The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - The wrong kind of details: the components of wonder (aka lmp's rant)

littlemanpoet · 08-05-2002, 08:12 AM

I've been thinking about why McKiernan's French milieu doesn't work while Tolkien's Shire and Pullman's Victorian milieu do. Is it the fact that it's French instead of English? I don't think so. Disney's Beauty and the Beast, whatever its faults, succeeds in evoking a sense of wonder, and the French village from which Belle comes has its charm.

So I think there are details in Tolkien, Pullman, McKiernan, and Disney's BatB that function for charm instead of wonder, and it seems to me that this is appropriate because the Shire's Hobbits function as a mediation between our 20th/21st century reality and the mythic grandeur of Middle Earth. Just so, Pullman's Victorian milieu functions as a mediation between current time and the complex of his Armored Bears and multiple planets/universes and lands of the dead. McKiernan's French milieu is full of details that provide a sense of the charm of French 18th century life, but somehow (at least for me) the details kill the wonder. Why did it work in BatB and not in Once Upon a Winter's Night? None or all of you not having read the book, it's hard to have a discussion, so I guess I'm stuck thinking out loud.

I think that he fails, as did Niphredil Baggins in her first attempt in her castle, in that the details are all mundane. But is that not so of the Shire, too? What's different? I need to think about this some more, but I'm stuck and wouldn't mind some feedback. Okay?

08-05-2002, 08:12 AM	#15
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	I've been thinking about why McKiernan's French milieu doesn't work while Tolkien's Shire and Pullman's Victorian milieu do. Is it the fact that it's French instead of English? I don't think so. Disney's Beauty and the Beast, whatever its faults, succeeds in evoking a sense of wonder, and the French village from which Belle comes has its charm. So I think there are details in Tolkien, Pullman, McKiernan, and Disney's BatB that function for charm instead of wonder, and it seems to me that this is appropriate because the Shire's Hobbits function as a mediation between our 20th/21st century reality and the mythic grandeur of Middle Earth. Just so, Pullman's Victorian milieu functions as a mediation between current time and the complex of his Armored Bears and multiple planets/universes and lands of the dead. McKiernan's French milieu is full of details that provide a sense of the charm of French 18th century life, but somehow (at least for me) the details kill the wonder. Why did it work in BatB and not in Once Upon a Winter's Night? None or all of you not having read the book, it's hard to have a discussion, so I guess I'm stuck thinking out loud. I think that he fails, as did Niphredil Baggins in her first attempt in her castle, in that the details are all mundane. But is that not so of the Shire, too? What's different? I need to think about this some more, but I'm stuck and wouldn't mind some feedback. Okay?