My favorite scene in Conan the Jazzerciser is when Conan, following the trail of his stolen leg warmers, tracks Trudy the decadent Aquilonian aerobics instructor to a gym in the Zingaran capital of Kordava. He not only discovers his stolen leggings and a dark plot by a Khitai sorcerer, but also that Trudy has been using the Cimmerian’s very own workout mix tape to conduct her classes!

It was a red day at the Black River Gym.

This bit of nonsense was suggested by a piece of realism inserted into a Conan pastiche. It is probably strong evidence that writers need to be very careful when choosing the details of their stories, and also that reader’s interpretations and associations are unfortunately always going to be capable of veering into undesirable territory. Firstly, the passage in question, in which Conan finds himself wanting to stay in fighting trim while imprisoned:

…Hours of vigorous exercise every day had kept him fit, while somewhat assuaging his boredom. Well, he would do an extra round now, in hopes that that would enable him to sleep.

Candles glowed throughout the main room. He ignored its richness, peeled off his tunic, dropped the garment on the floor and, attired in nothing save a loincloth, started a set of deep knee bends.

That is from Chapter Nine of Poul Anderson’s Conan the Rebel. I liked the book itself, though I’m sad to say that, after about two years, the above scene is the only thing I remember. This is because it’s bad. It’s a bad use of realism, or what perhaps should be more accurately and less confusingly called the ‘realistic approach’ since the term realism itself has different literary connotations. It’s bad because it puts Conan in a set of leg warmers in my imagination.

But it’s logical! Sure, and I get where Anderson is coming from. In fact, I’m a big fan of Anderson in general, and really enjoy his essay “On Thud and Blunder,” which lays out his call for an increasingly realistic approach in sword & sorcery and heroic fantasy fiction at a time when the egregious faults of the genre were in full-flower. This was thirty years ago during a fantasy boom which saw scads of books and stories following the Conan formula emerge, seemingly all with the same Frazetta-inspired accompanying artwork. Many of them were quite good. Many weren’t. Anderson took issue with the numerous lazy writers who wanted to write this sort of fiction without any research, without learning the difference between a horse and a car, or the limits of a pre-industrial economy or society. And he was absolutely right — but he never talked about the possibility of going too far.

I’d suggest Conan the Jazzerciser in the above scene IS going too far. Yes, it’s very brief and very minor — but such are the perils of fiction; success or failure can hinge on a single word. I remember reading it and immediately thinking of Anderson’s essay, and of his philosophy of realistic, logical thinking. And then I thought of leg warmers. I do agree that it is perfectly logical that an imprisoned man would need to exercise in order to maintain fitness. It even seems to follow the logic of Conan’s character that, as an active, restless individual, he would need to burn off some of that pent-up energy and anxiety somehow. But it is wrong in regards to theme, and wrong when Conan’s character is evaluated in terms other than what he would be like as a man, when we consider just what it is he represents.

It is quite possible that some of the effect of Conan as a character comes from Howard’s original form, the short story and novella. When blown up to novel size, many writers seem to treat him novelistically — that is, they supply more interiority and, by necessity, lose some mystery. But those are the rules of this particular game — and I’m not critical of the above scene on terms any other than as they apply to an already established character and universe.

Though maybe I should be? To me, the notion of a barbarian warrior ‘exercising’ is ridiculous. Such a creature gets his exercise in hard work, sport, war-making, rapine, and plunder. Imprison him and, once he gets over being grateful for the brief rest, I suspect he would be bouncing off the walls — maybe even punching them. But deep knee bends? DEEP KNEE BENDS? The words alone don’t belong in any story containing references to leather drinking jacks or war axes. And this is based purely on my own immediate reaction, not research — which is exactly how every reader reacts. It may very well could be that calisthenics are not antithetical to such a tale or such a person, historically speaking, but that does not matter in the slightest.

It does not matter because we are talking about emotion when we talk about fiction. We are talking about imagination, and associations . . . and calisthenics are not what I, and more than likely not what you, associate with barbarians. Especially not Conan. By falling into the habit of the realistic approach Anderson was blind to the blunder he himself was committing — he was replacing the visceral with the intellectual, and reducing a myth to the level of the banal.

I’m not against research or realistic thinking or bringing great, plausible details into a story. Anderson does this well, in dozens of novels. He even does it well in Conan the Rebel. But here is an example of a writer going too far — and the only reason I’m signaling him out in this regard is that he can take it. And, of course, because he is the exemplar of this approach; an approach that I think can sometimes be a trap.

Does Conan exercise? It doesn’t matter; he surely does a plethora of everyday human activities that I’ve never read about and never care to — because that is not what his character is about. Make no mistake, Conan is a man, and Howard writes him as such, but he is also the embodiment of certain ideas. His stories are indelible because they are elemental, shot through with white-hot passion. They are also masterfully told, by someone that knew which elements to focus on and which to leave out. This is where theme and mood and tone all emerge, from the selective process of the writer’s approach — and this, I suspect, is where so many pastiches and imitations fall down. It’s one thing to attempt to get plot and character right, to attempt even to duplicate prose, but the thematic layer is perhaps most crucial — and that’s where the balance between logic and emotion is key.

“Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

The above is from Howard’s “Queen of the Black Coast,” the very story Anderson was elaborating on with Conan the Rebel. THAT is Conan, someone living in the now, someone whose basic philosophy is indistinguishable from his own physicality. Can you imagine the man speaking in this passage bothering with calisthenics? I think it highlights a difference in the fundamental approach these two authors took to this character: for Anderson Conan was an adventurer, for Howard he was the truth.

Which is why Howard’s Conan, a man who does not do deep knee bends, is the more believably real. His realism comes from acting consistently within the theme established for his character — and making the reader feel it. In fiction, emotion is truth, and the reader believes what they can feel. Anderson’s Conan the Rebel is not a bad pastiche, in fact I remember it as quite fun, but I didn’t feel it on a deeper level. And, while this whole essay stems from one easily overlooked scene which in no way spoiled the book, I think the conclusion that can be drawn from this is none-the-less universal: details need to serve the totality of the story, and a detail that does not, no matter how ‘realistic,’ is one that will undermine the larger reality of the whole.