Teacher's Bad Rowling Advice

[davem]

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/s...name_page.html

Embarrassed Steve Eddy revealed how he ticked off the author for her tales about fairies, telling her that they were "too childish".

But the precocious 11-year-old ignored him and went on to amass a £576million fortune through the Harry books....

Speaking for the first time about his famous pupil, he said: "Joanne's work always showed impressive imagination and in class she was always bright and enthusiastic, much in the way of Hermione in the Harry Potter books.

"But when it came to her stories they were always about elves or pixies or fairies. I was constantly telling her that she was at an age where she should be writing about grittier, more real-life things.

"But - thank goodness, as it turned out - she never heeded my advice and kept presenting me with her fantastic stories about made-up creatures.

"Looking back I am a bit embarrassed about it, but I had no idea what she'd go on to achieve."

What's interesting about this is not just that her teacher told an 11 year old girl that she should be writing about 'grittier', more realistic things', but that he considered stories about Elves & Faries' to only be fit for children under 11.

It seems Mr Eddy felt that stories about Elves can't be 'gritty', & that they have no place in the mental space of an 11 year old.

Of course, Tolkien attacked this very attitude in OFS, but its clearly still quite prevalent among the 'literati' (there are numerous reviews of CoH that take the same approach). I find it more shocking that a teacher can think the same way. If it comes to 'gritty' stories, what is grittier than the Icelandic Sagas - or CoH, & Elves & Dragons play a pretty prominent part in those?

But when did this attitude arise? Tolkien talked about fantasy & fairy stories being relegated to the nursery, but why? Haven't adults always loved these tales? Of course, we can find fairies being presented in a 'knowing', mocking, way by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream, & by contemptuously dismissed by Cervantes in Don Quixote, yet around the same time Spenser had produced The Faerie Queene. At the same time Spenser was using Faerie to allegorise the cult of Gloriana.

I wonder if the situation is changing though? Will the popularity of Harry Potter, HDM (for all Pullman's statements about 'using fantasy to undermine fantasy'), & LotR (movies as well as books) finally put a stop to teacher's like Mr Eddy, or is this attitude of 'write about grown-up things', or 'only write about what you know' going to persist?

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full? Can't help wondering how many other potential JK's have been lost along the way through following teacher's 'advice'. Would we have had the Legendarium if Tolkien had had a teacher like Mr Eddy?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

I wonder if the situation is changing though? Will the popularity of Harry Potter, HDM (for all Pullman's statements about 'using fantasy to undermine fantasy'), & LotR (movies as well as books) finally put a stop to teacher's like Mr Eddy, or is this attitude of 'write about grown-up things', or 'only write about what you know' going to persist?

Doubtful - but I'm a cynic as well as a skeptic. Surely there may be a fad where children are permitted to write fantasy for a time, but methinks that it won't last long and we'll have teachers constraining their pupils to write more of what they (the teachers) think is important. One personal theory is that if a student is writing 'gritty' instead of 'fairy,' this boosts the teacher's ego, as having one's students writing fantasy (and science fiction for that matter) looks...dare I say..childish.

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full?

Are you serious? Thought that the whole idea of teachers (generally) was to help the students conform. I was just speaking about all of the interesting words that my children use (i.e. thismorrow, bednight) that will be expunged by education. I'm not a teacher, and so I don't know how it all plays out on the job, but have hoped to encourage imagination in my own students. It's messy and time-consuming, and even I fall short , and so think that this is another reason why students are herded into more understandable standardized efficiently-scored writing.

Can't help wondering how many other potential JK's have been lost along the way through following teacher's 'advice'. Would we have had the Legendarium if Tolkien had had a teacher like Mr Eddy?

And yet...Was there a teacher in your (not just davem's) past that you feel encouraged or discouraged you in regards to fantasy?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I wonder if the situation is changing though?

Erm... I don't think so, really. Fantasy and Fairy tales are still generally seen as lower or less relevant than some of the so called 'higher' genres. I have had many debates with my lecturers on my Creative Writing course about how Fantasy should be recognized as a 'higher' genre because it requires so much more effort in order to do well. History lore and future all play much larger parts in a fantasy tale than most other genres and it takes a real mind to pull together all the elements necessary to create a true fantasy or fairy tale that is, well, not on the same tree as, but in the same forest as Tolkien.

I personally have come into conflict with those (even teachers and lecturers) who have discouraged me from writing anything fantastical or faerie in orientation or style. This is probably down to literary snobbery. Fairies and myths are seen as the thing that the primitives and children and those of lower intelligence go into, where as things like Jane Austine* are seen as the higher areas because it is 'cultural' and 'normal'. Since fantasy delves into the abnormal and the things that the eyes do not (often) see, touching on the inexplicable and down right unbelievable, some people are scared off. It is one thing, I suppose, to imagine a dragon, but to meet one, even in a book, can be an unnerving thing. Faeries also have their perils. As Tolkien so rightly said, of the realm of Faerie:

[There is] Both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords

This sort of thing is not generally seen in some of the other genres one finds. There is something of the essence of life in Fantasy and mythology, the desire of epic quests and long forgotten treasure. The strangeness and wonder one finds on the path into Faerie is a powerful thing. When one meets it face to face, some will be inspired, some will run away and some will go mad.

But one cannot blame those who fear to treat those paths. For the realm of Faërie is a perilous one; a man may count himself fortunate to have wandered there, but it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates be shut and the keys be lost. This realm is also wide and high and filled with many things; shore-less seas, stars uncounted, beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever present peril. Both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords, and all manner of birds and beasts, and especially, the Dragon.

* *Stabs it with fork*

[davem]

I hope you'll forgive a long quote from OFS:

For a trifling instance: not to mention (indeed not to parade) electric street-lamps of massproduced pattern in your tale is Escape (in that sense). But it may, almost certainly does, proceed from a considered disgust for so typical a product of the Robot Age, that combines elaboration and ingenuity of means with ugliness, and (often) with inferiority of result. These lamps may be excluded from the tale simply because they are bad lamps; and it is possible that one of the lessons to be learnt from the story is the realization of this fact. But out comes the big stick: “Electric lamps have come to stay,” they say. Long ago Chesterton truly remarked that, as soon as he heard that anything “had come to stay,” he knew that it would be very soon replaced—indeed regarded as pitiably obsolete and shabby. “The march of Science, its tempo quickened by the needs of war, goes inexorably on ... making some things obsolete, and foreshadowing new developments in the utilization of electricity”: an advertisement. This says the same thing only more menacingly. The electric street-lamp may indeed be ignored, simply because it is so insignificant and transient. Fairy-stories, at any rate, have many more permanent and fundamental things to talk about. Lightning, for example. The escapist is not so subservient to the whims of evanescent fashion as these opponents. He does not make things (which it may be quite rational to regard as bad) his masters or his gods by worshipping them as inevitable, even “inexorable.” And his opponents, so easily contemptuous, have no guarantee that he will stop there: he might rouse men to pull down the street-lamps. Escapism has another and even wickeder face: Reaction. Not long ago—incredible though it may seem—I heard a clerk of Oxenford declare that he “welcomed” the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his university into “contact with real life.” He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression “real life” in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more “alive” than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more “real” than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm-tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist! For my part, I cannot convince myself that the roof of Bletchley station is more “real” than the clouds. And as an artefact I find it less inspiring than the legendary dome of heaven. The bridge to platform 4 is to me less interesting than Bifrost guarded by Heimdall with the Gjallarhorn. From the wildness of my heart I cannot exclude the question whether railwayengineers, if they had been brought up on more fantasy, might not have done better with all their abundant means than they commonly do. Fairy-stories might be, I guess, better Masters of Arts than the academic person I have referred to. Much that he (I must suppose) and others (certainly) would call “serious” literature is no more than play under a glass roof by the side of a municipal swimming-bath. Fairy-stories may invent monsters that fly the air or dwell in the deep, but at least they do not try to escape from heaven or the sea. And if we leave aside for a moment “fantasy,” I do not think that the reader or the maker of fairy-stories need even be ashamed of the “escape” of archaism: of preferring not dragons but horses, castles, sailing-ships, bows and arrows; not only elves, but knights and kings and priests. For it is after all possible for a rational man, after reflection (quite unconnected with fairy-story or romance), to arrive at the condemnation, implicit at least in the mere silence of “escapist” literature, of progressive things like factories, or the machine-guns and bombs that appear to be their most natural and inevitable, dare we say “inexorable,” products.

“The rawness and ugliness of modern European life”—that real life whose contact we should welcome —“is the sign of a biological inferiority, of an insufficient or false reaction to environment.” The maddest castle that ever came out of a giant's bag in a wild Gaelic story is not only much less ugly than a robot-factory, it is also (to use a very modern phrase) “in a very real sense” a great deal more real. Why should we not escape from or condemn the “grim Assyrian” absurdity of top-hats, or the Morlockian horror of factories? They are condemned even by the writers of that most escapist form of all literature, stories of Science fiction. These prophets often foretell (and many seem to yearn for) a world like one big glass-roofed railway-station. But from them it is as a rule very hard to gather what men in such a world-town will do. They may abandon the “full Victorian panoply” for loose garments (with zip-fasteners), but will use this freedom mainly, it would appear, in order to play with mechanical toys in the soon-cloying game of moving at high speed. To judge by some of these tales they will still be as lustful, vengeful, and greedy as ever; and the ideals of their idealists hardly reach farther than the splendid notion of building more towns of the same sort on other planets. It is indeed an age of “improved means to deteriorated ends.” It is part of the essential malady of such days— producing the desire to escape, not indeed from life, but from our present time and self-made misery— that we are acutely conscious both of the ugliness of our works, and of their evil. So that to us evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp. Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faerie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it so), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose—an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king—that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not—unless it was built before our time.

I was going to embolden parts of that, but I think its all important & relevant. In fact I think Mr Eddy would benefit from being forced to sit down & read the whole of OFS. I think Tolkien is right - fantasy is what saves humanity from sinking into the pit of utilitarianism & uglyness. Excising Dragons & Fairies from a child's imagination is pretty close to the horrors of Bolvangar in HDM where the children have their daemon's surgically removed - & just like Mr Eddy, its for the child's own good.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

What's interesting about this is not just that her teacher told an 11 year old girl that she should be writing about 'grittier', more realistic things', but that he considered stories about Elves & Faries' to only be fit for children under 11.

It seems Mr Eddy felt that stories about Elves can't be 'gritty', & that they have no place in the mental space of an 11 year old.

Methinks you doth protest too much. Surely that teaching strategy is completely transparent. Had Mr. Eddy encouraged the young JK to remain writing fantasy surely she would rapidly have tired of the activity. We all know that adolescents must in fact test and challenge their authority figures in the process of becoming their own persons. What fun is there in writing What The Teacher Wants You To, or, What The Teacher Recommends?

Frankly, I think we should applaud Mr. Eddy heartily for his sterling negative encouragement. Had it not been for him, Ms JK might not have had the gumption or motivation to go on and create Hermione, Ron and that Heddy Cropper fellow.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

I think Tolkien is right - fantasy is what saves humanity from sinking into the pit of utilitarianism & uglyness.

To consider just 'survival,' we should mimic the bugs (interestingly proposed in Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive) and do away with all of these non-essentials. Unless dragons or hobbits are about to enter our niche, what's the point about reading about them?

But we're not yet termites in one big mound. We're humans, and one of the things that we do is explore the universe, and imagination plays a big part in that. What is imagination other than another tool that we use to survive? Can I eat that bug? Maybe a story or song would help me remember. Can I ford that river? Maybe there's a better way, and wasn't I just thinking about spiders? Anyway, an offshoot of this is to look at the world and see otherwise.

Another thing about fantasy is that, to me, it's even harder to write...well. Anyone, as davem may have noted elsewhere about the Dragonlance (?) novels, can churn out text that includes elves and dragons and giants, but to do it well, you have to make this new world seem so right and natural that it's almost transparent. When reading LotR I wasn't brought up short by the existence of a Balrog - it seemed to fit, make sense and so I never skipped a beat.

Writing about life today is also challenging, but you have cultural references with which to work, and can 'see' what you want to use. In fantasy writing, even the simplest of things must be considered. Do elves even have feet? If not, how do they walk?

The fact that many of the peoples of ME are humanoid-type just shows how hard it can be even for a master.

And lastly, as I've rambled on long enough, sometimes it's easier to write/read about something very important when it's removed to the fantasy world. Telling the world that the new city is ugly may not be as safe (when heard by the creators) or effective as creating a novel helping them (falsely) remember how wonderful the old city was, even if the old city never existed.

[Rumil]

If you look at the first page of each author's first book, you'll find these two quotes-

The Bagginses have lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and most people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.

and

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

though I do like Bethberry's elegant theory too!

[Lalwendë]

Half the struggle is in getting kids to write anything creative at all. I did a project looking at different ways to prompt and develop storytelling with 14 year olds, and some of them were as watertight as granite when it came to getting them to exercise the rainbow (as opposed to grey) matter. However, given enough encouragement it was surprising how the most uptight, grade-grubbing nerdy kids would let fly with some mad storytelling (one very scary one about zombies springs to mind). Alas, so much of school now seems to be utilitarian, and its surprising just how many kids are quite happy about that! If only they knew that all that learning how to write business letters will have been useless when they get jobs and have to conform to the corporate house style...

What I don't like is that children are being encouraged not to write on certain subjects, as you will write about whatever turns you on, frankly! Yes, learn different styles and formats of writing, but as for whether you write about pixies, ponies, politicians or pugilists, it's your voice. Where i can see that this comes up as an issue is when you get that kid who sits there wailing "But I dunno what to write about!" The easy way out then is to say "Write about what you know!" However, the kid who knows what they are going to write about is a treasure! And that makes me think of my old writing tutor - I'd spend hours gassing away to him because I had a ton of ideas, but he used to get exasperated at the number of students who'd opted to take a degree where writing was compulsory and could come up with nothing more unique than rhetorical and repetitive verse about why people die in Africa. Also he liked to see what wacky outfits I'd turn up in - the vintage velvet bellbottoms were a fave I recall, but I digress...

Luckily I had good teachers more or less, laying aside the alcoholic who told me I'd fail my O Levels (riiiight, brain addled by vodka....) so nobody told me what to write about, just how to do it. And they had trouble stopping me at times. I think that's why I like Lyra in HDM so much - she's full of stories.

But there is one lesson that's a good one to learn, and that's not to stick within genre cliches - in fact forget all about genre and whether what you write is realistic or fantasy or not - just write what's swirling round in your head if you want to be really original

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Rumil

though I do like Bethberry's elegant theory too!

Well, Rumil, Eddy does say in the Mirror article that he gave his students fantasy books to read.

Originally Posted by Teacher Eddy

Mr Eddy says that he feels partly responsible for unleashing her magical imagination by having his pupils read fantasy books.

He said: "I feel proud if I was in some way responsible for influencing her to write the Potter stories."

Why get 'em to read what you don't want 'em to write?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, Rumil, Eddy does say in the Mirror article that he gave his students fantasy books to read.

I wonder what age the pupils were when they were put onto fantasy books by Mr E? Its possible that he would have taught her up to age 11 or 12, & that he handed out the fantasy books to his pupils when they were 8 or 9, & expected them to have outgrown them by age 11. And what kind of fantasy books was he encouraging them to read? If he felt that by age 11 they should have outgrown such things its possible that the fantasy books he's talking about were 'nursery' level things.

Of course, this is by the by. Its the attitude that's the problem, the idea that fantasy is fine for kids, but as they get older & move towards being adults they should 'put away such childish things' & start on the 'gritty realism'. And this pro-'gritty realism' approach is quite pernicious - because its nothing to do with getting children to include 'adult' things like sex, violence & swearing - anyone familiar with unbowdlerised fairystories, myths & Sagas, knows that they're full of that kind of thing - its about getting them to exclude the Elves, Trolls & Dragons which can elevate even the grossest aspects of that kind of tale by introducing Magic & the sense that even in the darkest, ugliest places there is the possibility of something 'more' lurking just over the next hill.

So, this is not so much an attack on Mr E. Its an 'attack' on the attitude that 11 year olds have to be encouraged to 'outgrow' Elves & Dragons. Clearly there is a desire, a need, among the general populace for those things, while at the same time there seems to be a conviction among certain members of the 'literati' & the educational establishment that it shouldn't be there, that such desires are 'wrong', immature & need to be gotten rid of. Their anger about, & contempt in response to, the popularity among adults of LotR, Harry Potter & the like actually sets them apart from the majority of us who love such things - & I think we are in the majority (even though many people feel embarrassed to admit out love - look at the way the HP books are issued in 'Adult' covers ).

Now, I don't know if Mr E is on the extreme wing of that movement, but he seems at least to be on the fringes of it. However, I'm happy to leave him on one side & focus more on the general attitude as pointed up by Tolkien in OFS.

[Lalaith]

I get thoroughly depressed when I hear people moaning that Harry Potter is not "real" enough.. I read some article about how he should get a few ASBOs etc to make the whole story more "down with the kids."
Yeah right.
On the other hand, the literary genre that kids these days all seem to be obsessed with is horror. Which in many ways I find even more depressing than the "gritty reality" stuff. Particularly with all this nasty torture-porn Eli Roth stuff around right now....

[Nogrod]

I'm only catching up slowly as there seems to be too many things to make a comment on. But this for starters.

So going a bit back with this discussion…

The educated people in the middle ages – and indeed long forwards to the modern age (before the advent of romanticism) thought that imagination was something where human mind broke apart that which was indeed one in the world and put together those which were separate things in the world. Like a fork. There were a lots of thorns in nature as well as stems but only human imagination could bring forwards a fork combining the two! (Nicolas Cusanus, 15th century – at that time many people thought forks devilish inventions…).

Even in 1757 Charles Batteux who coined the word ‘art’ insisted that human imagination can only operate with things it has experienced and all the monsters and fairies are the result of putting together or cutting away of the characteristics of things perceived in real life (like unicorns, centaurs or hydras).

This view was held up to the romanticism era, when people suddenly got a boost to their egos and started slowly thinking that their personal or “own” imaginations could be greater than the world as it is. Goethe was one of those who got in the middle of this then current dispute when he answered the inquirer whether his appreciation of the beautiful sunset on the mountains were lessened because he knew of the science of colours and how they behaved. Goethe scorned the question, of course it was even heightened experience when he knew how the rays of light acted!

I think Tolkien was torn in between the thin line between the earlier times he admired and the newer romaticism he belonged to - and finally gave up and fell to romanticism (because of the war-experiences, his love-affair etc.).

So as davem asked in his first post,

Originally Posted by Davem

Shouldn't teachers be encouraging children to use their imagination to the full?

So how are they using it in the first place and how they should use it? What is the role of our personal imagination in the first place?

As an anecdote I should point to this. The pope Gregorious (Gregorius the Great, on 7th century) decided to establish a canon of Christian music while so far people in different parts of the world had praised God in very different manners. He had only one requirement to the people who would accomplish this task leading to what is nowadays known as gregorian chant: keep it simple so as a layman standing in the backrow could easily sing along after hearing it once.

Now put your hand in your heart and say whether you can follow a gregorian melody after one hearing?

So are we the ones who can say that the greatest stories and the most imaginative things come from within our individual selves today?

"Inspiratrion" in roman latin meant in-spirare - breathing in. So taking in something outside us not bringing forwards our outstandingly differentiated individuality. Romanticism brought forwards the idea that the genius is innate and personal.

While the class-structure was breaking down and the elite were not any more seen as born to that higher recognition there was a chance for the poor intellectuals to claim their place... As we know that never happened in a grander scale even if some flourished.

I'm a bit lost about this overall...

What would be the full imagination then the teachers should encourage? Aren't the prevailing theories of the universe by physics imaginative enough? Which one is more imaginative and more awesome: the pantheon of the early Greeks or the universe of the quantum-physics?

I love the Greek mythology and understand barely nothing of quantum physics, but still I think this begs the question as I myself am quite ready to accept my knowledge is shallow... and maybe Goethe had a point?

[Morthoron]

Having majored in English Lit. for my B.A. before moving on to Medieval Studies for my M.A. (I know, could I have chosen two more frivolous degrees?), I would have to say that there are 'acceptable' fantasies in the curriculum of most schools, such as Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Beowulf, the study of Greek and Roman pantheons (which are usually relegated to Comparative Religion classes), and, of course, the odd Shakespeare play; however, those have received the patina of legitimacy based on centuries of study. It would have been unheard of to discuss Tolkien's cosmology with any of my professors (although quite acceptable to debate his exquisite philological research regarding Beowulf, Gawaine and the Green Knight, Orfeo or Pearl).

I cannot speak for British universities, but in the U.S. the English departments are highly politicized and agendized, either left or right wing leaning dependent on their department heads; therefore, as in my case, I was more likely to be studying Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Faulkner, Cheever, Bellow, Rand, D.H. Lawrence, etc., rather than literature I really cared for (T.H. White, Tolkien, Yeats, Huxley, etc.) because it did not fit the agenda. Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath were compulsory not because they were classics of modern literature in their own right, but because of the inherent political message they inferred.

Many of the folks I knew who went on into the teaching profession maintained the ingrained ideologies impressed upon them in school, a certain political correctness I abhor, and do not deviate from the curriculums they were browbeaten with years before. A friend of mine is getting her Masters at the same university I attended twenty years previously, and I was appalled at her syllabus: it read like an extended sociology curriculum rather than English Lit. It has gotten even worse!

And so, to draw my diatribe to a close, the fantasy element in literature is indeed frowned upon and deemed intellectually inferior, or as in Tolkien's case, perhaps a bit too quaint and certainly too chauvinistic and tainted with religious symbolism for the PC palate of many teachers. As a parent of a soon-to-be second-grader, it is too early to tell what reading curriculum will be deemed acceptable when she hits 11 or 12, but I do remember a fractious school board meeting I attended where I had to defend books authored by Mark Twain that were scheduled to be removed from the library shelves. I am becoming quite leery of the U.S. educational system, but fortunately for my daughter we have already read fantasies like The Hobbit, Charlotte's Web and Alice in Wonderland, much to her delight. I hope that, like myself, she maintains that delight throughout her adult life.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

What would be the full imagination then the teachers should encourage? Aren't the prevailing theories of the universe by physics imaginative enough? Which one is more imaginative and more awesome: the pantheon of the early Greeks or the universe of the quantum-physics?

You need both. And just because it is science does not mean quantum physics is in any way 'gritty'. Sit me down with say a Stephen Hawking book and you will soon see getting all mad and cosmic - to me they are like mystic texts and they make me feel "....................................". Sorry but I cannot describe the sensation when reading about something like a Black Hole or the End of the Universe.

In fact, you only have to look at the high fantasy of Doctor Who to see how science can be utterly mind-bending and imaginative.

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I get thoroughly depressed when I hear people moaning that Harry Potter is not "real" enough.. I read some article about how he should get a few ASBOs etc to make the whole story more "down with the kids."
Yeah right.

And the biggest critics of all if they did make Harry Potter more 'street' would be kids themselves - they have an uncanny knack of being able to detect the brown and smelly stuff that's meant to be 'on their level'. Kids want heroes and what kind of hero has an ASBO?! Harry is just right - he breaks some rules, yes, but he does nothing out of malice and likewise he is not a prig. Like most kids he struggles against the odds, makes a few mistakes along the way but at heart is a great person, and what could be more 'real' than being like that?

Originally Posted by davem

Clearly there is a desire, a need, among the general populace for those things, while at the same time there seems to be a conviction among certain members of the 'literati' & the educational establishment that it shouldn't be there, that such desires are 'wrong', immature & need to be gotten rid of.

People who try and stop kids from reading and writing fantasy are the same kind of curmudgeonly Victor Meldrews who also tell their little ones that Father Christmas is not real so they 'learn to be grateful to their parents' or give them no gifts apart from a waterpump for an African village for Christmas as they don't want their kids to grow up 'not knowing the real meaning of Christmas' or something. And the well meaning parents who drag the nippers to classes in this and that every single evening so they will never be bored (because of course, being bored equals causing trouble or doing something so heinous as daring to watch TV or look at a comic!) - when being bored makes you use your imagination. It all seems so Scroogey, goblin-like and mean. Kids need some time to be kids and just have mad imaginations and fun.

[Thinlómien]

This attitude towards fantasy is weird. There is something that makes many people avoid fantasy like it was an illness. My mother, for example, once said to me that "I hope that you some day grow out of that" when I pondered if I should start LotR again after just having finished it. Though her comment was humorous and affectionate, it still was a stupid comment, if you ask me. One of my mother's best friends is a man about her age. They've known each other for something like 20 years. This man is around 40 years old and he owns a fantasy shop of his own and plays various fantasy games and reads fantasy and sci-fi. Sometimes it seems my mother regards him as very childish because of this, or if not childish, then maybe a bit weird/funny, but again in the good snse. Can't fantasy be a "serious" hobby or interest for grown-up people? Why does it provoke such amused hush-hush reactions? I appreciate my mother but I just can't get why she shares this very common viewpoint.

But if you look very close, the heart of the problem is probably that most people see fantasy only as the Dragonlance/Robert Jordan/Weis&Hickman/Eddings (whose books I actually do like unlike the others on this list ) stuff. The clumsy and pompous badly-written and cheap-looking stuff with too much everything just seems to rule the popular image of fantasy. Some say that the so-called magic realism and the Nobel-winner García Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude is fantasy. It is highly approved in literary circles. There are many similar writers categorised as fantasy. But because they are fantasy, not "normal literature" potential readers avoid them. Wouldn't people who like historical novels enjoy say Guy Gavriel Kay's ambitious political alternative history books? But they can't read them because they're fantasy. So stupid. I'm waiting for the day people realize fantasy includes those interesting cross-overs between imaginary and real and the highly complex almost political thrilling novels and so much else. Not just dragons, trolls, elves and dwarves in cheap-looking covers.

That would be one problem solved and as already said aloud in this thread, it probably is being solved these days. But what about our traditional fantasy with dragons, elves, dwarves, magic and valiant heroes? When can it arise and shake off the cheapness writers like Weis&Hickman have stamped over it? I don't know. Many writers seem to be avoiding this kind of fantasy these days. I've noticed avoiding it myself if I'm making up stories for my own amusement. It's a pity. For who would not like to read something about those great peoples and creatures of Faerie, if it was well-written and believable?

And this has very little to do with the thread topic, but as it's somewhat related I can ramble a bit about it as well. Why are fantasy books separated from other books in libraries and bookshops? Maybe therte are good reasons for it. But there is one bad thing about it as well. If you pick a book from thhe "normal book" section and in the book a wizard appears and claims to be able to do magic you instantly think "hah, he's a fraud, because wizards don't exist in the real world". But if you had picked the same book from the fantasy shelf, you'd (probably) think this character was really a wizard and able to do magic. How annoying.

Sorry for ranting and rambling...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It's always struck me as odd that "modernism"- the mandatory artistic creed for most of the past century- has actually meant so many and often contradictory things. "Modern" literature - I remember not long ago some pompous poster on rabt going on about the "post-World War I consensus" (meaning of course the bourgeois novel)- seems to be obsessed with "realism" (preferably of course gritty)- and the Literati seem always to prefer petty, miserable stories about the petty, miserable little lives of petty, miserable little people in petty, miserable little suburbs. Whereas over the same period visual art, of course, has been running screaming away from anything resembling realism, and the 'serious' musical world utterly rejected tonality, realism's aural analogue. How bizarre! How can what is purported to be the same intellectual movement denounce la phantaste as childish, yet praise Paul Klee to the skies?

I suspect a very great deal of it has to do with snobbery. Nothing that peasants and philistines might enjoy can possibly be any good.

[Lalaith]

It really annoys me when children's literature is praised for being "real life" and that this "reality" equals foster homes, ASBOs and abuse.

OK, that sort of thing is unfortunately a reality for some children but not the majority. Why is the reality of ordinary children somehow less valid than that of the deprived minority?
I would argue that for most readers, the "gritty realist" novels by the likes of Jacqueline Wilson - mothers who are profoundly mentally ill, children in foster homes, whatever - are actually fantasy. Because they have nothing to do with the reality of the children reading them.

I was there - I had the first wave of "social realist" literature for young people inflicted on me when I was little. "John sat in a ****-stained cement stairway on his grim council estate, trying to come to terms with his parents' divorce....."

Strewth.
Give me Hogwarts and Hobbiton any day.

[Morwen]

What are ASBOs?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Morwen

What are ASBOs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbo

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

So how are they using it in the first place and how they should use it? What is the role of our personal imagination in the first place?

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But if you look very close, the heart of the problem is probably that most people see fantasy only as the Dragonlance/Robert Jordan/Weis&Hickman/Eddings (whose books I actually do like unlike the others on this list ) stuff. The clumsy and pompous badly-written and cheap-looking stuff with too much everything just seems to rule the popular image of fantasy.

Originally Posted by alatar

Another thing about fantasy is that, to me, it's even harder to write...well

I think the three of you are onto a possibility in this story of Rowlings and her teacher. After all, we don't know what kind of writing she was producing when she was 11 and 12. For all we know, it could have been very, very twee and her teacher was hoping to wean her of that sentimental streak using a kind of simplistic comparison he thought appropriate for the age. After all, how many teachers tell ten year olds simply "Never start a sentence with because" because the teachers figure the formal explanation of the grammar of compound/complex sentences is a bit much for the tender development of that age?

Frankly, I think this dichotomy between fantasy and "gritty realism" is a bit of a broad stroke. Just think of the novels of Iain Banks, aka Iain M. Banks. His 'realistic' works are incredibly macabre fantasies. Now there's one writer who is definitely making fantasy mainstream!

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

It really annoys me when children's literature is praised for being "real life" and that this "reality" equals foster homes, ASBOs and abuse.

OK, that sort of thing is unfortunately a reality for some children but not the majority. Why is the reality of ordinary children somehow less valid than that of the deprived minority?
I would argue that for most readers, the "gritty realist" novels by the likes of Jacqueline Wilson - mothers who are profoundly mentally ill, children in foster homes, whatever - are actually fantasy. Because they have nothing to do with the reality of the children reading them.

I was there - I had the first wave of "social realist" literature for young people inflicted on me when I was little. "John sat in a ****-stained cement stairway on his grim council estate, trying to come to terms with his parents' divorce....."

Strewth.
Give me Hogwarts and Hobbiton any day.

Oh I'm with you!! But then 'snot and tears' sells these days - look at all the stuff selling to the grown ups - endless autobiographical accounts of the most gruesome, awful kinds of abuse that people have endured, and that stuff is always top of the bestseller lists. You cannot even read a celebrity biography without it revealing some kind of dreadful secret that we really don't need to know about - Gery Halliwell bellyaching about her cake 'n' puke sessions for example. Everyone's got to have had that bit harder of a life than the next person. It's like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch - "I used to live in a semi detached in Swindon and we never went to France on holiday" "Luxury! I was in the Priory for seven months due to an addiction to online poker, all because my mother used to make me do my homework every night".....etc.....

So we aint even got fantasy celebs to look up to any more. Bring back people like Audrey Hepburn, please....

Originally Posted by Lommy

And this has very little to do with the thread topic, but as it's somewhat related I can ramble a bit about it as well. Why are fantasy books separated from other books in libraries and bookshops?

I think it's because they think we smell or something - you know, let's keep the SF fans in one corner, with their own kind....

Or it could just be marketing of course yet again - like you say, not all books with wizards in are fantasy, so why cordon books off into one section? It's because they want to sell things to us, things they think we might be tempted by. They do the same thing now in music shops which really, really annoys me as it takes ten times as long to find what you want...

[Nogrod]

I try to come more into the topic this time (sorry about the last one, I got a bit carried away with the associations... that's what happens when one is up too late and drinks wine to accompany himself... ).

I think some of the reasons for all this adult/modernist scorn for fantasy is based on some quite simple things.

Like associating fantasy to the fairy-tales for the children - from which every decent adult should grow up from. Now princes and princesses, dragons, valiant deeds, honour, ideals to die for, happy endings... c'mon! Nice and educative for kids but...

Like looking at the general preconception of fantasy with it's widely spread half-porn imagery from Conan Barbarian to mass-fantasy book-covers. So fantasies indeed for nerds... (wasn't it that the creator of Conan was a small and grey office clerk or something? Would fit the general scorn nicely)

Like associating the fantasy to the not-here, not-serious, not emancipatory literature. Using old forms of storytelling are initially bad for any modernist and the word escapism has been heard quite a many times as well.

And stuff like that...

[Thenamir]

My definition of the "literati": Those who either write material that is painful to read, or those who exercise their influence to persuade us that such pain is "for our own good."

Nevertheless, I suspect that the overwhelming popularity of the Rowling books, not to mention the elevation of JRRT to "Author of the Century" by the reading public, bespeaks the ultimate failure and futility of the literati to drive the desire for fantasy from the public psyche. It smacks to me of drawing a circle, an "Inner Ring" to employ the same term used by C. S. Lewis, in an attempt to provoke people to some kind of jealousy of "not being on the inside." How many people (outside of school assignments) have read books in which they had no interest and from which they derived little pleasure, just to seem intelligent and witty in saying that they'd read them?

I am reminded of an episode of "The Brady Bunch" (yes, I know how that dates me), in which 7-year-old Cindy, smarting from someone calling her "immature", comes home from the library lugging a weighty volume. Dad Brady sees her and naturally asks, "Whatcha readin'?" Cindy, nose elegantly elevated, replies "A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway." Brother Greg, trying to be helpful, says "shouldn't you be reading Dr. Seuss?" Cindy haughtily snorts, "those are children's books!" before raising her nose another notch and flouncing off with her superority intact. Poor Cindy had been duped into thinking that admission to the inner circle (in this case, of "maturity") was to be had by reading things you don't want to read.

However,

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

the Literati seem always to prefer petty, miserable stories about the petty, miserable little lives of petty, miserable little people in petty, miserable little suburbs.

Charles Dickens, anyone?

I don't know the real source of the quote, but Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka character said "A little nonsense now and then is treasured by the wisest men." I second that.

Does anyone know if Tolkien's "On fairy Stories" is (legally) available on the Web? If so, please post a link -- it is something I've been meaning to read for years, but haven't had the rare combination of time, opportunity, or availability.

[davem]

And yet it could be argued that 'once upon a time' all stories were 'fantasy' stories - myth, legend, fairytale & the like. Folkore is magical lore. I wonder whether its to do with the loss of belief in real magic. Once the whole world was magical, but for too many now it isn't. We have to escape into a secondary world where magic is real because its not real in the primary. Perhaps it was the enlightenment, & the drive to 'liberate' humanity from 'superstition'.

Whatever, 'magic' has been relegated to the 'nursery' or to 'children's books', & any book which posits the reality of magic is considered to be a 'children's book' by the 'literati' & teh 'educational establishment' . Its the subject matter alone which makes it a 'children's book' rather than the style or themes explored. Hence CoH is a 'children's book' - or at least a 'nerd's book' - because it contains Elves, a dragon & a hero with a magic sword despite the fact that it explores themes of pride, sacrifice & , of course, incest. The book cannot be taken seriously because a serious book would not contain Elves & dragons.

That said, most of the stuff published as 'fantasy' literature is actually trash, & aimed at teenage boys & most writers of fantasy do aim their work at that audience. So it could be argued that the writers & publishers have a particular audience in mind & are themselves responsible for the kind of fantasy we get. I don't read fantasy, so I don't know how unique CoH is, but from the reviews I've read of it it seems it is far darker than the usual fare & many fantasy fans find it very uncomfortable reading.

So, its not 'fantasy' per se that's the problem, but the kind of fantasy that's out there. However, it appears that all fantasy is judged by this 'bad', juvenile, trash - as if there is a belief that fantasy cannot be anything other than nerd literature. If a book is a fantasy novel it must be 'escapist nonsense', fit only for children, or adults with the mental age of children.

Hence, rather than tell older children they should be reading (or writing) 'good', grown up, fantasy, they tell them that they should leave the fantasy books behind altogether.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

Does anyone know if Tolkien's "On fairy Stories" is (legally) available on the Web? If so, please post a link -- it is something I've been meaning to read for years, but haven't had the rare combination of time, opportunity, or availability.

Well, you used to be able to download it as a pdf from the West Chester University site http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2...s-tolkien.html

[Nogrod]

After reading davem's eloquent post I think I need to specify my last one a little. Those three examples I gave were from my point of view "bad arguments" but common... not ones I share myself.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

It's always struck me as odd that "modernism"- the mandatory artistic creed for most of the past century- has actually meant so many and often contradictory things. "Modern" literature - I remember not long ago some pompous poster on rabt going on about the "post-World War I consensus" (meaning of course the bourgeois novel)- seems to be obsessed with "realism" (preferably of course gritty)- and the Literati seem always to prefer petty, miserable stories about the petty, miserable little lives of petty, miserable little people in petty, miserable little suburbs. Whereas over the same period visual art, of course, has been running screaming away from anything resembling realism, and the 'serious' musical world utterly rejected tonality, realism's aural analogue. How bizarre! How can what is purported to be the same intellectual movement denounce la phantaste as childish, yet praise Paul Klee to the skies?

I suspect a very great deal of it has to do with snobbery. Nothing that peasants and philistines might enjoy can possibly be any good.

Yes, Klee could have taken some lessons in perspective from my seven year old daughter. I wonder if she'd receive a passing grade in art class if she presented a Klee painting as one of her own? It's rather like the tale of 'The Emperor's New Clothes', isn't it? Literati walking about in naught but cellulite and freckles putting on airs (or airing it out, as it were). For years I made the effort to read through Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake', and finally gave up in disgust. For all its supposed brilliance, it becomes rather quickly an indecipherable hodgepodge of allusive obscurities, even though critics like Northrop Frye (whom I respect greatly) considers it the greatest modern ironic epic. But I think there comes a point where the iconoclasts (or decronstructionists) of art and literature hammer the shards of their work until it is indeed only vaguely intelligible. For all Joyce's brilliance (and he was uncanny and a fantasist of sorts, as described by Joseph Campbell), he alienated far more readers than those he snared.

But Joyce was unlike Tolkien in that sense. Tolkien's style is deceptively simple and familiar, whereas Joyce's is deliberately dense and daunting. But the farther one goes, the further one gets a feeling of infinite corridors being opened in Tolkien's work, and suddenly nothing is simple or familiar. Hence, 'The Lord of the Rings' is always atop the reader's polls of great novels, while Joyce's novels tend to receive the critics' accolades on a comparative list. Like this one for instance...

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlib...estnovels.html

Please note the inclusion of several fantasies on the reader's list (like LotR and Watership Down), as well as inclusions from the Science Fiction genre, whereas the critic's list is devoid of either (save for Huxley and Orwell, which are more political/social commentary and thus 'acceptable').

It is unfortunate, as davem so eloquently pointed out, that in the vast sea of mundane fantasy novels there are but few islands of true magic and profundity. The derisive term 'pulp' has long been a desriptor of the genre in general, and a brief perusal of the major book chains' fantasy aisles seems to bear that out. One could certainly say the same for the Science Fiction genre (for every Heinlein, Herbert or Asimov, there are hundreds of non-entities and thousands of throw-away Star Wars and Star Trek serializations). And regarding serializations, I think perhaps one problem with the fantasy genre is that authors with even nominal success are required to continue expanding their sub-created worlds beyond trilogies and tetralogies and septologies in imitation of Tolkien's standard. One wouldn't have gone up to William Golding and asked, "Hey, when's the sequel to 'Lord of the Flies' coming out?" (it is with much ironic humor that I remember an ill-fated attempt at offering a sequel to 'Gone With The Wind' a few years back ). Yet it seems there are fewer and fewer recent standalone fantasies of note being published.

[davem]

I've linked to this piece by Tom Simon previously, but I think its relevant here:

http://superversive.livejournal.com/49083.html

That was a sign of things to come. Publishers began to discover the selling-power of big books and multi-volume novels, and after the disappearance of the dollar paperback, made them the mainstay of their business. The loose and sloppy prose of the word-processor generation was perfectly suited to their needs. They were publishing books in greater numbers and at greater length than ever before, with editorial staffs constantly shrinking; one hears of cases where a single editor is expected to acquire and publish a hundred books per year. Meanwhile print runs were shrinking, advances and royalties remaining static at best; so that a mid-list author, to survive, had to become a hack, churning out vast quantities of work and sending them to press only half revised. The result: countless acres of what in our especial field is called, with a perfectly justified sneer, ‘Extruded Fantasy Product’. (The more general term ‘Extruded Book Product’ is occasionally used as well. I Googled that phrase and found to my chagrin that my own LiveJournal profile topped the list.)

Publishers pressure authors, authors produce what publishers, & increasingly, readers want - & what they want is 'extruded fantasy product'. Yep - most fantasy fans like the 'A band of unlikely heores must travel to the Elven realm of `KUAFGHILUN to gain the fabled sword 'sghorweyhg;n` in order to defeat the evil lord 'swiogh;N' - bacause that's what fantasy novels are about. And it is junk. But its the result of a conspiracy between fans, writers & publishers of this genre fantasy. Fantasy literature has, in some way, to be liberated from the clutches of all three.

Which is not to say that here isn't very good fantasy out there - there always has been - but it seems that, unlike most literary genres, fantasy has become dominated by junk to such an extent that fantasy = junk not simply to the literati but also to the general reader.

And I think its because fantasy is percieved as 'easy' - if its fantasy you can make up the rules, stick anything in there, make it as fantastical as you like - there are no 'rules'. Well that's the perception. And I wouldn't want any child of mine to read that kind of junk. Tolkien pointed out, though, that there have to be rules - particularly in fantasy:

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being “arrested.” They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination.

But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode. In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature. In painting, for instance, the visible presentation of the fantastic image is technically too easy; the hand tends to outrun the mind, even to overthrow it. Silliness or morbidity are frequent results.

And I have to rush off now....

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

I've linked to this piece by Tom Simon previously, but I think its relevant here:

http://superversive.livejournal.com/49083.html

A very interesting observation, and one to which I alluded to in my last post. It seems that many fantasy authors have as their corpus a dodecahedronology with a book release every six months or so (having subscribed to the Stephen King book manufacturing process).

Originally Posted by davem

Publishers pressure authors, authors produce what publishers, & increasingly, readers want - & what they want is 'extruded fantasy product'. Yep - most fantasy fans like the 'A band of unlikely heores must travel to the Elven realm of `KUAFGHILUN to gain the fabled sword 'sghorweyhg;n` in order to defeat the evil lord 'swiogh;N' - bacause that's what fantasy novels are about.

Oooooh! Do you mind if I borrow your plot idea, davem? I can use it for my next book! *chuckles*

Originally Posted by davem

And it is junk. But its the result of a conspiracy between fans, writers & publishers of this genre fantasy. Fantasy literature has, in some way, to be liberated from the clutches of all three.

Not an easy hurdle to overcome in a society held in thrall by a fast-food, immediate gratification, set-it-and-forget-it ethic. I suppose this comes down to individual choice and personal decisions, which, unfortunately, has led to 'American Idol' and resultant spin-offs being the most watched TV shows in the U.S. The manufacturing of 'pop stars' goes right along with the industrial proliferation of fantasy potboilers.

[Bêthberry]

Oh my! Between all this talk of bullying literati and dumbing down, why, I hardly dare know if I should admit to enjoying such as The Complete Works of William Shakespeare--Abridged. But seeing as its for the stage--always a tart--I suppose it can't be held against me.

Originally Posted by superversive

At this point, with rich irony, we find Christopher Tolkien publishing The Children of Húrin. Half a century ago, his father could hardly find a publisher because his masterpiece was too long.

Problem is, that struggle Tolkien faced had nothing to do with quality or precision/concision. He was just as much at the mercy of publishers' requirements as these other fellers superversive mentions these days. (He really belongs here on the Downs--has anyone sent him an invite?) It was an economic imposition, nothing to do with quality.

Both of those RandomHouse "100 Best" lists give me the giggles. Ayn Rand has four in the Top Ten and L. Ron Hubbard has three and Charles de Lint has seven overall but there's no Asimov in the Student list? And the list created by The New York Times readers is so perfect in hitting all the correct books for a University Syllabus in Modern Literature 301, complete with just the right touch of irony, sex, and social commitment-- it is positively suspicious as a send up. V.S. Naipaul is met by Salmon Rushdie--there's a good laugh.

Really, both these groups are notorious for playing with words and so I wouldn't find their lists as evidence for anything other than, well, what we do here.

I suppose the only place where fantasy is free of this pernicious conspiracy of fans, writers and publishers is on the Net.

EDIT: I inserted the Merisu smilie after the Squatter one, but it doesn't appear on my post on my screen. I do hope others can see it.

[davem]

Just a quick addendum.

I don't know whether Fantasy is judged to be junk, or relegated to children's literature because most of it is bad (& in the judgement of critics all of it is bad) or simply because it contains Elves, Dragons & dark lords. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Certainly there is a lot of junk churned out in all genres, but there isn't the same conviction that all crime, or all historical, novels are 'trash' just because a good deal of them are. So it does seem to be the subject matter that is the basis for this negative judgement.

Which probably means that even if all fantasy was of the standard of Tolkien it would still be adjudged to be trash – which kind of negates my earlier point. It seems that fantasy is considered trash because its fantasy & is not judged on its 'quality' as fiction, because it is believed to be impossible for fantasy literature to have any quality.

[Thenamir]

Before we glibly throw out the bathwater, let us make a cursory effort to extract the baby from it first.

You cannot say that all prose of "Form X", as exemplified by davem,

'A band of unlikely heroes must travel to the Elven realm of `KUAFGHILUN to gain the fabled sword 'sghorweyhg;n` in order to defeat the evil lord 'swiogh;N'

is therefore "junk". That's like saying that the great romances are junk because they follow the same basic formula as the Harlequin paperbacks.

I read once, it might have been in high school "creative writing" class back in the paleolithic age, that there are only two real plots for all stories, which can be boiled down to the phrases "A stranger came to town" or "She got on the train." In other words, stories revolve around people's reactions to either something unfamiliar entering their familiar world, or something familiar (perhaps even precious?) being taken away. What is normal has been disturbed, and the events of the story relate to the establishment of a new equlibrium, usually involving great upheavals not foreseeable in the original event.

It is not the plot formula that is selected but what is done with it that makes a book brilliant or trite -- from character development to creative plot elements to expert use of vocabulary.

Of course there's more junk than jewels -- it's easier to create junk, and if junk pays, then why exert the extra effort required to create jewels? Only the dedication of brilliant minds like Tolkien's could impel him to craft Middle Earth in such exacting detail, and it is that detail that makes Middle Earth seem so comfortably *real* despite its fantastic elements. Another author, though perhaps adhering too closely to the basic plot davem so succinctly decried, could create a believable universe with memorable characters and sufficient plot diversions and diversity such that the resulting book might rise above the mucken mire of trite fantasy. But such an author will have to *work* to ensure that quality -- it doesn't come by osmosis.

EDIT: Cross posted with davem and Bethberry -- some good points.

[Nogrod]

An interesting discussion. Thanks all!

Originally Posted by davem

I don't know whether Fantasy is judged to be junk, or relegated to children's literature because most of it is bad (& in the judgement of critics all of it is bad) or simply because it contains Elves, Dragons & dark lords. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Certainly there is a lot of junk churned out in all genres, but there isn't the same conviction that all crime, or all historical, novels are 'trash' just because a good deal of them are. So it does seem to be the subject matter that is the basis for this negative judgement.

Here I need to mildly disagree as someone who has actually taken part in the academic circles… There really are people among the literati who scorn all crime and historical novels as well as fantasy or sci-fi. To them these just aren’t literature but low-brow entertainment, the easy instant gratification stuff that hasn’t the merits of Real Literature. So sadly it seems that it is the genre which dictates the possible worth of a piece of writing in the academic circles. Surely the genre carries with it it’s natural subject matters so it seems to be both together.

But this academic taste seems also to catch the people’s minds outside the literature departments and academic journals as well. I’d say that the majority of the people with university education (humanistic, scientific, engineering, marketing, juristic, medical…) would answer just like the board of the Randomhouse poll shows even if they would never had studied literature or aesthetics or belonged to those circles. Not to say that they would have actually read the books they deem so worthy of praise.

One thing all the people learn in Uni is that Uni is a respectable institution which has a priviledged position to the Truth. This might have a ring of truth in it regarding the “hard sciences” but with humanities it’s more difficult to see the inevitabliness of the claim. It’s as well a question of taste and of the position of the academics in the world we live in. For example many academics want to differentiate themselves from the commercial world and the values it carries with it and thence see their position in the opposite direction: what sells can’t be good, what entertains can’t be good, what is easily approached can’t be good etc.

Just to defend the academics a bit in the end. Yes I fully agree with Bethberry about Shakespeare – and would go even further - I like the unabridged versions even more… As a non-native speaker I have never dared to approach Finnegan’s Wake (Proust is another one I have managed to duck as I know I should read it in French and that’s a challenge I’d not wish to take) but I kind of liked Joyce’s Ulysses and writers like Kafka, Beckett, Ionesco, Broch… I still hold them as my favourites. So arrogantly intellectual and elitist as they are. So why? Because they are geniuses!

So as you Morthoron protested that your seven year old daughter could teach Paul Klee about perspective, I think you should reconsider. If anyone of you have seen some early works by say Picasso or Kandinsky you know what I mean. They really knew how to paint and they were masters in the art. They just decided consciously to do something completely different – and they had their reasons for it. Just read any of the theoretical discussions there is a wealth of by modern artists like Cézanne, Matisse, Kandinsky, Picasso, Leger, Malevich… you name it.

Just an anecdote to sum up. Two years ago I was visiting my sis in London and took a decent walk in the National Gallery, walking through the whole museum in chronological order (it was hard to keep it all the time but I managed somewhat well). What made an impression on me beside the great paintings was the notion that the few self-evident truths of academic art history were in fact so true! So the renaissance really was something! It was like an explosion after the middle-ages (in which there is nothing wrong… there are great pieces of art there as well)! But then even bigger bang was the advent of modernism… how refreshing it was after centuries of doing the same nice thing all over and over again! It was like fresh air coming into the room in a hot day!

So the literati aren’t always wrong or stupid and thence we should seek for the bad publicity of the fantasy also from other areas. Prejudiced the academics may be – and they are, trust me, I know enough of those people to say this – but there surely are other issues, like ones we have been talking here about… mass-producted moneymakers, lowest common denominator searchers, instant gratification seekers…

I’d agree with Bethberry once again. Read Iain Banks - with M. in the middle or not!

[davem]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

Before we glibly throw out the bathwater, let us make a cursory effort to extract the baby from it first.

You cannot say that all prose of "Form X", as exemplified by davem, is therefore "junk". That's like saying that the great romances are junk because they follow the same basic formula as the Harlequin paperbacks..

No, ok. Most fantasy is formulaic, but some, judged objectively, is great literature. Yet, accepting Nogrod's point about the 'dismissal' of crime & historical fiction one could offer Crime & Punishment as a crime novel & War & Peace as an historical novel which are not dismissed as 'trash'. They are taken up into the 'genre' of serious literature for grown ups. So while the genre of 'crime' or 'historical' novels may be dismissed as worthless the literati are prepared to consider taking novels out of them & placing them alongside ''proper' books. However, they don't seem prepared to look at the fantasy genre at all. It may be possible to find 'gems' among the crime & historical trash, but it seems that its impossible for such gems to be found among fantasy novels - by their nature (ie because there are Elves or dragons in them, & characters with 'odd' names) fantasy books must be bad - no-one can write a serious, adult fantasy novel which is great literature, however great a writer they are, because all fantasy books must be bad.

But is there any way around this? Will we ever see a time when 11 year olds aren't told to forget the fairies & write something 'gritty'? Are children always going to be forced out of faerie by 'well meaning' adults?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by davem

Yet, accepting Nogrod's point about the 'dismissal' of crime & historical fiction one could offer Crime & Punishment as a crime novel & War & Peace as an historical novel which are not dismissed as 'trash'. They are taken up into the 'genre' of serious literature for grown ups. So while the genre of 'crime' or 'historical' novels may be dismissed as worthless the literati are prepared to consider taking novels out of them & placing them alongside ''proper' books.

There is a straightforward explanation to this... "Crime & Punishment" and "War and Peace" are old enough... That's why Homer's epics and Malory's Morte d'Arthur are considered real Literature as well...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

There is a straightforward explanation to this... "Crime & Punishment" and "War and Peace" are old enough... That's why Homer's epics and Malory's Morte d'Arthur are considered real Literature as well...

So all we have to do is wait a few decades & LotR will be acceptable?

[Thenamir]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

So the literati aren’t always wrong or stupid and thence we should seek for the bad publicity of the fantasy also from other areas.

That reminds me of the old joke -- "97 percent of lawyers (or literati) are giving the rest a bad name."

[davem]

It occurs to me that Rowling hasn't suffered from the same venom as Tolkien has & I'm wondering whether this is because Rowling has 'done the proper thing' & written her fantasies for children. She hasn't had the 'temerity' to write adult fantasy. In fact the only real attacks I've come across in relation to the HP books are against adults reading them ( the 'adult cover' editions are considered to be condoning this 'sin).

So, fantasies for children are ok, but adults must treat them with contempt, or with a knowing wink as they read them to their children.

EDIT

I wonder whether Tolkien would have been more highly regarded by the Literati & the educational establishment if he'd stopped at The Hobbit?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

So all we have to do is wait a few decades & LotR will be acceptable?

Possibly. It happened with Dickens

Now this business about fantasy not being suitable for grown-ups (with a kind of reverse X certificate attached) is odd as some fantasy is acceptable for grown-ups, indeed one Sir Rushdie has just been honoured for his magic realism. And Pan's Labyrinth was lauded to the hilt. You'll also find Angela Carter lurking on most University reading lists. So clearly, some fantasy works are more equal than others.

Why not Tolkien's brand? Is it the fault of Tolkien or is it the fault of those who aped him and gave a bad impression? Is it our fault? That's likely - when at Uni I sought out Tolkien fans and nobody on my degree would admit to liking him apart from a couple of my delightfully mad tutors - quietly though, they had jobs to think about; amongst the students I found it was the unfashionable (at the time), ungainly students of science and engineering who liked their Elves and Dragons. It was the Goths, and the new-Hippies. Scallies too liked their Tolkien - young, working class, unemployed Scousers (there's a lot to be written about how Liverpool is Britain's lost city of dreamers and visionaries...) - I've had many mad all-night conversations with assorted Scousers about how Gandalf is Shamanic and the like. But notably NOT the young students of Literature and The Arts. In summary, Tolkien has had a serious Image Problem.

Yet there's a curveball to throw into this whole topic...

What about Tolkien himself? What would he have said, in his professional opinion?

The public image of Tolkien doesn't exactly make a big deal out of the fact that he loved a lot of popular fiction himself (Asimov and H Rider Haggard, for example); instead it focuses on the more 'high-brow' stuff he liked. So his public image is that he spent his hours in reading sagas and the Eddas and Beowulf and the like... Why? We can't blame the literati for that image. Why has his love of the distinctly mass market, the bestseller, been buried? Are even Tolkien's biographers and critics, and fans, a little embarrassed by his own liking for popular fiction?

It's like discovering Kurt Cobain was heavily into Tiffany...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by davem

So all we have to do is wait a few decades & LotR will be acceptable?

That's probably the case... so sad as it is.

It's not only the years that will give the finishing touch to a future masterpiece but as the world changes the academic tastes will change as well... and I even think Tolkien is more and more appreciated in the academic circles as well. It's only that the academic fashions change slower than the mode of the boutiques.

It's hard to see this current world with it's polarisation and casting things to good and evil without noticing the comeback of fantasy and historical epics. You can see the trend by looking at the box-office cinema hits for example... So there clearly is a social demand for this kind of stuff after all the anxiety and relativism given to us the last 20-30 years.

Even as an admirer of Tolkien I'm not too sure how gladly I look at this cultural transformation though. There are a lot of things that I deem valuable, like tolerance, multiculturalism, human rights not depending on race or sharing a tradition... which are heading for the gallows both here in the west and in the islamist east. These times of needing to take side bring forwards the heroes and the villains, the dragon-slayers and the Wormtongues... and the ladies one should rescue with chivalric action not caring about the means as it is the virtue of the hero and not the universal shared morality of tolerance that governs things...

Gah, sorry to be this depressive....