Breaking the Author/Reader Contract.

[WizarDru]

Ahem.

Let's just remember to keep things pleasant, ok guys? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Regarding Donaldson and Covenant: No contract broken, with me. I didn't like the character, I didn't like the rape and I didn't care for Dondaldson's writing. He failed to engage me, but we had no contract failure. Tastes differ, and that I failed to enjoy his work didn't invalidate it. I find The Godfather and Sopranos series compelling, and assume the same for the Shield, not because I like the characters, but because I enjoy watching them interact in their world, and they are not the sole viewpoint characters. Tony Soprano has a personal code of honor. He feels bad about the terrible things he does, even if he still does them. Covenant may have come to that point (although from what I'm hearing, it sounds like he never truly does)...but when I quit the book, he hadn't. I might feel differently if I read the books now, but I have enough material to read that I won't seek out something I have a history of having notenjoyed.

Regarding Robert Jordan: Contract Violation. Jordan made me an implicit promise with his work: to tell a story about Rand al'Thor, and the events leading to the final confrontation with the Dark Lord. For roughly four or five books, I got that story. Then Jordan lost his way. I remember when Mat killed the leader of the Shaido off-camera...that was when I literally heard the train go off the rails. I had eagerly awaited a climactic showdown, and was cheated of it. I got long baths and endless self-abosrbed reflection, but characters who disappear for several books, and get a quarter-chapter somewhere. Jordan stopped telling his story, and started just passing time. Like Bartelby the Scrivener, when asked to finish his tale, he simply replies "I choose not to."

Tad Williams: Major Contract Violation. I have never been angrier at an author than the 'conclusion' of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Williams made me a promise...a promise that my investment of time and effort in plunging through his very long books would lead me to a satsifying ending, and that all of his foreshadowing had meaning; that a character who had been a viewpoint character on and off for three books had a great destiny...and that great destiny was

Spoiler

to hold a door open for the main characters

. All of the omens and implicit details were utterly meaningless and without value....it was all hogwash. Most of the efforts of the main characters were redundant and unneccesary.

Spoiler

The incredibly powerful magic swords were, as it happens, utterly unimportant...not unlike the main character.

I felt betrayed by the story. Williams had provided me implications that the book would end in a much different fashion than it did, and I was left wondering why he had wasted all that time and all those words.

Stephen Brust: In Dispute. I love Brust, but I still harbor a resentment at how he changed the tone and identity of the Taltos books to read more like unfocused and unenjoyable political allegories, instead of witty romps. It was several books before he undid the damage. As for the charge of being an assasin, I find it much harder to dislike Vlad for doing it. He is very rarely ever put into a situation where there is a clear moral impediement to performing his work. Usually he's killing unpleasant folks to begin with (or later, for a cause)...and death is not terribly permananent for most folks in his world (hell, it's considered a way to warn someone...Vlad himself is killed in Taltos', iirc).

 

[barsoomcore]

evildmguy:

I'll just say that each and every one of your issues with the story of LotR is very clearly and capably dealt with in the books. Many people have trouble getting through the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring -- but it honestly is worth your time and effort. I don't personally know anyone who finished the story and wasn't completely satisfied with what they got.

Your problems have more to do with Peter Jackson's not-very-competent direction of the final two films than any failures on the part of Professor Tolkien.

And there is a very, very large amount of 19th and early 20th century writing that it is so amazingly good that it's practically criminal not to acquire a taste for it. You are discarding much of the greatest writing of all time. On behalf of the English language, I beg you to reconsider your position.



bill91: That Tolkien intended one of the fundamental messages of LotR to be that only through grace can we be redeemed is beyond dispute. He said so, many times. He may well have wanted to express other ideas as well, and he may not have succeeded in expressing this one, but that he intended to is certain.

 

[jester47]

For Tolkien, that's the point - mortals can only be saved from the evil that Sauron represents by the grace of God. It is a statement driven by religious sentiment.

I thought what he was saying that the anti-hero is ussually far more capable than the hero. Look at Gollum, hes despicable, hes greedy, and insane, but its his desire for the ring that ultimately saves the world. The CLASSICAL idea of the hero is finding one so selfish that they cannot be stopped in their course. Granted Gollum did it accidently, but the CLASSICAL (NOT MODERN) idea of the hero was just that. They save as a course of being. Today, its called the Anti-Hero.

I think one of the messages of the new testament is that people want heroes that can kick ass and take names, but are also morally strong. "If hes our hero, our messiah, why isn't he sticking it to the romans?" Thats the problem. Its very rare to have your cake and eat it too. Killing, rape and getting things done are the realm of the morally weak because they do not care who they hurt in the course of what they have to do. Gollum did not care. All he wants is the ring, and he will do anything to get it. Making him the ex-pyrosis of LotR.

 

[jester47]

If I accept that the Donaldson's "point" in the Thomas Covenant series was to show that a messiah (world saver) is different from a nice guy, or even from a minimally decent person, will you accept that I, and many other people, simply don't want to read about messiahs that rape people? Even if we get the author's point? Can you accept that I for one would think the world would be a better place if no one ever again writes a book about a messiah that rapes people? Even if I get the author's point? Frankly, some points are not worth making in novel form, IMHO.

Oh, and my own point about moral heroes predating American heroes only needs one pure knight to be made, even if we granted you Uther, etc. And that knight was Sir Galahad, I believe. Since tales of Sir Galahad predated the first American written novel or short story, there we go. Moral Heroes existed before the American written novel or written short story, and hence before the American hero.

Also, I am relieved to see that Mallory's Lancelot did not rape Elaine; my glasses might be rose colored but I don't think my memory is so clouded that I would forget that Lancelot was a rapist. But if you have a quote from Mallory in which Lancelot does rape Elaine, please feel free to share it. I might be wrong on that point (but not on the point of a moral hero predating American heroes.

PMan,

I think our argument is semantical. I am saying that in our language and times, many past "heroes" are in our terms anti-heros. I thought it was Percival that actually got the Grail? I thought Galahad got close, but it was his son Percival that actually got it. I could be remembering wrong. But I think what Malory was saying was a sort of "no one that lived in egypt can live in the promised land" WRT the grail. No one that was not born into the round table could recover the grail. As Malory's Arthur is a commentary on the politics of his time he is basicly saying that England needed to get its crap together but none of those living are going to be able to appreciate the benefits of the peace they may or may not achieve, but rather their children born to peace.

With the idea of an american-hero, I simply mean that the late classical to the modern era has been a transition from the capable hero to the moral hero. We have a very different morality than that of the Classical peoples. And our heros have evolved with it. This evolution reached a point of the moral hero. So looking back it is easy to spot the ones that conform to the realised moral hero. Medieval Saints and Knights from Arthurian Romance fit the bill better than most others. Percival/Galahad are simply the great grandfather of Superman. They are part of the evolution of the Moral Hero. Its evolved to the point where we hold our own soldiers to that almost-impossible-in-war-time standard. While I do think there are some earlier examples of nations holding their soldiers to higher standards, our are bordering on the unrealistic. Thus as the capable hero evolves into the moral hero, we open up the idea of the anti-hero as a place for all those "heroes" that no longer fit the bill.

About Rape.

I don't condone rape. However, I have been raised to understand its somthing that happens. And as long as there is sex, sex will be used as a weapon. Do I think that makes it alright? No. Does that mean I think it has no place in literature? No, quite the contrary. I think if we were more open about rape and about how it happens more often than not (an aqaintence, or person in a position of trust) we might be able to actually do somthing about it. However, putting in the context of the protagonist causes problems as the question arises of weather the author condones it or not. And I think that is the problem that most people have with TC. The central character is comitting the act.

When a protagonist commits such an act, I simply say, "ah we have an anti-hero then"

In the end I guess I am saying that the anti-hero is a very old and can be a viable literary figure. Is TC one. I don't know.

Mainly because we find the flawless hero boring, and the flawed hero a little more interesting. Our interest peaks as we get closer to the reality of the anti-hero. I'm not saying the moral hero is a modern development, but I will say that the American Hero is a subset of the Moral Hero and may be its perfection.

But personally I think no one can be a moral hero if they kill, or rape, or carry out similar actions. Its just not possible. So heroes (modern) IMO range the gambit from almost anti to almost moral.

Aaron.

 

[ShadowX]

One thing I hate about Lord of the Rings is that so much is hidden in other books. You ask a question about it and someone cites the Silmarillion or some of his personal letters. Books should stand alone without any required research.

BTW, Bartelby "prefered not to."

 

[Aeric]

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams is one of my all-time favorite fantasy trilogies, but the end of the story completely ruined it for me. I was really looking forward to seeing how they would resolve the relationship between Simon and the princess, since they came from different social classes and therefore were forbidden to marry. This was a source of so much dramatic angst over the course of the story, so I figured that the resolution had to be something fantastic.

In one of the last chapters of the third book (maybe even the last chapter, it's been a while), Simon wanders into the Hall of Kings where, lo and behold, he spies a statue that looks...just like him! Turns out that the orphan Simon is a descendant of some king, and therefore marriage material for the princess. Talk about contrived! It totally felt as if the author was stuck for a resolution to this plot thread and, with deadline coming up, took the cheap and easy way out. If it wasn't the end of the trilogy anyways, I would have put the book down and never picked it up again. I felt ripped off.

He made up for it in War of the Flowers, though. I really liked that book, especially the ending.

 

[Umbran]

It totally felt as if the author was stuck for a resolution to this plot thread and, with deadline coming up, took the cheap and easy way out.

Except that the author had raised the question of Simon's parentage multiple times throughout the books. He was waving the whole "I'm an orphan, and folks said odd things about my father" from book 1. Having noted that, the ending came as no surprise to me.

 

[Squire James]

Actually, I thought the end of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series was refreshingly different. It was the villains working against the odds to (almost) pull off the impossible! There was a bit of surprise for the sake of surprise going on, perhaps, but not enough that I considered it a "contract violation". People have a low tolerance for endgame plot twists in that sort of tale, I guess.

 

[Aesmael]

Now that is puzzling, Aeric. wert (With Respect To - my word, I made it up ) that part of M, S & T, the ending of War of the Flowers is almost identical. Just as easy to see coming too, but was no real disappointment for that
I will say I enjoyed the ending of Memory, Sorry and Thorn for precisely the reasons Wizardru did not. It acted as a welcome counterpoint to the Tolkien clones I was beginning to weary of (although it itself is closer to the Lord of the Rings in this than they are). Yes, there was a prophecy, but it has been misinterpreted by the characters and, presumably the reader (I did). It is a complacency induced by (IMO, of course) the reading of too many other unimaginative fantasies to take those things at face value. Although I will boast that one part of the prophecy's phrasing was niggling at the back of mind while reading (or maybe it is my memory playing tricks to make me feel clever )
Well, an opinion. I have never been any good at english or dissecting literature so...

If anything in that would constitute a spoiler I would appreciate advice on how to black out the text. As a glance to the left of the message will tell, I am inexperienced on this board.
teh teh teh teh

 

[SableWyvern]

This talke of Memory, Sorrow and Rose (which I have not read) reminds me of the last Feist book I read - Prince of Krondor, I believe, although I could be mistaken.

All through the book, we have several relatively new characters struggling and striving to oppose and defeat the great big bad things that seek death and destruction.

Then, at the end, all the old, godlike heroes from the earlier books rock up and kick some posterior. Everything the central characters did throughout the entire novel is rendered irrelevant to the story's conclusion, as Pug and Co. suddenly appear and save the world without breaking a sweat.