{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2877", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2877, "subject": "Wolfe, Tolkien, Brooks...", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-01-02T22:02:26+00:00", "last": "2002-01-02T22:32:50+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-01-02T22:02:26+00:00", "subject": "Wolfe, Tolkien, Brooks...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam wrote..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Has Wolfe ever mentioned Tolkien in print before?) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm pretty sure JRRT is mentioned, at least in passing, in a couple \nof the essays on fantasy in _Castle of Days_. And I believe he's \nquoted at least once in _The Castle of the Otter_ (which is, of \ncourse, now a component of _Castle of Days_). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Some aspects of his work definitely need to be reconsidered in light \nof it, such as the presentation of the Autarch's rule in BOTNS as the\nbest possible under the circumstances, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the point here is that \"the circumstances\" are not merely the\nspecific political situation, nor even the specifics of the dying sun\nand the Monsters Under the Sea; \"the circumstances\" most relevant to\nthis point is that the Autarchy is a governance in the Fallen World.\nBy this (Christian) view, no government can be better than \"the best \npossible under the circumstances\" until the Parousia and the Restored\nWorld, of which Ushas itself is only a foreshadowing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I haven't looked at MEDITATIONS ON MIDDLE-EARTH, but possibly Wolfe's\nessay\nwas rejected because the image of Tolkien as propagandist for a society in\nwhich the lower orders cheerfully obey and serve their betters was not one\nthe editor wanted to project." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For me, this is one of the things most blatantly missing from the FotR\nfilm: while they got the look of Middle-earth right, and didn't damage\nthe plot too badly, they did not carry most of the characters I know and\nlove into the movie very well. The most horrid examples:\n\no Saruman as a rug-chewing Mad Scientist from a Hammer movie (well, what\n _did_ I expect from Christopher Lee...?)\no Merry and Pippin as a couple of juvenile delinquents - frankly more\n remniscent of Pepsi and Moxie from BORED OF THE RINGS\no Gimli's horrendous \"speaking to the modern audience\" remark that\n \"nobody tosses a dwarf!\"\no Etc.\n\nBut in amongst this, subtle but utterly undermining one of my favorite \ncharacters: the very _essence_ of Samwise Gamgee in Tolkien is that his\nrelation to Frodo is an idealization of the Master-Servant relationship\n- the British class system \"as it should have been.\" And that's totally \ngone from the movie, dammit." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And Terry Brooks again! First Pullman praises him, then Wolfe\ncriticizes his detractors. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Note that this is not to praise him but to say that his enemies are \nWolfe's. I think Wolfe has gone a bit around the bend here; Brooks's\nfirst novel isn't so much imitation as borderline plagiarism: but I\nsee Wolfe's point, which is that originality is overrated, and Tolkien\nis a model eminently worth emulating." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And Andy wrote:\nWolfe is a Conservative Catholic Christian right-winger. Deal With\nIt!!!!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bingo. So, more or less, was Tolkien. Deal with that, too.\n\nAnd Heinlein was a - well, whatever he was (since most of the labels \nusually used to slam him are blatantly untrue). Deal with it. \n\nAnd Le Guin is a rather muzzy Taoist liberal. Deal with it.\n\nAnd Pullman is a rabid anticlerical nutcase. Deal with it.\n\nWho gives a frog's bottom? They all write some astonishing stories,\nfilled with the kind of humanity that allows us, whatever our \npolitics, whatever our religion, to attain (if only for a moment)\nto a higher wisdom than daily life allows us." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-01-02T22:32:50+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe, Tolkien, Brooks...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's not the master-servant relationship: it's a war-leader -\nwarband-follower relationship. Achilles and Patroclus. A vital facet of\nAnglo-Saxon poetry.\n\nOf course the LOTR subsumes the fact that the english master-servant\nrelationship is a modern fossil of this.\n\nThus as Sam and Frodo move from the \"domestic\" Shire to the \"heroic\" outer\nworld their relationship mutates, taking on its archaic configuration.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n----- Original Message -----\nFrom: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \none of my favorite" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "characters: the very _essence_ of Samwise Gamgee in Tolkien is that his\nrelation to Frodo is an idealization of the Master-Servant relationship\n- the British class system \"as it should have been.\" And that's totally\ngone from the movie, dammit." } ] } ] }