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Fordim Hedgethistle · 01-02-2005, 09:01 AM

The lack of certain pieces of what we would normally assume to be ‘important’ pieces of information has always struck me as a conscious piece of story-telling by Tolkien, insofar as it makes his world more realistic (in the sense of literary realism). In a novel set in contemporary London, for example, would you expect to find descriptions of graveyards and police forces if these did not feature in the story? Of course not, because we know that graveyards and police are a part of the fabric of London, along with Buckingham Palace and doubledeck buses and dog mess on the sidewalks, and on and on and on.

I remember once reading an interview with George Lucas in which he explained that for him, one of the hallmarks of bad sci-fi is that it spends too much time describing the world it is set in rather than telling a story set in that world. I think that Lucas learned this from Tolkien.

Of course there are graveyards in the Shire, just as there are kitchens and larders in Minas Tirith – these features are not described by the narrators because they are not part of the story and to take time out to address these would call attention to the fact that ‘need’ to be described, which would destroy their reality. A novel set in Paris does not need to describe the Eiffel Tower because we already know it’s there and it is real. To set about describing a Hobbit graveyard is to highlight the fact that one has to describe such a thing because such a thing does not exist. It’s a wonderful slight of hand practised by realist authors since the invention of the form in the 19th century: what you don’t describe is magically made into an ‘assumed’ or ‘given’ element of the story’s reality. In effect, you make things real for the reader by ignoring them!

This has always struck me as a double-edged sword in fantasy, however, for it shows up how the tactics of realist authors are anything but ‘real’. The London of Dickens is no more a “real” place than the Shire; they are created/imaginative realms that are brought to life for the reader through a set of literary/narrative techniques. Where things get interesting, of course, is in looking at why certain elements of the narrated world are deemed ‘important’ to the story by their inclusion in it: the patterns of hobbit-holes (living) and Numenorean-tombs (death), for example, is a fascinating idea I’d never considered before.

01-02-2005, 09:01 AM	#18
Fordim Hedgethistle Gibbering Gibbet Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Beyond cloud nine Posts: 1,844	The lack of certain pieces of what we would normally assume to be ‘important’ pieces of information has always struck me as a conscious piece of story-telling by Tolkien, insofar as it makes his world more realistic (in the sense of literary realism). In a novel set in contemporary London, for example, would you expect to find descriptions of graveyards and police forces if these did not feature in the story? Of course not, because we know that graveyards and police are a part of the fabric of London, along with Buckingham Palace and doubledeck buses and dog mess on the sidewalks, and on and on and on. I remember once reading an interview with George Lucas in which he explained that for him, one of the hallmarks of bad sci-fi is that it spends too much time describing the world it is set in rather than telling a story set in that world. I think that Lucas learned this from Tolkien. Of course there are graveyards in the Shire, just as there are kitchens and larders in Minas Tirith – these features are not described by the narrators because they are not part of the story and to take time out to address these would call attention to the fact that ‘need’ to be described, which would destroy their reality. A novel set in Paris does not need to describe the Eiffel Tower because we already know it’s there and it is real. To set about describing a Hobbit graveyard is to highlight the fact that one has to describe such a thing because such a thing does not exist. It’s a wonderful slight of hand practised by realist authors since the invention of the form in the 19th century: what you don’t describe is magically made into an ‘assumed’ or ‘given’ element of the story’s reality. In effect, you make things real for the reader by ignoring them! This has always struck me as a double-edged sword in fantasy, however, for it shows up how the tactics of realist authors are anything but ‘real’. The London of Dickens is no more a “real” place than the Shire; they are created/imaginative realms that are brought to life for the reader through a set of literary/narrative techniques. Where things get interesting, of course, is in looking at why certain elements of the narrated world are deemed ‘important’ to the story by their inclusion in it: the patterns of hobbit-holes (living) and Numenorean-tombs (death), for example, is a fascinating idea I’d never considered before. __________________ Scribbling scrabbling.