of cultural and personal characteristics that had an impact on the outcome of the war, as well.

Anderson’s observation is that many who describe the American Revolution begin the tale at the end of the Seven Years’ War, in 1763; but he believes that the more fruitful start date should be 1754, when relations between the American colonists and the British government were still relatively amicable. The seeds of revolt weren’t sown until during and, especially, after the Seven Years’ War, hence its vital importance to the American nation. While Yanks and Brits still got along relatively well, American’s increasing identity as a special people was growing, as was their realization that they were not the coequal partners in Empire they thought they were.

London ministers and American colonists had, in Anderson’s words, “competing visions of empire”, with colonists drawing on the traditional English concept of limited government constituted by the consent of the governed, while Parliament continuously saw few if any restraints on its own power. These were two irreconcilable visions, and the next question becomes why the rupture occurred when it did. Anderson’s answer is that a decade of mutual misunderstanding accelerated the two sides toward open conflict; he also reminds us that a lot of the arguments supporting resonant constitutionalism are still alive and well today.

“The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus”, with Stephen Marlowe

 

569 pages, Cape, Jonathan, ISBN-13: 978-0224024136

Why is it that some books go out of print while others just stick around and around forever and ever like chewing gum in your intestinal track? WELL? Sorry. The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus with Stephen Marlowe (notice that “with”? As if Marlowe had merely transcribed Columbus’ memoirs) was perhaps assumed to be but a dry history of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea’s life and times, but it is, in fact, an historical fresco of a novel that is a…history of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea’s life and times.

But encompassed within this “autobiography” is so much more than just the tale of this man’s life, for one will find a biting satire of the times, not only in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries, but the modern world, as well (circa 1987, that is). One gets a taste of this from the very start of the book, as Marlowe (Columbus?) mines great bitter potential from the persistent rumors that the Columbus was the son of “Marranos” (Spanish Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity), his father being ineffectual and his mother overpowering.

To circle back to my original point, it is unfortunate that this book didn’t find more traction as it is quite simply a joy to read and reread. We watch as Columbus lives his tragicomical life, follows his dreams and pursues his passions from birth to death. It’s all here, told by the man himself (wink wink): success and failure, voyages and affairs, highs and lows. It is to Marlowe’s great credit that these fake memoirs contain a lot of historical fact and cover a lot of detail, so much so that they almost serve as an alternative to a real, proper biography.

Almost, as it isn’t perfect, filled as it is with several postmodern anachronisms and literary novelties, such as Columbus mocking his modern-day biographers and their liberal presumptions (enjoyable as it was). But these Memoirs also offers a look into the Renaissance World, filled with the thrills of discovering new lands combined with the horrors of slavery; of descriptions of glittering courts and the trials of the Spanish Inquisition. There is good and bad to be found everywhere and across all ages, something that our woke snowflakes apparently can’t comprehend.

The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus accomplishes what all great historical fiction should do: gives insights into a man and a world that is in many ways lost to us through a medium that allows for more fanciful and introspective exploration. Bravo, Marlowe. Bravo.

“The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968”, by William Manchester

 

976 pages, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN-13: 978-0316544900

Ah, John K. King Books, how I love ya. This massive used bookstore in downtown Detroit was one of my go-to places before life took over and I had to do stuff – like work, but I have no doubt that I shall return to prowl the musty stacks of old books for lost treasures – like this one, The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968 by William Manchester, an exhaustive history of clan Krupp that traces these arms merchants extraordinaire from their beginnings in Essen to the mid-20^th Century, when this book was published. Considering the family history, it should come as no surprise that the family patriarch, Arndt Krupp, prospered during the Black Death as his friends and neighbors died all around him. Nice.

From then on, the Krupp’s history would become entwined with Germany’s, as this family from the Ruhr transformed their backyard into one of the preeminent industrial centers in the world. We read as their fortune was confirmed by the Thirty Years’ War, increased while Europeans battled each other almost incessantly, were lifted up and ennobled by the German Kaisers, weaponized the Third Reich and were thence protected by the Lex Krupp, weathered occupation by the Western Allies and became indispensable to the government in Bonn. But “Krupp” is not a disembodied corporation making weapons and passing laws from on high; it was first a family, and the members pass under Manchester’s critical eye: Arndt Krupp is “a shrewd chandler with a keen eye for the main chance”, while Friedrich Krupp is, c. 1806 “Essen’s uncrowned king”. This is perhaps the book’s greatest flaw, as Manchester can’t help but find some negative trait in every Krupp he comes across.

Another aspect of the book is Manchester’s focusing on the 20^th Century and the Second World War; understandable, perhaps, seeing as there were mountains of information available after the Nazi war machine was finally vanquished. There can be no question that Krupp profited mightily from the war, from the profits earned in making armaments to their seizing of industrial assists all over Europe. Worse, seeing as German women were viewed as breeders of the next generation of übermenschen and, thus, disqualified as industrial laborers, Krupp employed slave labor in their factories, along with the rest of German industry. But Krupp went whole-hog into the abyss by owning and operating their own concentration camps and leasing slaves from the SS at the cost of one Reichsmark per day, said slaves being taken directly from extermination or POW camps and forced to produce weapons to be used against their own nations. Naturally, after the war, Alfried Krupp was convicted of crimes against humanity.

The Arms of Krupp, then, is peculiar: it is exhaustive in its research and written with a light hand, but uneven, as so much is dedicated to one (understandably important) chapter of their history. The Krupps may or may not have been as ruthless and weird as Manchester maintains, but the family saw a business opportunity, took and stuck with it, and got rich doing so. Such a description says more about the human condition than it does about one German family.