Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Larry Miller · 16 Dec 2011, 17:01 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: decanus1284 at gmail.com (Larry Miller)
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:01:41 -0500
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W50ECAE6E13A6F40B0B1A23CFA00 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W50ECAE6E13A6F40B0B1A23CFA00 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <CADQR0GqEgVsBUSp7WpsdDkgCnY8P9CkGs1bW_02GTDaVRcEZmQ at mail.gmail.com>

Dont forget that sword and sorcery also has roots in the planetary
romances of burroughs who we know Wolfe was aware of.  There was also
the Jirel of Joiry  and the Zothique stories that are the earliest
sword and sorcery tales.  Or the Worm Ouroborous.  They all predate
Tolkien.  And Conan being a cheap comic book derivative? Come on!

On 12/16/11, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: You are absolutely correct, I meant "religious
>> morality" and should
>>have said so explicitly.
>
> Ah, well, not really. I understood but I'll confess that I just wanted an
> excuse to
> further discuss Tolkien with someone who knows more than I do about the
> subject. :- )
>
>>Antonio Pedro Marques: The discussion was about what it looked like on the
>> _surface_. If
>>you only find out at the end of the story that a character seems to fit a
>> fairy tale,
>>then the fairytaleness isn't really part of the scenery, is it?
>
> Scenery! That's an interesting point. For me, it was fairly early in BotNS
> that the S & S/
> fairy tale aspects hit me. What came later (much later) was the recognition
> of real religious
> content in the story, albeit with an intensely gnostic flavor.
>
> For years I had wondered why Wolfe put "gnostic symbols" in the Witches
> Tower. The problem
> was my own limited knowledge of gnosticism. The impact of Alexander's brief
> but mighty
> empire on all levels of Western culture can't be ignored, including
> religion. Our legends of
> witches, vampires, manbeasts shapeshifting gods, monsters etc. can be traced
> back to that time
> period, in that part of the world.
>
> But anyway, does the fact that my realization of the religious aspect of
> BotNS came later mean
> it is not a religious story? Or even that religious trappings are not part
> of the scenery?
>
>>Maybe for me s&s is a more restricted thing than for others. I think of
>> Conan the Barbarian
>>rather than LotR as the prototype. I'm not even sure I find LotR all that
>> s&s, given the serious
>>'historical' feeling I get from it, nor the Hobbit, given its (deceivingly)
>> children's-tale style.
>
> Great observation and recognition Antonio. Perhaps I am not alone in having
> assumed that LotR was
> more of a prototype or archetype of S & S while Conan is more of a cheap
> comic book derivative.
> A cultural bias? Conan (like Tarzan) is a European character created by an
> American, while LotR seems
> somehow more authentic and refined- high brow British characters created by
> an Englishman.
>
> But, a check online about Robert Howard, the creator of Conan (and who
> pre-dates Tolkien), produces
> this blurb:
>
>>With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre now known as
>> sword and sorcery, spawning
>>a wide swath of imitators and giving him an influence in the fantasy field
>> rivaled only by J. R. R.
>>Tolkien and Tolkien's similarly inspired creation of high fantasy.
>
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