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All Finn, No Shark 6/17/2008 7:38:59 AM
My response to the Mark Finn review of a rough draft of my book ROBERT E. HOWARD, The Supreme Moment: A Biography. Finn's premature review appeared in The Cimmerian June 9, 2008.
Is it right to publish reviews of rough drafts and represent them as being reviews of the finished book? Mark Finn’s June 9, 2008 review of an earlier draft of my book in The Cimmerian is, by contrast to the OK review at the Robert E. Howard United Press Association site, pretty scathing and downright venomous. It also seemed rather premature to issue such a catty review of a book I was still working on. If you’re looking for a direct response (Lord give me the strength to do the classy thing here) then I can only offer this: When a man hasn't written many books, he is more apt to defend what little writing he has with an amazing, tunnel-vision zealotry. Finn was so hot to blast me that he got many things wrong. His own cribbing of de Camp (which he labels as my cribbing of him, as covered at the start of Chapter Four) is just a sample. Yet on and on he went, reviewing my rough draft as if I had approved it for distribution. Perhaps he would next like to review my sketchbooks, or maybe my scrap paper? Just imagine the negative tirades he could launch about my notebooks and doodle pads (all published in The Cimmerian, of course). Oh well. I hope it made him feel better. It’s a stage every writer has to go through, to one degree or another, and I’m sure he’ll consider this edition just some gussied-up version of previous ones, and quite possibly attempt to leave more bad reviews. At lulu.com, on the heels of his Cimmerian review, my rough draft was suddenly given a one-star rating, and the source seemed of little mystery. I liken it to a beauty pageant judge giving bad marks to a fetus; and to such a spurious, ill-informed output I say, “All Finn, no shark.”
When I ordered his book, Amazon had it listed at 400 pages, but upon arrival it weighed in at about 250. Then I saw that stuff on the back cover about Howard living all his life in Cross Plains, and of course I noted several five-star reviews at Amazon whose degree of removal from the author seemed dubious to me (such as one from Austin, Finn’s location.) I could have overlooked that one, for about ten years ago my wife left a review of one of my books, but then I came across the solitary Barnes & Noble review from “Richard,” which instantly reads like a giant resume: “About the author: Mark Finn is the recipient of the 2005 Cimmerian Award for Outstanding Achievement in Robert E. Howard studies, and a critically-acclaimed scholar, author, essayist and playwright. Finn is an expert in 20th century pop culture and genre studies, and is not to be trifled with.” It goes on like that. Again let me say that for an author who hasn’t written many books, this sort of thing is common, and in my mind I equate this kind of self-promotion to an adolescent masturbating: it’s flashy and it’s messy and it’s not even done very well. Nonetheless, I still mention what I perceive to be the good points to his book, which is well worth the read and indeed well done. It is certainly more of an overall mainstream biography than this book, but Finn felt compelled to declare that this book was NO biography at all (okay, chief). I got the impression that if it were not beyond refute Finn would have denied this book’s capacity to exist. I was quite disappointed to see a “Howard scholar” act so pettily. After all, we’re all just trying to do our best without devolving into a hopeless state of pissiness, aren’t we? My “cobbled together” disjointed little book is the best I can do. I’m truly sorry you hated it, Mark, and I thank you for at least conceding that I might have a few interesting essays in here—if, of course, I work real hard with an editor to polish them. As if the eight different drafts I’ve updated to this book do not count as editing. To Finn they probably don’t.
This, of course, is why writers wiser than I do not read their reviews.
I never really expect anyone to like what I’m writing, but I also don’t expect them to go all Planet of the Apes on me, either. With age and over twenty books written, let me be the first to shout from the rooftops that I don’t know a damn thing. All I can do is explore my perception, and all I can offer is what I perceive. And for those who have now gotten some impression of me, let me further add that Finn’s Cimmerian review suggested that I was trying to swindle money from fans and collectors by writing this. It either shows how little he researched me, or how much he decided to overlook.
In the course of creating The Supreme Moment, I have studied every piece of material of which I could avail myself, including the excellent research and essays of current Howard scholars such as Rusty Burke, Don Herron, Patrice Louinet, Leo Grin, Gary Romeo, Frank Coffman, and so many others. However let me be clear that I do not claim to know these people personally, as some folks are bound to accuse me of name-dropping for the sake of insinuating I buy these guys beer every Saturday night. (Much as I would like to do it, I’m just a horrendous crank and an overall schnook.) While writing this book I also kept in mind the vastly important contributions of older Howard scholars such as Glenn Lord and L. Sprague de Camp. I have also spent more hours than I would care to admit going through thousands of files at the Library of Congress in order to locate dozens of relevant photos, such as the 1927 “Pageant of Pulchritude” which Howard attended in Galveston (and REH might even be in the crowd). Photos like this represent a new discovery in the field of REH research.
My objective is to write the best Howard book that I am capable of writing, poor and tawdry conduit that I am, without it reading like most of the stuff out there. If that makes it bad and incomprehensible to some, maybe there is a slight chance it also makes it refreshing and worthwhile to others.
