The Tolkien Template - Carrying on the torch of mythology and folklore

[littlemanpoet]

Kalessin the Eldest:

[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Greetings again. Forgive my dilatory response. I have been reading LeGuin again lately, and so have finally rediscovered the source of your moniker. Excellent choice!

(I) wonder if we are trying to have it both ways when review the genre post-Tolkien? If a work is derivative or referential, we rightly criticise it as a pale imitation of the 'real thing' ... yet if a work does not follow the 'Tolkien template', we say it fails equally by not meeting the criteria of the master's work. Perhaps we are being a little possessive, or protective, or elitist ...

To answer your query, I had not felt that I had raised the mountain too high. Thank you for pointing out the distinction. I have been uneasy with the idea of a Tolkien template having a tyrannous effect on the writing of fantasy, and had been considering saying so earlier. If a Tolkien template was considered essential to writing fantasy, we would have no EarthSea series by LeGuin.

I grant you that LeGuin may be a better writer than Tolkien, as writers go. The breadth of her imagination rivals his, as well, it seems to me. His linguistic abilities far surpass hers, and the richness he is able to bring to Middle Earth, through this, seems to go beyond LeGuin's, just because he had more of the best kinds of tools at his disposal. She is not done writing yet, so we shall see.

I love EarthSea. I love Middle Earth more. Perhaps it IS because I came to it so young. Perhaps it's because of its consonances with my faith, compared with that of EarthSea. There is something gritty about EarthSea, an earth-boundness, that I really enjoy about it. And yet... I do not call it inferior, just not quite as pleasant to my taste as Tolkien.

I've spent a good 8 months reading unpublished original fantasy now, some of it incredibly good, some of it incredibly rookie, and I have great hopes for the future of fantasy. I think the key lies in the writer of fantasy being true to her/his own vision, and true to the craft of writing. Nevermind a template, be it from Tolkien or LeGuin or Asimov, or R.E. Howard. Write what's in you to write, and learn to do it as well as you can.

[ January 01, 2003: Message edited by: littlemanpoet ]