Mieville on Tolkien... again
Del Cotter
I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
Oh, and way to miss the point, China: the language was not "pilfered"
from the Norse sagas, any more than you "pilfered" the English language
and ruthlessly used it in your novels, or the look and feel of London
for New Crobouzon.
Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead:sMajesty'sStarship:BrendaWCloughTheDoorsOfDeath&Life:LoisMcMast
erBujoldDiplomaticImmunity:NeilGaimanAmericanGods:GwynethJonesBoldAsLove
ToRead:KenMacLeodDarkLight:RobertCharlesWilsonBios:ChristopherPriestFugu
Dan Goodman
@branta.demon.co.uk:
>
> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
> off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
> the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
> What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>
> So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
> about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>
> Oh, and way to miss the point, China: the language was not "pilfered"
> from the Norse sagas, any more than you "pilfered" the English language
> and ruthlessly used it in your novels, or the look and feel of London
> for New Crobouzon.
>
> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>
Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
Jewish legends and folklore.
Dorothy J Heydt
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote in news:PR8VTkEsbh+9EwN9
>@branta.demon.co.uk:
>>
>>
>Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
>
>It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
>anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
>Jewish legends and folklore.
It's onomatopoetic (something Tolkien was into, but in a subtle
way, see his essay "English and Welsh").
"And when he said _gollum_ he made a horrible swallowing noise in
his throat. That is how he got his name, though he always called
himself 'my precious.'" _The Hobbit_, p. 83 (in the first
edition), 84 (in the 50th-anniversary edition I have to hand).
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Dorothy J Heydt
Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
"cod-"? Wagner I know about.
>Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
Nah. Represents a gulping noise in the throat.
This is the guy who thinks fantasy has replaced religion as the
optiate of the masses, right? I have never read him.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> This is the guy who thinks fantasy has replaced religion as the
> optiate of the masses, right? I have never read him.
Actually, when I was at Octocon he gave a "let's be rude to Tolkien"
panel ("lancing Tolkien" was the official title) and he promised
solemnly it was the last time, I swear it, I mean it, that he tackled
the issue. He said that it was turning out as a sort of clowish trick -
hey, let's go hear China be rude to Tolkien! - and he was really annoyed
by this.
The actual panel was very interesting, and lots of people who actually
liked Tolkien, more or less, found it interesting (Mary Kay was there).
It was also far from savage. One may or may not agree with Mieville but
he did say lots of interesting things and the discussion was lively.
Reduced to a soundbite for radio, I guess it wasn't as impressive.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Charlie Stross
as <dsg...@visi.com> declared:
>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>>
> Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
Not in my hearing, when he did the two-hour-long "why Tolkein is
overrated" talk at Octocon. Which, to be fair, is a jolly good polemical
rant and makes some extremely good points -- which are most telling when
you consider that "overrated" implies the existence of people doing the
over-rating.
Basically, China doesn't like the way Tolkein has been adopted as
a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
he's willing to say so in public. Tolkein's work has become something of
a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
-- Charlie
Joel Baxter
> In article <PR8VTkEs...@branta.demon.co.uk>,
> Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>>about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
[ snip ]
> This is the guy who thinks fantasy has replaced religion as the
> optiate of the masses, right? I have never read him.
Correct. Love his books, but he really does have a bug up his butt
about Tolkien; kind of like that uncle one has who usually seems a fine
solid fellow, but who goes into glassy-eyed harangues about black
helicopters and the New World Order when the discussion turns to
politics. However, Mieville does at least admit (on his website) that
he still allows people who like Tolkien to associate with him. Eheh.
bluejack
> Basically, China doesn't like the way Tolkein has been adopted as
> a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
> attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
> he's willing to say so in public. Tolkein's work has become something of
> a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
I think most thinking people would agree with this.
Mieville does go substantially further, though. He does
actively claim that Tolkien's work was bad for fantasy,
not just because of what those who followed did with it,
but also because of what Tolkien chose to do.
I have found Mieville to be driven by a philosophy of
what fiction should do. He articulates clearly and
persuasively the faults of escapism, and he lumps Tolkien
in with escapism. Personally, I don't think it is quite
fair to do so, however, Tolkien himself defended escapism,
so it is a pretty solid argument for Mieville to make.
Mieville is extremely well read, particularly in the body
of fantastic literature that preceded Tolkien. With Tolkien
he sees a turning point in the genre away from things that
are important. He sees a loss of engagement with the present
world, and the failure to extend, to explore, and to deepen
myth.
This is all my impression from several encounters with
Mieville, but it is all my own interpretation. I hope I
am not misrepresenting him in any substantial regard. In
any case, it is pretty clear that Mieville does more than
deplore the state of fantasy literature after Tolkien, he
places the blame pretty squarely on the old don's shoulders.
-bluejack
Joel Baxter
> Basically, China doesn't like the way Tolkein has been adopted as
> a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
> attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
> he's willing to say so in public. Tolkein's work has become something of
> a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
There are of course groups of people who will tolerate no criticism of
Tolkien... but for any particular thing X there may often be found
groups of people who tolerate no criticism of X, which doesn't mean that
criticism is absent. For the past few decades there has been no
shortage of people willing to criticize Tolkien publically, from all
sorts of perspectives and positions of expertise or authority. Par for
the course for a work of massive popularity.
I don't believe that Mieville is trying to be a critical trailblazer,
though. He simply has a philosophical bone to pick with (what he sees
as) Tolkien's themes -- as you mentioned -- and, from the impression I'm
getting, is trying to steer the public perception of his own writing.
There does come a point where it starts to seem that a popular and
critically acclaimed author should not spend so much of his exposure
time bagging on the (dead) competition. :-) Hopefully he doesn't get
permanently binned as merely "that guy who rants about Tolkien".
Karl MacRae
Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <dsg...@visi.com> declared:
>
>>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>>>
>> Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
>
>Not in my hearing, when he did the two-hour-long "why Tolkein is
>overrated" talk at Octocon. Which, to be fair, is a jolly good polemical
>rant and makes some extremely good points
Is there a transcript of this floating around anywhere? Sounds like an
interesting read.
I didn't turn anything up with a quick search...
-Karl
--
Karl Elvis MacRae VLSI CAD Apple Computer km...@apple.com
Steinn Sigurdsson
Hasn't Brin been doing that for about 15 years,
it is his "if you don't like me being nasty
to Star Wars, let me really shock you" rant #3.
Very amusing, makes some good points,
and to be taken with a good pinch of salt.
Lois Tilton
>a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
>attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
>he's willing to say so in public. Tolkein's work has become something of
>a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
???
Charlie, this is like: Duh. There's been much gross tonnage of
Tolkien criticism, in both the academic and the perjorative senses.
The holy cow has longsince been served up on a toasted sesame seed bun
with a pickle slice.
One can only ask: Where has China been while all this was going on?
LT
--
LT
Charlie Stross
> There does come a point where it starts to seem that a popular and
> critically acclaimed author should not spend so much of his exposure
> time bagging on the (dead) competition. :-) Hopefully he doesn't get
> permanently binned as merely "that guy who rants about Tolkien".
Yes. And I think China's aware of that; certainly at Octocon he said
that he was sick of being asked to repeat the "why I hate Tolkein" speech,
and that Octocon was the last time he'd give it. (Not sure where the
TV interview fits in, but it may have been recorded pre-Octcon. Anyone
know?)
-- Charlie
Lois Tilton
MacRae) wrote:
>Is there a transcript of this floating around anywhere? Sounds like an
>interesting read.
>
There's a short bit on the topic at the Mieville website: Runagate
Rampant.
--
LT
Richard Shewmaker
> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
> off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
> the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
> What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>
> So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
> about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
Is it available anywhere online for those of us who missed it?
Richard Shewmaker
> In article <PR8VTkEs...@branta.demon.co.uk>,
> Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>>about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>
> "cod-"? Wagner I know about.
>
>>Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>
> Nah. Represents a gulping noise in the throat.
>
> This is the guy who thinks fantasy has replaced religion as the
> optiate of the masses, right? I have never read him.
Err ... if you mean Tolkien's fantasy and all Tolkien-influenced or
Tolkien-like fantasy, I think that's more or less correct.
Now you've got me thinking about Harry Potter. Damn.
--
Julie Winters: "You! I always knew you weren't dead. Now I want the truth!"
Mr. Gone: "Talk to Descartes, toots."
-- "The Maxx"
Del Cotter
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> said:
>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote
>> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
>> off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
>> the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
>> What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>
>Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
>
>It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
>anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
>Jewish legends and folklore.
He made both those two points on the radio programme, as if they were
criticisms of Tolkien, like this:
1) Tolkien took the name 'golem', but Gollum is nothing like a golem;
2) Tolkien didn't take anything else from Jewish legend and folklore,
just that one word.
He sounded so sure I thought I'd better check in case there was some
note in Tolkien's papers to that effect.
Del Cotter
>as <dsg...@visi.com> declared:
>>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>>>
>> Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
That's what he said.
>Not in my hearing, when he did the two-hour-long "why Tolkein is
>overrated" talk at Octocon. Which, to be fair, is a jolly good polemical
>rant and makes some extremely good points -- which are most telling when
>you consider that "overrated" implies the existence of people doing the
>over-rating.
But arguing that an author is objectively bad, and arguing that he has
an irritatingly large number of fans are two completely different
things. He stupidly *underrates* Tolkien, and I've never been impressed
with "if you think my criticisms are stupid, why, I'm just a balance for
the stupid fanboys". The appropriate balance for stupidity is sense,
not another kind of stupidity.
I've never heard Miéville make a good point about Tolkien, only dumb
ones. You don't seem to be able to make any good ones either, as you've
also fallen back on the old dishonest conflation of "has lots of
enthusiastic fans" with "is overrated".
I would be delighted to see some cogent criticism of Tolkien from
Miéville, but he seems unable to do so so far. Every point I've ever
heard or read him make falls into one of the following categories:
(a) Good point about how too many fantasy writers imitate Tolkien.
(b) Stupid statement about Tolkien's actual work, which either misses
the point, or is flat inaccurate, or both.
(c) an (a), with an attempt to parlay it into a criticism of the author
himself. But guess what? the man is dead, and it's not his fault he has
imitators.
(d) a (b), with an appeal to (a) to justify being such a jerk.
>Basically, China doesn't like the way Tolkein has been adopted as
>a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
>attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
>he's willing to say so in public. Tolkein's work has become something of
>a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
Ooh, speak truth to power! But this isn't even anything new; I
mentioned Michael Moorcock, who's been doing this shtick since the
Sixties. Moorcock is pretty bugfuck on the subject, sadly, but there
have been any number of more temperate critics over the years.
Del Cotter
>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>>about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>
>"cod-"? Wagner I know about.
Are you asking about the figure of speech? I hardly know how to start
explaining it. It means something like "a poor, overblown imitation of
the real thing", but that doesn't quite catch the meaning.
Dan Goodman
> On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, in rec.arts.sf.written,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> said:
>
>>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote
>>> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they
>>> kicked off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the
>>> Rings_, and the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was...
>>> China Miéville. What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>
>>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>>>
>>
>>Was Mieville really idiotic enough to say that?
>>
>>It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
>>anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
>>Jewish legends and folklore.
>
> He made both those two points on the radio programme, as if they were
> criticisms of Tolkien, like this:
>
> 1) Tolkien took the name 'golem', but Gollum is nothing like a golem;
> 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else from Jewish legend and folklore,
> just that one word.
Did he explain why Tolkien changed the pronunciation?
> He sounded so sure I thought I'd better check in case there was some
> note in Tolkien's papers to that effect.
>
If there were any, the Knights Templar took them away in a black
helicopter.
Dorothy J Heydt
Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, in rec.arts.sf.written,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> said:
>
>>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>>>about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>>
>>"cod-"? Wagner I know about.
>
>Are you asking about the figure of speech?
Yes. Never heard it before; I assume it's UKian.
I hardly know how to start
>explaining it. It means something like "a poor, overblown imitation of
>the real thing", but that doesn't quite catch the meaning.
Close enough for jazz; thanks.
Dennis Mahon
> It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
> anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
> Jewish legends and folklore.
I believe he used a combination of Hebrew and Norse in creating the
language of the Dwarves. But (as far as I have heard)that seems to be
the extent of his use of Jewish culture.
Sproles52
cookie-cutter template by other authors,
Sure, but how is Tolkein responsible for people adopting him? If some writers
ape his style, it is that writers doing, not Tolkeins. Isn't that covered in
writing 101 or maybe logic 101?
judy
"It's not so much what you have, it's what you worry about"-random on ASP.
To reply by e-mail, take the pipe out.
Allan Griffith
cha...@antipope.org says...
> Tolkein's work has become something of
> a holy cow, and it's about time it was opened up to criticism.
I couldn't agree more!
Al
Steve Taylor
> There does come a point where it starts to seem that a popular and
> critically acclaimed author should not spend so much of his exposure
> time bagging on the (dead) competition. :-) Hopefully he doesn't get
> permanently binned as merely "that guy who rants about Tolkien".
No - I think that role's reserved for Michael Moorcock.
Steve
tabu La Raza
"Del Cotter" <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:PR8VTkEs...@branta.demon.co.uk...
>
> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
> off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
> the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
> What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>
> So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
> about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>
> Oh, and way to miss the point, China: the language was not "pilfered"
> from the Norse sagas, any more than you "pilfered" the English language
> and ruthlessly used it in your novels, or the look and feel of London
> for New Crobouzon.
>
> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
>
> --
roots? Meiville is marxist-materialist and I'd imagine Tolkein's unabashed
Catholicism gets on his nerves.
Tab
Matt Ruff
>
> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
He didn't seem Jewish to me.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff
>
> Basically, China doesn't like the way Tolkein has been adopted as
> a cookie-cutter template by other authors, and doesn't like a lot of the
> attitudes implicit in Tolkein's writing. What makes him unusual is that
> he's willing to say so in public.
This is unusual?
-- M. Ruff
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> "Del Cotter" <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:PR8VTkEs...@branta.demon.co.uk...
>> I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
>> off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
>> the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
>> What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
>> So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
>> about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
>> Oh, and way to miss the point, China: the language was not "pilfered"
>> from the Norse sagas, any more than you "pilfered" the English language
>> and ruthlessly used it in your novels, or the look and feel of London
>> for New Crobouzon.
>> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
> roots? Meiville is marxist-materialist and I'd imagine Tolkein's unabashed
> Catholicism gets on his nerves.
Well, I'm an atheist anarchist/libertarian transhumanist, and I have
vast problems with Tolkien's sexism, racism, monarchism, and luddism.
He used a bland mish-mash of Norse and Catholic mythology, and managed
to lose the compelling parts of both sources. The premise that things
only get worse and that industrialization is all about evil people
raping the land and enslaving people is deeply offensive to me; it's the
opposite of everything I stand for.
They're still good stories, and the world's interesting in the few
places where he bothered to actually create something, but I certainly
can't take him very seriously. And while this isn't his fault, I
*really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such a blatant
ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy. After: Tolkien
ripoffs. Bah.
The first movie, at least, is better than the book.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Dorothy J Heydt
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
a blatant
>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
Some examples, please?
Dan Goodman
news:MPG.186590abb...@news-server.bigpond.net.au:
But it doesn't deserve _whacko_ criticism.
Bill Snyder
Lessee, he's a loathsome, troglodytic sub-hobbit who is obsessed with
gold and eats hobbit babies. Sounds straight from the Protocols of
the Elders of Mordor to me.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Sean O'Hara
>
> Mieville is extremely well read, particularly in the body
> of fantastic literature that preceded Tolkien. With Tolkien
> he sees a turning point in the genre away from things that
> are important. He sees a loss of engagement with the present
> world, and the failure to extend, to explore, and to deepen
> myth.
>
the modern world. I mean, it's not like Tolkien used the book
to make an anti-industrialization message with the very trees
in the forest rising up against nature destroying factories.
And jeez, you'd think a WWI veteran like Tolkien would've put
something about the evils of war into his writing. Instead we
get nothing more than light, escapist literature. Even the
characters are so one-dimensional. Sam and Frodo are
uncorruptable heroes who never put a foot wrong morally, while
Gollum is pure evil with no inner struggle.
Yeah, good call Meiville. You've seen what no one else has.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,858572,00.html
http://film.guardian.co.uk/lordoftherings/news/0,11016,618241,00.html
http://film.guardian.co.uk/lordoftherings/storynav/0,11016,621068,00.html
(What is it about Tolkien that puts a corncob up the critics' ass?)
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, in rec.arts.sf.written,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> said:
>
> >It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
> >anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
> >Jewish legends and folklore.
>
> He made both those two points on the radio programme, as if they were
> criticisms of Tolkien, like this:
>
> 1) Tolkien took the name 'golem', but Gollum is nothing like a golem;
> 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else from Jewish legend and folklore,
> just that one word.
>
"The Silmarillion" follows the standard Judaic myth for the
creation of man. (Well, okay, the myth's older than Judaism, but
the other religions that used it are dead.)
> He sounded so sure I thought I'd better check in case there was some
> note in Tolkien's papers to that effect.
>
Nothing I can remember in the Letters or HoME indicates that
"Gollum" is derived from "golem" though the place to look would
be the annotated "Hobbit" which I don't have.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> Well, I'm an atheist anarchist/libertarian transhumanist, and I have
> vast problems with Tolkien's sexism, racism, monarchism, and luddism.
The monarchism and luddism are pretty obvious, and I've heard the
arguments for racism though I don't agree with them, but sexism?
LotR contains Eowyn the Warrior Princess and she's a pale shadow
of Luthien from "The Silmarillion," a woman who makes Xena look
like a helpless little girl. How is that indicative of sexism?
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 15:41:46 GMT, Matt Ruff
> <storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Del Cotter wrote:
> >>
> >> Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
> >
> >He didn't seem Jewish to me.
>
> Lessee, he's a loathsome, troglodytic sub-hobbit who is obsessed with
> gold and eats hobbit babies. Sounds straight from the Protocols of
> the Elders of Mordor to me.
>
http://www.jewsweek.com/aande/104.htm
--
Sean O'Hara
Richard Boye'
Well, having never actually read the Silmarillion (gasp), I will say
that I have always found Eowyn to be rather pathetic, in the end. Aside
from her pining away for Aragorn, her independence and spunk, the
qualities that make her most endearing to a modern reader are thoroughly
cheapened by the insinuation that she was wound up and spun off by Grima
Wormtongue, and that she's not really this valorous heroine after all
but more of a pliant, un-womanly freak. He gets credit for introducing
her and giving her a shining moment with one hand, but then tarnishes
her with the other.
I also think that although Galadriel had potential as this majestic
character, she does surprisingly little, and seems oddly subordinate to
Celeborn.
Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
characters to begin with.
--
Richard M. Boye' * wa...@webspan.net
Typing into the Void:
http://www.webspan.net/~waldo/books/blogger.html
"Some men lead lives of quiet desperation.
My desperation makes a pathetic whining sound."
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
The fact that when she's _healed_ and finds herself and goes out from
under the Shadow, she promptly rejects strength and fighting and settles
down to be a good wife and "love all things that grow"?
Not that I disapprove of the sentiment, mind you: but, well, it was the
only woman who kicked ass!
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
cd skogsberg
>In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such a
>> blatant ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>Some examples, please?
Dunsany. Lovecraft (though similar to Dunsany) in fantastic mode.
Clark Ashton Smith. E.R. Eddison. Beckford (_Vathek_). Several of
Edgar Allan Poe's works. William Hope Hodgson. Arthur Machen.
Some of these may depend on your definition of "fantasy", of course.
/cd
--
"Bob Dhole wants to put your brain in a canister."
-- Bill Walsh
Sean O'Hara
>
> Sean O'Hara wrote:
> >
> > The monarchism and luddism are pretty obvious, and I've heard the
> > arguments for racism though I don't agree with them, but sexism?
> > LotR contains Eowyn the Warrior Princess and she's a pale shadow
> > of Luthien from "The Silmarillion," a woman who makes Xena look
> > like a helpless little girl. How is that indicative of sexism?
>
> Well, having never actually read the Silmarillion (gasp),
The story of Beren and Luthien is about a girl who goes off with
her dog to rescue her boyfriend from the clutches of the Dark
Lord Morgoth.
> I will say
> that I have always found Eowyn to be rather pathetic, in the end. Aside
> from her pining away for Aragorn, her independence and spunk, the
> qualities that make her most endearing to a modern reader are thoroughly
> cheapened by the insinuation that she was wound up and spun off by Grima
> Wormtongue, and that she's not really this valorous heroine after all
> but more of a pliant, un-womanly freak. He gets credit for introducing
> her and giving her a shining moment with one hand, but then tarnishes
> her with the other.
>
I thought the spell was largely broken when she decided to disobey
her uncle and ride with the Rohirrim.
> I also think that although Galadriel had potential as this majestic
> character, she does surprisingly little, and seems oddly subordinate to
> Celeborn.
>
Huh? Celeborn is a cipher who struck me as completely pussy-
whipped. Galadriel is tarnished goods insofar as she disobeyed
the gods 9000 years ago and can't work up the nerve to go back
and face them, despite the fact that they've said all's good.
> Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
> characters to begin with.
>
There's not a lot of room for them unless Tolkien added more
female warriors or put one in the Fellowship, which wouldn't
really fit with the pseudo-medieval setting.
--
Sean O'Hara
Bill Snyder
Betcha they get sued for it, too. But then I still nurse a grudge
from long, long ago when Infocom was forced to changed the name of the
_New Zork Times_ newsletter to _The Status Line_ by a big-city paper
with a similar name, the _New Dork Slimes_ or something like that.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Sean O'Hara <darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> said
=Apart= from jealousy, you mean? 8>.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Richard Shewmaker
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
>>>I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such a
>>>blatant ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>
>>Some examples, please?
>
> Dunsany. Lovecraft (though similar to Dunsany) in fantastic mode.
> Clark Ashton Smith. E.R. Eddison. Beckford (_Vathek_). Several of
> Edgar Allan Poe's works. William Hope Hodgson. Arthur Machen.
>
> Some of these may depend on your definition of "fantasy", of course.
>
> /cd
Uh ... I don't think this was about who Tolkien ripped off, but who
ripped off him. See "post-Tolkien fantasy" wording above.
That said, in response to Dorothy's question, I first read Tolkien as a
kid (well, actually my dad read it to me, except the last third of "The
Return of the King"), starting when I was nine or ten. My dad began with
"The Hobbit" and then went through the trilogy. It was my first "real"
book and definitely had a major impact on my serious reading interest
and some of the kinds of fiction I like. In any case....
I grabbed Brook's "The Sword of Shannara" when it came out in '77, based
entirely on the cover, which identified it for me as something along the
lines of the LotR books. Even then, as a kid, I was horrified by it
because I felt it was such a blatant ripoff of Tolkien's world. I kept
the book until the next one came out (Elfstones), borrowed, not bought
it, thought even less of it, and then did something I've almost never
done: I threw my copy of TSoS into the garbage.
Now that was a WHILE ago, but I still recall a scene in it in which the
good guys go underground and are attacked (I think on the way out,
instead of in) by a big, messy, mostly unseen thing in the water which
tries to grab them with its tentacles. Nuff said, no? I don't remember
any other details well enough to comment on them, but I know I found
most of it very derivative.
As I grew older I moved toward the SF stuff instead (and now read
fantasy rarely -- it has to be very well written or be working out some
important ideas), but I still remember reading Robert Jordan's "The Eye
of the World" and thought it was also so derivative that I've never
since read a Jordon book. I poked inside the first Eddings book at a
bookstore, read the jacket, and politely put it back. I've not read any
of his books, so I don't know if they're Tolkien-derivative, but my
sneaking suspicion is that I'd think they were if I tried one.
I know there have been others, but the only one of those I can recall is
"Dragonworld" by B. Preiss and J. M. Reaves. I just pulled it off the
shelf and there's a Frodo clone on the cover. Erk. Only read that once.
The fact that I didn't toss it must mean it didn't bug me as much as the
Brooks book.
--
"Listen -- I know you're a little upset, but you've got to let it go, or
... or get over it -- pick one of those, any one."
-- Robin Williams, "Toys"
Richard Shewmaker
Err ... hmm. Having a token hottie or two does not a non-sexist book
make. I personally would not use the sexist lable, because I don't think
it really fits this shoe (or shew). I do not believe it was Tolkien's
intent to write a book showing how unimportant women are to "getting
important things done," I think that occurred simply because of the
general environment he grew up and lived in. Hell, back in the insurance
brokerage industry in the 70s there still were leviathan throw-backs (we
called them Jurassic Brokers) who were horrified at the idea of women in
the workplace (with the exception of window dressing receptionists and
personal secretaries, all of whom had coffee delivery as part of the job
description). These were the same guys who left for lunch at 11:00 and
came back around 13h30, scarlet in the face, and 30 seconds in the
elevator with just one would get you mildly buzzed from the fumes -- or
puking from the smell.) I don't have any problem with Tolkien's books
from an "oh, bad: sexist" perspective -- it represents a mind-set of an
era and is valuable in part because of what it reveals. I'll always love
Tolkien's books -- for what they are, not evaluating them by current
standards or perceptions. I also have heard Miéville speak and what he
said about Tolkien was very interesting, well-thought out, and I agreed
with all of it. That doesn't stop me from liking the books. Miéville's
writing and what I could surmise about his background, intelligence, and
knowledge -- which clearly comes from reading and seriously analyzing a
huge quantity of fiction, non-fiction and academic texts -- impressed me
more than I can say. I was equally surprised to find that he's a really
nice, unassuming guy in person. Don't let appearances mislead you!
OK, so, w/reference to Tolkien and sexism, there's an element which
simply shouts itself through the books: there are practically speaking
no women in them. Adventure and war and solving things is done by men or
male creatures. Heck, the female Ents all picked up and left. I don't
remember a female dwarf. No female orcs. Not ONE female balrog. Sorry,
couldn't resist. I have not read the books lately, but I don't even
recall a single female Hobbit! Men and Elves had token female objects --
Galadriel, Arwen, Eowyn -- but they were more decorative than useful,
and they never actually ran things (Manwë forbid!). Galadriel and Arwen
were beautiful but did not, in my recollection, give orders or provide
direction to what the "boys" were doing and did not appear overall to
affect events directly. Eowyn was a Brunhilda-type figure who had to
step up to the plate due to the lack of strong male figure in her family
(or enough of them), but she dropped that like a hot potato as soon as
she could. I felt that was a cautionary tale illustrating what may when
men get too indecisive and wimpy: a strong, smart woman could step in,
in desperation, maybe even do courageous things, but, let's face it, she
wants girly stuff and flowers and kids if given the opportunity. Like
Brunhilda, ultimately what she really wished for was the studly, way
more powerful hero figure to give her the high hard one.
Oddly enough, the first time I noticed the lack of female characters was
when I read The Secret Diaries of Cassandra Claire at
http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/. I thought they were hilarious.
What we're discussing was what she used to form her basic premise.
There's one missing from the list, Elrond's entry, which can be read in
her original diary (there's a link for that on the page listed above);
it was one of the side-splitting ones for me. Example: "Fellowship
leaving tomorrow. Decided to give Pippin goodbye tour of Rivendell. In
process, purple dress got all stretched out of shape. Hope Arwen does
not notice -- she gets so grabby about her things, and since they've
closed the Gap of Rohan, probably no way to get another dress like it."
Ah well, I'm fired up for the movie on the 18th (have my ticket), and
I'm hoping Ms. Claire continues on after seeing "The Two Towers."
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I also have heard Miéville speak and what he
> said about Tolkien was very interesting, well-thought out, and I agreed
> with all of it. That doesn't stop me from liking the books. Miéville's
> writing and what I could surmise about his background, intelligence, and
> knowledge -- which clearly comes from reading and seriously analyzing a
> huge quantity of fiction, non-fiction and academic texts -- impressed me
> more than I can say. I was equally surprised to find that he's a really
> nice, unassuming guy in person. Don't let appearances mislead you!
All of this I can confirm. If anything, Mieville's _rant_ was so
stimulating and reasonable that it reconciled me with Tolkien. He's
smart, he's interesting, and he does not get nasty for the comic value
of it. It's obvious that Tolkien bugs him and it's obvious that he can
discuss this at length with people who adore Tolkien _and not sneer or
talk down to them_.
Richard Boye'
>
> Richard Boye' wrote:
> >
> > Sean O'Hara wrote:
[...]
> > I will say
> > that I have always found Eowyn to be rather pathetic, in the end. Aside
> > from her pining away for Aragorn, her independence and spunk, the
> > qualities that make her most endearing to a modern reader are thoroughly
> > cheapened by the insinuation that she was wound up and spun off by Grima
> > Wormtongue, and that she's not really this valorous heroine after all
> > but more of a pliant, un-womanly freak. He gets credit for introducing
> > her and giving her a shining moment with one hand, but then tarnishes
> > her with the other.
> >
> I thought the spell was largely broken when she decided to disobey
> her uncle and ride with the Rohirrim.
Hmmm. I don't know - I haven't read them recently enough to comment. I
*really* intended to re-read them *last* year in preparation for the
movie, and let it slide until this year, and well...
Sigh.
> > I also think that although Galadriel had potential as this majestic
> > character, she does surprisingly little, and seems oddly subordinate to
> > Celeborn.
> >
> Huh? Celeborn is a cipher who struck me as completely pussy-
> whipped.
I can only ruminate on the the scene in Lothlorien - she would stop
speaking when he started up, and seemed to have to constantly nudge and
correct him as he spoke.
> > Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
> > characters to begin with.
> >
> There's not a lot of room for them unless Tolkien added more
> female warriors or put one in the Fellowship, which wouldn't
> really fit with the pseudo-medieval setting.
Yeah, but I dunno, it would be perfectly in keeping to show a lady
holding a keep in the nam eof her campiagning husband, withstanding
siege etc.
It's not even that I have gripes with the quality of the female
characters in the series, but they barely appear on the pages.
Whatever. I think I need to reread them soon to have a more informed
impression.
Stewart Robert Hinsley
<notint...@nospamforme.moc> writes
>Heck, the female Ents all picked up and left. I don't
>remember a female dwarf. No female orcs. Not ONE female balrog. Sorry,
Shelob. Not exactly a Balrog, but of the same order.
>couldn't resist. I have not read the books lately, but I don't even
>recall a single female Hobbit!
IIRC, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Rose Cotton, Elanor Fairbairn, Farmer
Maggot's wife. All admittedly minor characters.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
Richard Shewmaker
Excellent! Thanks. Probably part of the reason I can't remember the
Hobbit women at this point is because they were so minor. Surprisingly I
do remember three of them, but E Fairbairn I don't at all.
// smacks head about Shelob //
Don't know how I forgot HER. Glad I've not seen what they'll do with her
in a trailer.
Sean O'Hara
>
> Sean O'Hara wrote:
> >
> > Huh? Celeborn is a cipher who struck me as completely pussy-
> > whipped.
>
> I can only ruminate on the the scene in Lothlorien - she would stop
> speaking when he started up, and seemed to have to constantly nudge and
> correct him as he spoke.
>
the Man but really couldn't find his ass if he sat on his hands.
> > > Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
> > > characters to begin with.
> > >
> > There's not a lot of room for them unless Tolkien added more
> > female warriors or put one in the Fellowship, which wouldn't
> > really fit with the pseudo-medieval setting.
>
> Yeah, but I dunno, it would be perfectly in keeping to show a lady
> holding a keep in the nam eof her campiagning husband, withstanding
> siege etc.
>
Well, that's pretty much what Theoden sends Eowyn off to do
before she disobeys him. Other than that the only keeps we
see are the abandoned ones east of the Anduin.
> It's not even that I have gripes with the quality of the female
> characters in the series, but they barely appear on the pages.
>
And I'd counter that that's just the nature of the story -- these
are men on a quest in a civilization where the women stay home.
That doesn't say anything about Tolkien's opinion of women, as
the original poster was suggesting, only the role of women in
the societies of Middle Earth -- actually, the Manish society;
apart from Eowyn, the strong female characters are either Elvish
or half-Elvish.
> Whatever. I think I need to reread them soon to have a more informed
> impression.
Yes.
--
Sean O'Hara
David Tate
> I also think that although Galadriel had potential as this majestic
> character, she does surprisingly little, and seems oddly subordinate to
> Celeborn.
While I can see a number of different ways to make a case for sexism
in tLotR, this one really doesn't fly for me. I had exactly the
opposite reaction to the relationship between Galadriel and Celeborn,
to the point of wondering why Tolkien bothered to write Celeborn into
the story at all.
David Tate
Sean O'Hara
>
> Err ... hmm. Having a token hottie or two does not a non-sexist book
> make. I personally would not use the sexist lable, because I don't think
> it really fits this shoe (or shew). I do not believe it was Tolkien's
> intent to write a book showing how unimportant women are to "getting
> important things done," I think that occurred simply because of the
> general environment he grew up and lived in.
I don't think it's even that. Middle Earth of the Third Age is a
medieval world where women don't go running off on adventures --
this is quite different from Beleriand of the First Age where
women were often major players.
> OK, so, w/reference to Tolkien and sexism, there's an element which
> simply shouts itself through the books: there are practically speaking
> no women in them. Adventure and war and solving things is done by men or
> male creatures.
Yes, and? I find this like complaining about the dearth of female
characters in "All Quiet on the Western Front" -- some stories
just don't have major female roles.
> Heck, the female Ents all picked up and left. I don't
> remember a female dwarf.
I believe we only see two dwarves in all of LotR, so that's not
saying much. Even so, you'd never know since Tolkien said that
female dwarves look just like males, right down to the beard.
For all we know Thorin's companions were all women and Bilbo
lacked the knowledge of dwarven physiology to know this.
> No female orcs.
Probably because Sauron was keeping them all in Mordor as brood-
mares.
> Not ONE female balrog. Sorry,
> couldn't resist. I have not read the books lately, but I don't even
> recall a single female Hobbit!
Lobelia, Rosie, Elanor (whose role was severely reduced because
no one liked the epilogue, but can be glimpsed in one of the
"History of Middle Earth" books), and all the people listed in
the Hobbit family trees.
> Men and Elves had token female objects --
> Galadriel, Arwen, Eowyn -- but they were more decorative than useful,
> and they never actually ran things (Manwë forbid!).
You're forgetting Loreth from the Houses of Healing. Though she
has only a small part, she's portrayed as having deeper knowledge
of medicine than the learned healers of Minas Tirith.
> Galadriel and Arwen
> were beautiful but did not, in my recollection, give orders or provide
> direction to what the "boys" were doing and did not appear overall to
> affect events directly.
Keep in mind that most of Arwen's story is in the appendicies
since Tolkien felt the love story detracted from the main thrust
of the plot.
As for Galadriel, she was pretty clearly in charge of Lorien, and
though she doesn't order the Fellowship around, she offers wise
council.
> Eowyn was a Brunhilda-type figure who had to
> step up to the plate due to the lack of strong male figure in her family
> (or enough of them), but she dropped that like a hot potato as soon as
> she could. I felt that was a cautionary tale illustrating what may when
> men get too indecisive and wimpy: a strong, smart woman could step in,
> in desperation, maybe even do courageous things, but, let's face it, she
> wants girly stuff and flowers and kids if given the opportunity. Like
> Brunhilda, ultimately what she really wished for was the studly, way
> more powerful hero figure to give her the high hard one.
>
See, this I don't buy into at all. Eowyn is a strong female
character no matter how you look at her, and she was attracted
to men equally strong -- as opposed to Galadriel who's quite
strong, but settled for a doofus. I don't recall anything that
said she turned into a frilly girly-girl after she met Faramir.
You also forgot Shelob and Goldberry -- okay, Goldberry was a
ditz, but so was her husband.
But more importantly, you're looking at only part of Tolkien's
work. If you go back to the Silmarillion, you'll find dozens of
strong women, from Yavanna to Ungoliant to Luthien to Haleth.
Note that none of the female warriors during the War of the
Silmarils could be described as Brunhildes.
--
Sean O'Hara
Maureen O'Brien
character.
Re: Eowyn
So...why is it that if Sam retires from the military to get married,
raise crops and kids, and aid in civic reconstruction and government,
that makes him a nice decent Hobbit of means; but if Eowyn retires from
the military to get married, raise herbs and kids, become a doctor, and
aid in civic reconstruction and government, she's a wimp and a traitor
to her sex?
Maureen
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
> Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
> a blatant
>>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
> Some examples, please?
Just off the top of my head:
Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more. Original fantasy worlds
were the norm at that time; however badly written, at least they weren't
ripping anyone off.
Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
Joel Baxter
> Richard Boye' wrote:
>
>>Sean O'Hara wrote:
>>
>>>There's not a lot of room for them unless Tolkien added more
>>>female warriors or put one in the Fellowship, which wouldn't
>>>really fit with the pseudo-medieval setting.
>>
>>Yeah, but I dunno, it would be perfectly in keeping to show a lady
>>holding a keep in the nam eof her campiagning husband, withstanding
>>siege etc.
>>
>
> Well, that's pretty much what Theoden sends Eowyn off to do
> before she disobeys him. Other than that the only keeps we
> see are the abandoned ones east of the Anduin.
IMO the above is touching on the main point w.r.t. women in LotR. The
type of myth Tolkien was telling is male-centric in general, and
particularly in the action roles. He was interested (or even obsessed)
with a particular form or type, and he demonstrably had no interest in
"updating it" to appeal to any more modern sensibilities, feminist or other.
He also would not have been interested in leaving the mileu of M.E. more
or less intact but awkwardly inserting token female characters into
various spots; indeed I doubt that would even occur to him.
Now, Eowyn is a fine character ("For living or dark undead, I will smite
you, if you touch him." ... love that scene and that line). The carping
I've heard about why she doesn't "count" as a strong female character is
either based on assertions that are incorrect when you check the text,
or else is done with some very dubious stretching beyond the text. But
Tolkien didn't put in her in the books as a nod to feminism; Eowyn is
the archetypal "warrior maid who disguises herself as a man to do great
deeds", and I'm 100% sure that it is those credentials that got her the
part, not an authorial desire for a token swordbabe.
Tolkien was not what a 21st century westerner would call "feminist", but
he didn't seem to be misogynistic either, as any sane person would
define the term. (Which of course doesn't stop most Internet arguments
about this issue from polarizing around those two assertions.) His
books don't express any hatred or contempt toward women. Even though
the number and roles of female characters in LotR are not what we would
expect in a novel with a modern setting, or even (right or wrong) in a
novel with an ancient setting written by a modern writer, those
characters are treated with respect by the other characters and by the
author.
As far as I'm concerned, that fulfills any "responsibility" it might
have to the reader in this issue. LotR is just one work, albeit a
popular one, and like any single work it does not bear the
responsibility of being representative of every aspect of life across
all time. It only has to be true to the tale it is telling. Since the
character gender balance in LotR is within the range appropriate for the
situation it presents, and since it portrays women sympathically (and as
"realistically", in the terms of mythic storytelling, as the male
characters) -- for me that's quite enough to take it out of "things
worth worrying about" territory. I promise that I read some Tepper
occasionally to counteract its influence. :-)
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
<darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com>:
> And I'd counter that that's just the nature of the story -- these
> are men on a quest in a civilization where the women stay home.
> That doesn't say anything about Tolkien's opinion of women, as
> the original poster was suggesting, only the role of women in
> the societies of Middle Earth -- actually, the Manish society;
> apart from Eowyn, the strong female characters are either Elvish
> or half-Elvish.
Actually, I'd say it does say something strong about his opinion of
women that men go on adventures and get to do cool stuff and save the
world, women stay home and bake brownies.
Elves are Elves, they aren't Human, and having a handful of powerful
Elf ladies looks to me like a way for him to make the Elves more
alien. His ideal, utopian society was the Shire, and female Hobbits are
a cipher.
He was a product of his time, but that doesn't mean I have to like his
time or the products of it.
Joel Baxter
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
> Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
> naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
Hyperbole? I'm not going to go to my bookshelf and actually start
counting authors unless you indicate that you're being serious. :-) I
do know that I can get dozens of authors out of my own collection alone.
Mike Schilling
"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:Xns92E38BA91FB...@209.98.13.60...
> Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote in news:PR8VTkEsbh+9EwN9
> @branta.demon.co.uk:
>
> >
> > I tuned in to BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth" programme, where they kicked
> > off by discussing, topically, the language in _Lord of the Rings_, and
> > the "expert" they brought in to talk about it was... China Miéville.
> > What, was Michael Moorcock busy?
> >
> > So it turned out to be just another opportunity for Miéville to rag on
> > about Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian" style etc.
> >
> > Oh, and way to miss the point, China: the language was not "pilfered"
> > from the Norse sagas, any more than you "pilfered" the English language
> > and ruthlessly used it in your novels, or the look and feel of London
> > for New Crobouzon.
> >
> > Anybody know if Gollum actually was stolen from "golem", by the way?
> >
>
> It's highly unlikely, considering that 1) Gollum is not a golem, or
> anything similar; 2) Tolkien didn't take anything else I know of from
> Jewish legends and folklore.
And that in either the preface or one of the appendices, Tolkien goes out of
his way to say that none of his invented languages owe anything to Hebrew
(making me wonder where the plurals in "-im" come from.)
Taki Kogoma
<notint...@nospamforme.moc>, to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
>Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
>> In article <3DFBAF73...@nospamforme.moc>, Richard Shewmaker
>> <notint...@nospamforme.moc> writes
>>>recall a single female Hobbit!
>>
>> IIRC, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Rose Cotton, Elanor Fairbairn, Farmer
>> Maggot's wife. All admittedly minor characters.
Also mentioned in passing would be Belladonna Took and Primula
Brandybuck.
>Excellent! Thanks. Probably part of the reason I can't remember the
>Hobbit women at this point is because they were so minor. Surprisingly I
>do remember three of them, but E Fairbairn I don't at all.
Elanor's maiden name was, AFAICT, 'Gardner'.
Gym "At the end of the narrative proper, she's about 19 months old." Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
David Tate
> cd skogsberg wrote:
> > Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >
> >>In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
> >>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> >>>I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such a
> >>>blatant ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>
> >>Some examples, please?
> >
> > Dunsany. Lovecraft (though similar to Dunsany) in fantastic mode.
> > Clark Ashton Smith. E.R. Eddison. Beckford (_Vathek_). Several of
> > Edgar Allan Poe's works. William Hope Hodgson. Arthur Machen.
> >
> > Some of these may depend on your definition of "fantasy", of course.
>
> ripped off him. See "post-Tolkien fantasy" wording above.
I (and cd) took Nancy to be asking for examples of the "wide range of
fantasy" that ostensibly existed pre-Tolkien.
The problem, for me, is that Dunsany, Lovecraft, C A Smith, Eddison,
et al don't really look like a very wide range, compared with what we
have now. I think the only way to make a case that post-Tolkien
fantasy is narrow and derivative of Tolkien is to ignore anything that
isn't mass-market SF-ghetto marketed. If you want to blame slavish
imitation of Tolkien for the *existence* of that marketing ghetto,
that's perhaps more plausible -- but, again, hardly Tolkien's fault.
--
David Tate
"If our minds were so simple that we could understand them, we would
be so simple that we couldn't." -- Emerson Martindale Pugh
Mornir
<darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>Exactly. He's your standard dim-bulb sitcom dad who thinks he's
>the Man but really couldn't find his ass if he sat on his hands.
Er. No. Not at all. All you see really is that one bit in
the LotR, but he's hardly dim. Remember, he was ranked among the Wise
by _Gandalf_. There's some backstory that describes Celeborn, and
none of it portrays him as 'dimbulb'. The episode in LotR was
necessary to establish Galadriel's strength of will and intelligent;
it isn't meant to make him be an idiot. :)
--
<Mornir - mor...@despammed.com - http://www.livejournal.com/~booklog/>
Brenda W. Clough
>
>For all we know Thorin's companions were all women and Bilbo
>lacked the knowledge of dwarven physiology to know this.
>
Dear me, if THE HOBBIT were not a children's book what a very great deal
you could do with this! And an entire new spin to the Harvard Lampoon's
BORED OF THE RINGS positively leaps to the brain.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
Read my novella "May Be Some Time"
Complete at http://www.analogsf.com/0202/maybesometime.html
My web page is at http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Brenda W. Clough
For genealogical reasons, obviously. Galadriel needs a daughter so that
Elrond can marry her and sire Arwen. Poor old Celeborn, a mere
stud-muffin and boy toy...
Brenda W. Clough
>Sat, 14 Dec 2002 15:48:20 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com>:
>
>>In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
>>>
>>a blatant
>>
>>>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>>>
>>Some examples, please?
>>
>
> Just off the top of my head:
>
> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
>Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more. Original fantasy worlds
>were the norm at that time; however badly written, at least they weren't
>ripping anyone off.
>
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
>
Uh? How about REPLAY by Ken Grimwood, or LUNATICS by Bradley Denton, or
WATERSHIP DOWN?
David Bilek
>Sat, 14 Dec 2002 15:48:20 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com>:
>> In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>> Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>>> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
>> a blatant
>>>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>> Some examples, please?
>
> Just off the top of my head:
>
> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
>Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more. Original fantasy worlds
>were the norm at that time; however badly written, at least they weren't
>ripping anyone off.
>
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
>Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
>as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
>Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
>Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
This is utterly absurd.
First of all, "Edgar Allen Poe"? Why not add in every author of the
last thousand years who wrote something remotely fantastic and compare
it to the last 45? Edgar Allen Poe, indeed.
Secondly, most of Leiber's output is post-Tolkein. Virtually
*everything* Norton did is post Tolkien. Peter Beagle?!? What the
hell did Peter Beagle write before Tolkien?? Beagle wasn't even BORN
until 1939. Was the guy writing novels in his infancy? If you're
going to post ill-considered rants, try to at least post one that
makes some sense!
I'll give you Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, Burroughs, Peake, and Eddison.
Ooooh 6 authors. Please list a few of the many, many more?
As to current authors... Guy Kay, Pamela Dean, Megan Lindholm,
Mieville and Gentle (who you noted), Charles de Lint, Tim Powers,
Jonathan Carroll, Blaylock, William Goldman, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe
(how the hell could you not mention Gene Wolfe?), Jacqueline Carey,
Glen Cook, Barry Hughart, Brust, Zelazny, Bull, Bujold, Le Guin, and
thats just, as you say, off the top of my head. Extremely variable
quality, but they aren't Tolkien clones. So call it 20 right off the
bat.
You want to rethink your position perhaps?
-David
Joel Baxter
> So...why is it that if Sam retires from the military to get married,
> raise crops and kids, and aid in civic reconstruction and government,
> that makes him a nice decent Hobbit of means; but if Eowyn retires from
> the military to get married, raise herbs and kids, become a doctor, and
> aid in civic reconstruction and government, she's a wimp and a traitor
> to her sex?
:-) A rhetorical question, of course, but I'll take a shot at it anyway...
So, let's see. Tolkien's white-hat characters generally believe in the
superiority of peace and cultivating the land and staying at home, as
opposed to fighting and travelling. Yet, as you say, when Tolkien has
Eowyn in particular express these sentiments, it causes a little uproar.
Why izzat?
To begin with, this is partly because Eowyn is (incorrectly IMO, cf. my
other post) being made to bear the banner of feminism. When she happens
to have some thoughts that aren't gender-revolutionary, it disappoints
some folks because that weakens her as an iconic role-busting female.
But more generally... I think that as modern consumers-of-entertainment
we're conditioned to expect that the authors of entertainment will
intentionally manipulate their treatment of gender and race to "send a
message" to their audience. If the author is not, as it turns out,
engaged in doing that, we may get the wrong idea.
When the most prominent female character in LotR figures out what she
wants to do with her life, she expresses the traditionally feminine
ideal of being a peaceful homebody; therefore Tolkien must be trying to
tell us, through the representative-of-all-women character of Eowyn,
that the traditional feminine roles are all that a woman can aspire to.
Bad! And when several of the male characters give up adventuring to
become peaceful homebodies, he's telling us that that men can break out
of their traditional gender roles. Good!
Well, not really. It's clear from LotR as well as Tolkien's other
writing that the rightness of giving up war to return home and tend your
garden is in fact Tolkien's own firmly held opinion, not too surprising
for someone who had experienced war first-hand. In having his
characters, including a woman, express this ideal, he's not trying to
deal with our expectations about gender roles. He's just saying he
thinks it's a good idea, for anyone. Unfortunately this is apparently a
little too straightforward. :-)
Joe Mason
> So...why is it that if Sam retires from the military to get married,
> raise crops and kids, and aid in civic reconstruction and government,
> that makes him a nice decent Hobbit of means; but if Eowyn retires from
> the military to get married, raise herbs and kids, become a doctor, and
> aid in civic reconstruction and government, she's a wimp and a traitor
> to her sex?
Not to mention that the war-hero she married did exactly the same thing.
Joe
Sean O'Hara
>
> Sat, 14 Dec 2002 19:45:42 -0500, Sean O'Hara
> <darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com>:
> > And I'd counter that that's just the nature of the story -- these
> > are men on a quest in a civilization where the women stay home.
> > That doesn't say anything about Tolkien's opinion of women, as
> > the original poster was suggesting, only the role of women in
> > the societies of Middle Earth -- actually, the Manish society;
> > apart from Eowyn, the strong female characters are either Elvish
> > or half-Elvish.
>
> Actually, I'd say it does say something strong about his opinion of
> women that men go on adventures and get to do cool stuff and save the
> world, women stay home and bake brownies.
>
you look at the Silmarillion where women do go on adventures.
> Elves are Elves, they aren't Human,
Actually, Elves are biologically human. The difference between
Elves and Men lies in the soul.
> and having a handful of powerful
> Elf ladies looks to me like a way for him to make the Elves more
> alien.
And yet Elves are generally portrayed as superior to Men.
> His ideal, utopian society was the Shire, and female Hobbits are
> a cipher.
>
You mean like Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Bilbo's shrewish cousin
who stood up to Saruman's orc-meN?
> He was a product of his time, but that doesn't mean I have to like his
> time or the products of it.
>
No, but before you go jumping on Tolkien for being sexist or
racist you should actually look at what he said and wrote.
--
Sean O'Hara
James Burbidge
<darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>Richard Shewmaker wrote:
>>
>
>> Men and Elves had token female objects --
>> Galadriel, Arwen, Eowyn -- but they were more decorative than useful,
>> and they never actually ran things (Manwë forbid!).
>
>You're forgetting Loreth from the Houses of Healing. Though she
>has only a small part, she's portrayed as having deeper knowledge
>of medicine than the learned healers of Minas Tirith.
Ioreth.
In addition, the history of Numenor suggests not only that the
Numenoreans eventually accepted reigning Queens, but that if tehy'd
done so in the first place, the Fall of Numenor might not have taken
place (Elendil is a descendant of the princess in question).
>
>> Galadriel and Arwen
>> were beautiful but did not, in my recollection, give orders or provide
>> direction to what the "boys" were doing and did not appear overall to
>> affect events directly.
>
>Keep in mind that most of Arwen's story is in the appendicies
>since Tolkien felt the love story detracted from the main thrust
>of the plot.
>
>As for Galadriel, she was pretty clearly in charge of Lorien, and
>though she doesn't order the Fellowship around, she offers wise
>council.
>
Galadriel basically knocks down the walls of Dol Guldur, although we
don't actually see her do it. She also seems to have been one of the
original convenors of the White Council, not just a member.
After we get all the information about her, in the _Silmarillion_, it
turns out that she outclassed, in terms of power and lineage together,
probably every other person we meet in LOTR except for Gandalf and
Saruman. Like Elrond and Gandalf, she wields a Ring of Power. Unlike
Elrond, she _also_ has all the power associated with an Exile from the
Blessed Realm. She's from way up the ladder as the Elves reckon
nobility -- closer to Finwe and Ingwe than Celeborn is to Elwe
Singollo. She's considered to have been about even with _Feanor_,
albeit with different gifts. About the only thing Elrond has that she
doesn't is descent from a Maia.
Like all the Elves by the end of the Third Age, her strength is
basically defensive most of the time.
>> Eowyn was a Brunhilda-type figure who had to
>> step up to the plate due to the lack of strong male figure in her family
>> (or enough of them), but she dropped that like a hot potato as soon as
>> she could. I felt that was a cautionary tale illustrating what may when
>> men get too indecisive and wimpy: a strong, smart woman could step in,
>> in desperation, maybe even do courageous things, but, let's face it, she
>> wants girly stuff and flowers and kids if given the opportunity. Like
>> Brunhilda, ultimately what she really wished for was the studly, way
>> more powerful hero figure to give her the high hard one.
>>
>See, this I don't buy into at all. Eowyn is a strong female
>character no matter how you look at her, and she was attracted
>to men equally strong -- as opposed to Galadriel who's quite
>strong, but settled for a doofus. I don't recall anything that
>said she turned into a frilly girly-girl after she met Faramir.
>
I'm not sure that it's entirely fair to consider Celeborn a doofus; we
don't see enough of him to be able to evaluate. Even Tolkien couldn't
make up his mind about Celeborn: he kept wavering between making him
an Exile and a Sindar.
>You also forgot Shelob and Goldberry -- okay, Goldberry was a
>ditz, but so was her husband.
>
>But more importantly, you're looking at only part of Tolkien's
>work. If you go back to the Silmarillion, you'll find dozens of
>strong women, from Yavanna to Ungoliant to Luthien to Haleth.
>Note that none of the female warriors during the War of the
>Silmarils could be described as Brunhildes.
--
James Burbidge jamesandma...@sympatico.ca
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
snip
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
>Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
>as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
>Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
>Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
Quite frankly, I think the Arthurian clone stuff trumps a lot of the
Tolkien clone stuff. As in if I come across the word "White Christ"
in a fantasy novel....yeppers, odds are pretty dang good it's Yet
Another Arthurian Extruded Fantasy Product.
And lessee if I can name *good* fantasy writers in at least the
half-dozen fold...
Joy Chant (one of those who seems to have faded away)
Glen Cook (everything fantasy he writes, including the Garretts)
Randall Garrett
C.J. Cherryh (one who sits both sf and fantasy sides)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Philip Pullman
Ursula K. LeGuin
Ray Bradbury
Charles de Lint
Diane Duane
...and that's just a start, without flirting with the magic realism
stuff too deeply or wandering over to my bookshelf for more.
jrw
Dorothy J Heydt
Envy?
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Dorothy J Heydt
>>> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such a
>>> blatant ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>
>>Some examples, please?
>
>Clark Ashton Smith. E.R. Eddison. Beckford (_Vathek_). Several of
>Edgar Allan Poe's works. William Hope Hodgson. Arthur Machen.
Yes, those were among the ones I was thinking of, when I tried to
think of examples of pre-Tolkien fantasy. (You missed, or anyway
didn't include, George MacDonald.)
>Some of these may depend on your definition of "fantasy", of course.
Oh, I'm willing to consider them fantasy. It's merely that I
find them all really boring.
Yes, all of the above that I have read (those I haven't include
Beckford and Machen).
I can think of some pre-Tolkien fantasy that isn't boring. C. L.
Moore. Henry Kuttner. Leigh Brackett. Any combination of the
foregoing under whatever pseudonym it was this week. L. Sprague
de Camp and/or Fletcher Pratt. Oh yes, I'll stretch the definition
a smidgen and include T. H. White's Arthurian stories.
And I can think of a whole lot of post-Tolkien fantasy that tries
to imitate Tolkien and is boring (Joy Chant, Lloyd Alexander) and
some that doesn't and still is boring (Stephen Donaldson e.g.,
though I did manage to struggle through Mordaunt's Need for the
sake of a couple sympathetic characters).
So it's a YMMV thing, I guess, and I can't go with your
pre-Tolkien good, post-Tolkien bad division. But if it works for
you...
Dorothy J Heydt
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
>Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more.
_Distinguo._ Peter Beagle can't be counted as pre-Tolkien. Not
only is he approximately my age (and I was a child when _LotR_
came out), he has written of Tolkien's considerable influence on
him.
And yet he doesn't write like a Tolkien rip-off, does he?
Sean O'Hara
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
>
> Sat, 14 Dec 2002 15:48:20 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com>:
> > In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
> > Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
> >> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
> > a blatant
> >>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
> > Some examples, please?
>
> Just off the top of my head:
>
> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
> Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe,
Come on, if you're going to include Poe why not toss in M.G.
Lewis, Robert W. Chambers, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson,
and anyone else who wrote a story that's remotely fantastic?
> Andre Norton,
ISFDb shows her earliest work published the year after "The
Hobbit" with the vast majority coming after "Lord of the Rings."
> Fritz Leiber,
Also started after the Hobbit came out, though a large chunk of
his work appeared before "Lord of the Rings."
> Peter Beagle, and many many more.
Peter S. Beagle didn't publish anything until two years after
LotR.
> Original fantasy worlds
> were the norm at that time; however badly written, at least they weren't
> ripping anyone off.
>
Funny, I always thought Tolkien and Lovecraft were derivative of
(though much better than) Dunsany. And wasn't the Cthulhu Mythos
in full swing before LotR hit shelves?
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
> Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
> naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
>
This says more about your reading habits than the state of
modern fantasy. On my shelves, I have:
Richard Adams
Clive Barker
Angela Carter
John Crowley
John M. Ford
Neil Gaiman
Richard Matheson
Salman Rushdie
Colson Whitehead
Robert Anton Wilson
Roger Zelazny
I could probably throw in Stephen King whose Dark Tower series
is a melange of so many science fiction, fantasy, and comic book
tropes that the result isn't like any of the antecedents, and
maybe even Pratchett's Discworld books.
> Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
> as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
> Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
> Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
>
Probably true -- though the Tolkien influence on EFP seems to
be on the wane -- but so what? Remember Sturgeon's Law -- 90%
of everything is crap. If EFP weren't glutting the shelves we'd
have a more varied choice of crap, but it'd still be crap.
--
Sean O'Hara
Dorothy J Heydt
>
>Elanor's maiden name was, AFAICT, 'Gardner'.
Well, no, it was Gamgee. She was Sam and Rosie's first born,
born in 1420 and beautiful and golden-haired like many of the
children of that year. The Gardner family line descended from
her.
Dorothy J Heydt
Joyce Reynolds-Ward <j...@aracnet.com> wrote:
>
>And lessee if I can name *good* fantasy writers in at least the
>half-dozen fold...
>
>Joy Chant (one of those who seems to have faded away)
Now, see, she was one of the great disappointments of my life.
Her first book came out and I thought Hooray, this sounds as if
it's going to be another _LotR_, and it not only wasn't (and few
of us can attain so high), it was just bad bad bad, it stank on
i
<cue Opus delivering his rant that ends with "but lordy, it
wasn't good.>
Sean O'Hara
>
> Sean O'Hara wrote:
>
> >
> >For all we know Thorin's companions were all women and Bilbo
> >lacked the knowledge of dwarven physiology to know this.
> >
>
> Dear me, if THE HOBBIT were not a children's book what a very great deal
> you could do with this! And an entire new spin to the Harvard Lampoon's
> BORED OF THE RINGS positively leaps to the brain.
>
the Discworld books.
--
Sean O'Hara
Craig Richardson
<darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>Yes, and? I find this like complaining about the dearth of female
>characters in "All Quiet on the Western Front" -- some stories
>just don't have major female roles.
It's neither written nor SF, but I once counted the number of lines of
dialogue female characters have in the movie "Glory". IIRC, it was
four.
--Craig
--
Managing the Devil Rays is something like competing on "Iron Chef",
and having Chairman Kaga reveal a huge ziggurat of lint.
Gary Huckabay, Baseball Prospectus Online, August 21, 2002
Craig Richardson
<clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>Sean O'Hara wrote:
>
>>
>>For all we know Thorin's companions were all women and Bilbo
>>lacked the knowledge of dwarven physiology to know this.
>>
>Dear me, if THE HOBBIT were not a children's book what a very great deal
>you could do with this! And an entire new spin to the Harvard Lampoon's
>BORED OF THE RINGS positively leaps to the brain.
Aye, and who knows what a skilled author such as, say, Terry
Pratchett, might do with such a theme?
Lois Tilton
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
Avram Davidson should be on any such list.
--
LT
tabu La Raza
"Brenda W. Clough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3DFBEC15...@erols.com...
Anyone mention Dictionary of the Khazars and Helprin's Winter Tale?
Keith Morrison
> Err ... hmm. Having a token hottie or two does not a non-sexist book
> make. I personally would not use the sexist lable, because I don't think
> it really fits this shoe (or shew). I do not believe it was Tolkien's
> intent to write a book showing how unimportant women are to "getting
> important things done," I think that occurred simply because of the
> general environment he grew up and lived in.
I think it was because he was writing a book concerning a group of mostly
male characters involved in a quest that involved mass battles of
medieval-level technology (you don't find many women present there in
real life either). When he was writing a book about the history of
Middle Earth (in _The Silmarrilion_) there are strong female characters
all over the place.
Do people complain about the lack of strong female characters in
"Das Boot"? I mean, couldn't Petersen have just thrown a woman
into the boat as navigtor or something?
--
Keith
Damien Neil
<mor...@despammed.com> wrote:
> Er. No. Not at all. All you see really is that one bit in
> the LotR, but he's hardly dim. Remember, he was ranked among the Wise
> by _Gandalf_. There's some backstory that describes Celeborn, and
> none of it portrays him as 'dimbulb'. The episode in LotR was
> necessary to establish Galadriel's strength of will and intelligent;
> it isn't meant to make him be an idiot. :)
Celeborn's problem is that no matter how wise he may be, he's got
Galadrial for a wife. Compared to her, /anyone/ is going to look like
a bit of a dim bulb.
- Damien
Damien Neil
> Err ... hmm. Having a token hottie or two does not a non-sexist book
> make. I personally would not use the sexist lable, because I don't think
> it really fits this shoe (or shew). I do not believe it was Tolkien's
> intent to write a book showing how unimportant women are to "getting
> important things done," I think that occurred simply because of the
> general environment he grew up and lived in.
...such as, perhaps, the trenches of WWI.
There are probably more female warriors in Tolkien's books than he ever
met in life.
- Damien
Stewart Robert Hinsley
>>Excellent! Thanks. Probably part of the reason I can't remember the
>>Hobbit women at this point is because they were so minor. Surprisingly I
>>do remember three of them, but E Fairbairn I don't at all.
>
>Elanor's maiden name was, AFAICT, 'Gardner'.
>
It's not obvious that the lower ranks of hobbit society consistently use
patrilineal surnames, and it's not clear that Samwise used Gardner as a
surname. According to the appendices his come-up-in-the-world
descendants went by the names of Gardner and Fairbairn. Fairbairn is a
eke-name of Elanor, and it says something of her stature that her
descendants took her eke-name, rather than her husband's surname.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
ph...@armstrong.invalid
Success.
Nothing excites the critics' jealous juices like success, especially
if they think it undeserved.
Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt
Steve Taylor
>> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>>Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>>naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
> Avram Davidson should be on any such list.
And R.A.Lafferty. And the strong vein of light, often urban, fantasy
that grew up around the fifties - all the magic shops you've never seen
before, the deals with the devil, the real pixies who only appear to
pixilated drinkers - Anthony Boucher, bits and pieces of William Tenn,
C.M. Kornbluth, Avram Davidson. Fritz Leiber - not the sword and sorcery
(though it's good) nor the the horror (though it's ok), but all the
oddball stuff that doesn't quite fit into any box (i.e. - The Winter
Flies, The Secret Songs).
> LT
Steve
Del Cotter
Joel Baxter <jba...@remove.this.neogeographica.com> said:
>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
>> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>> Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>> naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
>
>Hyperbole? I'm not going to go to my bookshelf and actually start
>counting authors unless you indicate that you're being serious. :-) I
>do know that I can get dozens of authors out of my own collection alone.
John Crowley and Gene Wolfe are missing for a start. And I'm not a
reader of fantasy, so my bookshelves are much harder to crib from.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead:sMajesty'sStarship:BrendaWCloughTheDoorsOfDeath&Life:LoisMcMast
erBujoldDiplomaticImmunity:NeilGaimanAmericanGods:GwynethJonesBoldAsLove
ToRead:KenMacLeodDarkLight:RobertCharlesWilsonBios:ChristopherPriestFugu
SteveM65
snip
> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
> Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
> naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
> Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
> as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
> Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
> Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
Post Tolkien good fantasy: Steven Brust, Roger Zelazny, Glenn Cook,
Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Jim Butcher, John Ford, Susan Cooper,
J.K. Rowlings, Dianne Wynne Jones. That's writers I can think of off
the top of my head between sips of coffee. There are many more, I'm
sure.
Tolkien didn't destroy fantasy. The Hobbit and tLotR are excellent
novels deserving of praise. As to imitators, "Imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery" has a lot of relevance here. And if thier
are a lot of imitations, the publishing world must see a market niche
that needs to be periodically filled.
Steve Moss
SteveM65
snip
> Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
> characters to begin with.
And this is bad how? Is there some qouta of necessary female
characters that must be included before a novel is considered
acceptable? Does that smae qouta apply to males?
Personally speaking, a novel is placed right back on the shelf if the
cover art features an armor clad but shapely woman waving around a
sword.
Steve Moss
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> In article <slrnavnorg....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
> Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>>Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
>>Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more.
> _Distinguo._ Peter Beagle can't be counted as pre-Tolkien. Not
> only is he approximately my age (and I was a child when _LotR_
> came out), he has written of Tolkien's considerable influence on
> him.
> And yet he doesn't write like a Tolkien rip-off, does he?
Ah, didn't check the dates on him. So move him to the other pile.
The fact remains, I can name far more pre- than post-, despite there
being far fewer fantasy books before Tolkien, and then there's the
endless legions of Tolkien-ripoff writers of the present.
Both in sheer numbers and per capita, "real fantasy" is being drowned
in a septic tank of Elfy-welfy crap.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
<darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com>:
> Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
>> Sat, 14 Dec 2002 15:48:20 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com>:
>> > In article <slrnavmkg7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>> > Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>> >> I *really* hate the way most of the post-Tolkien fantasy is such
>> > a blatant
>> >>ripoff of his work. Before: wide range of fantasy.
>> > Some examples, please?
>> Just off the top of my head:
>> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>> Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe,
> Come on, if you're going to include Poe why not toss in M.G.
> Lewis, Robert W. Chambers, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson,
> and anyone else who wrote a story that's remotely fantastic?
Because I was picking a handful of example authors, mostly in the
style I like - dark fantasy. It's not meant to be an all-inclusive
list, that's why I said "and many many more".
I knew you nattering fanwonks were gonna descend on any kind of list
and completely miss the point, but I did it anyway...
>> Post-Tolkien: Michael Moorcock, Robert Lynn Asprin, China Miéville,
>> Mary Gentle, Holly Lisle, and not many more. I'd have a hard time
>> naming a half-dozen original fantasy authors in the last 50 years.
> This says more about your reading habits than the state of
> modern fantasy. On my shelves, I have:
Again, I picked a handful of example authors. For every *original*
modern fantasy writer you can name, I can name another for the past and
a dozen Tolkien-ripoff artists for the present.
> I could probably throw in Stephen King whose Dark Tower series
> is a melange of so many science fiction, fantasy, and comic book
> tropes that the result isn't like any of the antecedents, and
> maybe even Pratchett's Discworld books.
Oh, great Cthulhu, way to completely miss the point. Pratchett is a
good writer, and I love his books, but he does nothing *BUT* parody
Tolkien-ripoff fantasy.
>> Meanwhile, I can look at any bookstore shelf and find hundreds of times
>> as many Extruded Fantasy Products, all of which have Elfy-Welfies,
>> Dwarfs, and all the other crud that makes Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough
>> Guide to Fantasyland_ so funny.
> Probably true -- though the Tolkien influence on EFP seems to
> be on the wane -- but so what? Remember Sturgeon's Law -- 90%
> of everything is crap. If EFP weren't glutting the shelves we'd
> have a more varied choice of crap, but it'd still be crap.
I *want* a more varied choice of crap.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> In article <3DFB83C6...@myrealbox.com>,
> Sean O'Hara <darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>(What is it about Tolkien that puts a corncob up the critics' ass?)
> Envy?
No. It's seeing all the attention lavished on one set of works, when
there's *all this other stuff* that's just as good or better.
And then when you *do* take a critical look at Tolkien, you find some
major flaws. The racism, sexism, luddism, and monarchism I mentioned
earlier. Given that he ripped off half his worldbuilding from Norse and
Catholic mythology, it turned out surprisingly good, but it could have
been even better if he'd been more inventive, and done less soulless
subcreation. His linguistics were pretty good, and he told a good
story despite his limitations. That's really the best I can say about
it. It's certainly not worth having him constantly praised by legions
of fans who'll then run out and buy 10,000 EFP clones of his books.
Sometimes, harsh criticism comes from envy. Most of the time, though,
it's because whatever's being criticised deserves it.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Sometimes, harsh criticism comes from envy. Most of the time, though,
> it's because whatever's being criticised deserves it.
And anyway, whatever the criticism may be dictated by, pointing out
motiviation does not negate the criticism itself. Envious critics can
still make good points.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Richard Boye' <wa...@webspan.net> wrote in message news:
>
> snip
>
> > Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
> > characters to begin with.
>
> And this is bad how? Is there some qouta of necessary female
> characters that must be included before a novel is considered
> acceptable? Does that smae qouta apply to males?
Well, dunno. Tends to make one suspect that women don't play a very
large part in the author's imagination. Personally, I rather like works
of fiction that don't remind me quite so often that all things bright
and noble are Not For Me. LOTR makes quite a point of telling me that if
I wish to protect the famous things that grow and live, like, _fighting_
for them, I'm at best pitifully sick.
Dorothy J Heydt
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>SteveM65 <gkl...@citlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Richard Boye' <wa...@webspan.net> wrote in message news:
>>
>> snip
>>
>> > Lastly, I also find it mildly telling that there is a paucity of female
>> > characters to begin with.
>>
>> And this is bad how? Is there some qouta of necessary female
>> characters that must be included before a novel is considered
>> acceptable? Does that smae qouta apply to males?
>
>Well, dunno. Tends to make one suspect that women don't play a very
>large part in the author's imagination.
This has been mentioned before, but it's primarily in _LotR_ that
there are not very many female characters. This is what you'd
expect. It's about the experiences of a small group of people in
a very large war. It gets to cover more ground because the small
group splits up and winds up fighting in several different
fields, but it's a very big war and most of it gets covered only
in chance references after the fact. Treebeard tells how the
Orcs attacked Lorien but couldn't get in because of the powers of
Celeborn and Galadriel. Tolkien could have written a whole 'nother
book about that phase of the war, but he didn't because he had
enough on his plate already. Similarly, the baddies attacked
Rivendell and were beaten off with great difficulty by the
combined forces of Elrond and his Elves and the Dwarves of the
Lonely Mountain. Nothing about that either, except in an
Appendix. Complaining that there are not very many females in
_LotR_ is like making the same complaint about _The Longest Day_.
As others have pointed out, in e.g. _The Silmarillion_ you'll
find lots of female characters, because it's a history of
Middle-Earth, not of one segment of one war.
Personally, I rather like works
>of fiction that don't remind me quite so often that all things bright
>and noble are Not For Me. LOTR makes quite a point of telling me that if
>I wish to protect the famous things that grow and live, like, _fighting_
>for them, I'm at best pitifully sick.
Well, I don't see it that way. Take Faramir as an example: he's
willing, he has been trained his whole life, to go out and fight
for the things that grow and live. He acknowledges, however,
that times when you don't have to fight for them, but can simply
tend them, are better times.
Matt Ruff
> Richard Boye' wrote:
>
>> Sean O'Hara wrote:
>>
>>> whipped.
>>
>> I can only ruminate on the the scene in Lothlorien - she would stop
>> speaking when he started up, and seemed to have to constantly nudge and
>> correct him as he spoke.
>
> Exactly. He's your standard dim-bulb sitcom dad who thinks he's
> the Man but really couldn't find his ass if he sat on his hands.
So you're saying Tolkien ripped off "Married with Children," too?
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff
>
> Re: Eowyn
>
> So...why is it that if Sam retires from the military to get married,
> raise crops and kids, and aid in civic reconstruction and government,
> that makes him a nice decent Hobbit of means; but if Eowyn retires from
> the military to get married, raise herbs and kids, become a doctor, and
> aid in civic reconstruction and government, she's a wimp and a traitor
> to her sex?
Because real men hug, but strong women break heads?
-- M. Ruff
Richard Shewmaker
> Sun, 15 Dec 2002 03:58:56 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com>:
>
>>In article <slrnavnorg....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>,
>>Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Pre-Tolkien: H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice
>>>Burroughs, Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, Edgar Allen Poe, Andre Norton,
>>>Fritz Leiber, Peter Beagle, and many many more.
>>
>>_Distinguo._ Peter Beagle can't be counted as pre-Tolkien. Not
>>only is he approximately my age (and I was a child when _LotR_
>>came out), he has written of Tolkien's considerable influence on
>>him.
>>And yet he doesn't write like a Tolkien rip-off, does he?
>
> Ah, didn't check the dates on him. So move him to the other pile.
> The fact remains, I can name far more pre- than post-, despite there
> being far fewer fantasy books before Tolkien, and then there's the
> endless legions of Tolkien-ripoff writers of the present.
>
> Both in sheer numbers and per capita, "real fantasy" is being drowned
> in a septic tank of Elfy-welfy crap.
That would be the main reason I drifted away from fantasy, a long time
ago. If I pick up a book and it's a quest for a magical item with elves,
a wizard, and some assortment of oddities, I put it right back on the
shelf. These days I don't look for fantasy at all. The only fantasy
thing I can remember buying in ages are the first two Erickson books
(and I have not read them yet).
--
"Listen -- I know you're a little upset, but you've got to let it go, or
... or get over it -- pick one of those, any one."
-- Robin Williams, "Toys"
Richard Shewmaker
Ha ha ha. I always thought of him more as a victim of elvish Alzheimer's.