Because thing seem to run in pairs, I have Texas on my mind. It started when I came across a for-sale copy of the made-for-television film Lonesome Dove, and now a correspondent has told me about an upcoming weekend event devoted to Robert E. Howard, the pulp maestro from Cross Plains.
As a novel, Lonesome Dove is so great that Larry McMurtry had to churn out a sequel and two prequels just to punish himself for writing it and the rest of us for loving it. (Which reminds me, it’s high time I added another installment to my ongoing Favorite Books series) But that’s not to suggest the movie version isn’t formidable enough to stand on its own. The role of Augustus McCrae, the former Texas Ranger who decides to lead a cattle drive from Texas to Montana during the twilight years of the Old West, may just be Robert Duvall’s finest work on film, and the rest of the cast amp up their work in response to his example. This and Roots stand as the finest mini-series ever made for television.
As for Robert E. Howard , it’s amazing to see the the undeniable impact he made on on American culture, even though his professional writing career only lasted about a decade or so. If Howard hadn’t committed suicide at the threshold of his 30s, in the depths of the Depression, I have no doubt he’d have a place alongside Jack London, Dashiell Hammett and the other writers who showed that American literature can arise from the damndest places. Steady work and scholarship by Howard enthusiasts seems to be accomplishing the same goal for him.
I read Howard’s brawling, blood-in-the-eye Conan stories when I was a sprout during the late Sixties and early Seventies, when those lurid Lancer Books paperbacks became a publishing phenomenon. Those crummy Arnold Schwarzenegger movies from the 1980s pretty much turned Conan into a joke, but Howard created a whole pantheon of equally memorable pulp heroes: Solomon Kane, the conflicted Puritan wanderer; Steve Costigan, the sailor and bare-knuckled boxer; Bran Mak Morn, the Pictish warlord leading a doomed campaign against the invading Romans; and Brekenridge Elkins, the Lil Abneresque gent from Bear Creek. Nobody will ever mistake his work for Henry James, but Howard’s best work had plenty of drive and a moody intensity that made it stand out from the rest of the pulp universe.
If you’re going to be in Texas early in June, you might want to drop by Robert E. Howard Days, slated for June 8 and 9 at the Robert E. Howard House & Museum in Cross Plains. Or you might just want to check out one of the story collections devoted to his genre-spanning career.
