Tag Archives: Conan the Barbarian

8,124 words

Editor’s Note:

The following text is a transcript by John Morgan of a lecture by Jonathan Bowden, “Robert Erwin Howard: Pulpster Extraordinaire,” given at the 26th New Right meeting in London on Saturday, April 17, 2010. The audio is available on YouTube.

The Hour of the Dragon (Conan the Conqueror), Part 4

Jonathan Bowden

915 words

Part 4 of 4

In our final installment we will examine the end of this novel and its denouement. The Heart of Ahriman—the foundation to resist Xaltotun’s magick—has been obtained by Conan after numerous adventures. This means that the Aquilonians do not need to fear his necromancy as they begin their final rebellion against the Nemedians—prior to expelling them from the kingdom for good. Read more …

Published: October 4, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged barbarism, book reviews, Conan the Conqueror, Jonathan Bowden, literature, political pessimism, racialism, Robert E. Howard, the critique of civilization, The Hour of the Dragon, vitalism | Comments closed

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The Hour of the Dragon (Conan the Conqueror), Part 3

Jonathan Bowden

849 words

Part 3 of 4

In our synopsis and analysis, we left Conan and Hadrathus discussing how to regain the initiative by seizing the Heart of Ahriman. Conan then heads south in the funereal barge of a follower of Asura — to make sure that he and Albiona are unmolested — and he quickly makes up the leagues necessary to visit Count Trocero’s Poitain in the deep south of Aquilonia. Read more …

Published: September 22, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged barbarism, book reviews, Conan the Conqueror, Jonathan Bowden, literature, political pessimism, racialism, Robert E. Howard, the critique of civilization, The Hour of the Dragon, vitalism | Comments closed

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The Hour of the Dragon (Conan the Conqueror), Part 2

Jonathan Bowden

1,054 words

Part 2 of 4

In my previous installment, I had brought Conan up from the pits underneath the Royal palace at Belverus in Nemedia. Read more …

Published: September 16, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged anti-progressivism, barbarism, book reviews, Conan the Conqueror, Jonathan Bowden, literature, pessimism, racialism, Robert E. Howard, the critique of civilization, The Hour of the Dragon, vitalism | Comments closed

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The Hour of the Dragon (Conan the Conqueror)

Jonathan Bowden

999 words

Part 1 of 4

Moving on from my recent review of Robert E. Howard’s “Rogues in the House,” I would like to have a look at the only full-length Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon (sometimes known as Conan the Conqueror).

This piece again illustrates the subliminal racialism of the Howard mythos as well as providing a template for his mordant, pessimistic, and ultra-conservative views about civilization. Read more …

Published: September 1, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged barbarism, book reviews, Conan the Conqueror, Jonathan Bowden, literature, political pessimism, racialism, Robert E. Howard, the critique of civilization, The Hour of the Dragon, vitalism | Comments closed

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Robert E. Howard’s “Rogues in the House”

Jonathan Bowden

1,251 words

In this essay I shall seek to pick out a few themes from Robert E. Howard’s writing life, using one of his most emblematic stories, “Rogues in the House,” as a living illustration.

Howard certainly had (or imagined that he did) strong Irish roots which influenced much of his fiction in a Celtic direction. One only has to look at the nature of the Nemedian chronicles in the Conan mythos to see this. Read more …

Published: August 25, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged anti-progressivism, Jonathan Bowden, literature, manliness, North American New Right, originals, pessismism, Robert E. Howard, Rogues in the House, white heroism | Comments closed

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Solomon Kane & Robert E. Howard

Jonathan Bowden

1,090 words

This review will look at Robert E. Howard’s second most important hero to Conan the Barbarian—namely, the puritan hero Solomon Kane. Kane could have been a more ideological hero than Conan, yet the stories themselves don’t read that way.

For the purposes of analysis, I shall be looking at a curiosity that was published in 1968 by a hitherto obscure house called Peter Haddock limited. The volume, entitled The Hand of Kane, bears the imprimatur of Glenn Lord, the then executor for the Howard estate and was printed in Hungary (behind the Iron Curtain) to reduce printing costs. Read more …

Published: July 25, 2011 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged antinomianism, articles, book reviews, Christianity, Friedrich Nietzsche, literature, North American New Right, originals, Puritanism, Robert E. Howard, Solomon Kane, white heroism | Comments closed

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Conan the Barbarian & Robert E. Howard

Jonathan Bowden

1,317 words

This review will examine the work of Robert E. Howard and, in particular, his greatest creation the barbarian Conan. For the purposes of concentration and illustration, I will look at the comic strip “Zukala’s Daughter,” scripted by Roy Thomas, and featuring in the 1972 Fleetway annual in Britain. It happened to be one of the earliest numbered editions of the color comic known as Conan the Barbarian. Read more …