D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[TiQuinn]

Well, yeah, early on he wrote to a friend (from memory) "I have my Dunsany stories and my Poe stories, but where are my Lovecraft stories?".

Then he wrote his Lovecraft stories.

Still think we’re confusing early creator with whether one prefers his style. I’m cool with people not liking his style but to say his writing style doesn’t appeal to others because of its uniqueness, overwritten or no, is a bit questionable to me. But I’ll bow out and let the discourse be what it’s gonna be.

 

[Mannahnin]

I just read through the first Drizzt trilogy and it's pretty good. Gave me some fun ideas for situational stuff in my DnD games.

Now I'm on to some Battletech books and can't imagine I'm going to drag much from them into any of my games.

Which ones? I quite liked some of the early ones, particularly Mike Stackpole's Warrior trilogy (En Garde, Riposte, and Coupé), which predate his later very successful Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series which he's more famous for. I also have fond memories of Heir to the Dragon and Wolves on the Border, by Bob Charrette. These are all set in the lead up to and the Fourth Succession War, preceding the Clan invasion. The first few Clan war books (Lethal Heritage, Blood Legacy, and Lost Destiny), by Stackpole, are pretty decent, IMO, and continue well from Wolves on the Border. Later books by other authors I did not find as well-written and my interest dropped off quickly during the next two or three.

Are we really arguing that Lovecraft was a great literary stylist? He's remembered for his content, not for his innovative mastery of the English language. Same goes for Howard. That's fine; there are plenty of musical artists that I love even though they can hardly play their instrument, and I'm a fan of both Conan and the Lovecraft mythos - huge fan of the latter. But let's not pretend that either of those guys was a literary virtuoso.

Edit: I can see the argument that their crude writing can be considered a strength in the sense that it suits their content - certainly Howard's Conan gets over the Texas frontier vibe that I think made him especially appealing to the young, American pulp magazine fans who were also reading a ton of westerns. And Lovecraft's torrid prose certainly emphasizes his torrid plots. Per my analogy above, there are plenty of contexts in art where a lack of skill is not necessarily a drawback. I don't want Johnny Ramone to play guitar like David Gilmour.

I agree that Lovecraft is a notoriously poor prose stylist, but I genuinely think Howard is pretty good. His descriptions are more vivid and his prose page-turning and readable. His poetry is not great, but it's fun, at least.

Okay, but I've bounced off writers like Dickens. There's a ton of people who no matter how much you try to get them into Shakespeare are simply unwilling or unable to get past the writing style. Ditto James Joyce. I've heard people say they can't get into Herbert because they find his writing style too arch. Heck, there are people who love Gygax's writing style in the 1e books enough to come up with the term "Gygaxian", which depending on who you're talking to is either a compliment or a criticism.

Eh. Dickens is infamously tough and excessively wordy. He's been canonized as a Great Writer but he's always been criticized for his prose. Joyce is also famously opaque. Shakespeare is a bit different. A big part of the challenge of reading him is the vocabulary and grammar being a bit archaic. He also coined a lot of new words, but a ton of those are in common usage today. But when you read it aloud and have footnotes and other explanations of unfamiliar words, it transforms and becomes MUCH more accessible.

With Gygax you note that the adjective can be a compliment or criticism. Most people acknowledge that he was not a great writer, though many of us have sentimental fondness. The adjective is, IME, mostly value-neutral, just intended to label his idiosyncratic style, using circumlocutous grammar and showing off his vocabulary at every opportunity. And describing things in purple detail, as did many of the pulp authors he admired.

That, plus Shakes was writing in Early Modern English, which is not mutually intelligible with Modern English.

Eh. Some archaic vocab, but it's pretty damn understandable. Nothing like Middle English or Old English which are genuinely incomprehensible if you haven't studied them as languages.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Shakespeare is a bit different. A big part of the challenge of reading him is the vocabulary and grammar being a bit archaic and unique. But when you read it aloud and have footnotes and other explanations of unfamiliar words, it transforms and becomes MUCH more accessible.

There's a troupe that performs Shakespeare in reconstructed period pronunciation, where the language was still experiencing aftershocks from the Great Vowel Shift. It's interesting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That, plus Shakes was writing in Early Modern English, which is not mutually intelligible with Modern English.

I mean, isn't it?

I feel like you're overstating things pretty severely. There's relatively little of Shakespeare that can't be parsed simply from context clues and actually thinking about what you're reading, and that's ignoring that virtually whenever its read its in formats which explain any peculiarities. Frankly it's no harder to parse even the trickier bits of Shakespeare than jargon-laden business-speak or truly slang-laden English from before or after one's time, and we're expected to be able to deal with those! Usually it's a simple vocab check, one of the easiest things to deal with imho, because humans are pretty much universally really good at learning new words for things!

Also I'm unconvinced by the claims that there are people who will never get into it, I feel like it's more like a combination of "some people will never engage their brains when reading or studying any text" (i.e. nothing to do with Shakespeare, they also won't put effort in on modern authors) and a lot of poor or ineffective ways of teaching Shakespeare (some not the fault of the schools, like excessive class sizes). I mean, one of the schools I went to, everyone there was basically a reject from mainstream schooling, and none of us ended up having any difficulties understanding the Shakespeare we were taught (Romeo and Juliet one year, I forget what the other), not even the people who did initially struggle, because the class sizes were reasonably small and the teacher was very good at teaching it (and various poets who people might also struggle with). This tells me it's more of a methodology or resources issue than a Shakespeare issue.

Eh. Some archaic vocab, but it's pretty damn understandable. Nothing like Middle English or Old English which are genuinely incomprehensible if you haven't studied them as languages.

Exactly. It's not bloody Chaucer or something.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Since Shakespeare's Star Wars is a thing, perhaps someone should come out with Shakespeare's Conan.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

This thread makes me want to dig all my Conan paperbacks (ca. late 70s/early 80s) out of storage and re-read them in order.

The Carter/ De Camp contributions don't always work, but I would posit "The Thing in The Crypt" in the first one stands tall among them. Certainly, its influence on the 1982 movie is clear.

 

[Voadam]

Shakespeare is a bit different. A big part of the challenge of reading him is the vocabulary and grammar being a bit archaic. He also coined a lot of new words, but a ton of those are in common usage today. But when you read it aloud and have footnotes and other explanations of unfamiliar words, it transforms and becomes MUCH more accessible.

I had a book of the complete works of Shakespeare and found it really tough to parse out stuff in the plays. Things really transformed in listening to an audio book version, hearing the cadence and back and forth and the emphasis of it as spoken dialogue and conversations added a lot of little bits that made comprehension much easier for me of the same material.

 

[Azzy]

I mean, isn't it?

I feel like you're overstating things pretty severely. There's relatively little of Shakespeare that can't be parsed simply from context clues and actually thinking about what you're reading, and that's ignoring that virtually whenever its read its in formats which explain any peculiarities. Frankly it's no harder to parse even the trickier bits of Shakespeare than jargon-laden business-speak or truly slang-laden English from before or after one's time, and we're expected to be able to deal with those! Usually it's a simple vocab check, one of the easiest things to deal with imho, because humans are pretty much universally really good at learning new words for things!

Also I'm unconvinced by the claims that there are people who will never get into it, I feel like it's more like a combination of "some people will never engage their brains when reading or studying any text" (i.e. nothing to do with Shakespeare, they also won't put effort in on modern authors) and a lot of poor or ineffective ways of teaching Shakespeare (some not the fault of the schools, like excessive class sizes). I mean, one of the schools I went to, everyone there was basically a reject from mainstream schooling, and none of us ended up having any difficulties understanding the Shakespeare we were taught (Romeo and Juliet one year, I forget what the other), not even the people who did initially struggle, because the class sizes were reasonably small and the teacher was very good at teaching it (and various poets who people might also struggle with). This tells me it's more of a methodology or resources issue than a Shakespeare issue.

Considering that Shakespeare's plays are taught in middle and high schools here in the States, too, it's not something difficult to understand. There are a few words and phrases that are no longer used in English, but those are usually pointed out and explained as part of the curriculum.

Also, the King's James Bible, like Shakespeare, is written in Early Modern English and that's still being used and read.

 

[Clint_L]

Considering that Shakespeare's plays are taught in middle and high schools here in the States, too, it's not something difficult to understand. There are a few words and phrases that are no longer used in English, but those are usually pointed out and explained as part of the curriculum.

Eh, I can tell you from experience that it's not just a few words and phrases, it's that students generally lack context to understand a lot of what is going on. And Shakespeare is (obviously) a singularly skilled and insightful writer in many respects, but let's face it: his plots are ridiculous, and typically resolved by a hand wave here, some deus ex machina there. Also, he gets way too much credit for how many words and phrases he "gave" to English; he didn't invent most of those, he just gets the credit because early dictionary writers (18th century) got their examples from his, by then, widely available works. Most would have been popular euphemisms and coinages in Elizabethan England that he and his fellow actors added to the plays.

I love me some Shakespeare, but he's not the be all and end all for every aspect of writing. Even among Elizabethan playwrights, I think Ben Jonson's comedies are more modern than Shakespeare's.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Considering that Shakespeare's plays are taught in middle and high schools here in the States, too, it's not something difficult to understand. There are a few words and phrases that are no longer used in English, but those are usually pointed out and explained as part of the curriculum.

Yeah, in school we read them, saw the plays and they would usually also have us watch one of the movies with the play so we could see it performed. Shakespeare is challenging but super rewarding. Footnotes are very helpful. And now you can always look up a course or lecture if you want further explanation on anything specific.

Also, the King's James Bible, like Shakespeare, is written in Early Modern English and that's still being used and read.

And it is still easy for people to misunderstand King James, so it isn't like that early modern English is always a breezy read. But King James definitely has beauty of language going for it.