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Old 10-27-2007, 09:41 PM   #1
Iarwain
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Boots Yes, Tolkien is Wonderful, but...

I spent several years of my life reading, re-reading, thinking, talking, and writing about Tolkien and his books. I got much enjoyment out of doing so, but since then I've "seen the light" so to speak. What did the light tell me?

There are much better books out there.

Yes, Tolkien is wonderful. I adore the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, the Hobbit, and so on. Yes, he's better than basically anything else in the genre he basically created. Yes, he's even better than most non-fantasy fiction. However, if you haven't realized this already, there is greater literary content beyond the limits of Arda. Even beyond the limits of the sci-fi/fantasy subculture.

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. They are meant for old men wearing tweed jackets who smoke pipes in private studies not far removed from their collections of pinned-down butterflies. This somehow makes them unappealing. We open a massive copy of "The Brothers Karamazov" and feel intimidated, as though we're holding a brick and being asked to scrape through it with our teeth. Outdated translations and long, heady introductions turn us away.

However, I'd like to point out that the reason "classic" books are so "classic" is that they are the so accessible and engaging. They've got exciting plots, interesting characters, but beyond that they tend to have something Tolkien lacks: intellectual content. However much we debate about whether Balrogs have wings, or what sort of being Tom Bombadil was, our discussions lose their significance once we leave them. Other than some nice bits of moral education he may have handed on (things about suffering and self-sacrifice), Tolkien doesn't give us much that we can carry out into reality. This is one big difference between him and the authors that surpass him.

Furthermore, classic novels aren't outdated and probably never will be, because they are so good. We've all heard (and perhaps participated in) discussions about whether J.K. Rowling's books will still be around in a generation or two, but that question has been permanently settled with classic novels. They're here and they're staying, because they are so amazing, because they're well constructed and well told, beautiful, and relevant. They tell us about the world, about ourselves. They show us possibilities and realities and pose difficult questions about life. Questions that help us grow as people (if we think about them).


So, what books exactly am I talking about?

Here's a list (including a lot of non-fiction):

http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html





Best Wishes!
Iarwain
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Old 10-27-2007, 10:50 PM   #2
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All and all, it is also wise to remember that play is a significant aspect of literature of any sort, whether of the pulp, the popular, or the hoi poloi variety.
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Old 10-28-2007, 12:59 AM   #3
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Originally Posted by Iarwain
They've got exciting plots, interesting characters, but beyond that they tend to have something Tolkien lacks: intellectual content.
Is this a challenge? Or are you stating this matter-of-factly? Because, if the latter, it seems to me that you are taking a very narrow definition of what constitutes "intellectual content". Besides the overarching theme of Death, the books deal with duty, honor, temptation, unrequited love, divine grace, the doubts and trials of the faithfuls, sacrifice, eucatastrophe... I wonder, were you aware of these when you read the books? Do you consider them unworthy of a "classic" work? Or did Tolkien treat them insufficiently, and if so, which ones? Please clarify...
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Old 10-28-2007, 01:44 AM   #4
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Besides the overarching theme of Death, the books deal with duty, honor, temptation, unrequited love, divine grace, the doubts and trials of the faithfuls, sacrifice, eucatastrophe...
First, this is not meant to be a challenge. I was absolutely aware of the presence of these themes. Unfortunately, it takes very little to include any of them. They don't constitute "intellectual content", and I think you'll agree with me on this point. The whole class of qualities you mention could be included in any trashy novel. The fact that Tolkien uses them well reflects well on Tolkien, but it doesn't make his work great literature.


Second, this is in no way meant to disparage Tolkien or any of his works. We can go on thinking that they're great (they're really delightful!), I'm just pointing out that the mass of academia isn't misguided in praising other books and authors above Tolkien. They're out there, and they have wonderful qualities that Tolkien wasn't trying for, because they don't apply to the sort of project he was working at. Try reading some of them! Chances are, you'll find that there's even more to discuss in Dostoevsky or Homer than there is in Tolkien. 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.



Certainly, certainly don't understand this as a challenge. Consider it as an invitation to explore new books in hopes of finding other excellent things beyond Ea. 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. There are more good books out there, and a lot of them have more to offer. If you want more of that wonderful feeling, my suggestion is that you turn to the "classics" and look there.


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Old 10-28-2007, 02:22 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Iarwain
They don't constitute "intellectual content", and I think you'll agree with me on this point.
Quite frankly, no.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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Old 10-28-2007, 09:06 AM   #6
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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...

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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:
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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.'
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Old 10-28-2007, 10:46 AM   #7
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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.
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Old 10-28-2007, 11:35 AM   #8
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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.'
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Old 10-28-2007, 12:18 PM   #9
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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?
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Old 10-28-2007, 12:45 PM   #10
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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.
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Old 10-28-2007, 02:24 PM   #11
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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.
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Old 10-28-2007, 02:43 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Iarwain View Post
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.
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Old 10-28-2007, 03:49 PM   #13
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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
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Old 10-28-2007, 04:38 PM   #14
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The only other book written over the last 100 years that I think stands with LOTR is GRAPES OF WRATH. Maybe TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Lee ranks up there. I have tried at least twice to real ULYSSES by Joyce and failed miserably both times. I would put FINNEGANS WAKE in that same category.

Lots and lots of books on your list are more of "The Best of" from certain historical periods. Dickens wrote some great books including TALE OF TWO CITIES but lots of Dickens is just run of the mill nothing special stuff. My major in college was political science so I read many on your list including Plato, Marx, Mill and others. I cannot remember one of these men writing what I would call a great book that I want to come back to again and again for different reasons.

It is difficult - to me impossible - to judge fiction with non fiction. For example, I would rate William Schirers RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH as one of the great non fiction books of the 20th century. But I am at a loss to compare that to the creativity and artistry of LOTR of GRAPES OF WRATH. Sure they are all books, but its like comparing apples to cinder blocks. Is great reporting the same as great writing? I do not know.
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Old 10-28-2007, 05:32 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Iarwain View Post
The "proper" reader, according to Adler, makes detailed outlines, lists definitions, reconstructs arguments, and doesn't judge until he understands what's being said.
Oh honey, I'm so sorry this book exists...

The proper reader may indeed need to do things like this at times, but the proper writer should make it his or her goal to make these things completely unnecessary. I can only hope Adler's book didn't require note-taking to be properly understood... I would hate to need a book to teach me how to read a book that teaches me how to read! It would get so cyclic...

My bookshelves aren't quite so full as some others (give me time! and money! and more bookshelves!) but as far as it goes, I've read a substantial amount. A varied substantial amount. I've had a well-worn library card for as long as I can remember and I'm chasing after an English Lit degree that doesn't really pertain to my life goals, but hey who said bureaucracy needs logic? I have at least fifty books sitting in my dorm room right now, after having forced myself to bring only the bare essentials to school with me. Lurking on sagging bookshelves at my parents' house a few hours from here, I have a few hundred more.

I've read maybe ten pages of The Brothers Karamazov and adored each word, each sentence, each idea. Adored. And I loathed Crime and Punishment almost as much as I hated The Grapes of Wrath. I think Hamlet is nowhere near as profound as Little Red Riding Hood and I rank Neil Gaiman next to John Donne. I think T.S. Eliot's a hack, I have no idea what the difference between Wordsworth, Emerson, and that other guy is, but I think Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell should be handed to everybody upon their fifteenth birthday. I love Poe but think he got lazy, and I won't read Dickens any more on principle. I think Harry Potter should be taught not in Lit classes but in courses on sociology. I've participated in dirty limerick contests in bars and I've written pages upon pages of iambic pentameter discoursing on the nature of Shakespeare's villains. I'm disappointed in the New Testament for taking four gospels to get the story across. I've never forgiven Kafka for taking so many pages to get Gregor out of bed. I'm completely in love with haiku and folklore, I believe that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is nice and all, but One Hundred Years of Solitude was mind-numbing. Borges makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, while Ben-Jeloun and Achebe leave me ambivalent. I read parts of a trashy romance novel this summer called Duke of Sin; it was terrible and wonderful, much like Galadriel. I like graphic novels; Stardust is on my floor right now, and I spent a sizable portion of a bus ride reading Batman. Moby Dick bored me to tears. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer made me want to commit seppuku with my pen.

What was my point?

Ah, yes.

The reason any book is wonderful, so say I, is because people like to read it. If people like to read books with the aid of other books, have at it. I mean, hey, some people own handcuffs, you know?

The reason I like Tolkien but hate C.S. Lewis is because I enjoy reading Tolkien's stories, whereas I feel like Lewis is shoving his down my throat, maybe twisting now and again to get them deeper. Literature is pass/fail. Classics, historically speaking, pass. That doesn't mean we should have to read them. That just means other people have either liked them or have been too afraid to admit that they suck because people with more social power have said that they don't.

I read. A lot. Published work, unpublished work, the back of my shampoo bottle...

Yes, Tolkien is wonderful. Yes, classics are wonderful. But...

Read whatever helps you get through your life in such a way as that you are as good a human being as you can possibly be. K? Thx.
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Old 10-28-2007, 07:34 PM   #16
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Thanks for your last post, Iarwain. You've told us something really personal and I know that isn't always easy to do.

I also think you've written a more illuminating post on another level--by giving specific examples from Plato, Kant, and Dostoevsky like you did, you made crystal-clear what it is you're getting at. But I think that what I said before holds--you can't give anyone the insight you got from Mr. Mortimer J. Adler (am I the only one hearing "J. Evans Pritchard" there?) any more than you would have let anyone tell you those things before you were ready to hear them.

And Fea, despite your rather vehement rejection of Adler's methods, isn't his main point--to live with, and in, a piece of literature until you've got a solid grasp of what the author was getting at, or at least until you're quite sure you don't care to find out--what you do yourself as a reader, albeit without the visual aids? It strikes me, at least the way Iarwain is presenting it (and I certainly haven't read it, so I'm speaking with absolutely no authority here), as an exhortation to read attentively and closely, and not to put books aside merely because they're difficult. Not bad advice--and really, no one is standing over you ready to rap your knuckles with a ruler if you don't complete your lists of definitions or whatnot.

(Oh, and nobody asked, but since we seem to be sharing literary taste, I'm racing through the complete oeuvres of Amitav Ghosh and Connie Willis at present, having finally moved to a city with a decent library. I'm not sure yet if either of them are going to occupy places in my heart like the ones for Tolkien, Yeats, Wallace Stevens, and some others, but they're definitely the flavors of the month.)
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Old 10-28-2007, 08:42 PM   #17
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Fea, I get the sense that you're a person who would really enjoy Wordsworth. Try this out:

http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html

Also, you're both sort of wrong about Adler. He reminds the reader several times that his method is applicable only where necessary, and he doesn't give any sort of rubric for aesthetic critique. (When he talks about reading poetry, he says that if you don't understand it, you should read it again and read it aloud and circle words that seem strange to you. This is nothing like Prichard, as you can tell, it's sound practical advice.) Adler's ultimate point is that books with more to offer are the ones that will be best at helping you get through life and be a good person. Fea, your comments on a lot of those authors are really petty. I don't seem to recall any ideas in the first ten pages of the Brothers K, and as it's about Fyodor Pavlovich being a sponger and abandoning his son, there's not that much to love.
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Old 10-28-2007, 10:38 PM   #18
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Fea, your comments on a lot of those authors are really petty.
Depth is just really big shallowness.

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I don't seem to recall any ideas in the first ten pages of the Brothers K, and as it's about Fyodor Pavlovich being a sponger and abandoning his son, there's not that much to love.
I suppose the key thing, then, is to mention that I didn't read the first ten pages. I read whatever was anthologized in a tattered old book I found for a quarter in a used bookshop. Wish I could tell you which ten or so pages it happened to be... Ah, actually, I can.
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Old 10-28-2007, 11:39 PM   #19
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Silmaril First post

Hi, everybody! Newbie here.

Now, regarding things literary: Iarwain, I think it's great that you're getting into the classics of your own accord. You did sound quite patronizing in your initial post; I guess by now you've realized that the fact that something's a revelation to you doesn't mean it is to everyone else.

To be honest, this Adler fellow's advice sounds absolutely deadly to me! I believe I speak for many people when I say that the thought of having to analyze everything in such a laborious fashion would completely kill my pleasure in reading. I appreciate it worked for you, but you need to understand that for people who are USED to reading complex texts it's quite unnecessary. Eventually, you will not need to use this method. (I never did, but then I grew up reading the classics.)

Also, you maybe need to consider other theories of the purpose of literature (or art in general), rather than taking Adler as the be-all and end-all. Many works which are considered classics do NOT teach moral or philosophical lessons, at least not in an obvious way. If you expect everything to do so, you're going to be disappointed.
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Old 10-31-2007, 10:10 AM   #20
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Not long after I was required for school to read Mortimer J. Adler's "How to Read a Book". A
I purchased this book a month or two ago at the repeated suggestion of a friend of mine who credits the reading of this book with his sudden, and (frankly) unexpected, success in graduate school. I have yet to read it , but I'm ready to move on to something else and more schooling will likely be required, so maybe I should take a look.
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Old 11-01-2007, 09:33 AM   #21
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Hello, people, I'm new here as well.

Regarding Iarwain's post, I have a personal story with Tolkien that relates to it.
Since I was a kid, I've always loved books, and I read them all, all that fell in my hands. Some years ago, I think 1999, someone talked to me about Tokien and LOTR, wich I had never read before.

Well, before I got my hands into it, I met some other people, I think the same kind of people that gave Iarwain a reason to post this. They told me things like: "LOTR is the best book ever written, don't mind reading anything else". I was angry with that, because I already had read Kakfa, Borges, Orwell, Dostoievsky, GG Marquez, and that kind of phrase sounds to me, even now, as an insult. There are so many good books in the world that I think it's impossible so tell anyone else wich is better.

Of course, you can always say wich one you like best, wich one is more like you. But even then there's a chance that another book exists, one that you never read, wich you would like better.

Because of that, I kept myself far from Tolkien (what I now is a silly thing to do). I only read LOTR two years after that, because a friend of mine bought the book and I read some pages and liked it.

Anyway, now I love Tolkien, I love LOTR and I read the Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales, and I think those stories are deep and beautiful, and they mean a lot to me. But I'll never say LOTR is better than "One hundred years of Solitude" (finished in 1970) or "Fictions" from JL Borges. Just to mention two books from the last century. But I won't say that those ones are better than LOTR neither.

By the way, there is in "Fictions" a story about a fantasy world made called Tlön, wich I reminded when I first read LOTR.

PS: I beg your pardon for my lousy English.
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Old 11-01-2007, 03:10 PM   #22
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Sephiroth:

Nice that you should mention Borges. Since the Literati seem to regard 'fantasy' fiction as some sort of printed leprosy, when confronted with an undeniable genius of the fantastic, like Borges, they resort to coinages like 'magical realism' to avoid infection.

Supercilious prats.
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Old 11-01-2007, 08:48 PM   #23
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Interestingly, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" isn't exactly about a fantasy world, it's about a group of people inventing one, with its own languages, history etc.

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Since the Literati seem to regard 'fantasy' fiction as some sort of printed leprosy, when confronted with an undeniable genius of the fantastic, like Borges, they resort to coinages like 'magical realism' to avoid infection.
It reminds me a bit of a story by Somerset Maughm, the name of which escapes me. Briefly, a critically acclaimed but unpopular novelist wants more people to read her books. Her husband advises her to write a standard detective story with a few literary touches. Lots of "intellectual" people, he explains, would just love to read thrillers but don't dare– her name on the cover will make the book respectable.

Still, the "magical realism" label does guarantee that the book at least won't be a stereotyped sword-and-sorcery yarn. There's a point to that– much of the fantasy section of any bookshop consists of third-rate Lord of the Rings rip-offs, with a few D&D cliches thrown in.
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Old 11-02-2007, 07:23 AM   #24
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Interestingly, this Maugham secenario in a way was prophetic of The Name of the Rose- although there Eco, an established Literatus, was shoving two fingers at those of his colleagues who claimed detective stories were inherently lightweight and unintellectual.

Certainly I agree with your assessment of the Extruded Fantasy Product which clutters the bookshops. But this hostility to 'fantasy' erupted when the LR was first published, long before the clones appeared. Indeed Tolkien was protesting against something of the sort when he actually *defended* the Beowulf-poet's focus of monsters, rather than the Dark Age politics so many scholars evidently wanted to read. Mike Drout (I think) has referred to this phenomenon as "Dyson's Law:" No writing can be considered 'good' if it contains an Elf.*



*This derives from an anecdote related by Christopher Tolkien: at one Inklings as his father began to read one of his pieces, Hugo Dyson, lounging on the sofa, loudly moaned "Not another f***ing Elf!"
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Old 11-03-2007, 10:15 PM   #25
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Interestingly, this Maugham secenario in a way was prophetic of The Name of the Rose- although there Eco, an established Literatus, was shoving two fingers at those of his colleagues who claimed detective stories were inherently lightweight and unintellectual.
Yes, I seem to recall an awful lot of people insisted they only read The Name of the Rose for the philosophy...

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But this hostility to 'fantasy' erupted when the LR was first published, long before the clones appeared.
True, but I believe "magical realism" is a fairly recent term, and by the time it appeared there was quite a good reason why a lot of people were suspicious of anything labelled "fantasy".

Anyway, the "magical realism" label was one of the great triumphs of marketing: "Fantasy? How can people read that junk? Now let me get back to this wonderful novel about psychic powers and supernatural beings."
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Old 11-04-2007, 09:41 AM   #26
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Anyway, the "magical realism" label was one of the great triumphs of marketing: "Fantasy? How can people read that junk? Now let me get back to this wonderful novel about psychic powers and supernatural beings."
I took an interesting course on magic[al] realism in short fiction (ironic that it included, on top of the short fiction, at least six full length novels...) and first day wrote down the difference between definitions of magical realism and fantasy.

Fantasy has the elements of the fantastic with no hesitation about admitting that these things are strange or unnatural.

Magical realism is characterized by the 'realism' part of it: though there are elements of the fantastic, they are firmly located inside the realms of normalcy. Magical realism disregards religious scriptures or stories where the 'magical' occurrence has a religious or spiritual blame; otherwise every story with Catholic iconography would get shunted into the category. Other genres have a reason things happen; in magic[al] realism, the 'magic[al]' aspect of it all is something you might see when you walk down the street.

Hazy terms even when defined, so examples:

Stories characterized by complete nonchalance about what I might call supernatural occurrences might be Maria Luisa Bombal's New Islands (though I argued that Yolanda served as a metaphor for something else, my professor insisted that she simply was that something else, and that was perfectly fine in the story; please note I will strive not to give away any plot points of anything I reference); Julio Cortazar's Axolotl (as if that could possibly be a normal part of every day life, yet there is no question that it's a total logical happening); Carlos Fuentes's Aura (a brilliant use of second person narrative; until I read it, I didn't know there was an author out there who could pull it off; Aura and/or Consuelo are a natural, if dabbling with the supernatural, part of life which Montero simply accepts). Breaking into bigger works, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is gently strewn with exaggerated bits: nobody lives that long, for example, and when is a book more than a book? Fables and fairy tales usually fit into magical realism: Hey Little Red, is it normal for a wolf to dress up as grandma and talk? Well... I mean... I believed he was really her...

Terry Pratchett creates worlds outside of ours to house his stories: he's making no attempts at convincing his readers that "This could really happen." Anne McCaffrey has her Pern. Even J.K. Rowling is solidly fantasy because even though the books take place on 20th Century Earth, she made a very solid distinction between the magic world and the non-magic world, with laws and law-keepers in place to keep it that way; when her Muggles learn about magic, they deny like it's their job.

In the hazy middle ground are C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I can't fully comment on The Chronicles of Narnia because I can't remember if I ever finished them. But I can comment on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: I want to call it fantasy because there is a door that separates the two worlds, though events from both worlds do shape events in the others; I'll leave this up to others.

The Lord of the Rings. Part of me is begging to say fantasy. C'mon, Middle Earth? Trolls, Elves, Dwarves... Hobbits? Magic Rings and dragons.

Except for the key argument that Middle Earth is Earth as it was back in the day; this argument is supported by the statement in, I believe, the Intro of The Fellowship in the simple comment that Hobbits slip away unnoticed these days in crowds because they have a natural ability to be unseen (magical realism) and humans are inept. Though you get characters like Eomer crying out on the fields of Rohan that "Wow, we live in a crazy world, where legends old folks told me show up with wings on their feet," you also get him accepting that orcs are a natural part of Rohirric life. The belief and disbelief in specifics of what another culture would call the supernatural follows logical human trends: you tend to have more faith in what's been ingrained in you since birth. Tolkien's use of psychological norms and his references to our Earth argue Magical Realism. Consciousness of religion in the revision argues (don't shoot me) not-allegory-but-applicability: a conscious motive on the part of Tolkien to give a reason.

I rather suppose that Tolkien's Middle Earth stories were magic[al] realism the first time through, and consciously not in the revision.

And my argument for why magic[al] realism is taken more seriously in literary circles than strict fantasy (a devil's advocate argument to be sure) is that 'it's much harder' to write a story in which you ask readers to suspend their disbelief when they can look around them and say "Um... I don't think so." Fantasy worlds can be viewed as a crutch: "How do you know that's impossible? You don't live here. Only I, the brilliant author, know the laws of physics and logic in this world." When you write something that can be disregarded as made up s**t and you set it in a world where people can check their facts, your writing requires certain other techniques or concentrations to keep your reader firmly under your control. Magic[al] realism, by existence, requires a more layered approach to story telling. Since literatis beg for layers [like parfaits; or onions], they can dig their sharp dirty little claws into magic[al] realism, confident in that one of their first little club rules is being followed.

As always, I'd like to insert a final point that only elitist snobs actually care about labels and pseudo-intellectual hype (and literary theory) when they go in search of good books. My next argument? Graphic novels have a place in the canon. Until next time, folks...
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Old 11-04-2007, 10:53 AM   #27
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Like some here I find classifications and categories limiting, yet they can also provide themes and topics which spur discussion, so for that reason I won't engage in any denouncing as humbug those who use the term. After all, many writers I greatly enjoy and respect apply the term to their own writing (and qualify it!) as well as those bogey men the critics, so who am I to deny a creative writer the opportunity to describe his (or her) own work in an expansive, enlightening way?


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The Lord of the Rings. Part of me is begging to say fantasy. C'mon, Middle Earth? Trolls, Elves, Dwarves... Hobbits? Magic Rings and dragons.

Except for the key argument that Middle Earth is Earth as it was back in the day; this argument is supported by the statement in, I believe, the Intro of The Fellowship in the simple comment that Hobbits slip away unnoticed these days in crowds because they have a natural ability to be unseen (magical realism) and humans are inept. Though you get characters like Eomer crying out on the fields of Rohan that "Wow, we live in a crazy world, where legends old folks told me show up with wings on their feet," you also get him accepting that orcs are a natural part of Rohirric life. The belief and disbelief in specifics of what another culture would call the supernatural follows logical human trends: you tend to have more faith in what's been ingrained in you since birth. Tolkien's use of psychological norms and his references to our Earth argue Magical Realism.
This is an intriguing idea, that Tolkien began one way and then worked against that. Yet it seems to me that a crucial element is missing so that we cannot call Middle-earth magic realism.

It is true that the forms and rules of Middle-earth conform to those of our daily world. Tolkien went to pains to explain elvish magic as not magic but heightened art and perception. His Foreward suggests that hobbits could still exist except they hide themselves from us. Yet what Tolkien's vision lacks is the unexplainable or the marvellous. It could simply be my reading of M-e, but I don't think that in any way the rationalism which underpins it is ever destablised or distorted. Our contemporary world view is never challenged or threatened by Tolkien's vision. Yes, he objects mightily to the satanic mills and the power hungry but at the heart of his vision remains an empowerment of rational and objective depiction. After all, Eru grounds his Legendarium, and so there remains a particular sense of orderedness to his mythology. Reality is not distorted in Tolkien, but expanded to explain balrogs, orcs, rings of power, suspension of time. Despite all our discussions here there is little in Tolkien that remains inexplicable or unexpected, not even eucatastrophe.

Perhaps I feel this way because the Ring is so much a material object. If evil in Middle-earth didn't have this materialism, then perhaps I would feel Tolkien more akin to, say, Garcia Marquez. After all, Tolkien's imaginative creation began with his creation of languages, and he followed the objective rules of language development which his academic training taught him. His invented languages are all explicable and there is little of the frustration, wonder, awe, unknowingness of babel in them.

I probably haven't read as many writers who through fair means or foul are lumped into this group as Fea or the rest of you have, but what I have read gives me a sense that the relationship between people and the world is mysterious and that people's perspectives are often derived from their historical and social milieu. Indeed, there is a sense in many of these writers that wonder and awe remains an essential element of our experience, that not all of the world and time can be rationally explained. Tolkien desired dragons and he made a place for them in his world. They are believable--that's what his idea of sub-creation is all about. If they weren't, then he would be a magic realist.

Of course, the term is as wide and diverse as all the authors who are included under its rubric. I'm sure Downers can stretch it to all kinds of dimensions.
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Old 11-04-2007, 11:06 AM   #28
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Yet what Tolkien's vision lacks is the unexplainable or the marvellous. It could simply be my reading of M-e, but I don't think that in any way the rationalism which underpins it is ever destablised or distorted. Our contemporary world view is never challenged or threatened by Tolkien's vision. Yes, he objects mightily to the satanic mills and the power hungry but at the heart of his vision remains an empowerment of rational and objective depiction. After all, Eru grounds his Legendarium, and so there remains a particular sense of orderedness to his mythology. Reality is not distorted in Tolkien, but expanded to explain balrogs, orcs, rings of power, suspension of time. Despite all our discussions here there is little in Tolkien that remains inexplicable or unexpected, not even eucatastrophe.
I take the point, but I'm not sure that it applies to Smith, or even Niggle - or maybe to the latter only if viewed as allegory. Smith, certainly, includes the unexplainable & the marvellous. And yet... it seems Tolkien struggled with that very aspect of SoWM - to the extent that he wrote an essay 'explaining' the inexplicable elements. Of course, if he hadn't been the kind of writer who was driven to explain & rationalise then M-e would have been so much less complete & believable.
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Old 11-04-2007, 08:28 PM   #29
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I tend to regard magical realism as a sub-class of fantasy. I feel that it takes too much special pleading to argue that it isn't fantasy at all.

And yes, definitions are important. I'm not seriously saying anyone who uses the term magical realism is a humbug, because it does tell you something about the type of story you're dealing with. (However, I maintain that a lot of people read One Hundred Years of Solitude who would never have picked it up if it were classed as fantasy.)

I can't help thinking that as a genre (or sub-genre, according to me), magical realism has its own set of problems: the "anything can happen" principle can get taken much too literally, so that the story devolves into a series of arbitrary events.

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Old 11-04-2007, 09:19 PM   #30
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the "anything can happen" principle can get taken much too literally, so that the story devolves into a series of arbitrary events.
But aren't all plot lines of all stories just a series of arbitrary events?
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Old 11-04-2007, 09:26 PM   #31
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Still, the "magical realism" label does guarantee that the book at least won't be a stereotyped sword-and-sorcery yarn. There's a point to that– much of the fantasy section of any bookshop consists of third-rate Lord of the Rings rip-offs, with a few D&D cliches thrown in.
I just had that revelation wandering around the local library yesterday. It was incredibly depressing.
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Magical realism, by existence, requires a more layered approach to story telling. Since literatis beg for layers [like parfaits; or onions], they can dig their sharp dirty little claws into magical realism, confident in that one of their first little club rules is being followed.
As I was reading through the introduction to the Book of Lost Tales Part I, at one point Christopher Tolkien says that his father was reluctant to even introduce the Silm to his readers:
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"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to write the Silmarillion.]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in the sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed." J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters p. 333
There we have it from the Professor himself. As Feanor said, there are so many layers upon layers upon layers in Tolkien's works that we can't even begin to consider them in light of a modern genre: even magical realism, to be perfectly honest. Tolkien started at the bottom: he separated his world from ours by giving it an entirely new language system, and then moved on to creating characters, plots, etc. Middlearth operates on a completely different plane of reality from ours: it has histories upon histories (I like Feanor's example of Eomer) that we can't even begin to touch. Even when we have the Silm, there's still places in Beleriand we don't visit, times in Valinor where we have no idea what's going on--and yet, fundamentally, we feel as if this alternate world, this other plane of reality, has a history, practically a persona just as great and researchable as our own, because Tolkien continues to give us those "glimpses". Trying to write literary analysis of Middlearth from a pragmatic view just doesn't happen: you would have to live there to do so.
From another point of view: I intensely enjoyed reading Weis and Hickman's Darksword Trilogy, and the same with Piers Anthony's immensely complex Phaze and Proton series, yet at the same time I never felt a need to know the specific backgrounds of those worlds. Sure, they hated non-magic-users like Joram: but I never particularly cared why. Phaze and Proton had a cooperative past that stretched millenia back: but why didn't I care about it? Riddle me that.
Bleargh. I've said more than my share. But if I may make another allusion, you can tell fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe that their beloved literature is subjectable to literary criticism, because it's not all written by one person, and can be split into seperate authorial/directorial points of view. Despite the fact that there are layers upon layers of histories behind the motivations of the main characters, Star Wars was essentially created by one man and expanded upon by hundreds, thousands of others. It's a cooperative project, with many, many contradictions.
On the other hand, Tolkien (with his equally grand and layered history of Middlearth) has the advantage over SW: if he didn't imagine it happening in ME's history, it didn't happen. There is no Tolkien "canon": just Tolkien's writings.
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Old 11-04-2007, 10:53 PM   #32
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But aren't all plot lines of all stories just a series of arbitrary events?

Only up to a point. The author has total control over what happens, yes– but if the story totally fails to make internal sense it's usually not very satisfying to read. Of course, that depends a lot on the reader.

I'm just saying that in the hands of a lazy writer, magical realism = all-purpose plot-device. The high fantasy equivalent is random magic that does whatever the plot requires.

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On the other hand, Tolkien (with his equally grand and layered history of Middlearth) has the advantage over SW: if he didn't imagine it happening in ME's history, it didn't happen.
Try telling that to fan fic writers...

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Old 11-05-2007, 11:07 AM   #33
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I take the point, but I'm not sure that it applies to Smith, or even Niggle - or maybe to the latter only if viewed as allegory. Smith, certainly, includes the unexplainable & the marvellous. And yet... it seems Tolkien struggled with that very aspect of SoWM - to the extent that he wrote an essay 'explaining' the inexplicable elements. Of course, if he hadn't been the kind of writer who was driven to explain & rationalise then M-e would have been so much less complete & believable.
A good point. You could be right that Smith and Niggle--and Bombadil and Goldberry for that matter--are 'outside' that aspect of Middle-earth. Yet for Smith Faery is a place he desires to visit. Access to Faery seems to depend upon inheritance of the Star and while Faery does intrude slightly upon the 'real world' of those of the ilk of Nokes, it doesn't seriously disrupt or threaten their perspective, so it seems to be a place of selective or individual perception rather than a challenge to the norm of the Nokes et al. The two realities exist side by side so to speak, rather than in a collision. Does the marvellous exist in magic realism as a secret venue only for those who choose to see it? It still depends in Smith upon a King who forsakes Faery to live amongst the folk.

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I tend to regard magical realism as a sub-class of fantasy. I feel that it takes too much special pleading to argue that it isn't fantasy at all.
And fantasy is a sub-class of romance and we're back with the classification of one of those members of the literati, Frye.

It's interesting that magic realism became so identified with literature of South and Central America. I've seen one humorous definition that suggests it belongs to Spanish-speaking cultures. We can wonder what the influence of Don Quioxte might be.

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Originally Posted by Beanamir, from Lost Tales
"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to write the Silmarillion.]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in the sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed." J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters p. 333
I suppose we could characterise Tolkien's aesthetic as the strip tease version of reader-approach.
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Old 11-05-2007, 01:08 PM   #34
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Yet for Smith Faery is a place he desires to visit. Access to Faery seems to depend upon inheritance of the Star and while Faery does intrude slightly upon the 'real world' of those of the ilk of Nokes, it doesn't seriously disrupt or threaten their perspective, so it seems to be a place of selective or individual perception rather than a challenge to the norm of the Nokes et al. The two realities exist side by side so to speak, rather than in a collision.
Yes, but its more complex in the Smith Essay:

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The crafts of Wootton, on which their present prosperity was based, actually owed their fame and commercial success in the beginning to the special skill and 'artistic' quality which contact with Faery had given to them. But the commercial success had for some time begun to have effect. The village had become comfortable and self-satisfied. The artistic quality of its products was declining, and to some extent also their traditional manual skill, though this had not yet affected their market. But the village was in a danger which it did not see: a dwindling of its prosperity, which would not be maintained for ever by 'good name' and established connexions with eastern customers, nor by mere industry and business acumen. If the thread between the villagers and Faery was broken it would go back to its squalid beginnings. All was not well indeed in the village itself. The practisers of the marketable and exportable crafts were becoming richer and more important, dominating the Council. The minor trades and professions, especially those of mere local use, were depressed; many had ceased to follow their fathers and had become hired men serving the smiths and wrights and weavers. Such folk as the Sedgers (the tale-tellers), the musicians: Pipers, Harpers, Crowthers, Fidlers and Homers* and the Sangsters, as also those skilled in designing, painting, and in carving or smithying things of beauty. The Dyers owing to their connexion with the weaving crafts (of great importance) remained prosperous, but were (unnoticed by themselves) losing both taste and skill.
The vulgarization of Wootton is indicated by Nokes. He is obviously a somewhat extreme case, but clearly represents an attitude fast spreading in the village and growing in weight. The festivals are becoming, or have already become, mere occasions for eating and drinking. Songs, tales music dancing no longer play a part - at least they are not provided for (as is the cooking and catering) out of public funds, and if they take place at all it is in family parties, and especially in the entertainment of children. The Hall is no longer decorated, though kept in good structural order. History and legend and above all any tales touching on 'faery', have become regarded as children's stuff, patronizingly tolerated for the amusement of the very young.

This situation is evidently one that has aroused the concern of Faery. Why? It is plainly shown that Faery is a vast world in its own right, that does not depend for its existence upon Men, and which is not primarily nor indeed principally concerned with Men. The relationship must therefore be one of love: the Elven Folk, the chief and ruling inhabitants of Faery, have an ultimate kinship with Men and have a permanent love for them in general. Though they are not bound by any moral obligation to assist Men, and do not need their help (except in human affairs), they do from time to time try to assist them, avert evil from them and have relations with them, especially through certain men and women whom they find suitable. They, the Elvenfolk are thus 'beneficent' with regard to Men, and are not wholly alien, though many things and creatures in Faery itself are alien to Men and even actively hostile. Their good will is seen mainly in attempting to keep or restore relationships between the two worlds, since the Elves (and still some Men) realize that this love of Faery is essential to the full and proper human development. The love of Faery is the love of love: a relationship towards all things, animate and inanimate, which includes love and respect, and removes or modifies the spirit of possession and domination. Without it even plain 'Utility' will in fact become less useful; or will turn to ruthlessness and lead only to mere power, ultimately destructive.* The Apprentice relationship in the tale is thus interesting. Men in a large part of their activities are or should be in an apprentice status as regards the Elven folk. In an attempt to rescue Wootton from its decline, the Elves reverse the situation, and the King of Faery himself comes and serves as an apprentice in the village. .....

(*'For this reason the Elvenfolk are chary of giving to any human person possession of any device of their own which is endowed with Elvish power called by Men by many names, such as magic. Most Men will certainly misuse it as a mere instrument for their own personal power and success. All men will tend to cling to it as a personal possession. )


It is probable that the world of Faery could not exist without our world, and is affected by the events in it — the reverse being also true. The 'health' of both is affected by state of the other. Men have not the power to assist the Elvenfolk in the ordering and defence of their realm; but the Elves have the power (subject to finding co-operation from within) to assist in the protection of our world, especially in the attempt to re-direct Men when their development tends to the defacing or destruction of their world. The Elves may thus have also an enlightened self-interest in human affairs.

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Old 11-05-2007, 01:15 PM   #35
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It's interesting that magic realism became so identified with literature of South and Central America. I've seen one humorous definition that suggests it belongs to Spanish-speaking cultures. We can wonder what the influence of Don Quioxte might be.
I'd argue that Spanish-speaking cultures are just inherently cooler when it comes to art. I mean... Salvador Dali, anybody?

More seriously, I feel an internal nudge to point out that before it blossomed in [mostly Latin American] literature, magic[al] realism was a visual arts idea for some post-Expressionism [potentially German but I don't have my old notebook with me] work. The images in question are painted with a degree of such hyper-realism that they become surreal in how perfect they are. There's no blatant magicness about them, and no fantasy, only the mundane transformed through sheer being into the extraordinary. Here's an example of contemporary hyper-realist painting: some of it doesn't count as it has fantastical elements, but others, particularly his Vespid Mortem series, portray something exceptionally simple in an astonishing manner.

Give that visual arts connection, and my inability to keep one form of art packaged safely away from another, I'm curious if that idea shifts Tolkien's work closer into the category of magic[al] realism: he creates such a hyper-realistic world that fans often know more about it than they know about their own...
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Old 11-05-2007, 02:01 PM   #36
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davem, that quotation is exceptionally interesting for presenting Tolkien's ideas on Faery, but at the same time I want to say, "Whoa, wait a minute!" He's adding so much more 'backstory' that essentially he is nearly rewriting the story. I'm not sure the story can sustain all the implications he makes there, but of course a fragment such as that can't give full flavour.

And as pertains to the discussion of magic realism, that passage seems even more to move away from the mode and tone of, say, Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie.

Fea, yes, I remember that it was a German art critic who first used the term, but I also have a vague recollection that he really didn't need to use it, as Surrealism was what he was really talking about?

I don't know about Tolkien giving so much detail as to create a hyper-realistic world. It's the gaps in the detail I think that quicken the imagination.

anyhow, must scoot now, some non-hyper work calls.
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Old 11-05-2007, 07:15 PM   #37
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As I was reading through the introduction to the Book of Lost Tales Part I, at one point Christopher Tolkien says that his father was reluctant to even introduce the Silm to his readers:
Quote:
"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to write the Silmarillion.]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in the sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed." J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters p. 333


Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Nellie! Check for context!

Christopher Tolkien in the BLT I Foreword was quoting Tom Shippey, who was in turn quoting the JRRT letter: and CRT was in fact *criticising* Shippey for interpolating the words "to write The Silmarillion." JRRT never wrote them- and in any case, Shippey was under the very false impression that Tolkien hadn't, in fact, already written The Silmarillion*, much of it many times over.

In fact in the Second and Third Editions of The Road to Middle-earth Shippey has retracted his interpolation.


EDIT 11/7: In the 2004 edition of RME, Shippey writes, "I should have looked back at the antecedent sentences of the letter, and realised that what was meant was something more like 'I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to make The Silmarillion consistent both internally and with the now-published Lord of the Rings, and above all to give it "some progressive shape."]'"

*By 1963 all the texts which wound up in the published Silmarillion had already been done, except for the very late revisions to 'Of Maeglin.' Tolkien wrote very, very little First Age narrative after his retirement in 1959; and of course in all its essentials the book pre-dated The Lord of the Rings. Shippey got this backwards in '82, before HoME was available.
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Old 11-11-2007, 12:01 AM   #38
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Aha. Rebuke duly accepted, William. to me for forgetting the context of the next page: I swear I read it. So the problem, essentially, was that LotR readers had fabricated their own histories of ME, having only ever caught glimpses of the past, and Tolkien was worried that by publishing the Silmarillion, his account of the history of ME might clash with what readers had imagined. Not the same argument: similar, but not the same.

In all honesty, that is a worrisome concept. Beren and Luthien were different in the Silm than I'd imagined them after hearing Aragorn's song in FotR.

Still, even if Tolkien never said that himself (about readers not wanting to know the history of ME), it is a valid question, is it not? Many readers of "The Hobbit" are perfectly content to lay back and never read further. Even more readers of LotR are content to quit with Aragorn's coronation, and go no further back than the bare details of the First Age coupled with the events of the Third Age--all those people who say, "Sure, I saw the movies and read the book, but I don't think I could read all those historical contexts."

I think I've rambled off the thread subject. Ugh.
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