The last major British novelist?

Lokasenna:

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Wagner actually based his Ring Cycle on the Nibelunglied

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In point of fact, he did not:
"Wagner, in composing the Ring cycle, made less use than is normally assumed of the version of the story found in the South German Nibelungenlied, which is essentially a courtly epic. Instead he turned to the more pagan material and attitudes that he found in the Scandinavian sources, especially in Eddic poetry and in the Saga of the Volsungs..."
--Jesse L Byock, from the introduction of his translation of the Saga in the Penguin Classics edition

Or, quoting Richard Wagner himself, from his correspondence:

"Already in Dresden I had all imaginable trouble buying a book that no longer was to be found in any of the book shops. At last I found it in the Royal Library. It... is called the Volsunga saga-- translated from the Old Norse... This book I now need for repeated perusal... "

Tolkein's recycling of the material robs it of precisely that pagan energy, that elemental force, that Wagner found so attractive. And that I find so attractive. Tolkein's tale of bunnies at the bottom of the garden that go off on high adventure is a travesty, in my humble opinion. Quintessential British silliness, not without entertainment value (I have after all read the whole series beginning to end, and even sat through one of the films) but hardly the stuff of great literature.

In terms of Great British Literature, I'd sooner nominate Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy. Adams was at least original.

Once again Tolkien is dismissed because of the story he wrote. It is a testament to his skill as an author that no one seems to notice the way he writes, the way he uses language and the way he engages his readers. He NEVER puts himself before the tale he is telling. He is invisible, he dosn't pontificate or play to the audience, he just tells the story in a simple and engageing way. It is a feat more highly regarded authors cannot seem to manage.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Once again Tolkien is dismissed because of the story he wrote. It is a testament to his skill as an author that no one seems to notice the way he writes, the way he uses language and the way he engages his readers. He NEVER puts himself before the tale he is telling. He is invisible, he dosn't pontificate or play to the audience, he just tells the story in a simple and engageing way. It is a feat more highly regarded authors cannot seem to manage.

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I was never really impressed with his writing. Is his prose outstanding? Nothing to write home about. Are the characters deep? Not really. Is the plot original? No. What it is about Tolkein? I guess he's got an epic scope with a detailed world view that is somewhat original. While he's an enjoyable read, I do not find him anywhere in the great writer's catagory.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Once again Tolkien is dismissed because of the story he wrote. It is a testament to his skill as an author that no one seems to notice the way he writes, the way he uses language and the way he engages his readers. He NEVER puts himself before the tale he is telling. He is invisible, he dosn't pontificate or play to the audience, he just tells the story in a simple and engageing way. It is a feat more highly regarded authors cannot seem to manage.

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Well, if you want to go there, well then, he clearly was no Hemingway with the prose, nor Faulkner either, in terms of stylistics, he is dry, boring, and ultimately slow. He often throws in stupid didactic bits, or some of the crummiest poetry ever written, and rarely writes passages that are what I would consider beautiful. His world is set up that he could, had he the poets skill, explore through words and verse the beauties of the natural world, and the mystifying scenes drawn from legend and his imagination, but alas, boring details about family trees, silly didactic moments, crappy subplot moments, and ultimately uninteresting descriptions are all that is left.

Whether he is invisible or not is not the question - the text has very, very strong autobiographical elements, and though there is no Tolkien Character, like Pierre in War and Peace (though perhaps Gandalf can be argued to be an idealized Tolkien, I won't make the claim), Tolkien is hardly invisible. The Trilogy clearly has didactic moments, and to deny that would be to misread the text.

As for engaging prose, well, the most engaging prose I've ever read seems, by my judgment, to outstrip Tolkien by landslides. Even within the fantasy genre, I can think of writers whose prose is far more engaging, and interesting. Someone like, for instance, the late Robert Jordan, had a prose style far more interesting than Tolkien's (though, I will not judge his literature, as I wouldn't even dream of making a case for The Wheel of Time as superb literature). I don't think the long boring poems, long digressions, boring facts and quirks, or even the plots in general create an engaging story. If we look at, for instance, the movie versions of the texts, we can notice that what got the most attention, meaning what was deemed to be the most visually stimulating by the writers/directors of the films, were the elements that Tolkien stressed the least. Tolkien's aesthetic is one of a quirky, quite dated, most likely sexually boring (I bet his wife had a field day in bed!), fixated on the most trivial of things, lost in a world that has passed, ultimately conservative, and quite simply, boring, racist (or perhaps xenophobic is the right term) and quite simply dull.

In truth, from all his influence, Tolkien's prose style seems to be the one thing that hasn't gone very far. His concept of world-building is ultimately what later writers remember, as well as his reappropriation of a plot arc designed to bring in a series of characters. In terms of style, I would say the only real follower he had (and this guy essentially rewrote the Lord of the Rings) would have to be Terry Brooks, who I can't begin to make a case for as a writer, as, quite simply, he is one of the worst writers I have ever read, and how he ever became famous, or sold any books is beyond me.


I have, elsewhere, if you care to dig, posted at greater length on Tolkien's Prose, but quite simply, this is not the thread to digress so.

As an author, I think Tolkien could not ever be considered a contender for the best British novelist of his time, let alone stand as better than anything that followed. He quite simply, wrote three books that somehow became popular, and then got a handful of mediocre manuscripts published by his son, which are even worse, and lack any skill with words, or any real sense of imagination.

Quite simply, he is a boring, mediocre, closed minded, aged, archaic before being current snooze. To read Tolkien is to read one of the most dragged on closed minded texts that ever was considered to be "interesting".

Ultimately, the real discussion about him leads toward his work with language, which is perhaps interesting, but not worth much thought. What he does with language, is ultimately assign a "beautiful" language, to people he thinks "beautiful", and a harsh language to those he thinks monstrous. What that then means, is that his choice of sourcework ultimately reflects a sort of racial agenda - Dwarves speaking a Semitic-inspired language, Elves speaking languages inspired by Welsh and various Scandinavian tongues, while men speak in Germanic, Saxon-like - influenced tongues, as well as language highly influenced by Anglo-Saxon. One can only assume then, that the physical appearance, set to match the language reflects Tolkien's perceptions of the speakers of the real languages, and ultimately displays certain people's as being better than others.

As it's come up, this is the best critique of Tolkien I've read (and, no, it's not by me).

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One day the writer and theologian CS Lewis was passing through the senior common room of his Oxford college when he saw his friend JRR Tolkien working on a manuscript. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm polishing the third part of my Middle-Earth trilogy,” replied JRR.

Lewis read a few lines and went on his way. As he left the room he was heard to mutter incredulously, “Not another f***ing elf.”

This apocryphal story sums up what’s wrong with the work of Tolkien - there is just too much of it. The Lord of the Rings is far, far too long and there is way too much detail and description - page after page to tell you that the forest was thick or the caves were dark.

Worse than that, it is all monstrously over-engineered. It is surely enough to know that wood-elves speak their own language; it is not necessary to establish the eight declensions of elvish noun, or point out the dialectical differences with the mountain elves. Clearly Tolkien enjoyed making all this up, but that’s the problem: he had more fun writing it than anyone can ever hope to get from reading it. It’s the death knell (Tolkien would call it the Alarum of Doom) for good storytelling.

And then there are the hobbits, the centrepiece of Tolkien's personal mythology. Somehow we are supposed to be charmed by their bourgeois obsessions – the mince pies and cheese, the singing kettles, the cosy mantelpiece. But it’s just smug Little England with hairy feet, and it is not appealing at all.

In 2003, The Lord of the Rings was voted best novel ever – but people were actually voting for the films. And the best thing about the films is that once you’ve seen them you don't have to read the books.

Does no one like Tolkien then?

The faults and shortcomings listed so exhaustively and with such vitriol by so many critics, are the very reasons the books are popular.
The prose that doesn't go very far.
The bourgeois obsessions.
The niave morality.
Simple characters.
Engaging (as I found it) storytelling.
Do people arrive home from working in the real world, and want to read The Waste Land?
I mean supposing they are not critics or literary professionals that is.

LOTR has topped many polls before the films came out, and will probably continue to come top in any vote, where it is allowed to be considered by the public.

Tolkien is not the best or my favourite author by any means, but I think he should be considered a contender for the last Major British author.

I am to old to bother with The Lord of the Rings but, although I haven't read it, it has at least provided a good deal of amusment reading the pro and anti arguments that constantly pop up on the forum. I could never seriously consider a book the has a character called Bilbo Baggins who celebrates his eleventy-first birthday, which a previous post accurately describes as quintessential British silliness. For comparison's sake I print below an extract from T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land:


When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get herself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,

'Do people arrive home from working in the real world, and want to read The Waste Land?'

I've always found this view point fairly condescending/not thought out. Loads of people read 'hard' literature all the time. They really just do. Some people read quick-paced fantasy novels and some people happily stroll through War and Peace. I think this idea that people want to read light rubbish and feel like they should read hard books is largely constructed.

In fact, I think this view point is part of the reason that people can so easily be put off 'hard' literature'. If you keep telling people it's hard what are they supposed to think? They can no longer just read it for whatever qualities they are reading poetry for anyway, they're missing all the 'important bits'. Those qualities are there, but no one picks up a poem for the first time in their life and just understands everything and the idea that they have to puts you off. Put me off for a long time.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Do people arrive home from working in the real world, and want to read The Waste Land?
I mean supposing they are not critics or literary professionals that is.

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There's an implicit confusion here - and it's that people who like literary stuff think that all literary stuff is good, and that they also think that the popular stuff is not good.

That's not the case. A lot of literary stuff is crap, just as a lot of everything else is crap. And a lot of popular stuff is good - well-written, compelling, entertaining.

So the argument against LOTR is not that it's popular. It's that it's not good - badly-written, heavy-going, dull.

Yes, a lot of people like it. Which means that on top of everything else, it's over-rated.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

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By the way, before we get into a barney and become lifelong enemies, thank you for your comment on Amid the Alien Corn.

I am yet to find proof that the Rings is a fast paced engaging tale.

Now I come to think of it, there is a good chance that Lord of the Rings will last a lot longer than many people realise. You know what they say, old hobbits die hard.

Incidentally - Martin Amis.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Now I come to think of it, there is a good chance that Lord of the Rings will last a lot longer than many people realise. You know what they say, old hobbits die hard.

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:lol::thumbs_up:lol:

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Now I come to think of it, there is a good chance that Lord of the Rings will last a lot longer than many people realise. You know what they say, old hobbits die hard.

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They're difficult to kick as well.


except in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I was never really impressed with his writing. Is his prose outstanding? Nothing to write home about. Are the characters deep? Not really. Is the plot original? No. What it is about Tolkein? I guess he's got an epic scope with a detailed world view that is somewhat original. While he's an enjoyable read, I do not find him anywhere in the great writer's catagory.

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I'm responding to my own post just to clarify. I'm not saying LOTR is a bad work, or that it won't last, or that it's not a fun read. In fact I said it was a fun read. But in my opinion it doesn't make the top tier of great literature.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I am yet to find proof that the Rings is a fast paced engaging tale.

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And it will never be, because that would go against every intention of Tolkien to create some short of epic story for mythical england.
Most epics, with their oral origem, are fast paced, intense, lively because the
author do not used his time with description of every detail and chronology - since that was something the audience was already familiar. Since Tolkien was creating something new, he could not just do it, he had to, with dedication and zealous of a scholar, build, organized and describe the geography, historical background and languages of his word. His greatest merit is his greatest downfal, he did it in a world where guys like Chekhov, Robert Louis Stevenson, Poe, Borges, Flaubert have already takken the prose language to a level of precision and flow, a world of sensations and effects, that Tolkien could not master with his precise (or excesive, you pick) description. Hence he looks outdated (and also, he is outdated, it is his ambition), to have all that life he would need the poetic talent of Yeats, perhaps increased since he had to do with Prose and not poems... His ambition was beyond his capacity. Once he had all this world, everything correctly like a watch he had the good idea to keep and place his characters doing archetypical things and they are all archetypicals. Even if he says a war story is no place for love stories and it was saved for other tales, his characters had too much basic emotion, he could just not grow up with them. It is basic friendship, basic honour, ambition, greed, wisdow, courage. Of course, old stories are also working with the basic, Arthur is Arthur, Lancelot is Lancelot, it is uncessary to have a stream of conciousness to show why they are noble or brave. They act like it, so Tolkien may not be wrong since he was telling a story of archetypes. Yet, it was a world that saw Joyce, Kafka, Dostoievisky, Faulkner, Woolf... So, he was a prisioner of the form as well. But cleaver and you can say, with enough talent, to create the scenario for those characters to revive in the moderm world and use them well enough. Hence he will be remembered, hence he is not as great as some people are trying to argue.

Yes, but the world of Arthur, despite all the writings, ultimately was vague. The world of Homer, in terms of visuals, was formed out of current objects, not anachronistic items and lore - the world was inhabited, though by creatures, with very little in terms of distorted scenery, and very little geographical description. Beowulf's world too is built on familiar soil, as was, to an extent, Virgil's. Perhaps the most exploratory epic writers were Milton and Dante, who came a little late to really be considered "True" epics, but who nonetheless incorporated the visual. Of course, reading Dante, you can't help but notice he often doesn't give the visual, and instead reverts back to the "I don't have words to describe what I saw before me" method, whereby he both invites the reader to imagine it, and bypasses the limitations of language in describing a made-up place. Milton on the other hand, perhaps did this the best, though he balanced it all off, and essentially used simile as his device for conveying the physicality of his world, rather than outright descriptions. The visuals then, of the Garden, of Pandemonium, are left to the reader's imagination, and fancy over the Biblical narrative. God himself is reduced to Light as apposed to an actual form, and the angelic-looking Satan isn't described in full detail, with every corner of his armor discussed.

Tolkien on the other hand, got carried away. His quirky obsession with a world created out of his imagination (and the politics it conveyed) ultimately was his downfall. You can't create a world like that, and make it interesting. The proof of later generations of writers has shown that the actual plot of lord of the Rings can be transformed into around 200 pages (Le Guin writes a new world with a plot in 100-odd pages, but her's is a shorter, albeit more potent narrative). But no. We need the boring languages, cultures, histories, lore, folksongs, geographical descriptions, calendars, family trees, and boring content that Tolkien offers us.

Take Calvino's Cosmicomics for instance, his worlds are just as removed as Tolkien's. But his visual description is about 3-5 sentences (usually as an epigraph), and the rest brought in through the action of the story. Of course, his worlds aren't as well thought out or planned, but is it all really necessary?

That being said, the concept of a removed reality isn't a bad one. It is a great deal of fun keep in mind, but I think Tolkien went way over the top in his, at the cost of the real merit of the book, the story and moral at the end (which I don't think are particularly brilliant at all). Lets be honest, do people actually care about what a made-up universe looks like, and its history, languages, and people? Are we trying to read into the history of the diegesis, or do we simply want to read about a story, perhaps in the world. The Back story dominates the story, and therefore the book is more like a reference than a novel.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Yes, but the world of Arthur, despite all the writings, ultimately was vague. The world of Homer, in terms of visuals, was formed out of current objects, not anachronistic items and lore - the world was inhabited, though by creatures, with very little in terms of distorted scenery, and very little geographical description. Beowulf's world too is built on familiar soil, as was, to an extent, Virgil's. Perhaps the most exploratory epic writers were Milton and Dante, who came a little late to really be considered "True" epics, but who nonetheless incorporated the visual. Of course, reading Dante, you can't help but notice he often doesn't give the visual, and instead reverts back to the "I don't have words to describe what I saw before me" method, whereby he both invites the reader to imagine it, and bypasses the limitations of language in describing a made-up place. Milton on the other hand, perhaps did this the best, though he balanced it all off, and essentially used simile as his device for conveying the physicality of his world, rather than outright descriptions. The visuals then, of the Garden, of Pandemonium, are left to the reader's imagination, and fancy over the Biblical narrative. God himself is reduced to Light as apposed to an actual form, and the angelic-looking Satan isn't described in full detail, with every corner of his armor discussed.

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Yeah, I agree. In oral tradition descriptions are not a rule because the familiarity of the listener. Dante and Milton are not just using the formula, they are really doing something else, their works are different. But since they are more talented, they can mix the narrative part of the poem with the lyrical part or philosophical part. The way of speaking gives away Satan, not his face, to say.

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Tolkien on the other hand, got carried away. His quirky obsession with a world created out of his imagination (and the politics it conveyed) ultimately was his downfall. You can't create a world like that, and make it interesting. The proof of later generations of writers has shown that the actual plot of lord of the Rings can be transformed into around 200 pages (Le Guin writes a new world with a plot in 100-odd pages, but her's is a shorter, albeit more potent narrative). But no. We need the boring languages, cultures, histories, lore, folksongs, geographical descriptions, calendars, family trees, and boring content that Tolkien offers us.

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Of course, it is now easier to make copycats of Tolkien, with less words, because now everyone is aware of what a elf is. His encyclopedical work is a reference. I would also argue that tolkien had any right to go overboard. It is his gimmicks. That he had at his disposal a format that could not cope with the demand of the work, plus less poetical talent to do so, it is another story. I would suggest a middleterm between you and the elf-lovers...

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Take Calvino's Cosmicomics for instance, his worlds are just as removed as Tolkien's. But his visual description is about 3-5 sentences (usually as an epigraph), and the rest brought in through the action of the story. Of course, his worlds aren't as well thought out or planned, but is it all really necessary?

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Well, Calvino is working from another direction and belongs to another tradition as well. I am sure one could argue dostoievisky could use less words, since Chekhov can. But of course, the prose of Calvino is much superior to Tolkien because he is not bound to the description of a world, but the development of an idea. He is a better writer, that simple.

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That being said, the concept of a removed reality isn't a bad one. It is a great deal of fun keep in mind, but I think Tolkien went way over the top in his, at the cost of the real merit of the book, the story and moral at the end (which I don't think are particularly brilliant at all). Lets be honest, do people actually care about what a made-up universe looks like, and its history, languages, and people? Are we trying to read into the history of the diegesis, or do we simply want to read about a story, perhaps in the world. The Back story dominates the story, and therefore the book is more like a reference than a novel.

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Well, JBI, considering the fanbase of Tolkien, his copycats (take the whole Dungeo and Dragons universe), Star Trek/Wars, some people do care about it. Of course, they must understand, as hard it is to create, it is not a greater achivement than writing about a plain day in a desert island like Robson Crusoe is. Anyways, I agree, LoTR is not a typical novel. Which is a clue that he can be placed in the same bag as the other modern best-seller writers. He did several no-no-no that Dan Browns, Sydney Sheldons, etc would not. And because the same ambition that lead to his failure. It is not a simple reading or easy. The books are split in two different storylines, so, the sequence of chapters is a little broken. His language is not clear, economic, do not flow like Calvino for example. Yet, he manages to make people who are too lazy to consider reading anything hard, to read.... possible because the simple and well-placed use of the main steriotypes, those the other writers manage to copy.
The middleterm is placing him alongside with likes of Dumas, Stoker or Jules Verne. Even if Verne is not as great, he gave a basis that most sci-fic writers after him would use, sparing them or all the work of explaining it again (It may work for Asimov too)... He is a good writer, with perhaps a flawed, yet, with merits, work. But of course, not in the league of great writers, best british novelist, etc.

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Do people arrive home from working in the real world, and want to read The Waste Land?

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I do; I read The Waste Land just recently and for the first time, and mostly on the bus commute to and from work. I read it for enjoyment, and I found it beautiful, the language superb and incisive and stark.

I also enjoyed reading Tolkein. Just as I enjoy reading Terry Pratchett.

I can enjoy a writer without kidding myself that he is a great writer. There's a difference between great writing and merely enjoyable writing; the truly great writers, I would insist, are both. Flaubert, Balzac, Austen, Tolstoy, Proust, Woolf, Conrad... I read them first and foremost for pleasure.

I have a book on my shelf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy. It reminds me a lot of Tolkein criticism-- a kind of end run at justification. That this story we love so much isn't "mere" entertainment; it's deep! There are Themes and Philosophical Implications at work here! And of course there are these things-- if one looks hard enough-- in just about anything.

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Originally Posted by curlyqlink

I do; I read The Waste Land just recently and for the first time, and mostly on the bus commute to and from work. I read it for enjoyment, and I found it beautiful, the language superb and incisive and stark.
There are Themes and Philosophical Implications at work here! And of course there are these things-- if one looks hard enough-- in just about anything.

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When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get herself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,


You probably missed it first time round, but this extract from The Waste Land give credence to your last sentence.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Of course, reading Dante, you can't help but notice he often doesn't give the visual, and instead reverts back to the "I don't have words to describe what I saw before me" method, whereby he both invites the reader to imagine it, and bypasses the limitations of language in describing a made-up place.

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Although I agree that in several passages Dante does cop out with that explanation, it was only in cases of necessity. If he'd claimed to actually describe the likeness of God, for instance, the church would have skewered him. Otherwise, he's probably the greatest master of turning words into vivid pictures. I can still see the angels flying down into the rose like bees sucking honey, the cross of the crusaders burning bright, the three steps, the angel who wrote Dante's sins on his forehead with a sword, the burning sands, the river of boiling blood with the damned swimming and the centaurs firing arrows into them, Dante walking hunched over the mural on the floor, the serpents, the men throwing rocks, the tree people and their bleeding roots, the wind blowing Paulo and Francesca, the gnats swarming, the wall of fire, bodies frozen up to their necks and gnawing on the back of each others heads, light falling down like golden snowflakes, the demons falling off the bridge, Homer waving, Aristotle sitting, the nuns floating like shimmering ghosts on the moon. The one part I can't ever picture is the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden, that little parade, or dumb show or whatever it was, like a mobile medieval drama. Other than that, Dante turned words into pictures like no other. Not even great naturalists like Tolstoy can match him.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

Although I agree that in several passages Dante does cop out with that explanation, it was only in cases of necessity. If he'd claimed to actually describe the likeness of God, for instance, the church would have skewered him. Otherwise, he's probably the greatest master of turning words into vivid pictures. I can still see the angels flying down into the rose like bees sucking honey, the cross of the crusaders burning bright, the three steps, the angel who wrote Dante's sins on his forehead with a sword, the burning sands, the river of boiling blood with the damned swimming and the centaurs firing arrows into them, Dante walking hunched over the mural on the floor, the serpents, the men throwing rocks, the tree people and their bleeding roots, the wind blowing Paulo and Francesca, the gnats swarming, the wall of fire, bodies frozen up to their necks and gnawing on the back of each others heads, light falling down like golden snowflakes, the demons falling off the bridge, Homer waving, Aristotle sitting, the nuns floating like shimmering ghosts on the moon. The one part I can't ever picture is the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden, that little parade, or dumb show or whatever it was, like a mobile medieval drama. Other than that, Dante turned words into pictures like no other. Not even great naturalists like Tolstoy can match him.

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I think it was your imagination that did it, as it is everyone else's that forms the images. I'm of the mind that is why the Infernal images are the most potent, because, ultimately, negative things are easier for most people to imagine. The actual vividness though, is of your own design, Dante merely guides one. Tolkien tries to Ekphrastically capture every tree, whereas Dante encourages the vivid picture to pop in one's head. In that sense, Dante allows for a very well guided Trace, whereas Tolkien does not, he merely "shows" you it, in a way that doesn't give room for the great workings of the imagination to form. That is why, essentially, the movie adaptation works so well with Tolkien, whereas with Dante, I'm sure, even with the greatest CGI, the vision in one's head will be stronger.

Ultimately though, descriptions of things come in three forms; one form conveys the likeness of it, through words and descriptions, which favor mathematics and practicality, and another form uses simile and metaphor to do the same, but since metaphor isn't stable, the actual interpretation is left to the viewer. The third form, is one which attempts to capture the feeling of the place, the location - one thinks of, for instance, Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, which holds very little concrete description of the place, but focuses completely on the reaction in the observer. Tolkien, ultimately, prefers the first form, and, I would argue, doesn't trust metaphors much in conveying his description. Dante generally mixes the last two, with actual numbers in place to try and keep the form concrete - we have the frame, and the things inside it, but do we really have much solid description, or is it part of our mind that forms it? Do we, for instance, all have the same vision of the men talking from the flames, or of the souls standing on the brinks of hell, or are we all creating our own vision of the scene? Eliot's reworking of it in section one of the Waste Land, I would argue, works, because quite simply, the unchanged visuals allow for a transfer of the sort to happen. Try using Middle Earth, and the whole thing seems silly. In that sense, I would argue, the visual benefits from a sense of vagueness quite often, especially when describing things that are unbelievably good or wonderful, beyond words, or unbelievably bad and vile - or any extremes really. The mind cannot commit itself to one vision of any extreme mode, and therefore, it is in the last two modes of vision, guided perhaps by the first one as a frame of reference, that poets like Dante are able to inspire such vivid visions. The vision isn't contained within the poem, and cannot really be drawn accurately, or to a suitable level, but the power of the words is able to allow a the reader to glimpse "What he is seeing." Dante, I am sure, would have written in all the descriptions, despite the politics, if he was able - he didn't seem to shy away from politics too much as it was, and though he may have elided over God, there are plenty of other spots he could have filled in - but to fill them in would be to lower them, to not do them justice, as clearly anyone with conviction or imagination can come up with a visual representation of a vision better than quantitative, and factual (I use this to mean words that can only lead to limited visual reactions in the reader) words can possibly convey.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Do we, for instance, all have the same vision of the men talking from the flames, or of the souls standing on the brinks of hell, or are we all creating our own vision of the scene?

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You are right. My imagination rebels when I behold the versions depicted by Doré and Blake, recalling something far more majestic and fanciful in it's place.

jesus, mortalterror and JBI, it is Dante, The Master. Are you not going to argue if he wrote or we just imagine what he wrote, will you both? You know, it is pointless, he did both.

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Originally Posted by Jozanny

The Spanish have Cervantes, and everything pretty much comes from him, in terms of great novels.

The French have Flaubert and Proust.

The Americans have Melville and Faulkner.

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The British have Samuel Richardson, whose 18th century epistolary novels, in the opinion of Milan Kundera, were the first to explore the inner life of a character in depth. Cervantes was a great describer of adventures, but we don't really get inside the head of Don Quixote. Richardson was an important innovator. If he didn't invent stream of consciousness, he at least opened the path to it.

The British also have Henry Fielding, who is important in the field of meta-textuality, since the narrator in Tom Jones keeps breaking the fourth wall to discourse on the art of the novel, a trick commonly used nowadays by writers.

Oh, and the British have Laurence Sterne, whose Tristram Shandy is only the forefather of Ulysses and therefore the precursor of all modernism.

I would imagine that the merits of having Samuel Richardson would not represent such big merit...

Milan Kundera will disagree with you. But I guess that's the difference between someone who studies the art of the novel deeply and mere readers.

No mention of Evelyn Waugh. Nor Anthony Powell whose 12 volume work Dance to the Music of Time is an amazing panorama of British cultural, political and academic life from the 20s to the 60s. His character Widmerpool is a major comic creation. I couldn't choose a favourite but I have read Casanova's Chinese Restaurant more times than any other.

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Originally Posted by sixsmith

Mitchell is a something else. I was astonished by the things he pulled off in Cloud Atlas and frequently moved...

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I just read "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" - an astonishing novel, Mitchell might (indeed) be 'the one'.

Has Anthony Burgess permeated this debate yet? Or even William Golding, Roald Dahl, John Le Carre, Ian Fleming?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has proven that detective novels have longevity so why not the espionage writings of le Carre and Fleming?

Roald Dahl is arguably the greatest children's author and Burgess and Golding don't need me to do them justice.


And let's not forget Orwell's most well known novels were both published after the war.

The aforementioned authors are not my predictions for who will still be read in the next century but they seem to have fallen through the net in terms of this discussion. It seems you've inexplicably wasted a lot of time on judging Cormac McCarthy's worth in the literature world.

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Originally Posted by Heteronym

Milan Kundera will disagree with you. But I guess that's the difference between someone who studies the art of the novel deeply and mere readers.

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Kundera studies the art of the novel deeply? Apparently, he learnt very little from his study.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Kundera studies the art of the novel deeply? Apparently, he learnt very little from his study.

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Your posturing doesn't impress anyone.

Neither Kundera, who claim that a author thousands years after Ovid is exploring the epistolar level or that Quixote is not explored on depth, which any student of Quixote knows it is false to an extreme, specially considering the clear different between the first and the second part. Or that deep exploration of psychological deepth of character is not something limite to romance and Dostoievisky learnt with Cervantes not Samuel Richardson, an author which influence outside england is minimal.

As kundera, he let clear Richardson is a naive and cannt be compared to Laclos, Goethe, and a few others. He would not disagree much about the merit of Richardson in any list, but really, Kundera is not a considerable critic. His authority is not considerable, so using him as shield, wont get much points.

Well, using him as a shield at least got you riled up enough to write more than one sentence of criticism.

Really? So, yet again, Kundera goes down the drain...

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Neither Kundera, who claim that a author thousands years after Ovid is exploring the epistolar level or that Quixote is not explored on depth, which any student of Quixote knows it is false to an extreme, specially considering the clear different between the first and the second part. Or that deep exploration of psychological deepth of character is not something limite to romance and Dostoievisky learnt with Cervantes not Samuel Richardson, an author which influence outside england is minimal.

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An epistolary poem is not an epistolary novel, and Ovid didn't give the final contribution to the possibilities of the epistolary novel. Your post is beholden to the grander of the classics. Yours is the typical view that because someone did something many centuries ago, someone else centuries later can't improve upon it.

As for Don Quixote's depth, that wasn't Kundera writing, that was me, and I certainly didn't write that Don Quixote lacked depth. What I wrote was that Cervantes only described things externally. Don Quixote is only seen from the outside, through his action and dialogue. The epistolary novel, by the use of the first person narrator, allows for a character to talk about himself, to reveal nuances that merely physical description can't reveal. Cervantes didn't explore all the possibilities of the novel; if he had, there'd be no room for innovation.

I would also disagree that Kundera isn't a considerable critic. He's certainly better read than either of us; thinking about the history of the novel is his reason for being, he's not a mere reader but someone for whom these questions are his life.

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Originally Posted by Heteronym

An epistolary poem is not an epistolary novel, and Ovid didn't give the final contribution to the possibilities of the epistolary novel. Your post is beholden to the grander of the classics. Yours is the typical view that because someone did something many centuries ago, someone else centuries later can't improve upon it.

As for Don Quixote's depth, that wasn't Kundera writing, that was me, and I certainly didn't write that Don Quixote lacked depth. What I wrote was that Cervantes only described things externally. Don Quixote is only seen from the outside, through his action and dialogue. The epistolary novel, by the use of the first person narrator, allows for a character to talk about himself, to reveal nuances that merely physical description can't reveal. Cervantes didn't explore all the possibilities of the novel; if he had, there'd be no room for innovation.

I would also disagree that Kundera isn't a considerable critic. He's certainly better read than either of us; thinking about the history of the novel is his reason for being, he's not a mere reader but someone for whom these questions are his life.

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A Novel can be in verses, and it is irrelevant, the form does not make the exploration of psychological deepth of anything first than anything else.

Just a comment: Richardson could not be the one first to do something, if it was done before. It does not imply who will do after or there is anything else to do. It imply it is not the first. There is no claim from Kundera about the quality of Richardson and I really dont comment anything about it reggarding Kundera: yet, if we are considering the merits of english novelists, the place of Richardson in the story is not exactly a top place. Mentioning him even near Sterne or Fielding is not really a great deal.

Kundera do mean that with Quixote's contemporaries learnt about adventures, and Richardson was the one which discovered the psychological posibilities of novels, whic his a kidergarden reduction of Quixote and an exageration of Richardson (which is only because Kundera wrote after him), because Cervantes is the model of modern novels and characters, not Pamela, Clarice, Annabella, or watever.

Of course Cervantes didnt explore all elements of the novel. Nobody did. However, Cervantes didnt need to learn with anyone the capacity of to explore the psychology of characters and epistolary literarature was not such novelty, which would made the importance of Richardson less important... and even so, the inventor of the sonnet is not Petrarca.

Why is Kundera better read than any of us? Because he publish books? His book Art of Novel seems to be a rather limited reading experience, basead on a bias to justify himself and his works. No, by saying that Cervantes contemportaries teached us about adventures, he is either writting very poorly or reading even poorly. Cervantes is not about it, there was centuries of adventures already before Cervantes. And who are those contemporary? Shakespeare??? Yes, an age dedicated to plot...

When you have discoursed about Broch, Mussil, Proust, Gombrowicz, Kafka, Beckett, Malaparte, France, Fuentes, Paz, Sartre, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Joyce, Rushdie, Rabelais, Fielding, Sterne, Césaire, Mann, Dostoevsky, García Márquez, Céline, Roth, Goytisolo, Depestre, Diderot and Aragon in these boards, with new insight into their work, I may believe you're better read than Kundera. Until then, I suggest your curb your anti-intellectualism. Although I enjoy your posts from time to time, your thoughts on literature mean nothing outside this forum. And even if Kundera only writes crap about literature, which I don't think he does, it's crap that is establishing a dialogue with millions of people reading him across the world. Who are you establishing a dialogue with? A bunch of anonymous people on a forum. Not exactly setting the world on fire, are you?

So show some respect and be more humble.

Oh, and no, novels can't be told in verse. Verse belongs to poetry. The novel belongs to prose. Prose comes from the Latin prosa, or everyday speech. Poetry may be fine for the Gods and heroes of Homer, but to have everday characters speak in verse would be as silly as teaching English to a doormat.