robert ervin howard

• (bkz: conan)'ın yaratıcısı, süper insan.
• yazdığı son sözler şunlar olmuş;
  " her şey olup bitti,
  ölüleri yakacak odunların üstüne yatırın beni,
  ziyafet sona erdi, söndürün kandilleri..."
• boyasiz tolkien..
• 1936 yilinin ba$larinda howard'in yazdigi conan oykulerinin iki hayrani p. schuyler miller ve john d. clark $imdiye kadar yazilmi$ hikayeleri goz onune alarak conan'in ya$am oykusunu ve bunun yaninda da bir hyborian age haritasini ortaya cikarmi$lar . miller, yaptiklari bu i$le ilgili howard'a bir mektup yazmi$ ve howard da olumunden 3 hafta once cevaplami$ bunu .
  
  bizim turkiye'de yayinlanan conan oykulerinin ilk sayfasinda, haritanin hemen altinda gordugumuz "miller ve clark tarafindan yazilmi$ conan'in ya$am oykusunden" bagintili cumleler de bu $ekilde cikmi$ ortaya .
  
  *
  
  lock box 313
  cross plains, texas
  march 10, 1936
  
  dear mr. miller:
  
  i feel indeed honored that you and dr. clark should be so interested in conan as to work out an outline of his career and a map of his environs. both are surprisingly accurate, considering the vagueness of the data you had to work with. i have the original map--that is the one i drew up when i first started writing about conan-- around here somewhere and i'll see if i can't find it and let you have a look at it. it includes only tbe countries west of vilayet and north of kush. i've never attempted to map the southern and eastern kingdoms, though i have a fairly clear outline of their geography in my mind. however, in writing about them i feel a certain amount of license, since the inhabitants of the western hyborian nations were about as ignorant concerning the peoples and countries of the south and east as the people of medieval europe were ignorant of africa and asia. in writing about the western hyborian nations i feel confined within the limits of known and inflexible boundaries and territories, but in fictionizing the rest of the world, i feel able to give my imagination freer play. that is, having adopted a certain conception of geography and ethnology, i feel compelled to abide by it, in the interests of consistency. my conception of the east and south is not so definite or so arbitrary.
  
  concerning kush, however, it is one of the black kingdoms south of stygia, the northern-most, in fact, and has given its name to the whole southern coast. thus, when an hyborian speaks of kush, he is generally speaking of not the kingdom itself, one of many such kingdoms, but of the black coast in general. and he is likely to speak of any black man as a kushite, whether he happens to be a keshani, darfari, puntan, or kushite proper. this is natural, since the kushites were the first black men with whom the hyborians came in contact--barachan pirates trafficking with and raiding them.
  
  as for conan's eventual fate--frankly i can't predict it. in writing these yarns i've always felt less as creating them than as if i were simply chronicling his adventures as he told them to me. that's why they skip about so much, without following a regular order. the average adventurer, telling tales of a wild life at random, seldom follows any ordered plan, but narrates episodes widely separated by space and years, as they occur to him.
  
  your outline follows his career as i have visualized it pretty closely. the differences are minor. as you deduct, conan was about seventeen when he was introduced to the public in "the tower of the elephant." while not fully matured, he was riper than the average civilized youth at that age. he was born on a battle field, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding vanir. the country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of cimmerian, but conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred cimmerian. his grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood-feud and after long wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north. he had taken part in many raids into the hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in conan, as a child, a desire to see them. there are many things concerning conan's life of which i am not certain myself. i do not know, for instance, when he got his first sight of civilized people. it might have been at vanarium, or he might have made a peaceable visit to some frontier town before that. at vanarium he was already a formidable antagonist, though only fifteen. he stood six feet and weighed 180 pounds, though he lacked much of having his full growth.
  
  there was the space of about a year between vanarium and his entrance into the thief-city of zamora. during this time he returned to the northern territories of his tribe, and made his first journey beyond the boundaries of cimmeria. this, strange to say, was north instead of south. why or how, i am not certain, but he spent some months among a tribe of the aesir, fighting with the vanir and the hyperboreans, and developing a hate for the latter which lasted all his life and later affected his policies as king of aquilonia. captured by them, he escaped southward and came into zamora in time to make his debut in print.
  
  i am not sure that the adventure chronicled in "rogues in the house" occurred in zamora. the presence of opposing factions of politics would seem to indicate otherwise, since zamora was an absolute despotism where differing political opinions were not tolerated. i am of the opinion that the city was one of the small city-states lying just west of zamora, and into which conan had wandered after leaving zamora. shortly after this he returned for a brief period to cimmeria, and there were other returns to his native land from time to time. the chronological order of his adventures is about as you have worked it out, except that they covered a little more time. conan was about forty when he seized the crown of aquilonia, and was about forty-four or forty-five at the time of "the hour of the dragon." he had no male heir at that time, because he had never bothered to formaliy make some woman his queen, and the sons of concubines, of which he had a goodly number, were not recognized as heirs to the throne.
  
  he was, i think, king of aquilonia for many years, in a turbulent and unquiet reign, when the hyborian civilization had reached its most magnificent high-tide, and every king had imperial ambitions. at first he fought on the defensive, but i am of the opinion that at last he was forced into wars of aggression as a matter of self-preservation. whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide empire, or perished in the attempt, i do not know.
  
  he travelled widely, not only before his kingship, but after he was king. he travelled to khitai and hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former. he even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. how much of this roaming will get into print, i cannot foretell with any accuracy. i was much interested in your remarks concerning findings on the yamal peninsula, the first time i had heard anything about that. doubtless conan had first-hand acquaintance with the people who evolved the culture described, or their ancestors, at least.
  
  hope you find "the hyborian age" interesting. i'm enclosing a copy of the original map. yes, napoli's done very well with conan, though at times he seems to give him a sort of latin cast of the countenance which isn't according to type, as i conceive it. however, that isn't enough to kick about.
  
  hope the enclosed data answers your questions satisfactorily; i'd be delighted to discuss any other phases you might wish, or go into more details about any point of conan's career or hyborian history or geography you might desire. thanks again for your interest, and best wishes, for yourself and dr. clark.
  
  cordially,
  robert e. howard
  
  *
• annesine aşırı bağlılığı intiharına sebep olmuş, tüm eserlerini çok gençken vermiş büyük yazar. conan'ın yaratıcısı. lovecraft ile aynı donemlerde yazmıştır ve ondan bir miktar etkilendiği soylenmektedir.
• whole wide world filminde hayatı anlatılmıştır
• king kull ve conan the barbarian karakterlerinin yaraticisi olan fantastik oyku yazari. annesi oldugunde bunalima girip intahar etmisti diye hatirliyorum (bkz: yamuluyorsam duzeltin)
• 22 ocak 1906 tarihinde, texas'ın bir kasabası olan peaster'da doğdu. doktor bir babanın oğlu olarak dünyaya gelen robert ervin howard, annesinin aşırı ilgisi altında geçirilmiş pek uzun olmayan bir yaşam sürdü.
  
  yazarlığa başlamadan önce eczacılık, muhasebecilik, jeolog asistanlığı, boksörlük, gazetecilik yaptı. öldükten sonra arkasında başta kimmeryalı conan olmak üzere king kull, belit, red sonya, valeria, solomon kane , el borak, bran mak morn, sailor steve costigan, john taverel, turlogh o’brien, cormac mac art, cormac fitzgeoffrey, cahal ruadh o’donnel, donald macdeesa, john norwald, breckenridge elkins, dark agnes de la fere, helen tavrel karakterleri için yazdığı yüzlerce hikaye bıraktı.
  
  annesinin ölümünü görmekten duyduğu korku, onun 11 haziran 1936 tarihinde kafasına sıktığı bir kurşunla aramızdan ayrılmasına neden oldu. 16 yaşında yazmaya başladığı öyküleri, 30 yaşında gelen erken ölümüyle son buldu. ölümünden önceki son 4 yılda yazmaya başladığı conan ise, yıllar boyunca yayınlanmaya devam ederek tüm zamanların en sevilen kahramanlarından biri oldu.
  
  öldüğü günün sabahı, 10 seneden beri tüm hikayelerini yazdığı underwood marka daktilosunda son sözlerini yazdı:
  
  all fled, all done
  so lift me on the pyre.
  the feast is over
  and lamps expire.`
• bindokuzyüzlerin^* başlarında yaşamış, fantezi edebiyatının bu günlere gelmesini sağlayan en önemli zatlardan biri. tıpkı çağdaşı lovecraft^* gibi evrimleşme dönemi eserleri weird talesde yayınlanmış (henüz 18inde iken), ardında onlarca öykü, hikaye, mektup bırakmıştır
  
  yazılarında poe^*, mark twain, harold lamb gibi diğer ustalardan etkilense de, tecrübe kazandıkça son derece özgün dilini oturtmuş, yarattığı karanlık, kasvetli dünya içinde yaşayan, adeta görüngülerini sayfalara kusan bir yazar olarak haklı bir ün yapmıştır zaman içinde.
  
  yazık ki inançlarının, beklentilerinin ve gerçeklerinin çelişkisi altında somut dünyaya dayanamamış başka bir ustadır howard.. 11 haziran sabahı arkadaşından ödünç aldığı 38 kalibrelik bir tabancanın tek-temiz darbesi sonucu komaya girmiş ve saatler 16.00ı gösterirken yaşamı sona ermiştir.
  
  belki de destinynin garip espri anlayışının sonucu olarak ertesi gün ölen annesi ile ortak bir törenle toprağın soğukluğuna uğurlanan usta ardında kısa bir veda şiiri bıraktı sadece...
• lovecraft ın cesaretlendirmesiyle "the thing on the roof" ve "the black stone" adlı hikayeleri yazmıştır.
  cthulhu mitosuyla conan dünyası arasında sağlam bi beraberlik vardır.
  lovecraft'ın yaratıkları conan ın günlerinde bugünden biraz çok az daha aktif haldedirama onlara tapanlar daha açıktır.yog-sothoth yamyam tanrı yog olarak anılmakta,kurbağa tanrı tsathoggua'nın ise adsız adada bir tapınağı bulunmaktadır.conan'ın 2. filminde isedagoth dan bahsedilmektedir.conan dünyasında bunlar gibi birçok gizli ipucu daha bakıldığı takdirde rahatlıkla bulunabilir