Yes, Tolkien is Wonderful, but...

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Iarwain

They don't constitute "intellectual content", and I think you'll agree with me on this point.

Quite frankly, no.

The fact that Tolkien uses them well reflects well on Tolkien, but it doesn't make his work great literature.

So I take it something is missing? Perhaps ... this?

I spent years rereading the Lord of the Rings and always feeling disappointed with that last line, and wishing he had gone on to write the final battle and the destruction of Arda.

Let me ask you, why is it necessary for a great work to have its absolute ending included in it? By and large, Tolkien's books don't say less (or more) about the final ending than, say, the Bible or Homer's works, which are present in your "great list of books". So I don't see why this would be a valid critique.

I'm not saying that there isn't a lot to talk about in Tolkien, but that there are books that raise questions closer to reality, more involved in the essence of the human condition, and concerned with the problems of living in the world.

Is there any particular standard regarding human condition and problems of living in the world, according to which those books qualify while Tolkien's don't, and if so, which one? Or are you simply going with your personal opinion here?

[Boromir88]

This being a topic mostly of opinion, there is really no correct answer, it's just going to be a big circle of opinions. Though, I really don't know what you are trying to achieve with this thread...

A lot of this great literature comes under the musty title of "classic". Titles like "The Iliad", "War and Peace", "Great Expectations", "Les Miserables", and others come to mind. They strike us as impressive, inaccessible, and dull.~Iarwain

I would say most of the people on this forum, being fans of Tolkien, also would rather enjoy many of the authors that are on that list. (I could be completely wrong, so, if I am just tell me to shut it ). Now, it's true I've often found Charles Dickens quite a bore, but I guess this really isn't what authors are 'fun' to read, what is the 'intellectual quality?' And Dickens' showing of 'industrialization' was fit for the time he was writing in.

I love George Orwell, and I think you'll notice I mention him several times on this forum. His books are not only scary dystopias, but also absolutely humourous. Mark Twain's work with dialects is about as impressive as Tolkien's knowledge of language. Chaucer, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare...and most of those on that list, are all great "intellectual" authors, I don't think you'll meet much of a disagreement.

I would also add St. Augustine, who's defining of 'race' is quite interesting. Now Augustine was writing in what...the 400s? But, his writing of mutated half-humans with 5 arms (and all sorts of distorted 'creatures') was fascinating. Also, Jane Yolen's work on fairy tales is unique. Where is Terry Pratchett? A poll in England showed that the 'most influential authors who are still living,' Pratchett was second, behind J.K. Rowling. So, there are a couple more I would add to that list.

And there are a couple I would take off...T.S. Eliot for example, who writes very morbid stuff, but of course that's not the reason I would take him off. But, as Tom Shippey observes, Eliot really had no clue what he was writing about, as he didn't have first hand experience:

Yet actually , when it comes to it, Tolkien wasn't like that himself......the failure of nerve which afflicted so many of his contemporaries, just didn't reach him. After all, he'd been there, [WW1],he'd seen what it was like. T.S. Eliot, to name but one, hadn't been there, and hadn't seen what it was like, and Tolkien didn't take any notice of Eliot and his like. He was dead sure that they were wrong on his own firsthand evidence...~Tom Shippey's sheech to the Tolkien Society's Annual dinner (1991)

With regards to Eliot, this is something I will agree with Professor Shippey and Tolkien on, that his bleak vision of the world (caused by WW1) is quite a ways off; and Eliot lacked that first hand experience with the war that Tolkien went through.

I'll conclude with, as much as Tolkien 'ripped into' authors of fantasy (we all know his criticism of C.S. Lewis - and Lewis wasn't Tolkien's only casualty ), I doubt Tolkien would put himself on the pedestal that most of us here (including myself) put him on. Tolkien, and his 'eccentric group of friends,' seemed far from the type that would lift themselves up on a pedestal. With that being said 'Middle-earth' is just a small fraction of what Tolkien wrote; we must not forget all the work he did in academics as well! I think (though I'm going to have to go back and check who said it), Tom Shippey remarks again that some in the academic world didn't like 'Middle-earth' because it took him out of the academic world.

As an interesting story, when Penguin Books changed Tolkien's spelling of 'elvish' and 'dwarves' (to 'elfish' and 'dwarfs') they cited the Oxford English Dictionary. Which Tolkien replied 'I wrote the Oxford Dictionary!' Now that's Tolkien being a little silly, but it all goes back to C.S. Lewis' comments in Tolkien's obituary: 'he was a man inside language.'

[Iarwain]

To clarify one more time, I'm not trying to disparage Tolkien. Raynor, when I said that I'd wished for more writing about Middle-Earth, I was expressing a desire for more of the wonderful material that is his writing. This thread is not meant to be an argument. What I'm trying to achieve is a notice for some of us who are dead set on believing that Tolkien is the greatest author ever, and don't really venture outside the sci-fi/fantasy realm. Please don't be combative, I'm not trying to insult him.

Boromir, you should read Eliot; he knows exactly what he's talking about. For Shippey to say that he didn't is ridiculous. His poetry isn't about WWI, it's about life in an industrial society and the dehumanization of the individual. Read "The Waste Land" and tell me T.S. Eliot didn't know what he was writing about.

Tolkien was creating a Mythology with languages and epics. He wasn't out to write a spiritual guide or a psychological lyric on the level of Augustine or Dostoevsky. Augustine and Dostoevsky did these things, and they're great to read. This is my point. I know a lot of people will find it very hard to accept, perhaps because it's so nice to know who the greatest author is and devote your reading efforts toward achieving a full grasp of his writings. Or perhaps because ultimately we are escapists, and Tolkien has provided the alternate world we want. If it's the first, this thread is for you, to let you know that there are yet more delightful books to read. If the latter, don't let me bother you, keep on escaping. I'm pretty sure no one has created a more comprehensive and delightful alternate universe than Tolkien.

[Boromir88]

Boromir, you should read Eliot; he knows exactly what he's talking about.

I have read Eliot; not The Wasteland, but I have read The Hollow Men and parts of The Four Quartets. Both poems drawing allusions to World War I; among other events such as Guy Fawkes' day; the German's bombing of London..etc

Shippey is one of the leading scholars on Tolkien, his early years of teaching overlapped with Tolkien's, and he took over Tolkien's chair as Professor of English Language at Leeds. His analysis regarding Eliot's view post WWI is one worth mentioning. Eliot lacked the first-hand experience of war; leading to Tolkien believing Eliot was 'dead wrong,' and C.S. Lewis saying the work of Eliot was 'a very great evil.'

[davem]

Originally Posted by Iarwain

I know a lot of people will find it very hard to accept, perhaps because it's so nice to know who the greatest author is and devote your reading efforts toward achieving a full grasp of his writings. Or perhaps because ultimately we are escapists, and Tolkien has provided the alternate world we want. If it's the first, this thread is for you, to let you know that there are yet more delightful books to read. If the latter, don't let me bother you, keep on escaping. I'm pretty sure no one has created a more comprehensive and delightful alternate universe than Tolkien.

Thanks so much for sharing your insights with us. Its good to be told that there are other writers out there who are worth reading (though I suspect anyone over twelve would know that already).

Its also nice that you've told us that, in your opinion, there are 'much better books out there'.

I wish I knew what you want. Do you want us to agree? Or are you looking for an argument?

Actually, I realise there are other great writers. If I turn to my left I can see, besides four shelves full of books by or about Tolkien, a couple of dozen Icelandic Sagas, the Morte d'Arthur, The Mabinogion, The Kalevala, Beowulf, William's Taliesin poems & his study of Dante, Montaigne's Essays, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Don Quixote, The King James's Bible & Tyndale's New Testament. One floor up & there are two shelves of poetry, from Shakespeare & Spenser & Ariosto through Blake, Byron, Christina Rosetti, Emily Bronte & Emily Dickinson to David Jones & Wendy cope. On the floor above I have about four bookcases of theology (favouring English & German mystics admittedly), mythology (Norse & Celtic in the main, but Classical & Oriental too) a shelf full of Jung, another of general psychology, some philosophy, about three dozen novels by Philip K Dick, some Robert Anton Wilson, a couple of shelves of history books (again, mainly British, but some classical), & works of writers ranging from Homer, Thucydides & Ovid through the Brontes & George Elliot, Tolstoy & Dostoevsky to Joseph Heller & John Crowley. That doesn't include encylopedias & literary companions.

Those are the ones I can call to mind, without getting up. It doesn't include Lal's collection, which is at least as wide (though favouring more modern poets). I'd say we have a good three thousand plus books in the house, both fiction & non- fiction, & are both widely read, literate individuals. We've also both read just about everything Tolkien ever wrote.

You're wrong about Tolkien, & in my opinion you're being more than a little patronising. Do you really think that those of us who post on this site only consider Tolkien to be a great writer because we haven't read any 'proper' books? Or that the only attraction in his work is the chance to run away with the fairies for a few hours?

[Iarwain]

Haha well, davem, you're much better read than I am. What I'm trying to do is something I wish someone had done for me five years ago. I don't think the fact that there are other really excellent authors is obvious to everyone. I know it wasn't obvious to me. I'm not trying to be patronizing at all. I'm not looking for an argument, or for agreement, I just wanted to make a statement. Obviously there are a lot of people here who don't need to hear this statement, and I beg them not to be offended. I'm not trying to put down the Barrowdowns or make generalizations about the people who post here.

[Hammerhand]

Aye, i have been well aware of many of the Authors on your list for some considerable time - even reading in to an array of them. Thanks anyway.

[tar-ancalime]

Originally Posted by Iarwain

Haha well, davem, you're much better read than I am. What I'm trying to do is something I wish someone had done for me five years ago. I don't think the fact that there are other really excellent authors is obvious to everyone. I know it wasn't obvious to me. I'm not trying to be patronizing at all. I'm not looking for an argument, or for agreement, I just wanted to make a statement. Obviously there are a lot of people here who don't need to hear this statement, and I beg them not to be offended. I'm not trying to put down the Barrowdowns or make generalizations about the people who post here.

Thanks, that's a little clearer.

Unfortunately I don't think what you're trying to give to (younger?) Tolkien fans can ever really be given, or taken, at least not in this way. Partly this is because there is so very much great literature in the world. What you seem to be saying is, "The world is full of great books! Go read some!" To which many people (the choir to whom you're largely preaching here at the Downs) will respond, "Yes, thanks, I've done so and will persevere in my quest to read EVERYTHING, just as soon as I claw my way out from under the stack of books that used to be my house..." Unfortunately, the people you seem to be trying to reach (those who don't yet have a well-defined sense of what, to them, is a good read) are likely to be overwhelmed by any list of great authors or works. Where to begin?

Maybe you could share with us something about your own personal journey outward from Tolkien, since it seems to be an important part of your relationship with literature. What was the first book that caught you? What was the first book you read that was "better" (your word, your opinion, your show) than Tolkien? How did you decide to read it? What were the second and third books?

What you've written so far (and pardon me if I'm overstepping the bounds of courtesy) reads a little like a harangue--patronizing to those who've indeed read widely, as you've discovered from the tenor of the responses you've received so far, and perhaps intimidating to those who haven't. Give us a little more to go on, and I'd imagine you'll get a much better reception from both ends.

[Iarwain]

Thanks for the understanding. I honestly don't mean to be offensive in any way.

I suppose for a while I felt a bit lost. I spent four or five years exploring Tolkien's corpus and rereading LotR, and then I stopped, and found myself longing for the days when I had read so much. I read some odd fiction, and a little nonfiction, and it was enjoyable but not enriching on the same level as Tolkien. I finished reading 1984, for instance, and didn't feel like I'd benefited as a person. I had perhaps been indoctrinated a little further against totalitarianism, but real values or ideas didn't come to me through it. Tolkien had given me a moral view of the world. This is fascinating, because he certainly doesn't moralize directly. Tolkien's books were the legends and folktales I grew up on, and they ended up serving the same function as traditional legends and folktales.

At some point I randomly picked up a copy of Plato's Republic. I read a bit, and put it down, picked it up again a few months later, and then dropped it again. This kept happening until one week I decided I was going to read through the whole thing. It was dull, filled with ridiculous views on eugenics and common marriage and poetry. It seemed something of a silly book and I didn't really see what made it so special.

Not long after I was required for school to read Mortimer J. Adler's "How to Read a Book". Adler lays out an excessively rigorous method of reading. The "proper" reader, according to Adler, makes detailed outlines, lists definitions, reconstructs arguments, and doesn't judge until he understands what's being said. I was inspired by Adler's book, and so I turned to the Republic, and started making an outline. Suddenly the book sprang to life, and I saw how incredibly unified and well-planned it was. More than that, I understood how Plato's view of justice, knowledge, and the Good applied to reality and made a lot of sense.

At the end of Adler's book, there was a list of books worth reading well (i.e. using his method), and so I looked for one that sounded really tough and interesting. Eventually I picked Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", and I spent about eight months struggling through it. It was a book like none I'd read before, fiction or non-fiction. Kant asks questions I'd never thought of: things about knowledge and perception and experience. Above all, he's difficult to read, and I would sometimes labor for up to half an hour on a page before I felt comfortable enough to move on. I've learned since that Kant is well known as one of the most difficult philosophers, but when I reached an understanding of his meaning, the insight and excitement were truly wonderful. I ended up really loving the Critique of Pure Reason. It gave me more than just a good reading experience; it gave me insights into the way people think and how we know what's true and what's not.

After I finished Kant's Critique, I felt burned out, and returned to my listlessness. I wanted to read something else rewarding on that level, but perhaps a little easier to get through. Kant and Plato had written in a way that communicated things about life. They were speaking directly to the reader, asking questions and suggesting answers. They were directly concerned with reality, in a way almost none of the books I'd read before were. Most of the fiction I'd read was either an exercise in triviality (e.g. the "Myst" novels, "Dune", Dumas' "Monte Cristo"), or had meaning only in a very indirect way. Somehow, next, I ended up reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, which showed that fiction could do the same thing as the heavier philosophy I'd read, and communicate with beauty and poeticism I had not yet experienced.

Dostoevsky did more with his story than any author I'd read. Not only is his language more expressive and beautiful, but his characters have a reality that goes far beyond what Tolkien was creating. They deal with genuine human issues, they're living in the real world, they struggle with confusion because the line between good and evil isn't so clear. They have moral and spiritual difficulties that I can identify with. The structure of his book brings out all of these insights, and keeps us awake. We don't glide through Dostoevsky like we're watching a movie. We're intensely conscious of the overarching significance of the events of the novel, not just for the characters, but for our own view of the world.

There's more and obviously I could go on with a reading history for quite a while. As it is, I've simplified the above. There were lots of books read between these three and while I was reading them.

In any case, after quite a lot of expansion and realization, I returned this past summer to the Lord of the Rings, having left it alone in my bookcase for about four years. I appreciated a bit more some of the literary merits of Tolkien's writing, and how wonderfully networked various events and characters are. Most of all, I think I see now that LotR is an epic in the spirit of Homer, with Tolkien's values replacing Homer's. Instead of Homeric kleos, Tolkien uses self-sacrifice. He lauds the wisdom of Gandalf and Elrond over the sinister cleverness of Odysseus, and the helplessness of tiny Frodo over the arrogant rage of Achilles. It's a beautiful story, with wonderful moral implications, and it makes a monumental prose epic. I've just found that with the foundation Tolkien provided me, I could move on to better, richer books. I wanted to spare anyone who happens to be in the same position I once occupied that boredom of floating around with an unrealized desire for great literature, and urge them to explore the classics.


My apologies for any offense, I ought to have explained more fully from the start.



Thanks for enduring my longwindedness,
Iarwain