Dark Shanghai, Robert E. Howard

   There are a lot of Robert E. Howard stories on my blog this month. This story follows a sailor, Steve Costigan, who is unusually eager to get himself into trouble. Unlike many of Howard's heroes, this one is particularly stupid. He is so stupid, it becomes half comic, half adventure story.
   He is tricked into thinking that there's a girl who has been kidnapped. So, he goes to rescue her. She fights them tooth and nail. But, at no point does he consider the idea that he's been duped. He believes that he is taking the young woman to her brother.
   As he drags her kicking and screaming to the man he believes is her brother, the truth unravels. The man is not her brother. They are in fact competing thieves for a formula believed to be the equivalent of Ambergris. Ambergis is whale vomit which is used for high end perfumes and is incredibly valuable. 
   So, now that he's aware of having committed a wrong, he does everything he can to fix his mistake. He takes on them all and unkidnaps her. The formula, however, was ripped out of the book she'd hid it in by chance by his partner as a stopper for his bottle of liquor (as the normal stopper was lost). However, upon finishing the bottle, the partner happened across a man who bought it from him for enough money to buy another bottle of booze.
   So, while the characteristics of Howard's main character are somewhat changed into a comical idiot, the fearlessness and adherence to a barbaric code of honour remains hard coded into the character's core. 
   There is definitely some anti-Asian racism in this story. The Chinese characters are referred to as yellow devils. Certainly, the main character thinks nothing about the non-white characters. This is beginning to be a problem for me in how I appreciate Howard as a writer.

Son of the White Wolf, Robert E. Howard

   This is one of several by Robert E. Howard that I've read over the past little while. This one can be found for free at Australia's version of feedbooks.com. There are many other Howard tales available there. This is another El Borak tale in
   The story follows a shift in power in Turkey as Germany's military begins to fail at the end of WWI and the Brits are taking over. A small time leader decides to begin a mad dash for power. He kills the German authority, kills the old men, women, and young children, and kidnaps the women with the intention of starting a new race in an old Pagan religion.
   Howard was a Texan. To be honest, I have a prejudice against Texans. I see them as a lot of racists and Bible thumpers. Howard, of course, being a favorite of my youth, is Texan. So, he is a bit at odds with my prejudices.
   Speaking of prejudices, my radar is perhaps a bit sensitive. Howard writes that villagers 'crept from their hovels to stare in awe at the first white woman most of them had ever seen.' There is this impression that Howard, much like Edgar Rice Burroughs, felt that the white barbarian was the greatest barbarian. The white barbarian has the brains of a white man, and the ferocity of the 'other races.' He is deadly, but still a gentleman with the ladies, unlike the other races.
   So I worry about this sort of thing that would tarnish my impression of this particular Texan. I have sometimes thought that he wasn't really the racist that so many others are. But love is blind, right? Maybe the fact that I liked him particularly well blinds me to the fact that he might have been a raging promoter of the Aryan super race.
   But, while he has often spoken poorly of the Kurds (in this story and another), he did write of the Arabs who fought beside the hero, El Borak. "A stern chivalry was the foundation of their (Arab) society, just as it was among the frontiersmen of early America. There was no sentimentalism about it. It was real and vital as life itself." So, this passage seems to vindicate him at least in respect to the Arab/Muslims.
   Most of Howard's women are rather weak creatures. But as the tale comes to its conclusion, the woman whom he is supposed to know as a German enemy, he actually knows as a British undercover double agent. Borak gives his respect to her. Howard did have some tough women: Red Sonja, Belit (the pirate captain), and Valeria. They weren't just strong women, they were dominant alpha humans who were not the weak things that the men around them were supposed to rescue.
   In fact, that's sort of one of the reasons why I have always been particularly fond of Howard. His women were not the weaklings that so many other authors portray/portrayed them as. In terms of the charge of racism, this jurist needs to weigh more evidence before a conclusion can be reached.