{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4248", "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": 4248, "subject": "the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "messages": 18, "voices": 12, "first": "2004-11-29T01:37:32+00:00", "last": "2004-12-07T11:52:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<20041129093730.4835B37CE9@sitemail.everyone.net>", "from": { "name": "turin", "address": "turin at hell.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T01:37:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am leery of message boards, considering they often turn into screaming matches which would probably happen less if the people talking could see each other face to face, but Urth seems like a decent place, except of course for the dying sun and the forces of Abaia, Erebus, etc.\n\nSomeone mentioned earlier that it has become a fashion lately to attack Lewis's work. Despite my own problems with Lewis's particular worldview, I have read essay by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Phillip Pullman which were written basically to \"debunk\" Lewiss and for Mieville Tolkien as well. Charges of racism, nostalgia, cruelty, etc , I don't think you can psychoanalyze an author from her work, and I was particularly disappointed in Gaiman's reaction. I mean, yes Narnia is less of an allegory than the Faerie Queene though much more of an allegory than Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien denied having any allegorical structure whatsoever. \n\nAllegory is a very nebulous concept, though, we can call Mieville work Marxist romanticism or captitalist dystopia if we want, and Pullman age of enlightenment identity myth, and Gaiman neo-pagan mall mythology. Lewis cannabilizes things in Theosophy or Voyage to Arcturus or Lord Dunsany, Gaiman cannabilizes Roger Zelazny etc. Really we can replace cannibalize with \"is paying attention to or concernwed with\" or \"is influenced by\" and instead of saying \"allegory\" we can say it is similar to narratives with similar content and dynamics. This is not what Gaiman et al. are doing. They are merely drawing a line between what they consider to be \"leftist\" or \"liberal\" fantasy, and \"conservative\" fantasy like Tolkien and Lewis, more so with Lewis. I find this appalling. I am not a Christian, and my pride is not hurt that they would try to detract from what they feel is Tolkien and Lewis's hegemony of \"fantasy\" literature. I do happen to think Tolkien and Lewis are more intelligent writers than their detractors, but this is besides the point. What I find appaling is the open and deliberate politization of literature, is literature for its own sake or for furthuring ideology. It is a serious problem whether you consider Narnia to be Christian propaganda or not; but I find it more difficult with the Science Fiction Trilogy or Till We Have Faces. What exactly is propaganda is another difficult problem. I certainly did not feel like Lewis was trying to evangelize me. The novel that is most often cited is The Last Battle, but as an eight year old I knew the Emperor from across the sea was probably some sort of God, but I just took the whole thing as story and that's how I still read it, and it never \"softened\" me up to Mere Christianity, so I dont understand what everyone's complaint is. Lewis's observations concerning human psychology seem very persuasive to me if not always the conclusions he draws from them. \n\nI want to contrast Narnia with Pullman's His Dark Materials. I absolutely loved the series, and waited the five years until the last book with bated breath. The Amber Spyglass which turned out to be nothing more than a refuatation of Christianity. I felt like he was preaching to me, and there are rumors he trashed the first manuscript, so I can only wonder what the book's first form was. Why use magic or talking polar bears to promote rationalism? Is it because he thought children will read them along with Lewis and create a politically balanced genre. \n\nTo a certain degree I am biased, I will admit, because I think Wolfe, Lewis, Chesterton, Tolkien ask serious questions that Gaiman, Pullman, and Mievelle do not, other \"fantacists\", I am excluding \"science fiction\", do not. Questions of metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, what it means to be human, what it means to be a nonhuman person, the problem of technology and how to use it, etc. Mieville, Gaiman, and Pullman seem to address these issues, but it does not seem to me as if their attempts are anything other than cursory. Despite how \"liberal\" I may be or how \"Christian\" Lewis is, the fact remains I think he is a better thinker than the rest of them. I feel that this writers who just so happen to be Christian make serious commitments to this questions which means trying to answer them honestly and to a certain degree means revealing in part some of their Christian beliefs. With Mieville and Pullman it seems as if they are only trying to further political agendas primarily, the stories come second, and because they pretend to be good humanists, it's okay to indulge in the same \"escapist\" fantasy they attribute to Tolkien and Lewiss, very hypocritical. Gaiman seems not to want to commite to anything, and to this day, I have no idea what Gaiman thinks about anything, except that he probably voted for Kerry. I do not understand why they started attacking Lewiss simultaneously, was it jealousy, the impending Lord of the Rings moview, which I can't stand, or some weird statistical nodal point. That they were trying to debunk Lewis or steal his \"throne\" is ridiculous. There is nothing to debunk or steal. I dont believe science fiction and fantasy are secretly plagued by Christianity and a conservative political agenda, and I find that kind of thinking supercilious and dissapointing.\n\nI am of course open to debate on this subject and will try not to snap. I haven't gotten a chance to read \"the problem of susan yet\" but I've read an essay Gaiman wrote on his feelings towards Lewiss before he wrote the story and it feels very much like it would be a piece of propaganda to me. I dont know how Gaiman can hate Lewis and like Michael Moorcock. He just doesn't seem to have good taste. \n\n p.s. I am writing from hell, of course, so it should be perfectly obvious I am not a sheep in wolf's clothing.\n\np.p.s. if you are looking to avoid a heated debate on Tolkien and Lewis's \"racial agenda\", do notr ask me if I think Lord of the Rings or Narnia is about the crusades or the Moors.\n\np.p.p.s If Barliman does not deliver this, I will roast him. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173704112911553b53139c@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T12:16:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<20041129093730.4835B37CE9@sitemail.everyone.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Turin\n\nBravo! Bravissimo! \n\n(Gee ... I hope you're male under that name...)\n\nYes, Urth manages in general to maintain a certain amount of decorum,\nnot to say dulce, while debating some pretty hot points. It's small enough\nthat we can feel that we \"know\" each other - and even when responding \nto someone we don't know we know that friends are looking on, and so\nwe try not to behave like total asses." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Someone mentioned earlier that it has become a fashion lately\nto attack Lewis's work. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That would be me. I've seen it all over the place but especially in \nthe \"Gaiman generation.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Despite my own problems with Lewis's particular worldview, I have read \nessay by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Phillip Pullman which were\nwritten basically to \"debunk\" Lewiss and for Mieville Tolkien as well. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would very much like a pointer to Gaiman's essay, as up to now I \nhave only his fictions to base this on. (Not only \"The Problem of \nSusan,\" but also the _Sandman_ arc \"A Game of You,\" which has \nsome details that have always seemed to me to be idle passing \nswipes at the Narnia books.)\n\nIn fairness, though, I don't think Gaiman, at least, can be painted as\nsimply being a Good Little Liberal in going after Lewis - after all,\nhe has shown huge admiration for Chesterton and, for that matter,\nWolfe, who is not exactly what I would call a screaming leftist. (As\na side note, I recently picked up a copy of Gaiman's and Wolfe's\ncollaboration, \"A Walking Tour of the Shambles,\" and it's laugh\nout loud funny.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Charges of racism, nostalgia, cruelty, etc , I don't think you can \npsychoanalyze an author from her work, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I think you can, to some extent, but only based on a large\nbody of work and only to the extent the work itself permits. A writer's\nwork, if it's at all serious, necessarily reflects what the writer thinks\nand feels and believes (which are of course three aspects of one\nprocess, \"abstraction in a human nervous system as a whole in an\nenvironment,\" but that's another discussion); anyone who could read\nthe Narnia books and _not_ figure out that the author was a Christian\nmust be as ignorant of Christian belief and symbolism as I was, in \nsecond grade, when I didn't get it until I came to the end of _The \nLast Battle_. Duh!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and I was particularly disappointed in Gaiman's reaction. I mean,\nyes Narnia is less of an allegory than the Faerie Queene though\nmuch more of an allegory than Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien\ndenied having any allegorical structure whatsoever." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I'm not sure what you mean by \"less of an allegory\" - from \ncontext you seem to imply that its author's intent was less allegorical \nthan Spenser's? Perhaps: but both seemed to have first and foremost \nin their minds the process of _telling a story_; it's when a writer fails \nto keep that f&f that you get what the late Ted Sturgeon called \n\"selling your birthright for a pot of message.\" The late Robert Heinlein \ncommitted this sin once or twice - most notably in _Farnham's \nFreehold_, where he managed not only not to tell much of a story, \nbut also to garble his message to the point where many people \nthought it was a racist, pro-war book, when his intent was exactly the \nopposite: to show that the \"supremacy\" of whites was a historical \naccident, and to show that even for the survivors, a nuclear war \nwould be an unmitigated disaster." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Allegory is a very nebulous concept, though, we can call Mieville work \nMarxist romanticism or captitalist dystopia if we want, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mm. Having just finished _The Scar_, I have to admit that I don't\nget much of that. I don't actually get much serious political content\nin his novels at all; mostly a sense of \"Wow, look how grotesque this \nis!\" which was enough to carry _Perdido Street Station_ but not a\nsecond book, so that _The Scar_ stayed on my backburner until I\nwas well over halfway through it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and Pullman age of enlightenment identity myth, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is dead spot on." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and Gaiman neo-pagan mall mythology. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am laughing. Can you hear me laughing? That's the best\ndescription of everything that is weakest in Gaiman (a writer I \ngenerally admire) I've run across to date. I shall doubtless steal\nit at some future date.\n\n\n[...]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They are merely drawing a line between what they consider\nto be \"leftist\" or \"liberal\" fantasy, and \"conservative\" fantasy\nlike Tolkien and Lewis, more so with Lewis. I find this appalling." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, of course, Lewis had his axes to grind quite as much as \nPG&M do. Tokien had a few, but (unlike PG&M and sometimes \nLewis - viz _The Great Divorce_) he didn't write whole books as \ngrindstones; his concerns about, for example, the evils of \nindustrial capitalism were completely natural in the context of\n_tLotR_, especially when voiced by Fangorn." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " I am not a Christian, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I am, it is good to have a non-Christian see some of the same \nthings I'm seeing in the PG&M anti-Lewis didactic. As I am also \npretty much a card-carrying liberal, I find this kind of \"correctthink\" \nbehavior on the part of my fellow liberals rather embarassing at\ntimes..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and my pride is not hurt that they would try to detract from what\nthey feel is Tolkien and Lewis's hegemony of \"fantasy\" literature. \nI do happen to think Tolkien and Lewis are more intelligent writers\nthan their detractors, but this is besides the point. What I find\nappaling is the open and deliberate politization of literature, is\nliterature for its own sake or for furthuring ideology. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I said above, I think that a writer's beliefs - political or religious\nor what-have-ye - can't help but influence what she writes. But \nthere are good ways and bad ways to do it; Lewis provides examples\nthat range from very good (_Till We Have Faces_, which you could\nread and never suspect the writer of being a devout Christian - though\nif you know it it adds a great deal to the book) to mediocre (_The Last\nBattle_, in which all the masks come off and even my dumb eight\nyear old self \"got\" it). \n\nGaiman in his fiction generally doesn't make this sort of mistake; \nPullman's trilogy descends from excellent to (as Rick Nielsen of\nCheap Trick once put it) \"subtle like a mallet.\" I can't say much \nabout Mieville because I frankly haven't found much of the way \nof meaning-structure in the two books I've read." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What exactly is propaganda is another difficult problem. I\ncertainly did not feel like Lewis was trying to evangelize me. \nThe novel that is most often cited is The Last Battle, but as\nan eight year old I knew the Emperor from across the sea was\nprobably some sort of God, but I just took the whole thing as\nstory and that's how I still read it, and it never \"softened\" me\nup to Mere Christianity, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting: I feel quite certain that, in my case, the Narnia books\n_did_ help keep the Christian faith my family (and especially my\ngrandmother) had started in me going at times when I might\notherwise have \"outgrown\" it. But that's quite a different thing \nfrom whether it would have \"softened\" me to Christianity if I had\nnot already been there." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lewis's observations concerning human psychology seem very\npersuasive to me if not always the conclusions he draws from\nthem." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I'd like to agree with you, but the truth is I don't think he\nwrote a decent adult female character until _Faces_. From the\nQueen in _Perelandra_ to Jane Studdock and especially Fairy \nHardcastle in _That Hideous Strength_, I come away with the\nfeeling that these characters were written by a man who'd never\nactually _met_ a woman." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I want to contrast Narnia with Pullman's His Dark Materials. I absolutely\nloved the series, and waited the five years until the last book with\nbated breath. The Amber Spyglass which turned out to be nothing\nmore than a refuatation of Christianity. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I think there was a _bit_ more to it than that, but certainly I \nhave to agree that the series turns into fairly blatant Gnostic agitprop \nno later than the beginning of _TAS_. (Which makes it interesting\nread to read it against - he said, desperately dragging Wolfe into a \ndiscussion on the Urth list - the _Long Sun_ series, which I have \nargued is an instantiation of a Gnostic cosmology within the larger \ncontext of a Christian cosmology.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why use magic or talking polar bears to promote rationalism? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because - as Lewis once put it - \"Sometimes stories best say what\nneeds to be said.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To a certain degree I am biased, I will admit, because I think Wolfe,\nLewis, Chesterton, Tolkien ask serious questions that Gaiman,\nPullman, and Mievelle do not, other \"fantacists\", I am excluding\n\"science fiction\", do not. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "May I suggest reading Delany's fantasy works, and especially the\n\"Neveryon\" sequence? These are all about this kind of ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Questions of metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, what it\nmeans to be human, what it means to be a nonhuman person,\nthe problem of technology and how to use it, etc. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... well, not the question of \"what it means to be a nonhuman\nperson,\" but all the others, and especially semantics and\nepistemology. Plus a fairly intense economic dialectic." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mieville, Gaiman, and Pullman seem to address these\nissues, but it does not seem to me as if their attempts are\nanything other than cursory. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would love to hear someone describe how Mieville addresses \nthem even cursorily. Perhaps I was too busy noticing the\ngrotesquery of Bas-Lag, but I honestly did not see any of this.\n\nPullman I think goes a bit deeper than \"cursory,\" but I don't\nthink he really thinks things through very well - I get the feeling\nthat he sticks with the first idea that appeals to him without\nsubjecting it to very much scrutiny. \n\nGaiman ... well, he's one of the deepest writers ever to write\ncomics. But in the company of Wolfe, Le Guin, Lewis, Tolkien,\nChesterton, Delany, etc., he's like a one-legged man in an \narse-kicking contest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Despite how \"liberal\" I may be or how \"Christian\" Lewis is, the \nfact remains I think he is a better thinker than the rest of them. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I agree. His professional work, which is sometimes dismissed\nbecause of his breezy writing style, is extraordinary: I highly recommend\n_The Discarded Image_, one of the best works of Medieval Studies\nto come out of the 20th Century." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I feel that this writers who just so happen to be Christian make\nserious commitments to this questions which means trying to\nanswer them honestly and to a certain degree means revealing\nin part some of their Christian beliefs. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would go a step further: to be a Christian and an honest thinker in\nthe modern era _requires_ a degree of looking at hard questions\nthat isn't necessary for humanists, because the scientific episteme \noffers (or appears to offer) so many challenges to the Christian \nepisteme that the only other option, which many Christians (alas!)\nsettle for, is a retreat into the \"God said it, I believe it, that settles \nit!\" brand of fundamentalism-literalism. This is a pity because a \nChristian committed to dealing with the hard questions finds in the\nend that the \"challenges\" mostly vanish when you learn to think in\nboth epistemes: indeed, to do so leaves one with a larger episteme\nthat covers more of the world than either does separately.\n\nBut anyway." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have no idea what Gaiman thinks about anything, except that\nhe probably voted for Kerry. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Probably not; I believe that he's still a British subject." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I dont believe science fiction and fantasy are secretly plagued by\nChristianity and a conservative political agenda, and I find that\nkind of thinking supercilious and dissapointing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I tend to agree, though there is a strong conservative streak\nin SF - particularly in military SF. Perhaps more importantly, and this\nis why I would have expected Mieville to be an extreme liberal even\nif I hadn't read anything outside of his novels, is something I picked\nup from Delany's criticism. He puts it this way: \"To fail to challenge\nsomething is to maintain it.\" That is, in writing of an imaginary\nculture, whether in the future, on an alien world, or in an imagined\nfantastic world, any social structure that remains as it is in the \"real\" \nworld tends to support that structure in the \"real\" world. Take, for\nexample, the nuclear family: if you posit a culture radically different\nfrom our own, but leave the nuclear family untouched, you've \nreinforced our societal assumption that the nuclear family is just\n\"how things are.\" Obviously no writer can challenge everything - if\nyou did, you would leave the reader with nothing to grasp - but the\nmore a writer \"challenges\" in her fiction the more I suspect her of\nbeing politically leftist. Mieville \"challenges\" a great deal of our\nassumptions about reality, but doesn't really provide much in the way\nof \"wouldn't it be better if...?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I dont know how Gaiman can hate Lewis and like Michael Moorcock.\nHe just doesn't seem to have good taste." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well ... that is interesting because Gaiman _does_ seem to like \nan awful lot of the same writers Lewis did: Chesterton, Lindsay, and\nMacDonald have all had their tributes in his work. I would very much \nlike to read what Gaiman has to say about CSL!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " p.s. I am writing from hell, of course, so it should be perfectly obvious\nI am not a sheep in wolf's clothing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "p.p.s. if you are looking to avoid a heated debate on Tolkien\nand Lewis's \"racial agenda\", do notr ask me if I think Lord of\nthe Rings or Narnia is about the crusades or the Moors." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You seem to be asking to be asked, so I'll ask ...\n\n(For me, I think that there's an obvious Moorishness, or perhaps\nTurkishness, to the Calormenes. I suspect you could make a case\nfor the \"swarthy\" Easterlings in LotR, but I also suspect that that\ncase would always remain somewhat problematic.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "p.p.p.s If Barliman does not deliver this, I will roast him." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, _someone_ delivered it!\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20041129211117.42986.qmail@web50303.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nathan Spears", "address": "spearofsolomon at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T13:11:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704112911553b53139c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Allegory is a very nebulous concept, though, we can call Mieville work \nMarxist romanticism or captitalist dystopia if we want, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "H'mm. Having just finished _The Scar_, I have to admit that I don't\nget much of that. I don't actually get much serious political content\nin his novels at all; mostly a sense of \"Wow, look how grotesque this \nis!\" which was enough to carry _Perdido Street Station_ but not a\nsecond book, so that _The Scar_ stayed on my backburner until I\nwas well over halfway through it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just wanted to interject a quick comment. Having read several interviews with\nMieville, I think that he is very interested in how his worlds function, and\nspecifically, how the politics work. Now, I might be getting myself in trouble,\nbecause I can't remember how much intelligent discussion of M's work I've actually\nread on this list, but here's what I remember:\n\nHe doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an aristocratic society living on\nair; for instance, in Tolkien, he would be wary of the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. \nWhat do they do? How do they get food, support an economy, etc? I think I remember\nreading about how he laid out a whole economic and political (ecopolitical?)\nfoundation for his world before he started setting the story. In fact, I read some\ncomments which made a pretty strong case for the idea that M's world, and the\ncreatures that inhabit it, are more interesting/important that the stories he tells\nthere. I have a feeling someone said that on this list.\n\nPersonally, I didn't care much for Perdido, and I haven't made time for The Scar\nyet. I just wanted to get the idea out there that the person you were responding to\nis (might be) pretty close to the mark with his summary of Mieville, especially from\nMieville's own viewpoint." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370411291507453b8f3e@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T15:08:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<20041129211117.42986.qmail@web50303.mail.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan Spears\n wrote:\nI just wanted to interject a quick comment. Having read several\ninterviews with Mieville, I think that he is very interested in how\nhis worlds function, and specifically, how the politics work. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That much is clearly true. In fact, there are times when he comes\nparlously close to Poughkeepsie, to borrow Le Guin's trope." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I might be getting myself in trouble, because I can't remember\nhow much intelligent discussion of M's work I've actually read\non this list, but here's what I remember:\n\nHe doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an aristocratic\nsociety living on air; for instance, in Tolkien, he would be wary\nof the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. What do they do? How do\nthey get food, support an economy, etc? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's a common and rather false criticism of Tolkien and _tLotR_. \nIt isn't emphasized, but Tolkien does in fact mention the farming \ncommunities of Gondor in several places. Minas Tirith supports \nitself much the way, say, Imperial Rome or medieval Paris did - \nby being a center of trade and governance, and a military capital." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think I remember reading about how he laid out a whole \neconomic and political (ecopolitical?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Politico-economic, usually..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "foundation for his world before he started setting the story. In\nfact, I read some comments which made a pretty strong case for\nthe idea that M's world, and the creatures that inhabit it, are\nmore interesting/important that the stories he tells there. \nI have a feeling someone said that on this list." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It probably wasn't me, but I agree with whoever said it. The\nstories are actually fairly kludgey. Reading _PSS_ I remember\nthinking \"There isn't a single character in this book I like, let\nalone identify with.\" While this is not true of _The Scar_, it's \nbadly imbalanced in terms of pacing - the first half of the book \ndrags on, the second half rips along; it took me less time to read\nthe entire last half than any fifty pages of the first half. The first\nhundred pages or so could easily (and imio should have) been\ncut by a sympathetic editor to about twenty, as much of it is just\nmoody stage setting; in fact, the first part could have been done\naway with easily, and the few bits that remained significant for\nthe rest of the book worked in as flashbacks. Mieville is a\nrelentlessly _linear_ storyteller; I don't recall a significant \nflashback in either of the two books I've read." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[...] the person you were responding to is (might be) pretty\nclose to the mark with his summary of Mieville, especially from\nMieville's own viewpoint." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He might well. I'm not saying that there is no serious political\ncontent; I'm saying that I'm not finding it. The internal politics\nof Bas-Lag seem sufficiently alien that I don't find much, as \nTolkien called it, _applicability_ - let alone allegory! - to the\n\"real\" world. \n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20041130004231.8283.qmail@web20025.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "stilskin", "address": "acronus at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T16:42:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370411291507453b8f3e@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mieville's new novel almost suffocates under all the\npolitical baggage, and it is constructed as a series\nof flashbacks . . .\n\nPaul" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan\nSpears\n wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I just wanted to interject a quick comment. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Having read several\ninterviews with Mieville, I think that he is very\ninterested in how\nhis worlds function, and specifically, how the\npolitics work. \n\nThat much is clearly true. In fact, there are times\nwhen he comes\nparlously close to Poughkeepsie, to borrow Le Guin's\ntrope." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I might be getting myself in trouble, because I\ncan't remember\nhow much intelligent discussion of M's work I've\nactually read\non this list, but here's what I remember:\n\nHe doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an\naristocratic\nsociety living on air; for instance, in Tolkien,\nhe would be wary\nof the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. What do they\ndo? How do\nthey get food, support an economy, etc? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's a common and rather false criticism of\nTolkien and _tLotR_. \nIt isn't emphasized, but Tolkien does in fact\nmention the farming \ncommunities of Gondor in several places. Minas\nTirith supports \nitself much the way, say, Imperial Rome or medieval\nParis did - \nby being a center of trade and governance, and a\nmilitary capital." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I remember reading about how he laid out a\nwhole \neconomic and political (ecopolitical?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Politico-economic, usually..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "foundation for his world before he started setting\nthe story. In\nfact, I read some comments which made a pretty\nstrong case for\nthe idea that M's world, and the creatures that\ninhabit it, are\nmore interesting/important that the stories he\ntells there. \nI have a feeling someone said that on this list." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It probably wasn't me, but I agree with whoever said\nit. The\nstories are actually fairly kludgey. Reading _PSS_ I\nremember\nthinking \"There isn't a single character in this\nbook I like, let\nalone identify with.\" While this is not true of _The\nScar_, it's \nbadly imbalanced in terms of pacing - the first half\nof the book \ndrags on, the second half rips along; it took me\nless time to read\nthe entire last half than any fifty pages of the\nfirst half. The first\nhundred pages or so could easily (and imio should\nhave) been\ncut by a sympathetic editor to about twenty, as much\nof it is just\nmoody stage setting; in fact, the first part could\nhave been done\naway with easily, and the few bits that remained\nsignificant for\nthe rest of the book worked in as flashbacks.\nMieville is a\nrelentlessly _linear_ storyteller; I don't recall a\nsignificant \nflashback in either of the two books I've read." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "[...] the person you were responding to is (might\nbe) pretty\nclose to the mark with his summary of Mieville,\nespecially from\nMieville's own viewpoint." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He might well. I'm not saying that there is no\nserious political\ncontent; I'm saying that I'm not finding it. The\ninternal politics\nof Bas-Lag seem sufficiently alien that I don't find\nmuch, as \nTolkien called it, _applicability_ - let alone\nallegory! - to the\n\"real\" world. \n\n--Dan'l\n\n-- \nwww.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the\nPresident\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot\nbetter off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370411291719776ec413@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T17:20:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<20041130004231.8283.qmail@web20025.mail.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh. Oh, well, so much for that theory..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:42:31 -0800 (PST), stilskin wrote:\nMieville's new novel almost suffocates under all the\npolitical baggage, and it is constructed as a series\nof flashbacks . . .\n\nPaul\n\n\n\n--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan\nSpears\n wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I just wanted to interject a quick comment." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Having read several\ninterviews with Mieville, I think that he is very\ninterested in how\nhis worlds function, and specifically, how the\npolitics work.\n\nThat much is clearly true. In fact, there are times\nwhen he comes\nparlously close to Poughkeepsie, to borrow Le Guin's\ntrope." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I might be getting myself in trouble, because I\ncan't remember\nhow much intelligent discussion of M's work I've\nactually read\non this list, but here's what I remember:\n\nHe doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an\naristocratic\nsociety living on air; for instance, in Tolkien,\nhe would be wary\nof the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. What do they\ndo? How do\nthey get food, support an economy, etc?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's a common and rather false criticism of\nTolkien and _tLotR_.\nIt isn't emphasized, but Tolkien does in fact\nmention the farming\ncommunities of Gondor in several places. Minas\nTirith supports\nitself much the way, say, Imperial Rome or medieval\nParis did -\nby being a center of trade and governance, and a\nmilitary capital." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think I remember reading about how he laid out a\nwhole\neconomic and political (ecopolitical?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Politico-economic, usually..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "foundation for his world before he started setting\nthe story. In\nfact, I read some comments which made a pretty\nstrong case for\nthe idea that M's world, and the creatures that\ninhabit it, are\nmore interesting/important that the stories he\ntells there.\nI have a feeling someone said that on this list." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It probably wasn't me, but I agree with whoever said\nit. The\nstories are actually fairly kludgey. Reading _PSS_ I\nremember\nthinking \"There isn't a single character in this\nbook I like, let\nalone identify with.\" While this is not true of _The\nScar_, it's\nbadly imbalanced in terms of pacing - the first half\nof the book\ndrags on, the second half rips along; it took me\nless time to read\nthe entire last half than any fifty pages of the\nfirst half. The first\nhundred pages or so could easily (and imio should\nhave) been\ncut by a sympathetic editor to about twenty, as much\nof it is just\nmoody stage setting; in fact, the first part could\nhave been done\naway with easily, and the few bits that remained\nsignificant for\nthe rest of the book worked in as flashbacks.\nMieville is a\nrelentlessly _linear_ storyteller; I don't recall a\nsignificant\nflashback in either of the two books I've read." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "[...] the person you were responding to is (might\nbe) pretty\nclose to the mark with his summary of Mieville,\nespecially from\nMieville's own viewpoint." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He might well. I'm not saying that there is no\nserious political\ncontent; I'm saying that I'm not finding it. The\ninternal politics\nof Bas-Lag seem sufficiently alien that I don't find\nmuch, as\nTolkien called it, _applicability_ - let alone\nallegory! - to the\n\"real\" world.\n\n--Dan'l\n\n--\nwww.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the\nPresident\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot\nbetter off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<15E7EE90-4286-11D9-948A-0003939CE29C@earthlink.net>", "from": { "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-29T19:13:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370411291507453b8f3e@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 03:07 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan Spears\n wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an aristocratic\nsociety living on air; for instance, in Tolkien, he would be wary\nof the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. What do they do? How do\nthey get food, support an economy, etc?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's a common and rather false criticism of Tolkien and _tLotR_.\nIt isn't emphasized, but Tolkien does in fact mention the farming\ncommunities of Gondor in several places. Minas Tirith supports\nitself much the way, say, Imperial Rome or medieval Paris did -\nby being a center of trade and governance, and a military capital." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don pipes in:\n\nYes, I think an argument can be made that LotR isn't even fantasy in \nthe way it's understood now. You might as well ask about the system of \ngrain distribution in Camelot or Geatland as expect that sort of thing \nfrom Tolkien. Not Important To The STORY. But what's that, anyway? \nBesides, Tolkien's passion was philology, not politics, and I'm sure if \nthe tables were turned, Mieville would fall short there. (no good \nsaying language is less important than politics or economics. It might \nbe more important)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<009AA52E-4288-11D9-948A-0003939CE29C@earthlink.net>", "from": { "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-29T19:27:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704112911553b53139c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I want to contrast Narnia with Pullman's His Dark Materials. I \nabsolutely\nloved the series, and waited the five years until the last book with\nbated breath. The Amber Spyglass which turned out to be nothing\nmore than a refuatation of Christianity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I think there was a _bit_ more to it than that, but certainly I\nhave to agree that the series turns into fairly blatant Gnostic \nagitprop\nno later than the beginning of _TAS_. (Which makes it interesting\nread to read it against - he said, desperately dragging Wolfe into a\ndiscussion on the Urth list - the _Long Sun_ series, which I have\nargued is an instantiation of a Gnostic cosmology within the larger\ncontext of a Christian cosmology.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Having just started the Wizard and having just read Pullman's trilogy I \nfeel I can safely say that, as much as I dug the characters in HDM, \nWolfe could have fit the entire story into two chapters of Long Sun. \nOf course he would have scattered it across four books, in pieces and \nallusions, and we'd never be entirely sure who Lyra's parents were or \nthat Iorek Byrnison was indeed a bear, but . . . Well, never mind.\n\nDon" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41ACB9DD.4010501@bitterman.net>", "from": { "name": "Thomas Bitterman", "address": "tom at bitterman.net" }, "date": "2004-11-30T10:23:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704112911553b53139c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\n(For me, I think that there's an obvious Moorishness, or perhaps\nTurkishness, to the Calormenes. I suspect you could make a case\nfor the \"swarthy\" Easterlings in LotR, but I also suspect that that\ncase would always remain somewhat problematic.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have a dim recollection that Tolkien mentioned (in a letter to a \npotential publisher) that the\nEasterlings were meant to resemble Eastern Europeans." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Enamel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Eric Mattingly", "address": "eric_mattingly at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-30T10:54:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<20041129093730.4835B37CE9@sitemail.everyone.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi. I am new to this site. This discussion interests me and I will toss in \nmy own \"two cents\" (as the kids are saying these days).\n\nHarold Bloom spends a lot of time discussing the intertextual \"agons\" or \nbattles of artistic superiority that each writer must undergo. I think his \ntheory is more or less obtuse depending on the author, but I think that we \ncan see something by the Bloomian book here with Mieville, Gaiman, Pullman, \netc.\n\nIn my own opinion, Pullman is the best author of the three. Gaiman is a \ngood, though undistinguished, author, and (again, in my opinion) Mieville is \nlittle more than a slightly above average hack attempting something out of \nhis depth. In all three of these, however, one can find an impassioned-- \neven embittered-- agon with Tolkien and Lewis, especially Tolkien. It is \nthe old Freudian story of the sons murdering the father in order to possess \nthe mother and limit his influence (i.e. Totem and Taboo). The irony is \nthat they fail on both counts and make even stronger (though now with a \nneurotic dimension) the influence Tolkien has over them. I agree with Turin \nthat we cannot over-psychoanalyze an author based on their work, but maybe \nan author's commentary on other works is fair game.\n\nNow, to aid in the desperate struggle of bringing Wolfe back into this. \nWolfe freely admits love and admiration for his precursor but, in the end, \nprovides the strongest agon against him possible-- he moves speculative (for \nwant of a better word) fiction into the realm of genuine mythical and \npsychological conflict. And, I would argue, in the end swallows up his \nprecursors (Tolkien, of course, but Lewis too among others) and displaces \nthem. That is of course contingent upon whether or not you consider Wolfe \nthe best sci-fi and fantasy writer (which I do). The three writers in \nquestion do not, I believe, have any hope of surviving an agon with Wolfe. \nPullman is cool, though. Only he has the potential to survive the agon with \nTolkien and Lewis (though HDM does not, in the end because of its ending).\n\nThanks,\n\neric\n\n\n\nA heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.\n\n-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: turin \nReply-To: turin at HELL.COM,The Urth Mailing List \n\nTo: urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net\nSubject: (urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman\nDate: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 01:37:29 -0800 (PST)\n\n\nI am leery of message boards, considering they often turn into screaming \nmatches which would probably happen less if the people talking could see \neach other face to face, but Urth seems like a decent place, except of \ncourse for the dying sun and the forces of Abaia, Erebus, etc.\n\nSomeone mentioned earlier that it has become a fashion lately to attack \nLewis's work. Despite my own problems with Lewis's particular worldview, I \nhave read essay by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Phillip Pullman which \nwere written basically to \"debunk\" Lewiss and for Mieville Tolkien as well. \n Charges of racism, nostalgia, cruelty, etc , I don't think you can \npsychoanalyze an author from her work, and I was particularly disappointed \nin Gaiman's reaction. I mean, yes Narnia is less of an allegory than the \nFaerie Queene though much more of an allegory than Lord of the Rings, which \nTolkien denied having any allegorical structure whatsoever.\n\nAllegory is a very nebulous concept, though, we can call Mieville work \nMarxist romanticism or captitalist dystopia if we want, and Pullman age of \nenlightenment identity myth, and Gaiman neo-pagan mall mythology. Lewis \ncannabilizes things in Theosophy or Voyage to Arcturus or Lord Dunsany, \nGaiman cannabilizes Roger Zelazny etc. Really we can replace cannibalize \nwith \"is paying attention to or concernwed with\" or \"is influenced by\" and \ninstead of saying \"allegory\" we can say it is similar to narratives with \nsimilar content and dynamics. This is not what Gaiman et al. are doing. \nThey are merely drawing a line between what they consider to be \"leftist\" \nor \"liberal\" fantasy, and \"conservative\" fantasy like Tolkien and Lewis, \nmore so with Lewis. I find this appalling. I am not a Christian, and my \npride is not hurt that they would try to detract from what they feel is \nTolkien and Lewis's hegemony of \"fantasy\" literature. I do happen to think \nTolkien and Lewis are more intelligent writers than their detractors, but \nthis is besides the point. What I find appaling is the open and deliberate \npolitization of literature, is literature for its own sake or for \nfurthuring ideology. It is a serious problem whether you consider Narnia \nto be Christian propaganda or not; but I find it more difficult with the \nScience Fiction Trilogy or Till We Have Faces. What exactly is propaganda \nis another difficult problem. I certainly did not feel like Lewis was \ntrying to evangelize me. The novel that is most often cited is The Last \nBattle, but as an eight year old I knew the Emperor from across the sea was \nprobably some sort of God, but I just took the whole thing as story and \nthat's how I still read it, and it never \"softened\" me up to Mere \nChristianity, so I dont understand what everyone's complaint is. Lewis's \nobservations concerning human psychology seem very persuasive to me if not \nalways the conclusions he draws from them.\n\nI want to contrast Narnia with Pullman's His Dark Materials. I absolutely \nloved the series, and waited the five years until the last book with bated \nbreath. The Amber Spyglass which turned out to be nothing more than a \nrefuatation of Christianity. I felt like he was preaching to me, and there \nare rumors he trashed the first manuscript, so I can only wonder what the \nbook's first form was. Why use magic or talking polar bears to promote \nrationalism? Is it because he thought children will read them along with \nLewis and create a politically balanced genre.\n\nTo a certain degree I am biased, I will admit, because I think Wolfe, \nLewis, Chesterton, Tolkien ask serious questions that Gaiman, Pullman, and \nMievelle do not, other \"fantacists\", I am excluding \"science fiction\", do \nnot. Questions of metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, what it means to \nbe human, what it means to be a nonhuman person, the problem of technology \nand how to use it, etc. Mieville, Gaiman, and Pullman seem to address \nthese issues, but it does not seem to me as if their attempts are anything \nother than cursory. Despite how \"liberal\" I may be or how \"Christian\" \nLewis is, the fact remains I think he is a better thinker than the rest of \nthem. I feel that this writers who just so happen to be Christian make \nserious commitments to this questions which means trying to answer them \nhonestly and to a certain degree means revealing in part some of their \nChristian beliefs. With Mieville and Pullman it seems as if they are only \ntrying to further political agendas primarily, the stories come second, and \nbecause they pretend to be good humanists, it's okay to indulge in the same \n\"escapist\" fantasy they attribute to Tolkien and Lewiss, very hypocritical. \n Gaiman seems not to want to commite to anything, and to this day, I have \nno idea what Gaiman thinks about anything, except that he probably voted \nfor Kerry. I do not understand why they started attacking Lewiss \nsimultaneously, was it jealousy, the impending Lord of the Rings moview, \nwhich I can't stand, or some weird statistical nodal point. That they were \ntrying to debunk Lewis or steal his \"throne\" is ridiculous. There is \nnothing to debunk or steal. I dont believe science fiction and fantasy are \nsecretly plagued by Christianity and a conservative political agenda, and I \nfind that kind of thinking supercilious and dissapointing.\n\nI am of course open to debate on this subject and will try not to snap. I \nhaven't gotten a chance to read \"the problem of susan yet\" but I've read an \nessay Gaiman wrote on his feelings towards Lewiss before he wrote the story \nand it feels very much like it would be a piece of propaganda to me. I dont \nknow how Gaiman can hate Lewis and like Michael Moorcock. He just doesn't \nseem to have good taste.\n\n p.s. I am writing from hell, of course, so it should be perfectly \nobvious I am not a sheep in wolf's clothing.\n\np.p.s. if you are looking to avoid a heated debate on Tolkien and Lewis's \n\"racial agenda\", do notr ask me if I think Lord of the Rings or Narnia is \nabout the crusades or the Moors.\n\np.p.p.s If Barliman does not deliver this, I will roast him.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<00ff01c4d70f$8f166f70$4c1e4b0a@vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-30T11:05:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush is giddy about learning a new useful word:\n\nag?on ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gn, -n, ?-gn)\nn. pl. a?gon?es (-gnz)\n 1.. A conflict, especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a\nwork of literature.\n 2.. The part of an ancient Greek drama, especially a comedy, in which two\ncharacters engage in verbal dispute.\n 3.. A test of will; a conflict: \"Freud's originality stemmed from his\naggression and ambition in his agon with biology\" (Harold Bloom).\n 4.. A contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes\nwere awarded.\n\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n----\n[Greek agn. See agony.]\n\n~ Crush\n\n----- Original Message ----- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Eric Mattingly\" \nTo: \nSent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 1:53 PM\nSubject: RE: (urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman\nHi. I am new to this site. This discussion interests me and I will toss\nin\nmy own \"two cents\" (as the kids are saying these days).\n\nHarold Bloom spends a lot of time discussing the intertextual \"agons\" or\nbattles of artistic superiority that each writer must undergo. I think\nhis\ntheory is more or less obtuse depending on the author, but I think that we\ncan see something by the Bloomian book here with Mieville, Gaiman,\nPullman,\netc." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5CA857B9-430E-11D9-971B-0003939CE29C@earthlink.net>", "from": { "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-30T11:29:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 10:53 AM, Eric Mattingly wrote:\nHi. I am new to this site. This discussion interests me and I will \ntoss in my own \"two cents\" (as the kids are saying these days).\n\nHarold Bloom spends a lot of time discussing the intertextual \"agons\" \nor battles of artistic superiority that each writer must undergo. I \nthink his theory is more or less obtuse depending on the author, but I \nthink that we can see something by the Bloomian book here with \nMieville, Gaiman, Pullman, etc.\n\nIn my own opinion, Pullman is the best author of the three. Gaiman is \na good, though undistinguished, author, and (again, in my opinion) \nMieville is little more than a slightly above average hack attempting \nsomething out of his depth. In all three of these, however, one can \nfind an impassioned-- even embittered-- agon with Tolkien and Lewis, \nespecially Tolkien. It is the old Freudian story of the sons \nmurdering the father in order to possess the mother and limit his \ninfluence (i.e. Totem and Taboo). The irony is that they fail on both \ncounts and make even stronger (though now with a neurotic dimension) \nthe influence Tolkien has over them. I agree with Turin that we \ncannot over-psychoanalyze an author based on their work, but maybe an \nauthor's commentary on other works is fair game.\n\nNow, to aid in the desperate struggle of bringing Wolfe back into \nthis. Wolfe freely admits love and admiration for his precursor but, \nin the end, provides the strongest agon against him possible-- he \nmoves speculative (for want of a better word) fiction into the realm \nof genuine mythical and psychological conflict. And, I would argue, \nin the end swallows up his precursors (Tolkien, of course, but Lewis \ntoo among others) and displaces them. That is of course contingent \nupon whether or not you consider Wolfe the best sci-fi and fantasy \nwriter (which I do). The three writers in question do not, I believe, \nhave any hope of surviving an agon with Wolfe. Pullman is cool, \nthough. Only he has the potential to survive the agon with Tolkien \nand Lewis (though HDM does not, in the end because of its ending)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don (who's still a kid I suppose) tosses in his coppers:\n\nI like this a lot. Ahab vs the white whale. Quinn vs the shark. \nMaybe they should've stayed on shore and opened a bait shop. . . I \nmean there's a reason the stories are called by the name of the \nbehemoths and not by their stalkers." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5.2.1.1.0.20041130194019.02c91d50@pop.ntlworld.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew Malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at ntlworld.com" }, "date": "2004-11-30T12:17:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370411291507453b8f3e@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At 23:07 29/11/2004, Dan'l wrote:\n\n[On Mi?ville's viewpoint and politics]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He might well. I'm not saying that there is no serious political\ncontent; I'm saying that I'm not finding it. The internal politics\nof Bas-Lag seem sufficiently alien that I don't find much, as\nTolkien called it, _applicability_ - let alone allegory! - to the\n\"real\" world." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wonder if this might be because Mi?ville's political activity is in a \nminor left-wing British party that simply isn't recognisable (or even \nrecognisable as politics) divorced from it's context. The printing of \nsubversive pamphlets and broad sheets, the workers movements and conflict \nthat appear both in Perdido and Iron Council scream (simplistic and \nquasi-violent) politics to my English sensibilities. They're the idiots I \nwent to college with who'd swallowed the implausible logic of the party \nleaders wholesale.\n\nA couple of months ago, immediately before I read Iron Council, I attended \na bookshop reading where Mi?ville answered questions. Two things he said \nstay with me. First that he said of himself that he's a literary \nkleptomaniac, coming across an idea or thing he fancies he'll work it \nin. Basilisk? Nice, have some of them. Golem? Spider? space warp? memory \ndrug? mechanical intelligence? thow 'em all in. And you can see it, pick \nout the \"cute ideas\" if you want to.\n\nThe other was that he wrote Iron Council because he wanted to write a \nwestern (cowboys and indians) but as a fantasy because verisimilitude \nwasn't his thing - the myth of the Wild West was something he wanted to use \nbut not a genre he wanted to enter directly.\n\nHaving heard that I recognised it. But I don't know if I would have done \notherwise. The religious impetus of the builder to drive across Bas-Lag in \nplace of the capitalist expansion only makes a good metaphor if you agree \nwith his political position that capitalism is inherently destructive. The \nLone Ranger subverted is a twist, if an implausible one, on the myth. The \nhero against all odds shouldn't lose. The uprising doesn't have a \nplace. The mayoralty of New Crobuzon is an inadequate allegory of East \nCoast politics unless your own view places you so far outside of that \npolitics that you can't examine its detail so fall back on defining it as \nevil without explication.\n\nI like Mi?ville; I like what he writes albeit Iron Council was rather less \nfun than either Perdido Street Station or The Scar. But they are fun \nrather than great. He isn't nearly such a good writer as he'd like to \nthink he is and extending his kleptomania to Tolkein or Peake isn't \nsufficient to put him in their league.\n\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41B4B1C8.5010200@link.com>", "from": { "name": "Charles Reed", "address": "cmreed at link.com" }, "date": "2004-12-06T11:23:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704112911553b53139c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Someone mentioned earlier that it has become a fashion lately\nto attack Lewis's work. \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That would be me. I've seen it all over the place but especially in \nthe \"Gaiman generation.\"\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Despite my own problems with Lewis's particular worldview, I have read \nessay by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Phillip Pullman which were\nwritten basically to \"debunk\" Lewiss and for Mieville Tolkien as well. \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would very much like a pointer to Gaiman's essay, as up to now I \nhave only his fictions to base this on. (Not only \"The Problem of \nSusan,\" but also the _Sandman_ arc \"A Game of You,\" which has \nsome details that have always seemed to me to be idle passing \nswipes at the Narnia books.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It had been quite a while since I last read A GAME OF YOU, but I \ncouldn't recall any \"swipes\" at the Narnia books, so I took the \nopportunity to re-read it, and still couldn't find anything I would call \nclassify as being derogatory toward Narnia. Do you recall anything \nspecific that made you think so?\n\nThere are some obvious Narnia references (as well as plenty Oz and \nMiddle-Earth references), with the most obvious being the sequence \ntoward the end where Barbie's dream world comes to an end. This is very \nmuch an echo of Narnia's end in THE LAST BATTLE, but I couldn't detect \nany Narnia references in the writing that would not be considered an homage.\n\nI did a little googling on the web, and came across a speech that Gaiman \ngave at Mythcon 35 (the Mythopoeic Society's big shindig) in 2004, in \nwhich he says some very complimentary things regarding C. S. Lewis. I \nhope I'm not violating any copyright by quoting the entire Narnia passage:\n\n------------------------------\n\nI was six years old when I saw an episode of The Lion, The Witch and the \nWardrobe in black and white on television at my grandmother's house in \nPortsmouth. I remember the beavers, and the first appearance of Aslan, \nan actor in an unconvincing lion costume, standing on his hind legs, \nfrom which I deduce that this was probably episode two or three. I went \nhome to Sussex and saved my meagre pocket money until I was able to buy \na copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe of my own. I read it, and \nThe Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the other book I could find, over and \nover, and when my seventh birthday arrived I had dropped enough hints \nthat my birthday present was a boxed set of the complete Narnia books. \nAnd I remember what I did on my seventh birthday -- I lay on my bed and \nI read the books all through, from the first to the last.\n\nFor the next four or five years I continued to read them. I would read \nother books, of course, but in my heart I knew that I read them only \nbecause there wasn't an infinite number of Narnia books to read.\n\nFor good or ill the religious allegory, such as it was, went entirely \nover my head, and it was not until I was about twelve that I found \nmyself realising that there were Certain Parallels. Most people get it \nat the Stone Table; I got it when it suddenly occurred to me that the \nstory of the events that occurred to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus \nwas the dragoning of Eustace Scrubb all over again. I was personally \noffended: I felt that an author, whom I had trusted, had had a hidden \nagenda. I had nothing against religion, or religion in fiction -- I had \nbought (in the school bookshop) and loved The Screwtape Letters, and was \nalready dedicated to G.K. Chesterton. My upset was, I think, that it \nmade less of Narnia for me, it made it less interesting a thing, less \ninteresting a place. Still, the lessons of Narnia sank deep. Aslan \ntelling the Tash worshippers that the prayers he had given to Tash were \nactually prayers to Him was something I believed then, and ultimately \nstill believe.\n\nThe Pauline Baynes map of Narnia poster stayed up on my bedroom wall \nthrough my teenage years.\n\nI didn't return to Narnia until I was a parent, first in 1988, then in \n1999, each time reading all the books aloud to my children. I found that \nthe things that I loved, I still loved -- sometimes loved more -- while \nthe things that I had thought odd as a child (the awkwardness of the \nstructure of Prince Caspian, and my dislike for most of The Last Battle, \nfor example) had intensified; there were also some new things that made \nme really uncomfortable -- for example the role of women in the Narnia \nbooks, culminating in the disposition of Susan. But what I found more \ninteresting was how much of the Narnia books had crept inside me: as I \nwould write there would be moment after moment of realising that I'd \nborrowed phrases, rhythms, the way that words were put together; for \nexample, that I had a hedgehog and a hare, in The Books of Magic, \nspeaking and agreeing with each other much as the Dufflepuds do.\n\nC.S. Lewis was the first person to make me want to be a writer. He made \nme aware of the writer, that there was someone standing behind the \nwords, that there was someone telling the story. I fell in love with the \nway he used parentheses -- the auctorial asides that were both wise and \nchatty, and I rejoiced in using such brackets in my own essays and \ncompositions through the rest of my childhood.\n\nI think, perhaps, the genius of Lewis was that he made a world that was \nmore real to me than the one I lived in; and if authors got to write the \ntales of Narnia, then I wanted to be an author.\n\n------------------------------\n\nThe rest of the speech is worth reading (mainly about Tolkien and \nChesterton), so if you want to read the entire speech, here's the link: \nhttp://www.mythsoc.org/gaiman.htm\n\nCharles" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f761737041206121059ce2aaa@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-12-06T12:14:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<41B4B1C8.5010200@link.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmmm.\n\nWell, it seems very unlikely to me that Gaiman would say much\nuncomplimentary about CSL (or JRRT) as the invited guest of the \nMythopoeic Society, an organization created specifically for the\nstudy of the works of the Inklings: it would be akin to accepting a \ndinner invitation and getting up after the appetizer and starting \nto make rude remarks about your host's mother. \n\nThat he says as much as he does (about being \"personally \noffended,\" about feeling that CSL had violated his trust, about \nthe \"awkwardness\" of the structure of _Prince Caspian_) in such \na context leads me to believe that he might have quite a bit more \nto say in a less Lewicentric forum.\n\nStill, what he _does_ say makes it clear that he loves, or at some\npoint loved, those books, and that's worth knowing.\n\nThanks.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\nFreedom has no barcode.\n --J.G. Ballard" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41B4BF77.8070607@link.com>", "from": { "name": "Charles Reed", "address": "cmreed at link.com" }, "date": "2004-12-06T12:22:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<1f761737041206121059ce2aaa@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also thought it to be quite telling that he (Gaiman) chose to read the \nNarnia books to his two children. If a person is virulently against the \nmessage conveyed in a certain book, there's no way in the world they're \ngoing to be reading those books to the most precious people in their lives.\n\nCharles" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nH'mmmm.\n\nWell, it seems very unlikely to me that Gaiman would say much\nuncomplimentary about CSL (or JRRT) as the invited guest of the \nMythopoeic Society, an organization created specifically for the\nstudy of the works of the Inklings: it would be akin to accepting a \ndinner invitation and getting up after the appetizer and starting \nto make rude remarks about your host's mother. \n\nThat he says as much as he does (about being \"personally \noffended,\" about feeling that CSL had violated his trust, about \nthe \"awkwardness\" of the structure of _Prince Caspian_) in such \na context leads me to believe that he might have quite a bit more \nto say in a less Lewicentric forum.\n\nStill, what he _does_ say makes it clear that he loves, or at some\npoint loved, those books, and that's worth knowing.\n\nThanks.\n\n--Dan'l\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<20041206204449.6818.qmail@web52004.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Fred Kiesche", "address": "godel2escher2bach at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2004-12-06T12:44:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<41B4BF77.8070607@link.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Greetings:\n\nWhen I read Gaiman's \"Coraline\" (I think that's how he\nspelled it), I was reminded very much of C.S. Lewis.\n\nThe same with Pullman and the \"Dark Materials\" books.\nI was reminded of Lewis.\n\nGiven some of the comments reported here from those\nauthors about Lewis, et al, it's kind of interesting\nthat I got that reaction (I read the books before I\nread those comments).\n\n\n\n\n=====\nFred Kiesche (FPK3)\n \nMy books are water; those of great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water. (Mark Twain, \"Notebook\")\n \nScience, science fiction and more. See The Eternal Golden Braid. (http://theeternalgoldenbraid.blogspot.com/)\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000301c4dc96$3603f290$6501a8c0@NAME>", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2004-12-07T11:52:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman", "in_reply_to": "<41B4B1C8.5010200@link.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you for that Gaiman quote, Charles.\n\nI found it very interesting - but then I would, since Gaiman's take on\nLewis and Narnia seems to be an exact match for mine. But I also think\nit shines a useful light on what has been posted here previously. " } ] } ] }