Mieville's thoughts...

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

*cough**cough* I believe Miéville's a feller, Morth.


Let's look at the whole article. Where does it appear? The International Socialism Journal. What is Miéville's purpose here? To argue against the tendency of Marxist intellectuals to dismiss speculative fiction. How does he do this? By claiming that fantasy is in truth a genre of revolution, and that its main value lies in its critique of capitalism. This requires him to reject whatever doesn't fit this mold, which pretty much means all of "high fantasy":


He then goes on to blame J.R.R. Tolkien explicitly for twisting the fantasy genre away from its higher purpose.

Now, tumhalad, I'm sorry I was dismissive, but I honestly can't find much in this article to "engage with". To me, the whole thing just looks like an expression of Miéville anxiety about not being taken seriously by other Marxists. That's perhaps a borderline ad hominem, but there it is: it's just too hard to separate this particular argument from the person making it, and the circumstances under which it was made.

No no, good point. Certainly, Mieville seems to be trying to cater to the Marxist audience who would be less sympathetic to speculative fiction than most. Mieville has also contributed to a book called "Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction" in which he makes much the same arguments. He seems to be on something like a crusade; championing the great socially revalatory prospects of his brand of sf/fantasy. Are any of Mieville's claims worth anything though? I'm interested in this notion of consolation. Does Tolkien's literature merely console? Should it challenge us (read: challenge notions of capitalist hegemony) or are we complicit in some exploitative bourgeois idyll?