The Monsters and the Critic

[Ecurb]

New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik discussed fantasy fiction in the last issue of The New Yorker. Some of his points include:

1) “Literary” fiction is generally based on the moral and psychological development of the characters. It involves moral ambiguity and psychological crises. This is even the case in books for teenagers – like, say, “Huckleberry Finn”. On the other hand, fantasy literature (the review is discussing the “Eragon” series, but it’s basically referring to Tolkien and his imitators) is not morally ambiguous. Instead, it is about a different, but equally important, maturation process – that of learning the secret lore of the adults (the scientists, or teachers, or whatever). The Ring of Power IS the secret lore.

2) Tolkien’s genius (like Rowlings, in a different way) was to combine The Eldar Eddas with Wind and the Willows. It’s as if Ratty and Moley had been plunked down in Icelandic epics, says Gupnik. Lord of the Rings starts not with a battle of Titans, but with a birthday party for Hobbits.

3) Some teenage novels (like the Twighlight series) are almost allegories. The “differentness” of the Cullen family is identical to the differentness of rich boys; the werewolves are different like poor boys. To tween girls, adolescent boys are as strange as vampires, and as hairy and feral as werewolves.

4) The past is part of the secret lore that teens need to learn to reach adulthood. The “backstory” IS the story. Learning the place names and incantations is magical, just like learning biology and physics is magical. Gopnik states: "But the fantasy readers’ learned habit of thinking historically is an acquisition as profound in its way as the old novelistic training in thinking about life as a series of moral lessons."

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/12/05/111205crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1fyujHaX3

Here’s a link:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/12/05/111205crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all

[kensington]

Hi Ecurb, :seeya: You love Ratty and Moley too? :)

[Ecurb]

Hi Ecurb, :seeya: You love Ratty and Moley too? :)

Who doesn’t love Ratty and Moley (although I was always sort of a Badger and Toad fan)? I liked Gopnik’s observation, however, that for all the Eldar Eddas pomp and drama in LOTR, it’s the Hobbits that make it unique. Tolkien, by the way, disliked his friend Lewis’s Narnia series. He thought it was a hodge-podge – fauns from Greek mythology; dwarfs from Norse mythology; lions from Christian mythology.

[kensington]

Oh yes, I love Badger and Toad.

I'm really looking forward to reading The Hobbit. I also want to read the other Tolkien books but I've heard they are more difficult. Still I'm going to take a stab at it. Hopefully I can get through the dry parts and maybe someone can explain the parts to me that I don't get.

[cyberbob]

Oh yes, I love Badger and Toad.

I'm really looking forward to reading The Hobbit. I also want to read the other Tolkien books but I've heard they are more difficult. Still I'm going to take a stab at it. Hopefully I can get through the dry parts and maybe someone can explain the parts to me that I don't get.

The Hobbit is a very easy read. LOTR is more wordy and stuff but I think if you've seen the movies and read Hobbit for reference it should all be fairly easy to understand.

[Calidore]

The Hobbit is a very easy read. LOTR is more wordy and stuff but I think if you've seen the movies and read Hobbit for reference it should all be fairly easy to understand.

I second what cyberbob said about The Hobbit, and will also add that it's fun.

I tried about a half-dozen times to read LOTR from my teens to my mid-thirties, but only managed to get through the whole thing after seeing the first film. I've since read it a second time, and that was much easier. I'd have no problem with reading it a third time.

I've read The Silmarillion three times and will continue to open that regularly (I hope). I'm one of the few people on Earth who liked that more that LOTR.

[Lokasenna]

Interesting article, but...

I'm going to bang my usual drum. Tolkien is clearly in a different class from the rest of the people mentioned - one can make the argument that he is the greatest writer of the 20th century. Rowling, Paolini et al are but the palest of imitators. Part of this reason is that Tolkien's work is deeply rooted in scholarly discourse - the creation of Middle-Earth was as much an academic exercise as an imaginative one.

The writer of the article asserts that the Elder Edda (or Poetic Edda as it is more commonly known) is rather dull, as are its related Old Norse and Old English writings (particularly its 'sacred books', of which I assure you there are none). This is simply incorrect - anyone who can appreciate the artistic merits of Tolkien will be equally entranced by his medieval predecessors. He is writing in much the same style, and is heavily informed by the weight of it all.

Fantasy is not just for adolescents, though it is true to say that a great deal of it is aimed at such a market - but that I suppose is the commercial aspect of it. For every Tolkien or every William Morris there is a Rowling or Meyer. I don't think the article writer's caricature of a bumbling, lovable old fuddy-duddy professor really does justice to the keen and sensitive intelligence that suffuses all of Tolkien's works.

[OrphanPip]

I can't help but feel this is a bit derivative of Moorcock's essay "Epic Pooh," except he's taken all of Moorcock's criticism of Tolkienesque fiction and turned them into positives? ha

[Ecurb]

I'm a big Tolkien fan, too. In addition, I love the Silmarillion and other posthumous works -- which Gopnik claims are dull. I see Gopnik's point, though. Novel lovers may not like epics and myths. They are distinct art forms.

Gopnik also loves Tolkien (I've read other stuff by him about LOTR). I don't think he's comparing the quality of Rowling's and Paolini's novels to Tolkien's -- instead, he's trying to compare some of their appeal to teenage fans. I thought he made some interesting points about Meyer (I haven't read the books, but the movies are both deadly dull and mildly fascinating at the same time).

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Although I am a very big Tolkien fan, he may certainly qualify as the greatest fantasy writer of the 20th century, but as a writer, in my opinion, he is nowhere near the class of say, Nabokov, Joyce, Kafka or Proust. Yes, he had a vast imagination, but in the context of LoTR, his characters are geared towards adolescents, the love stories are ridiculous because the love stories are superflous, because it is an adventure story, so there is no 'convincing' love story beyond the whole "noble love" nonsense.
Yes, Tolkien possessed an extraordinary imagination, as well as an unsurpassed gift for creating worlds and whole languages, but his work suffers precisely because it is so deeply rooted in the sources mentioned earlier, and Tolkien is not able to flesh his characters beyond the very narrow parameters of the medieval/mythical texts which so influenced him. He does work beyond this in a lot of his posthumous texts, Aldarion and Erendis, for example, but as a mentioned earlier, such a story would be out of place in and adventure story such as LoTR.

[kensington]

Fantasy is not just for adolescents

Yes, in fact it's better for adults.

[ralfyman]

I recall reading that Tolkien wanted adults to appreciate medieval literature, which is why he wrote LOTR for children. As children, readers may enjoy LOTR. Once they become adults, they can move on to Beowulf and many works, esp. those that have various mature themes.