Verlyn Flieger

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Regin Hardhammer

Well, it's not Flieger but here's another response to the Appleyard review of Children of Hurin...this one not nearlyso polite as Flieger's. Michael Drout doubts whether most "modernistic aesthetic theories" can deal with Tolkien. Check it out here.

I actually have an assignment to read Hurin for one of my classes later this month. Yeah!

Interesting article, cheers!

I have to say that what takes Drout so many words to say simply boils down to the fact that modern critics are a part of the literary establishment and are often writers themselves and I think they simply feel threatened by the power of the whole 'Tolkien machine'. So they must then 'justify' in an intellectual way their prejudice and simple dislike.

It's true what Drout says that Tolkien's work actually does fulfill all the 'requirements' of modern fiction, but rather than pick up on methods of criticism he's going up the wrong alley as it's not the methods that are to blame but the critics and their cliques themselves.

Drout also misses that Tolkien's work does have irony in it, and it does have humour and some fantastic satire too, and what's more, it can also be very 'knowing'.

Anyway, what Appleyard said about Tolkien's work was just wrong:

The Wilson charge that Tolkien was not really a writer will horrify millions, but he had a point. Tolkien’s style — indeed, his entire approach — was derived from English narrative poems such as Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight, from the Norse sagas and, especially in the case of this latest book, from Wagner. These were tales of heroism and magic, of absolute values, of the last things. The obvious approach for a contemporary writer who wishes to retrieve such forms is to update their style and, perhaps, set them in a contemporary context.

Not only is that wrong about contemporary writers taking old values and setting them in a contemporary setting (has he heard of John Fowles? AS Byatt?), it is also wrong that the old sagas and poems were 'black and white' (has he read any of these or did he merely crib from his lecture notes?). Erm, and didn't Tolkien write about some incredibly modern issues in his work? Also yet again, a consignment of poor Tolkien to the dusty cupboard of the antiquarians, depsite him playing a full part in the modern world and being as modern as anyone. Yet another pointer to me that it's time we brought him out of that dark Gothic little cupboard we've all put him in.

Flieger is 'on the money' as she says, when she points out that Tolkien's style and characterisation is to be found in his contrasting uses of language, including how he had his characters speak. What could be more modern than trying a new way of characterisation?