Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard

Rating:
Summary: A valuable read
Review: de Camp is always catching hell about something he wrote especially about REH and HPL. Dark Valley is highly readable. The text contains facts. de Camp does make judgments about his subject. This day in age we're trained not to judge anyone, so the book is refreshing. de Camp does succeed were many biographies fail and that is he makes the reader sympathetic about REH. REH is not just the subject about you can appreciate his life's difficulties. Any the book is highly readable. But I must add I'm biased toward de Camp . . . I've got an autographed copy.

Rating:
Summary: The Real Life Story of Robert E. Howard
Review: De Camp's book pulls no punches in this well documented account of his life. At the time; manic depressive illness was not properly diagnosed. This is revealed as the reason Howard committed suicide. To the uneducated; some believe the death of his mother contributed to his tragic end. This was only one factor. Howard's behavior indicated his case was untreated.

It was such a surprise to me after reading this book. I wanted to gain insight on the creator of Conan. It's ironic that Robert E. Howard lived in a world of desolation and created such facinating characters. This book is an extrodinary treat to those who read Howards' novels. De Camp's interviews with his former friends and classmates detail the brief life of the creator of Conan, Bran Mak Morn and many others long forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth About REH is Unknown
Review: DeCamp describes Howard in his "Dark Valley Destiny" book, and Novalyne Price describes him in her "One Who Walked Alone" book.

Both are probably right and probably wrong. Read both.

If you want to understand REH, read his writings (and those of his biographers) and make up your own mind.

His was a tortured soul.

I could defend or criticize Howard on many different levels. The truth is (and I hope you agree)is that we've all lost something because his potential had never been fully realized.

Rating:
Summary: NOT the ?definitive? biography? merely opinion
Review: DeCamp describes Howard in his "Dark Valley Destiny" book, and Novalyne Price describes him in her "One Who Walked Alone" book.

Both are probably right and probably wrong. Read both.

If you want to understand REH, read his writings (and those of his biographers) and make up your own mind.

His was a tortured soul.

I could defend or criticize Howard on many different levels. The truth is (and I hope you agree)is that we've all lost something because his potential had never been fully realized.

Rating:
Summary: Revisiting Dark Valley Destiny
Review: It has been almost two decades since L. Sprague de Camp (hearafter referred to as LSdC) collaborated with his wife Catherine, and Jane Whittington Griffin to write the Robert E. Howard biography Dark Valley Destiny. De Camp has been vilified, ideologically pilloried, and even had his gravesite threatened in the last decade of Howard fandom. This biographical look at REH has been one main target of reaction. After a period of almost twenty years it is time for it to be reexamined.

The de Camps make plain their intentions for this book at the end of the first chapter. "To investigate the relationship between Robert Howard's life and his art is the purpose of this book." (p. 17) The authors way of examining that relationship relies on a lot of (mostly amateur) psychoanalyzing that is controversial, to say the least.

LSdC's opinions are his to make. One can agree or disagree. By cataloging REH's attitude towards his teachers, fellow townspeople, boomtown oilmen, and especially his employers LSdC does make a case for a person of emotional immaturity, unrealistic attitudes, and strong anti-social feelings.

In several ways "Dark Valley Destiny" is choppy and inconsistent. Several times LSdC will put forth an idea, i.e. first saying that Howard had the essence of a poet, but then later contradicting himself saying that REH was a storyteller first and foremost. This is only a minor (and in this instance, mostly explainable) example. Other times the contradictions are more severe, i.e. indicating in one chapter that Howard was a loner and in the next chapter telling us of REH's numerous Cross Plains friends. A possible reason for this is that different parts of the book were written over a stretch of time. The copyright dates for the book indicate this to be the case. LSdC should have edited this work more closely. It appears that he didn't always revise his earlier comments to jibe with newer facts that he learned. Nevertheless a discerning reader can get a decent picture and overview of REH's life.

"The Transcendent Barbarian" chapter deals with Conan. This is an interesting chapter. LSdC is a Conan fan but he feels motivated to downplay the unsold Conan stories and suggests that his posthumous collaborations improved them. For a story like "The God in the Bowl" that is arguably true but when de Camp calls "The Frost Giant's Daughter" a plotless little sketch he is asking for derision. The chapter ends with what may well be REH's finest praise though. "[...] all these criticisms fade like morning mist before Howard's headlong rush of action, his rainbow-tinted prose, the intensity with which he wrote his own feelings into his stories, and, above all, his Hyborian world - that splendid creation - which ranks with Burrough's Barsoom and Tolkein's Middle Earth as a major fictional achievement." (p. 295)

The latest reprint collection of Conan stories (published in Great Britain) is dedicated to L. Sprague de Camp. While plenty of REH fans writhe and moan about this it is good to see that others recognize the reality of history and give LSdC his due. For whatever reasons, he promoted Conan AND Bob Howard. It is hoped that the publishers at Wandering Star will also dedicate one of their Conan collections to Mr. de Camp. It would do a lot to apologize for fan behavior that was often despicable.

Rating:
Summary: The DEFINITIVE Bio on REH until a new one appears :)
Review: L. Sprague de Camp's biography of REH is a very credible (if admittedly somewhat opinionated) account. Frankly, I don't understand the nonsense that some reviewers spout about this book. It is plainly evident that de Camp conducted a good deal of research, being especially diligent to seek out and interview virtually everyone that had known REH. All in all, de Camp based his research on oral and literary sources as well as visiting and studying the places where REH had lived. The value of such was recognized long ago. One need only read Herodotus, Thucydides, or the greatest historian of antiquity, Polybius, to appreciate this. Ultimately, de camp's bio reaches tenable conclusions based upon his research.

At this point in time, a more definitive bio seems somewhat questionable. There are probably very (if any) acquaintances of REH still living. This of course doesn't mean that future bios cannot be written, only that they will find it incredibly difficult to obtain any new material. Very few can ever approach an understanding of REH as de Camp did. After all, he spent a large part of his career as a fiction writer in editing and expanding the Conan series. Instead, future biographers will be sifting among the stones that de Camp has already quarried for them.

Finally, while de Camp was not a professional pyschologist, that in itself does not necessarily disqualify him in analyzing REH's state of mind. The fallacy of expert opinion comes to mind here. Most biographers hold an area of expertise in only one or two fields, and often their subjects will carry them into sundry fields of exploration. That's one reason why professionals published their work, so that others can benefit from the fruits of their research. Geez, excuse my getting off track here a bit, but some people have the lamest, sorriest reasons for not enjoying de Camp's work and appreciating it for the fine work of scholarship that it is. (Accusing de Camp of writing articulate prose with the intention to deceive, as one reviewer suggested, only demonstrates that they are unfamiliar with his prose style.)

Is D.V.D. perfect and without the occassional error found in most bios? By no means, but de Camp isn't trying to hoodwink anyone, and anyone with any critical faculties can disagree with some of his conclusions. That in itself is a sign of scholarship as de Camp has provided enough material to allow the reader to independently verify whether or not s/he agrees.

Rating:
Summary: The DEFINITIVE Bio on REH until a new one appears :)
Review: L. Sprague de Camp's biography of REH is a very credible (if admittedly somewhat opinionated) account. Frankly, I don't understand the nonsense that some reviewers spout about this book. It is plainly evident that de Camp conducted a good deal of research, being especially diligent to seek out and interview virtually everyone that had known REH. All in all, de Camp based his research on oral and literary sources as well as visiting and studying the places where REH had lived. The value of such was recognized long ago. One need only read Herodotus, Thucydides, or the greatest historian of antiquity, Polybius, to appreciate this. Ultimately, de camp's bio reaches tenable conclusions based upon his research.

At this point in time, a more definitive bio seems somewhat questionable. There are probably very (if any) acquaintances of REH still living. This of course doesn't mean that future bios cannot be written, only that they will find it incredibly difficult to obtain any new material. Very few can ever approach an understanding of REH as de Camp did. After all, he spent a large part of his career as a fiction writer in editing and expanding the Conan series. Instead, future biographers will be sifting among the stones that de Camp has already quarried for them.

Finally, while de Camp was not a professional pyschologist, that in itself does not necessarily disqualify him in analyzing REH's state of mind. The fallacy of expert opinion comes to mind here. Most biographers hold an area of expertise in only one or two fields, and often their subjects will carry them into sundry fields of exploration. That's one reason why professionals published their work, so that others can benefit from the fruits of their research. Geez, excuse my getting off track here a bit, but some people have the lamest, sorriest reasons for not enjoying de Camp's work and appreciating it for the fine work of scholarship that it is. (Accusing de Camp of writing articulate prose with the intention to deceive, as one reviewer suggested, only demonstrates that they are unfamiliar with his prose style.)

Is D.V.D. perfect and without the occassional error found in most bios? By no means, but de Camp isn't trying to hoodwink anyone, and anyone with any critical faculties can disagree with some of his conclusions. That in itself is a sign of scholarship as de Camp has provided enough material to allow the reader to independently verify whether or not s/he agrees.

Rating:
Summary: Definitive biography of Conan's creator
Review: L. Sprague de Camp, whose recent passing saddened all of us who had had the pleasure of meeting him or reading his words, wrote on many different subjects. Among the other things he tackled was biography, and with this effort he produced what will probably be known as the definitive biography of the troubled Texan writer who created Conan, Solomon Kane, and King Kull. Although some of this material had appeared earlier, it was in amateur and semi-professional magazines of extremely limited circulation, and a great deal of it is material that could never have fit into those magazines, oriented as they were to the hardcore "Conan" fan. De Camp, his wife and his collaborator travelled through Texas to speak to the people who had known Howard in his own lifetime, as well as those who had merely experienced Texas in those years. Robert E. Howard was a troubled, moody man who escaped from an unsympathetic environment for a person with his bookish tastes into fiction. Besides Conan, Kane and King Kull, he produced fiction in many different areas, and sold to many different markets in the days of the "pulp" magazines. He was also quite a talented poet, and samples of his verse enliven this book considerably. Among the other ways this book is useful to a person wishing to know more about Robert Howard, it contains a bibliography of all the works the Texan created. Written in a clear, engaging style, this biography evokes a period long gone, but not all that far away.

Rating:
Summary: NOT the ¿definitive¿ biography¿ merely opinion
Review: To say it politely, approximately 90% of Dark Valley Destiny is pure, subjective opinion. In fact, this book is not a biography at all (regardless of the author's claims), but is a pseudo-Freudian interpretation of Robert E. Howard's psychological state or mental "life" based on assorted, incomplete, and (in some cases) erroneous facts. De Camp's credentials as a psychologist, or even an amateur psychologist, are not only in question, but non-existent. Dr. Jane Whittington Griffin, whose name is presented as co-author and whose association seems to lend the book an air of respectability and authority, in fact had little to do with the writing of this book due to her untimely death while the book was in the process of being researched and written. Further, Dr. Griffin's credentials as a legitimately licensed psychologist have recently come into question as well.

In his own autobiography, de Camp refers to this book as a "psycho biography," and elsewhere de Camp admits that he had tried to sell the idea of writing a biography on Robert E. Howard to the publisher who considered the subject too dry and suggested that instead de Camp should spice it up a bit by writing a psychological examination and evaluation of Howard's work and life. This de Camp did, and the result is the eminently sensationalistic and yellow-journalistic commentary known as Dark Valley Destiny.

To top it all off, we find that de Camp is not remotely sympathetic toward his subject matter, and he takes pains to use his own moral and intellectual values and positions to criticize and condemn Howard at every step, while at the same time offering appeasing praise. The reader ought to be warned that de Camp's writing style is quite skilled and is meant to be persuasive. Meaning, de Camp will pull the wool over your eyes with statements of "opinion as fact" and unsupported leaps of logic unless you carefully read the book with a detached, critical eye. As a book that presents itself as a factual and authoritative biography, it is a farce and all but worthless. If you read this book, read it with a HUGE grain of salt, and be skeptical.

Although Dark Valley Destiny is not a definitive biography (or even a good one), it is unfortunately the only book yet published which claims to be a biography of Robert E. Howard. The memoir ONE WHO WALKED ALONE, by one of Howard's girlfriends, Novalyne Price-Ellis, is far more reliable and informative, but even this must be read with the understanding that the writer is drawing conclusions based on her own views and biases, which were sometimes made without complete information. Mrs. Ellis, however, had the good fortune of actually knowing Robert E. Howard and the information in her book is first hand knowledge, unlike that in Dark Valley Destiny. It therefore carries much more weight.

The suggestion below that all is opinion and the truth shall never be known is, in part, true. As de Camp mentioned, but quickly ignored, posthumous biography is a somewhat foolish endeavor. There are many points about Howard's life which will simply never be known. Yet, to state that all is opinion and therefore equal is specious and misleading. There are conclusions and opinions which hold up to and are supported by the known facts, and then there are conclusions and opinions which are not. There are conclusions which adhere to standards of validity, and there are conclusions that do not. The task of scholars, and a definitive biography, is to achieve the highest level of factual reliability possible - not to present one's own views or opinions. Where a conclusion is uncertain, its uncertainty must be noted and alternatives offered and explored. In all this, Dark Valley Destiny fails miserably.

If you're interested in reading one author's distorted and biased OPINION of another author, then this book is for you. If, on the other hand, you want to read about the life of Robert E. Howard, look elsewhere. To start, I'd recommend the "Short Biography" of Howard on the REHupa web site, ... and then I'd recommend reading Howard's "Selected Letters" (which are unfortunately out of print but can be found in used book stores). For additional biographical sources on Howard, try The Barbarian Keep web page. ...