The last major British novelist?

[Jozanny]

Nope, wasn't joking. Looked him up and there's something vaguely stirring in the back of my mind that I may have heard of Hertzog, or maybe it was one of those titles that stood out as I was browsing the shelves at my local Waterstones. But no, until he was mentioned here today I'd never heard of him.

Maybe he's just not 'big' in UK? Or maybe I move in the wrong circles. I don't work in literature and neither have I studied literature beyond A level. If it makes you feel better, I hadn't heard of Wallace Stevens before Lit-net either, but again unless you're studying literature to a high level in UK you're not likely to either. Literature studies up to the age of 18 tend to focus on British or Irish writers, generally.

That's okay Fifth. Saul Bellow is an ethnic writer, meaning Jewish, who transcends being an ethnic Jewish author the way Faulkner transcends being a regionalist, at least for some. I prefer Henry Roth to Bellow, but beyond that will take the fifth, lest JBI and Drkshadow nip at my heels for being a smug outside observer...

[JCamilo]

Like the movies, don't like the movies, that's not my point. My point is that the work, The Hobbit and LOTR, will transcend time. But not because the writing is anything special or extraordinary or that the novel are well constructed. I've read LOTR three times. It really is poorly constructed as a novel (and it really is only one). The main characters disappear for an entire half of the second part so that the author can back track and tell the story of the other members of the broken fellowship. There is a tremendous amount of fluff there. And then there's the second part of the third book that has so much unnecessary anti-climactic material, you really have to be a fan to wade through it to the end. But it's a popular story and that is what will make it endure, not Tolkien's writing ability.

It is not very different from what I said. Tolkien's book structure is not the typical best-seller, demanding a lot from the reader not only because the size, but because he wrote giantic stories, because the rythim is slow, very not descriptive, etc. But there is merits on his writting, wanting or not, he do a new reading of medieval themes with some competence, the care with the geography of the world, the linguistic work that are more his merit. Something good is in the books, but the problem is when the book is ranked that high when it should not.

Which is a lot of what I take from JBI's entries. There is a million tons of popular fiction novels available, most of which are targeted to make a buck. If a truly artistic novel, welll-written, innovative, and revolutionary were to be produced by any modern day author it is questionable whether it would be published and, if published, whether it would get enough critical acclaim to be read. JBI has declared the novel dead. He may be right; I want him to be wrong.

I think he is right. But death in art (literature) is not usually something written down into a stone. I am sure Novels and Romances still can be produced with quality, but inovation won't happen and when it happens, it will be something else, which is good - after all, why one need to write romance and novels.

I purposely kept American authors out my thinking as I readi the thread, despite the reference to English-writing authors and the number of American writers brought up in the course of the discussion. But if I were to pick a post-war American novelist whose works might endure 100 years, I'd pick Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., especially Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle. Some of the other American writers mentioned might endure and for others it might be too soon to tell. Vonnegut might have the best chance of any of them.

Well, I think prophecy is a risk, so I won't argue it. Vonnegut may be a good shot as any other, I do not see how we can have disagreements with "what if" scenarios.

Finally, J, you made me laugh, intentionally or otherwise. I'm not advocating the movies one way or another but exactly how did Jackson stereotype a hobbit? I don't remember the Hobbit Anti-Defamation League marching outside theaters. Same for the Equal Rights for Elves Union. You lost me there.

I wasnt talking specifically about Hobbits, but the medieval arquetypes used by Tolkien (the broken sword, the ring, etc) was turned in dull sterytipes in the movies. They are without any meaning, just nice F/X.

kelby_lake

Kafka didn't write fantasy, he was a surrealist. Fantasy is a genre relying on mythical worlds and creatures and magic.

While your definition of Fantasy is not correct, Kafka did wrote about magical creatures and magic. It is no wonder he is the main precussor of Magic Realism, you see, Fantasy wrote by those who give not damn about writing super-magical realms where anything was fantastic.

[Karl Rommel]

Literature studies up to the age of 18 tend to focus on British or Irish writers, generally.

And Mark Twain who said a few home truths about Jane Austen in his time.

If we're going the Tolkein route I'd suggest Mervyn Peake might be a far better alternative.

I'll second that. The former I could not appreciate. The latter I could.

[prendrelemick]

I repeat,

Mervin Peake!

He may merit a footnote in some obscure lit mag 100 years from now.

[Jozanny]

I repeat,

Mervin Peake!

He may merit a footnote in some obscure lit mag 100 years from now.

Apparently I now have to Google Mervyn Peake...His estate website is impressive, to put that on a positive note, but I am so tired I can barely type any irreverence into this post.

[curlyqlink]

Lokasenna:

Wagner actually based his Ring Cycle on the Nibelunglied

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.

[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.

[Virgil]

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.

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.

[JBI]

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.

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.

[MarkBastable]

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

------------------------------------------

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.

[prendrelemick]

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.

[Emil Miller]

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,

[meh!]

'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.

[MarkBastable]

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.

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.

....

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

[JBI]

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