Fantasy

[davem]

But its the kind of death, rather than the 'graphic' description of it, that I'm questioning - though Tolkien is actually quite graphic as far as descriptions of death go in his work. Its just that the 'graphic' detail confirms how clean & noble death in battle is in his world. Boromir is 'pierced with many arrows', & he dies in the arms of his King, confessing his sin & being absolved...but 'fortunately' not a one of those 'many' arrows hits him in the face & he doesn't utter his final words punctuated by bloody coughs.

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words. But

If Tolkien's claim that LotR is about Death is to be accepted, even given the fantasy form & the freedom it permits a writer, shouldn't we expect an honest depiction of the process? Even death in a just war (whatever a 'just war' is) is more often than not painful & ugly.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by davem

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words.

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion. Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that.

There's no "sin" here in Tolkien's writing. I'm not certain why you've contrived an obligation for Tolkien to portray death scenes graphically. And if he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then you may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor kings excuse themselves to use the bathroom and graphically describing that, as well.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion.

Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that. I'm not certain where this obligation to portray death scenes graphically comes from. If he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then one may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor elves excuse themselves to use the bathroom.

Its to do with how people die, not how graphically that death is described - or whether it should be/needs to be described realistically - go back to the Poul Anderson essay I linked to a while back http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm - is Anderson right? Even though Tolkien does not depict love scenes one assumes that the act takes place because there are children in the stories. One assumes that characters use the bathroom even though Tolkien doesn't mention it - & that is the whole point: if Tolkien was to depict love-making or toilet practices we would expect them (even if only obliquely) to be 'true' to the basic facts of the primary world (ie babies are not brought by the stork or get found under gooseberry bushes & bodily waste products do not turn into rainbow coloured bubbles which pop out of the character's ears). This is because Tolkien repeatedly stressed that 'Middle-earth' is meant to be this world in the ancient past.

The original question was about how much freedom a writer of fantasy should have, & what boundaries, if any, are required. If a writer like Pullman can be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of Christianity, can (should?) Tolkien be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of death in battle (as just one example)?

EDIT

Originally Posted by Bethberry

the idea that Tolkien participates not just in a heroic style from ancient epics but also in what was for him a contemporary cultural preference.

Yes - & that would stand if Tolkien had written LotR pre-WWI, or if he hadn't lived through the horror of the Somme. But he wrote it during WWII, & he knew the reality of battle, so he's not writing from ignorance, but actually denying the truth in order to present a falsehood more easily & effectively.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by davem

Its to do with how people die, not how graphically that death is described - or whether it should be/needs to be described realistically - go back to the Poul Anderson essay I linked to a while back http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm - is Anderson right? Even though Tolkien does not depict love scenes one assumes that the act takes place because there are children in the stories. One assumes that characters use the bathroom even though Tolkien doesn't mention it - & that is the whole point: if Tolkien was to depict love-making or toilet practices we would expect them (even if only obliquely) to be 'true' to the basic facts of the primary world (ie babies are not brought by the stork or get found under gooseberry bushes & bodily waste products do not turn into rainbow coloured bubbles which pop out of the character's ears). This is because Tolkien repeatedly stressed that 'Middle-earth' is meant to be this world in the ancient past.

The original question was about how much freedom a writer of fantasy should have, & what boundaries, if any, are required. If a writer like Pullman can be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of Christianity, can (should?) Tolkien be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of death in battle (as just one example)?

Anyone can be criticized for anything. Our responsibility is to look at the criticism, its origins, and its reasons, and then decide if it has merits.

For example, I find Phillip Pullman to be petty and repulsive. He mocks Lewis and Tolkien- men who wrote for the good of people, and admits that he only wrote his series to tear down their works.

(Ironically, I find Pullman to the personification of Tolkien's Melkor: bitter at not being able to create, he instead takes the creations of others, twists them, and then congratulates himself on his own genius.)

The sad part is that, because he is crafty with words (and, oooooh, so avant garde, dahhhling...), people ignore that he's brassy, uncouth, and unimaginative. At the risk of being repetitive, it's quite sad that so many people like someone whose only objective is to tear good things down. Sad. Very sad.

So, criticism of a bitter, petty iconoclast like Pullman is different from criticism of someone like Tolkien, who had no malice behind his work.

As for Tolkien, graphic portrayal of death would take away from his writing style, which was based on lore (for lack of a better term) and, especially in the Silmarillion, reflective of that style.

All I see are apples and oranges here.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

As for Tolkien, graphic portrayal of death would take away from his writing style, which was based on lore (for lack of a better term) and, especially in the Silmarillion, reflective of that style..

Again, its not about 'graphic' descriptions - its about the simple facts of how a person dies if, say, he is 'pierced by many arrows', or if his horse rears up & then falls on top of him. When you read that Boromir was laying there stuck like a pin cushion did you at any point think 'Hmm, I wonder whether that will have an adverse effect on his bodily well-being as it would if it happened to someone in our world?' Probably not. Boromir was pierced by many arrows. He died. The point is how someone in that position would have died. If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by davem

If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

If we are going to set down that rule, the trouble then becomes deciding to what extent and in what detail he must represent his scene in order for it to be depicted "honestly." Regardless of the author, regardless of the book, there will always be information left out - and so, according your principle, every single work of literature is simply a different degree of dishonesty.

But authors have been lying in order to tell the truth for thousands of years, and I see no reason for them to stop now.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by davem

Again, its not about 'graphic' descriptions - its about the simple facts of how a person dies if, say, he is 'pierced by many arrows', or if his horse rears up & then falls on top of him. When you read that Boromir was laying there stuck like a pin cushion did you at any point think 'Hmm, I wonder whether that will have an adverse effect on his bodily well-being as it would if it happened to someone in our world?' Probably not. Boromir was pierced by many arrows. He died. The point is how someone in that position would have died. If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

Again, I ask you why you contrive this obligation for him to depict violence graphically. And if violence has to be, then why not sex, too? Or mundane functions of the body? Etc, etc, ad infinitum.

[mark12_30]

"it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry."

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Yes - & that would stand if Tolkien had written LotR pre-WWI, or if he hadn't lived through the horror of the Somme. But he wrote it during WWII, & he knew the reality of battle, so he's not writing from ignorance, but actually denying the truth in order to present a falsehood more easily & effectively.

Well, first of all, if I remember the Letters correctly--they aren't at hand--it was the experience of the Somme which inspired and intensified Tolkien's intimate preoccupation with the heroic epic and started him off on his imaginary life with the Legendarium, so whether he wrote LotR in the twenties or the forties, it's imaginative roots lay with his WWI experiences. And that would include Edwardian culture, which, some here have suggested, highly colours his Shire. A writer's imaginative inspiration does not march lock step with historical chronology but answers to a different drummer and there's a great deal more in LotR which fits with gentrified Edwardian (and even Victorian) culture than the battle scenes. His sensibility was not modern, although his intellect was superb. We might as well ask why Victorians glorified war. After all, the crucial point about Tolkien's work is change or metamorphosis, from one age to another, so why shouldn't his sensibility lie with the age that passed, the Edwardian one, rather than with the sensibility that came of age as a result of the War to end all Wars?

We really do not know how Tolkien coped psychologically with his war time experience and the loss of his close friends. We do know that something caused a writer's block during his writing of LotR during WWII. But we do not know if his writing was a deliberate, conscious falsehood or if rather it represents his imaginative preoccupation with battle epics such as Maldon and Beowulf. He is not writing 19C novels of realism (or empiricism as it sometimes is referred to). He is weaving something else entirely. We can discuss the quality of his depictions but in good faith we can't ascribe to him lies and falsehood.

EDIT: Any more than, as Gwathagor mentions below, all artists are so described. I suppose this was why Plato gave poets a bad rep.