the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman

Lisa Schaffer-Doggett · 29 Nov 2004, 19:13 · from 2004-November.txt.gz

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From: harlekin at earthlink.net (Lisa Schaffer-Doggett)
Date: Mon Nov 29 19:13:45 2004
Subject: (urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370411291507453b8f3e at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <15E7EE90-4286-11D9-948A-0003939CE29C at earthlink.net>

On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 03:07 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:11:17 -0800 (PST), Nathan Spears
> <spearofsolomon at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> 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.
>
>
Don pipes in:

Yes, I think an argument can be made that LotR isn't even fantasy in 
the way it's understood now.  You might as well ask about the system of 
grain distribution in Camelot or Geatland as expect that sort of thing 
from Tolkien.  Not Important To The STORY.  But what's that, anyway?  
Besides, Tolkien's passion was philology, not politics, and I'm sure if 
the tables were turned, Mieville would fall short there.  (no good 
saying language is less important than politics or economics.  It might 
be more important)

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