China Mieville on Tolkien and Epic/High Fantasy

[Celtavian]

re

Just to say that an entertaining, epic story had better have some moral relevance, or it won't be very entertaining OR epic.

Great stories are great because of what they say, regardless of the author's intention. Winnie the Pooh is immortal not only because of the brilliant prose of A. A. Milne, but because that prose is in the service of stories that tell us something about ourselves that we recognize as important.

I highly disagree with this assertion. I personally read just because I enjoy reading. I have read Hamlet and I don't spend my time contemplating the story. It was a good entertaining read.

People have been telling tales for all of human history. Mainly because they are entertaining and break up the monotony of everyday life.

Ideas of "messages" and "meanings" are naive. Literature doesn't "mean" things. It says things. It tells us things, things more than just the events of the story. If it doesn't, it's pornography. (That's my secret definition of the two, if you care)

That's right. It says things that we give meaning to based on our experience and education. I include education because if you are educated, you will often have been told what the meaning of a book is.

"Hamlet" doesn't have a "meaning". It doesn't have a "message". But it does say something very profound about our relationship with ourselves.

No it doesn't. Once again you are trying to give to others what is yours. I didn't identify with any of the characters in Hamlet. I continued to read the story because it was a well-written, compelling story and I wanted to see what happened.

I have no personal investment in the story. It tells me nothing about my relationship with myself.

The Lord of the Rings doesn't mean anything. But it does have a great deal to say about duty, about friendship, about the cost of fighting evil. It's a big book, you can find a lot in it, and you can probably find things in it you don't like.

I found meaning in the book. Nuff' said.

Entertaining and Epic? You darn betcha, featherbreath. Moral Relevance? Sure does for me.

Is it morally relevant as in affecting the morality of those who read it? I don't think so.

I enjoy the book because I agree with the morality of the characters prior to reading the story. Lord of the Rings will not change someone's morality.

 

[Celtavian]

re

MARK: In the end meaning and message are what someone draws from literature, rather than (perhaps regardless of) what might be the intent of the author.

I don't quite understand how it was missed. This is what I was saying. The only difference is that I believe a message is intended by the author, whereas meaning is something indirectly implied by the author filtered through the lense of the reader.

For example, Mark Twain intended to send a message with the story The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg. Orwell's 1984 is another example of an author intending to send a message to the reader.

 

[barsoomcore]

You now seem to contend that the thing is binary.

I "now" seem to contend? I don't think my position has changed, but I apologize if I give that impression. My words don't always come out meaning what I think they do.

That completely ignores the possibility that the work can have many meanings - some placed there intentionally by the author, some placed unintentionally by the author, and some read into it by the reader.

I have no complaint with this idea. Indeed, this is pretty much exactly what I've been (apparently unsuccessfully) trying to say. Thanks for making it more clear.

Our language is ambiguous. But that doesn't result in our literature having no meaning. It instead results in our literature having multiple meanings.

Multiple meanings? Try infinite meanings? Or do you think there is a limit to the number of meanings (I don't like the word but it seems to be what we're using) that readers can draw from a text? How do we tell when we're done?

Of course we are never done. And so the task of the reader is not to determine the meaning or meanings of a work, for there are always more to be determined. I know I'm starting to sound terribly pendantic (sorry, I've just been reading Danse Macabre) but I do feel pretty strongly about all this.

The task of a reader is to engage with the book, to use it like a sort of mental can-opener to tug away some rusted tin and have a look at what's been preserved inside. Sometimes we like to use the same can-opener and look in the same tins over and over again, and there's nothing wrong with that. But a truly great book is like an electric can-opener, with a feeding line and a whole pantry full of tins to yank open and show you, tins you never even knew were up on the shelf.

That's when reading gets FUN.

Meaning? I don't give a snot about meaning. Tell me what it shows you, tell me what it makes you see and think about. Don't tell me what the writer meant, or what the message is. That's a waste of space.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Of course Tolkien doesn't have "meaning." But there are several messages that ring through quite strongly. The importance of blood (ancestry), the value of heroism and sacrifice, the importance of loyalty and friendship (or the master servant relationship; however you want to interpret that exactly), the nature of evil.

Despite your ability to latch on to one phrase in the forward, those messages don't go away. In fact, Tolkien himself explores them to some detail in the History of Middle-earth papers, in part giving the lie to his own statement of lack of meaning or message.

He discusses those subjects because people were interested in them. He received countless letters from fans wanting more information on Middle Earth and the underlying mythology. The real telling factor here is his other book The Hobbit. An entirely different story from Lord of the Rings which people quite ignore when they attach such significance to Lord of the Rings.

Any messages or meanings are implied by the reader. He is not saying anything about the "importance of blood (ancestry)" or "friendship". He used those particular elements because they seemed to fit the genre.

Just because an author derives characters and story elements from historical precedence, doesn't mean he is saying anything about those characters or elements. He is using them like pieces of a puzzle to put a story together.

I don't know if you have read the alternative scenes that Tolkien contemplated including in Lord of the Rings, but if you have then you know the story could just as easily have been very different from what it currently is. He even contemplated having Boromir become a dastardly villain violently opposing Aragorn and Aragorn started off as a vagabond met on the road by the traveling hobbits.

Stories grow from the author's imagination. For Tolkien to have intended a message, he would have had to have thought about that message and directed the story towards communicating that message. Instead, he let the story take him where it would, and any message or meaning is implied by the reader not the author.

 

[barsoomcore]

I personally read just because I enjoy reading. I have read Hamlet and I don't spend my time contemplating the story. It was a good entertaining read.

If I ever said you had to "contemplate" I apologize. It was cruel and unfair of me. While I have no complaint with contemplation, nothing I have said about the necessity of moral relevance requires it.

What I am saying is that a tale is MORE entertaining when we recognize moral relevance in its reality to our own. Hamlet is a good entertaining read (one of the better summations of the play I've seen) BECAUSE we recognize that Hamlet's predicament is one that we might have moral difficulties in, too. We sympathize with his moral situation and we continue to read, in part at least, to see how he'll resolve it.

Will he turn out a hero or a coward?

That's what I mean by moral relevance.

I include education because if you are educated, you will often have been told what the meaning of a book is.

Interesting. I believe I have been educated, but I don't know that anybody ever told me what the meaning of a book was. Have you an example?

I have no personal investment in the story. It tells me nothing about my relationship with myself.

My definition of "personal investment" is, I suspect, different from yours. If I said, "We come to care about what happens to the people described in the story," would you agree with that? Because that's all I'm REALLY trying to say.

If you don't want it to tell you anything about yourself, rest assured I won't insist.

I found meaning in the book. Nuff' said.

Which is a very different proposition from pretending the book means a particular thing. 'Nuff repeated.

Is it morally relevant as in affecting the morality of those who read it? I don't think so.

Are you suggesting that nobody has ever had their morality changed by reading a story? Or are you saying that while books exist that are capable of changing people's morality, The Lord of the Rings is not one of them?

If so, then you are committing the very sin you (rightly) accused me of, and are trying to give others what is yours alone. Because I promise you at least one person has had their morality changed by reading a book. Me. It's happened many, many times to me, as I have read books that challenged my view of the world. Michael Moorcock did it to me with A Cure For Cancer and The War Hound and the World's Pain. Steven Brust did it to me with Teckla, Agyar and other books. William Shakespeare keeps on doing it to me. Plato did it to me. Steven Erikson did it to me.

And yes, John Ronald Reuen Tolkien did it to me. Several times over. And probably will again, because he's still that much smarter and wiser than me.

And if no book has ever had that effect on you, then I wonder how your morality gets changed. Have you ever had your morality changed by something somebody said? By something you saw? Do you put reading in a special class of experience, the class from which moral lessons cannot emerge? Why is that? I'm curious.

But all of that isn't even what I'm talking about when I say "moral relevance" -- what I was talking about above, there, with Hamlet and moral predicaments. I hope I was able to clarify that enough.

I enjoy the book because I agree with the morality of the characters prior to reading the story.

I'm fascinated by this statement.

How did you know what the morality of the characters was before you read the story? How do you decide what books to read if this is one of your criteria?

 

[shilsen]

I enjoy the book because I agree with the morality of the characters prior to reading the story.

How did you know what the morality of the characters was before you read the story? How do you decide what books to read if this is one of your criteria?

I think Celtavian meant that his morality even before reading the story agreed with that of the characters.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I think Celtavian meant that his morality even before reading the story agreed with that of the characters.

Yes, that is what I meant. Thanks for stating it more succinctly than I.

 

[Celtavian]

If I ever said you had to "contemplate" I apologize. It was cruel and unfair of me. While I have no complaint with contemplation, nothing I have said about the necessity of moral relevance requires it.

What I am saying is that a tale is MORE entertaining when we recognize moral relevance in its reality to our own. Hamlet is a good entertaining read (one of the better summations of the play I've seen) BECAUSE we recognize that Hamlet's predicament is one that we might have moral difficulties in, too. We sympathize with his moral situation and we continue to read, in part at least, to see how he'll resolve it.

Will he turn out a hero or a coward?

That's what I mean by moral relevance.

My interest in the actual characters varies. For some books, like Lord of the Rings I completely concur with your sentiment and I do want to know how the characters resolve the conflicts they face.

For others, like a Forgotten Realms novel, I'm far more interested in the events that occur.

Interesting. I believe I have been educated, but I don't know that anybody ever told me what the meaning of a book was. Have you an example?

If you a take a course on literature, you often get to read other people's analysis of a story. It is more often true of short stories. I have analyzed short stories by authors such as Maya Angelou and Mark Twain where there was an expected answer based on previous person's analysis.

My definition of "personal investment" is, I suspect, different from yours. If I said, "We come to care about what happens to the people described in the story," would you agree with that? Because that's all I'm REALLY trying to say.

For some stories, I completely agree.

Are you suggesting that nobody has ever had their morality changed by reading a story? Or are you saying that while books exist that are capable of changing people's morality, The Lord of the Rings is not one of them?

I am saying that Tolkien, the author, did not intend the tome to be one you turn to for answering moral questions. That's pretty much it.

If so, then you are committing the very sin you (rightly) accused me of, and are trying to give others what is yours alone. Because I promise you at least one person has had their morality changed by reading a book. Me. It's happened many, many times to me, as I have read books that challenged my view of the world. Michael Moorcock did it to me with A Cure For Cancer and The War Hound and the World's Pain. Steven Brust did it to me with Teckla, Agyar and other books. William Shakespeare keeps on doing it to me. Plato did it to me. Steven Erikson did it to me.

I am not so easily swayed. I spend alot of time deeply analyzing morality based on cause/effect relationships. Books do not dictate my morality. Never have, never will.

Information helps me make moral decisions. Books and print give information, so indirectly there have been a few books that have contributed to my moral develolpment. None of them fiction, save for possibly the Bible.

And if no book has ever had that effect on you, then I wonder how your morality gets changed. Have you ever had your morality changed by something somebody said? By something you saw? Do you put reading in a special class of experience, the class from which moral lessons cannot emerge? Why is that? I'm curious.

Not fiction, in any form. Living life itself challenges my morality. I don't know about you, but I have led a trying life and have had plenty of opportunities to make moral decisions. Not to mention the macro-moral decisions required of you as a citizen of a nation. No way I trust fiction to influence my morality.

I read fiction to escape to other places. One of the reasons I can understand a writer wanting to have no damn message or meaning whatsoever in a story. Sometimes a writer may make a tale just to get away from it all.

I have always felt that Middle Earth was Tolkien's escape. He lived a hard life. He created a place for himself and explored that place through the written word.
Alot of authors do the same without the intent to sway your morality one way or the other. Doesn't mean it can't happen, just means that the author didn't intend it to happen.

I'm fascinated by this statement.

How did you know what the morality of the characters was before you read the story? How do you decide what books to read if this is one of your criteria?

I'm sorry. I misstated myself. I have read it so many times that it almost feels like I knew before I picked it up the first time.

I already enjoyed the kind of traditional, idealistic morality Tolkien used as a basis for his character's actions prior to reading the novel. I never questioned its presence in the story.

 

[Umbran]

I "now" seem to contend? I don't think my position has changed, but I apologize if I give that impression. My words don't always come out meaning what I think they do.

Your words don't come out with the "meaning" you intend? Shouldn't you instead be asking what you say to me? Sorry, but in this context that's somewhat ironic.

But you can relax. The phrade "you now seem to contend" wasn't an indication that you'd changed your position, but instead indicated that at a given time, I thought you meant a particular thing which hadn't been clearly stated before.

Again ironic. We sit here and write words with multiple meanings. How can authors of more complicated works do otherwise?

Multiple meanings? Try infinite meanings? Or do you think there is a limit to the number of meanings (I don't like the word but it seems to be what we're using) that readers can draw from a text? How do we tell when we're done?

I dunno about infinite. Infinite is a lot. I'm not sure that the human mind is capable of coming up with an infinite number of concepts. In addition, despite some schools of thought, there are some limits of reasonability on what meanings are in a text. I don't think any rational person can say that Beowulf is about how good tomatoes are to eat.

Meaning? I don't give a snot about meaning. Tell me what it shows you, tell me what it makes you see and think about. Don't tell me what the writer meant, or what the message is. That's a waste of space.

Eh. Semantics. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. When you ask what the thing says or shows, I ask what it means. Perhaps a matter of connotation...

I choose to ask about meaning because I find your method of asking "what does it say to you" tends to neglect the cases where the author had specific messages in mind, and tends to neglect the historical framework in which the piece was written. Your way seems to focus on the you and the now. While that's something that ought to be looked at, it is far from complete.

George Orwell had a number of messages he wanted to get across in "1984". He certainly did not write it as mere entertainment. And if you only talk about what it says to you now, you miss out of much of what can be gotten from the work. Tolkien may not have had such intended meaning, but as a man of his times, but his personal commentaries on some things are there, regardless.

Asking what meanings the authro placed there, and what the work means to other people, keeps one from re-inventing the wheel, and leads one more quickly to greater understanding.

 

[Fast Learner]

It's literature, it's not some technical process that can be measured scientifically. I like it better than anything else I have read as in it satisfies all my fantasy needs.

I'm reading G.R.R. Martin right now, and I find Game of Thrones quite entertaining. I still like Tolkien better.

Which makes perfect sense and is a perfectly valid and understandable opinion. That's a very different statement from "it is the best fantasy ever written," something that you simply can't know without having read all of fantasy.

No, I don't he did. Any inferences to class were in the background of his story, and were not intended to be analyzed. If he wrote another story, he might not even include similar characters. That is what I am getting at.

It matters not whether they were intended to be analyzed or simply accepted and, as noted later in this thread by better communicators than I, JRRT need not be conscious about his messages to instill them. If you said "John, please rewrite the story so that Sam gets sick of Frodo telling him what to do and poisons his food, so the elves are in fact a cruel, corrupt group that only look high-minded and that their fading away is in fact a feint, so that Sauron is simply misunderstood and is doing good things for the world and the 'heroes' are in fact the villains, so that Aragorn says that it's wrong to lead and works to create a Communist collective, and then you'll have a good story," it seems very clear that he would have declined to do so, noting that he doesn't want his story to say that. That's meaning, and that's implied message, whether he was conscious about it or not.

Writer's want to give a pseudo-realistic, as well as fantastic feel, to their world. Tolkien knew class systems existed, so he incorporated them into Middle Earth as a convention others could understand, not to make a statement of their rightness or wrongness.

Again, he doesn't need to consciously mean to make such a statement in order to intend to do so on some level. When my mother, bless her heart, unconsciously lays a guilt trip on me she is in fact trying to control me, though I can guarantee you she never thought about it consciously for a second.

For someone like yourself or China to attempt to deride his work based on the idea that he incorporated elements that are viewed as negative by modern day morality for a mythic story is being overly critical for no good reason.

You seem to have fallen into a trap here. I like Tolkien. I'm not deriding his work. There's nothing -- NOTHING -- wrong with meaning and message in fiction. I would argue that fiction without meaning or message is crap, and if I felt that JRRT didn't have a ton of meaning and message in his works then you can bet I'd be deriding it.

Now if we were talking about Mark Twain or Ursula LeGuin, I might be inclined to believe that there is a deeper meaning. I don't think all authors try to include deeper meanings, some just want to tell an enjoyable tale. Take what meaning you want from it, but don't proscribe your view to the author. That is rude.

Here we very fundamentally disagree. I and others here have described what meaning and message we see Tolkien as imbuing, and you have clearly stated that it doesn't matter what anyone says, you simply won't believe it, LALALALALA. That's fine, as you're fully entitled to your opinion. That doesn't make us rude for seeing something different.