the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 29 Nov 2004, 17:20 · from 2004-November.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Mon Nov 29 17:20:05 2004
Subject: (urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman
In-Reply-To: <20041130004231.8283.qmail at web20025.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <1f7617370411291507453b8f3e at mail.gmail.com>
	<20041130004231.8283.qmail at web20025.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370411291719776ec413 at mail.gmail.com>

Oh. Oh, well, so much for that theory...


On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:42:31 -0800 (PST), stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mieville's new novel almost suffocates under all the
> political baggage, and it is constructed as a series
> of flashbacks . . .
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> 
> --- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan
> > Spears
> > <spearofsolomon at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I just wanted to interject a quick comment.
> > Having read several
> > > interviews with Mieville, I think that he is very
> > interested in how
> > > his worlds function, and specifically, how the
> > politics work.
> >
> > That much is clearly true. In fact, there are times
> > when he comes
> > parlously close to Poughkeepsie, to borrow Le Guin's
> > trope.
> >
> >
> > > I might be getting myself in trouble, because I
> > can't remember
> > > how much intelligent discussion of M's work I've
> > actually read
> > > on this list, but here's what I remember:
> > >
> > > He doesn't like the fantasy tradition of having an
> > aristocratic
> > > society living on air; for instance, in Tolkien,
> > he would be wary
> > > of the inhabitants of Minas Tirath. What do they
> > do?  How do
> > > they get food, support an economy, etc?
> >
> > That's a common and rather false criticism of
> > Tolkien and _tLotR_.
> > It isn't emphasized, but Tolkien does in fact
> > mention the farming
> > communities of Gondor in several places. Minas
> > Tirith supports
> > itself much the way, say, Imperial Rome or medieval
> > Paris did -
> > by being a center of trade and governance, and a
> > military capital.
> >
> >
> > > I think I remember reading about how he laid out a
> > whole
> > > economic and political (ecopolitical?)
> >
> > Politico-economic, usually...
> >
> > > foundation for his world before he started setting
> > the story.  In
> > > fact, I read some comments which made a pretty
> > strong case for
> > > the idea that M's world, and the creatures that
> > inhabit it, are
> > > more interesting/important that the stories he
> > tells there.
> > > I have a feeling someone said that on this list.
> >
> > It probably wasn't me, but I agree with whoever said
> > it. The
> > stories are actually fairly kludgey. Reading _PSS_ I
> > remember
> > thinking "There isn't a single character in this
> > book I like, let
> > alone identify with." While this is not true of _The
> > Scar_, it's
> > badly imbalanced in terms of pacing - the first half
> > of the book
> > drags on, the second half rips along; it took me
> > less time to read
> > the entire last half than any fifty pages of the
> > first half. The first
> > hundred pages or so could easily (and imio should
> > have) been
> > cut by a sympathetic editor to about twenty, as much
> > of it is just
> > moody stage setting; in fact, the first part could
> > have been done
> > away with easily, and the few bits that remained
> > significant for
> > the rest of the book worked in as flashbacks.
> > Mieville is a
> > relentlessly _linear_ storyteller; I don't recall a
> > significant
> > flashback in either of the two books I've read.
> >
> > > [...] the person you were responding to is (might
> > be) pretty
> > > close to the mark with his summary of Mieville,
> > especially from
> > > Mieville's own viewpoint.
> >
> > He might well. I'm not saying that there is no
> > serious political
> > content; I'm saying that I'm not finding it. The
> > internal politics
> > of Bas-Lag seem sufficiently alien that I don't find
> > much, as
> > Tolkien called it, _applicability_ - let alone
> > allegory! - to the
> > "real" world.
> >
> > --Dan'l
> >
> > --
> > www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
> > "Saddam would still be in power if he were the
> > President
> > of the United States, and the world would be a lot
> > better off."
> >      -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04
> > _______________________________________________
> > Urth Mailing List
> > To post, write urth at urth.net
> > Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >
> 
> 
> =====
> http://www.sff.net/people/stilskin
> 
> 
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-- 
www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President
of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off."
     -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04

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