The Anti-Tolkien
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
I think there are a few writers more deserving to be called "Anti-Tolkiens": obviously George R. R. Martin for Game of Thrones, and less known Andrzej Sapkowski with his short stories cycle about The Witcher (only 1 out of 2 short stories collections - The Last Wish - is translated to English, but it is worth reading just for the fresh and original view on fantasy book structure - it's short stories, nicely packed with interesting and original multi-sided conflicts, each short story shows different conflicts, and it's about characters and conflicting interests (and points of view), not about Good and Evil, Chaos and Law or anything like that.
It's different from regular fantasy in the way that Stanisław Lem Cyberiad is different from regular sci-fi. Highly recommended. Novels by Andrzej Sapkowski are a little worse, but in the short stories he's brilliant.
BTW Moorcook accused Sapkowski of copying his character, because Geralt (the Witcher) is old albino fighter anti-hero. It always felt to me like Moorcook should actually read the books - the similarities are just apperances - Geralt is very different (and more intersting IMHO) character than Elric.
Good short review of The Last Wish with most points that make this a great book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1cMitE530
http://english.lem.pl/home/bookshelf/how-the-word-was-saved?...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covena...
Possibly the finest - and darkest, in the genuine sense of the world rather than "this has sex and violence in it" - portal fantasy ever written.
A pet peeve of mine is when a writer uses "Sex and Violence" as a crutch to stand out and "push boundaries". I don't enjoy that sort of writing and as a general rule find that the whole trope gets used to hide the lack of good writing in a piece.
And the derision of Tolkien is just beyond me. The depths of Tolkeins characters is staggering. It seems like the complaints mostly boil down to Hero's with moral fiber are boring. I don't get it.
But I agree, there's a tendency toward using them lazily - in the cast of fantasy, largely in the wake of Song of Ice And Fire. It'll calm down in a bit, I'm sure, just as the unoriginal fantasy doorstops tailed off in the late '80s as the D&D craze faded.
Here's Erikson talking about the trope of "barbarians": http://www.stevenerikson.com/index.php/the-problem-of-karsa-...
Escapism for goths is still escapism, and there's nothing wrong with it either way. Tolkien is great. Moorcock is great. It's all good.
LOTR was written against the backdrop of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and a world where good and evil didn't seem very ambiguous, yet think about how many times this ambiguity comes up: Gollum. Good or evil? Saruman? Boromir? There is nothing childish or "Pooh-like" about these characters. They are very real, very intense confrontations with good and evil. Even Bilbo and Frodo themselves struggle with this. We assume the ring has the power to corrupt, but is the ring truly doing the corrupting, or is this lust for power something innate within that the ring simply exploits for its own purposes?
And what defines true power? Is it the ring itself? Is it the one who carries it? Frodo and Sam, two of the smallest of the races of Middle-Earth manage to bring down the most powerful of enemies with little more than courage and a desire to do what's right, while the powerful (the humans of Rohan and Gondor) quibble amongst themselves and their leaders are easily manipulated or go mad with sorrow and fear.
Long story short, I think Moorcock is wrong. I find the idea of a drug-addicted elf more ridiculous than anything Tolkien ever wrote. It's as though Moorcock defines fantasy as merely a setting through which he can play out his literary amibitions. That isn't to say there's anything wrong with a drug-addicted elf, it's just that drug addiction -- a so-called "real" problem to Tolkien's alleged "Pooh" problems -- does not alone elevate one's work to higher stature, nor should it be used a bludgeon to demote the work of others. I have learned far more about life and human nature from Tolkien than I have from Moorcock, and Tolkien's work was more entertaining too.
EDIT: Oh, and if you want to read some incredibly clever and unique sci-fi/fantasy, check out anything by Gene Wolfe or Jack Vance. Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is brilliant, and Vance's Lyonesse trilogy is amazing.
If you want a modern fictional take, try Richard Morgan's stuff. He shares Moorcock's suspicion of power and antipathy to Tolkein's reactionary political leanings. And he likewise avoids Tolkein's indulgence of Manichean ethical notions.
Probably he just didn't read it thoroughly enough. Recent writers put characterization and moral ambiguities at the forefront of their stories, like Moorcock wanted. Tolkien (and the pre-modern works he imitated) put those elements in the background and make the reader dig them out.
Agreed about Jack Vance. I recommend Eyes of the Overworld/Cugel the Clever.
Can someone explain this to me? Well Bilbo does go home, he knows it is temporary and home - to/for him - is not what it once was, and Frodo's story line out-and-out states that he is going thru a change where he cannot go back.
If this is truly what Moorcock thinks, I don't see it.
It's a good read, although I'm partial to some big dumb sword-waving pulp fantasy anyway.
The "home" Moorcock is decrying Tolkien's return to is the golden age that never really existed in the first place — except in fiction, where you can paint a rosy picture of the past and proclaim it true by author's fiat.
As an adult, I now am also not so comfortable with Tolkein's strong emphasis on race and tribe. Or how it's the intrinsically evil dark or unnatural peoples from the south versus the fading pure white peoples from the north.
Fun stories, and I'll happily read them, but I think it's instructive about some human inclinations that, if indulged, take us to ugly places.
Describing LotR as good white northern people vs. evil black southern people is extremely inaccurate, I think. Some of Sauron's minions were dark men from the South, but see Sam's reaction when he finds one of them dead: "He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil at heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."
The unshakably evil nature of the orcs is certainly problematic, and it's fair to say that Tolkien wasn't conscious of the implications there; but it's also fair to say that orcs are created things without free will, and Tolkien thought of them more like self-replicating war machines than like people of any earthly race. Humans (and elves and dwarves and hobbits) of whatever color are invariably shown as being moral beings with the capacity for both good and evil.
But still, I think the way he exaggerates various human race and class characteristics into Essentially Different Peoples and then puts together a giant race war is problematic as anything other than light entertainment. Great battles of Good vs Evil are fine for kids' stories and escapist fantasy, but I think Moorcock and others are spot on that it's troubling to the extent that people take it more seriously.
While Tolkien's fantasy world is structured, ordered, able to be understood, and extremely detailed by its author, Lovecraft's fantasy world is unstructured, chaotic, any attempts at comprehension result in madness, and leaves much to the imagination by its author[0].
As a huge fan of Tolkien, D&D, and the typical fantasy tropes, reading Lovecraft as a sort of antithesis of Tolkien is very refreshing.
[0] Sadly, could also be because Lovecraft passed at a much younger age.
And as influence go by, the white walkers of game of thrones are way more moorcockquesque than anything else.
Let's make a piece on the New Yorker that would be called "the anti new york times".
I don't get what are the values of this "morally bankrupt" middle class according to Moorcock, if Tolkien's work is confirmation of those. Destruction of nature for profit, corruption of power, strong being capable of using evil either blindly or wantonly. That is shown as bad, whereas simple, polite and modest (albeit with great amounts of food, ale and tobacco) life is good. I'd want a any "class" to adhere to those.
As for being Anti-Tolkien, I'd have to see some one produce as much content, build a world so intricate and even write a fable of it. Works of Tolkien have so many aspects beyond the stories of Hobbit and LOTR, that saying something is anti- to that feels too simplistic. I have read only a few of Eldrich books, but what I remember from those was not so encompassing or ambitious.
If you choose this one aspect from Tolkien's works and decide to attack that, you certainly can, but what you actually accomplish? I'd rather read good fantasy from any writer, be it simple or complex. I'm currently re-reading Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy, which might be classified as a children book, but it's still very enjoyable and intelligent for an adult me.
I'm inclined to agree with them - Tolkein's brand of endless minutiae does not a good novel make. His is a world of casually racist undertones and completely shallow characters. The good and bad guys in Tolkein are good and bad for no particular discernible reason, and I think fantasy has yet to dig its way out of Tolkein's shadow.
However, I think new wave (and an emphasis on stylism in general) has done a lot to rehabilitate sci-fi. Personally, I think Gene Wolfe and M John Harrison deserve a lot of praise for pushing the genre along. Harrison's "Light"[2] comes to mind as a modern incarnation of a new wave novel that still manages to earn its sciency stripes.
1: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11289765/The-Hobbit-...
2: http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-Harrison/dp/0553382950
It is not a novel about a world with rigorously defined and cataloged physical law, and it's certainly not about a protagonist's moral crusade against evil.
It's a novel (in my personal estimation) about the breathtaking and magical pace of the advance of technology, and how it amplifies all the great and awful things that make us human.
Eh, I've found the correlation pretty hit-or-miss. William Gibson's The Difference Engine is currently sitting at 3.0/5 on Amazon, to pick one example...
My first impression of that article was that anyone who, in the 21st century, still thinks that "nerd" is a cutting insult, can be safely ignored.
Brief perusal of the original article that the Telegraph references (M. John Harrison's screed against worldbuilding as "the great clomping foot of nerdism" [1]) confirms that he's basically trying to prove that a writing style he doesn't like is, therefore, logically and objectively inferior to a style he does like. I'm comfortable that my first impression was accurate.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20080410181840/http://uzwi.wordpr...
Sure, there's the infamous appendices and the Silmarillion for even more backstory, but they're not required reading, just fun additions to the world.
> casually racist undertones
This is the first I've heard of such a thing. There's plenty of that in Lewis, Lovecraft, and many other writers, but unless you're referring to the general "elves are better everythings" meme (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreBetter http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticRacism) (which is commonly imputed and used in descendant works, but in Tolkein's own work frequently counterpointed by wistful musings about the future promise of Men with their much-vaunted mortality), I don't see any sensible basis for that in Tolkein. As much as Tolkein liked to create strong good/evil distinctions for the reader, those lines were not drawn between any analogue to human races; there were many sources of evil on many fronts.
The Asian-stereotyped (Japanese?) trade syndicate characters from Star Wars episode 1 seemed especially racist portrayals to me.
To your other point, though: in various parts of the stories, there are good and evil humans, good and evil hobbits, good and evil dwarves, good and evil Ainur (Wizards), and good and evil elves. Also look at Gollum's backstory, and look at the rather gray morality of various self-serving folks towards the end of The Hobbit. As for "dark and ugly", there are plenty of evils throughout Tolkein that contradict one or both of those: Saruman, Denethor, Grima, Lotho, Smaug, Gollum, the Balrog, to some extent the Wood Elves, the Nazgul.
By comparison, if you want to see what racism in fantasy looks like, look at Tolkein's contemporary, Lewis, and his Calormene, or Lovecraft's...well, everything.
There are certainly characters in Tolkein who have less black-and-white moralities, but you very quickly see that "goodness" varies as a spectrum along "race" in LOTR.
I certainly agree that other authors are more racist.
I don't believe that there was anything racist in Lewis's attitude to the Calormenes. They weren't inherently evil people, although their culture was in most parts bad and in some parts evil. Note the young Calormene Emeth who is saved in The Last Battle.
Personaly I think the idea of shining cities holding out (and some falling) against the forces of evil is an echo of Byzantium succumbing to the Turkish invasion and subsequently Vienna standing against further Turkish encroachment. However the Haradrim are not really Turks, and it's not as if discovering that LoTR is largely inspired by European history is a shocking revelation. Plently of 'white guys' are seduced by evil as well and Tolkien never suggests there's anything fundamental about Haradrim or other 'furriners' that make them any more susceptible to corruption.
LOTR is framed by the ideas of original sin and free will. Frodo is able to master and relinquish the ultimate power of the ring; Sam (the true lord) is never even touched by it. Both go back to accepting and being obedient to their destiny. It is not a clash of peoples or philosophies; Tolkein assumes that there is no battle of ideas because he is right. I think that where it is racist is in that it simply does not include people or things external to the European mythos, they are seen as irrelevant and external, no one cares about them and whatever happens just doesn't include them.
> I think that where it is racist is in that it simply does not include people or things external to the European mythos, they are seen as irrelevant and external, no one cares about them and whatever happens just doesn't include them.
I don't understand this POV, and I encounter it very often, regarding different works of art.
It's a world based on Catholic mythology (the riot of angels and origin of devil stuff), middle ages and celtic influences. It's already broad base to take ideas from. Diluting it further with influences from every other culture would make the setting less coherent, and author should be allowed to set the atmosphere of his book as he pleases.
Sometimes I think people expect every story to use the exact proportions of cultures that modern USA has. This isn't what diversity is about - if every story is set in modern USA under different disguise you won't have diversity - you will have a monoculture. Diversity is only possible when different things are missing from different stories.
EDIT: Well, Tolkien did started a monoculture, but this is not his fault - it is fault of his followers. He was original, he was just followed by carbon copies that used his works with almost no changes, repeating his choices over and over.
There is no concept of heaven in tolkin. Elves go into the halls of mandos, its simular to the north religion.
But its not eternal as heaven, in chrisitanity, they all wait in the halls of mandos for the next great song.
> they can return from death
Only one human and one elve has ever returned from death. Gandalf is neither.
> they don't get their sins forgotten (unlike people)
That is not clear at all. Humans go out of arda but its not known where they will go and its not known if there sins will be gone. The not knowning what happens after death was a gift from elu.
Also if I recall correctly, even the humans will be brought in for the last great song.
Regarding "elves returning from death" - it was stated in Silmarillion that they can go from Mandos halls back to life and that it happened many times, not just once. Most of them returned to Aman, but some did to Middleearth.
Could you tell me where this is written?
I googled for a while, the best thing I found is this: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/papers/Amaranth/De...
> Thus, Eru found a means to amend the situation. After a time of waiting in Mandos's halls, the Elvish fëa may, if it chooses, be reincarnated in a hröa identical to the one in which the fëa was formerly housed. The Valar were given permission and power by Eru to see to the construction of a new hröa for the 'houseless' fëa, and they can judge that a fëa may not be reimbodied, or at least not yet, in certain situations. Normally, the reincarnated Elf remains in Aman. Only in special cases is the Elf sent back to Middle-earth, generally because he has some task yet to complete there
Second-guessing authors by their works and atrtibuting various -isms to them just because they created world without representing some parts of reality as they know it (or as we know it) still seems mean and unjustified to me.
Was "7 samurais" racist? Would it be racist if it was created by Nigerians and still only featured Japanese people? According to your definition - yes. According to me - not at all. It's part of setting, people of all backgrounds may be interested in whatever cultures they please and they shouldn't need to explain themselves about it.
It's nice to be able to carry on a civilized debate :)
I think it's like the school yard. When I was a kid we excluded some kids in my class. We didn't talk to them or invite them to things, by this I mean that if one of these kids had approached me I would have smiled and chatted, but I would never have approached him/her because they weren't "in".
This group didn't have any impact or involvement in most of what went on in high school. I am pretty sure that they really didn't want to be part of things after a short while. I don't blame them. Nowadays I feel a bit sick when I think about these kids, it was terrible, at the time I felt relieved that I was allowed to be "in", although I was not "cool", so I went along with what happened.
I think this kind of exclusion is what I am referring to. JRR was not doing this; his world (I mean the world he was allowed to live in by his culture and society) did not include people from other races. So he did not exclude or fail to consider a group of the people around him, if I were writing and I did not acknowledge people from other ethnic groups then that would be different.
This isn't accurate, FYI. Sam has himself a Ringbearer moment when he imagines himself as a great warrior. Sam's untouchability was more a function of the brevity of his exposure. Nothing escapes the Ring's corruption (however that mechanism actually works): this is what Gandalf and Galadriel both knew well enough to avoid the temptation in the first place.
It's like saying Star Wars is racist because the Siths represent the dark side.
In the western culture , the color black has a certain meaning.We could debate whether it's a source of racism or not,but you could make the exact same case for the bible,or other myths.
> It's tricky in fantasy, because of how race-based a lot of the plot is.
Well,obviously in fantasy, even dwarfs are not humans. I'm all for social criticism but I don't think one can read Tolkien and just say there is something blatantly racist in his books. Tolkien didn't invent orcs,trolls,elves or dwarfs,or dragons. He invented little, he mostly tried to aggregate different myths into a single one.
I think sometimes people are trying to hard seeing racism where the is none.
However studying dark/light black/white symbolism and how it affects choices in life(in advertising for instance) in western cultures is definitely a great subject.
I think he actually invented orcs, before him it was a synonym for ogre, IIRC (in fact this was puzzling for me as an young reader in italian, where both words translate to "Orco", either for Little Thumbling's enemy and Tolkien's orcs).
(I agree with your comment anyway)
If you dig even deeper into Tolkien's history of Middle Earth, you'll find that the Orc species or 'race' is actually derived from Elvish predecessors who were 'corrupted' and transformed by Morgoth (fka Melkor)[3] and so we have a literal statement that their 'evilness' is not a product of their biology but was deliberately inflicted on them.
[1] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#Etymology
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_%28Middle-earth%29#The_orig...
“…and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes.”
Tolkien saying that they were bred to be this way indicates it is a part of their biology, as does the fact that Tolkien calls their race hideous.
"But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes."
The word 'breed' does not only mean to cause an animal to produce offspring and considering Tolkien's knowledge and use of the English language I doubt he solely meant it in that sense. Especially if you consider the sentence preceeding your selection. "Slow arts of cruelty" would seem to encompass a vast range of influences and considering the larger background of war, industry, and nationalism that these novels were written against I would say that indoctrination and compulsion would be the stronger influences on the Orc's character. Reading some of the Orc dialogue in the books supports this as they are not presented as mentally incompetent but moreso as possessing a ruthless, limited, subjugated, and intolerant worldview. Hence the corruption and enslavement.
I would say that, if I were inclined to spare Star Wars serious critical thought.
I understand that blackness is a Western cultural symbol. I also understand that Tolkein did not invent dragons.
That doesn't mean he isn't responsible for the content of his work. When you make an entire sentient race (species?) of people in a work both ugly from a human perspective AND evil, what are you saying? Certainly you are saying some things that have roots in a lot of Western mythology, but you are also probably being at least just a wee bit racist.
I'm not aware of Tolkien says anything about other races of human being either more or less likely to be corrupted and pleanty of 'white guys' get corrupted into evil.
Orcs aren't human, nor are elves and their metaphysical natures are different from those of humans. By casting Orcs the way he does Tolkien isn't saying anything about the corruptability or otherwise of humanity or any race of it. He's just borrowing elements of otherness and alienness from real world myths about fairytale creatures some of which are inimical to humans and conventional morality.
An alternate view of why this is the case (rehashed from http://www.salon.com/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/) is that LotR was a propagandist history written by the victors.
Actually the worst of Sauron's evil was done when he was beautiful and charismatic (the forging of the rings). Sauron's current form is a corruption by the ring of power.
Most evil in Tolkien is brought on by corruption of self by selfish desire for power over others. So I really take exception to "all the bad guys in LOTR are basically dark and ugly." I'd even argue that some elves are portrayed as quite vain, selfish, power-hungry and downright evil (Feanor and the kinslaying?).
> all the bad guys in LOTR are basically dark and ugly
That is false. Sauron for most of his life was a nice to look at and he was "the bringer of gifts". Simularly his master Morgoth had a period of time where he was a pretty elf like thing.
> and if there are any bad elves, they are mostly good elves who have been tempted to some sin
You have not really read most of tolkins work, right? There are tons of bad fucking elves, elves that kill there extended familly, elves that are arogant and lead there people into desaster, elves that force the most of their 'tribe'/'clan' to a deathmarch threw a ice desert.
Also, contrary to the movies, in the books it does not seam that the elves are better at everything. I just reread the silmarilion, and its not clear to me at least that elves are stronger and better fighers in general for example.
Edit: When orks talks, for example when frodo gets captured and sam listens to them with the ring, it seams the orks are pretty normal people in a dark situation.
Ugly, perhaps (though even that seems far from universal in any physical sense), but definitely not all dark in any racial sense; see, e.g., Saruman, Grima Wormtongue, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, and others.
> There are no even slightly good orcs, and if there are any bad elves, they are mostly good elves who have been tempted to some sin.
Orcs are elves who have been corrupted -- so "good orcs" are just uncorrupted elves, and, among the bad elves, are all orcs.
The usual (and stronger, though even here I think its a stretch) case for racism in Tolkien is focussed more on the treatment of the Easterlings and Haradrim.
> Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hands still clutched the hilt of a broken sword.
> It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and he was really evil of heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.
That doesn't read as racist at all; rather, it reads like an appreciation of the humanity in one's foes. Given Tolkien's experience at the Somme, I imagine that he was writing from experience.
Beyond that, it’s hard to argue that having an inherently evil race like the orcs doesn’t have racist undertones (particularly with the descriptions of the orcs mirroring racist caricatures). Sure, there were bad people in the other races as well (and not all of them swarthy!), but racism doesn’t claim that one race is without any bad people, it claims that certain races are inherently inferior (bad, weak willed, violent, etc.).
This doesn’t mean that Tolkein was or wasn’t a flaming racist, but it’s hard not to see the parallels in his work to actual racism.
But Tolkien was not trying to write a good novel; he was writing a myth in the form of a serial. I don't really see why he should be condemned for having succeeded at the actual goal.
> The good and bad guys in Tolkein are good and bad for no particular discernible reason
That's ridiculously untrue. Tolkien's effort was to depict a fairly specific set of virtues, both for his children and for Britain at large. Whether or not he succeeded is debatable, but it's not terribly hard to figure out why character X is a good guy and character Y is a bad guy. Self-sacrifice, dauntlessness, generosity, and reliability are characteristics that all the "good guys" either exemplify or seek to exemplify. Selfishness, carelessness, cowardliness, and cruelty are characteristics that all the "bad guys" either exemplify or seek to exemplify.
Telling.
Here's "Epic Pooh", confusingly updated with references to JK Rowling and Philip Pullman:
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953
And here's Auden's wide-eyed original review of _Fellowship_, referenced at the start of that essay:
http://www.nytimes.com/1954/10/31/books/tolkien-fellowship.h...
Well sure, not if you play them forwards...
From the houses of the holy, we can watch the white doves go
From the door comes Satan's daughter, and it only goes to show
You know
The comparison of Tolkein to the Fab Four (Five for those who count G. Martin) isn't accidental - both defined their genres.
And if I remember my Elric, his "drug habit" wasn't metaphorical heroin, but insulin. He needed it to survive.
FWIW, I'm quite sure someone in the crowd also shouts "terminus" which would be a gene wolfe reference, and something else I didn't quite catch.