Moorcock blasts Tolkien

[eyebeams]

Would Moorcock be among the "big four" of fantasy writers? (This is an honest question, not a rhetorical one, as I don't follow fantasy fiction.)

Maybe. Contrary to popular belief, Howard is not really among them simply because most people haven't read him (in many cases, even if they think they have). Plus, there's still debate as to whether he was actually any good or not. Even people who defend his work sometimes admit that it is not as polished as it might be and is not particularly nuanced.

Then you have Mervyn Peake, who was probably one of the most important writers of the fantastic ever, but whose work is extraordinarily difficult for many people to read. Part of the trouble with fantasy is that many things that are really interesting are not comforting or comfortable. The pathos is not going to lead you to the expected resolution or in the expected meter. Gene Wolfe deserves far more recognition then he gets. He's ben called the finest American author in any genre, but I doubt that many "fan" types have read him.

C.S Lewis and Tolkien? Definitely. J K Rowling is there too. These are primarily the result of sheer numbers and the popularity of a general set of themes. They are, after all, so popular that a mildly precocious 14 years old can get rich off of a fairly despirited pastiche of their work.

I'd add Roger Zelazny. Neil Gaiman is up there nowadays; he and Rowling are the most mainstream-friendly fantasy authors. I'd put Moorcock more on the line with Clive Barker.

 

[Gentlegamer]

This discussion reminds me that tomorrow is September 22 . . . Our Birthday, and time for me to start reading The Lord of the Rings again.

 

[JohnSnow]

I rarely see even Tolkien fans actually quote Tolkien's descriptive prose for appreciation. They repeat pithy dialogue and such but I rarely see anyone quote Tolkien describing somebody actually doing something.

Tolkien's descriptions are relatively...dense. Being able to quote it off the top of your head is like memorizing poetry. You want something other than dialogue? How about a song?

There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.

The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he runs his bow,
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.

The landlord keeps a little dog
that is mighty fond of jokes;
When there's good cheer among the guests,
He cocks an ear at all the jests
and laughs until he chokes.

They also keep a hornéd cow
as proud as any queen;
But music turns her head like ale,
And makes her wave her tufted tail
and dance upon the green.

And O! the rows of silver dishes
and the store of silver spoons!
For Sunday there's a special pair,
And these they polish up with care
on Saturday afternoons.

The Man in the Moon was drinking deep,
and the cat began to wail;
A dish and a spoon on the table danced,
The cow in the garden madly pranced,
and the little dog chased his tail.

The Man in the Moon took another mug,
and rolled beneath his chair;
And there he dozed and dreamed of ale,
Till in the sky the stars were pale,
and dawn was in the air.

Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat:
"The white horses of the Moon,
They neigh and champ their silver bits;
But their master's been and drowned his wits,
and the Sun'll be rising soon!"

So the cat on his fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,
a jig that would wake the dead:
He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,
While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:
"It's after three!" he said.

They rolled the Man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the Moon,
While his horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with the spoon.

Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle;
the dog began to roar,
The cow and the horses stood on their heads;
The guests all bounded from their beds
and danced upon the floor.

With a ping and a pong the fiddle-strings broke!
the cow jumped over the Moon,
And the little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Saturday dish went off at a run
with the silver Sunday spoon.

The round Moon rolled behind the hill,
as the Sun raised up her head.
She hardly believed her fiery eyes;
For though it was day, to her suprise
they all went back to bed.

How's that for a quote?

 

[eyebeams]

Which book was that? I've read a fair amount of Niven, and I don't recall this.

A Gift from Earth. Another howler is his contention that it would only take less than a day for people to stat killing and raping each other in the absence of cops, despite the total absence of scarcity or a profit motive arising from any violence in the story. Niven somehow intellectually understands that people with less money than him are more often involved in bad things, but seems to have trouble visualizing exactly why.

And yet, in many of his novels, he was able to say some very interesting things about women. Versatility means being able to say many different things about a given topic.

If some of those things are dumb, it's not versatility so much as unevenness. Heinlein's best work really took place before he gathered a fandom apparatus around him. Later work like Friday was really terrible.

 

[eyebeams]

How's that for a quote?

Actually, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I can look around all day and find lots of references to elements of the fictional culture and mythology, including songs and descriptions of objects and mediated situations, but it takes some looking to find anybody mention that they found a prortrayal of someone's emotional state compelling, or that they were thrilled by the decsription of a battle. In many case, Tolkien does not describe violence at all, limiting himself to laundry lists of who killing who/what.

 

[Storm Raven]

A Gift from Earth. Another howler is his contention that it would only take less than a day for people to stat killing and raping each other in the absence of cops, despite the total absence of scarcity or a profit motive arising from any violence in the story. Niven somehow intellectually understands that people with less money than him are more often involved in bad things, but seems to have trouble visualizing exactly why.

I haven't read that one, but it seems to me that people who are members of an underclass often attend parties despite being discriminated against. I'm not seeing the big mental disconnect between "downtrodden underclass" and "attending a party". I find it interesting too, that you level a criticism based upon a relatively obscure and early work of Niven's, while ignoring Protector, Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, The Integral Trees, Smoke Ring, and all of the other, much more prominent works that have made him well-known.

And, do you really think that people need scarcity and profit motive to rape and kill? A fair number of people probably would, but for some, there is certainly no need for that sort of motivation.

If some of those things are dumb, it's not versatility so much as unevenness. Heinlein's best work really took place before he gathered a fandom apparatus around him. Later work like Friday was really terrible.

Actually, I quite liked Friday, at least in part because the protagonist was an african-american woman, unlike many others in science fiction.

 

[pawsplay]

Every single one of Tolkien's characters has the capacity to do good, and every single one of them is guilty of at least one moral failure in the face of temptation. That's hardly comfortable. Further, LOTR is a pretty stern criticism of people minding their own business.

Let's talk about Moorcock. This is a guy who has made his career criticizing the testesterone-laded barbarian hero archetype, attacking "safe" politics, and generally snarking at genre fantasy. Yet Elric is a sword-wielding killer who solves most problems by attacking with a demonic sword or making evil bargains, who emobides despotism in both its benign and tyrranical forms, and has come to embody an entire branch of the epic fantasy genre. The phrase that springs to mind is "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones."

It's very easy to read Elric as a Teddy Roosevelt analog, an ultra masculine character who fulfills egoistic fantasies of being awesomeness incarnate, a patriarchal ruler-hero,, and further, a cosmic "Everyman" who embodies a (masculine, Western, individualistic) essential quality of humanity.

In short, the champion of the universe, the embodiment of balance, is a privileged aristocratic male who wields terrible powers of destruction through a phallic symbol.

Moorcock is everything he rails against in that except: comforting (to the ego of Elric fans), idyllic (though the Melniboneans give way to humanity, the humanity they give way to basically suck), hypermasculine, and complicit with European classism.

 

[JohnSnow]

Actually, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I can look around all day and find lots of references to elements of the fictional culture and mythology, including songs and descriptions of objects and mediated situations, but it takes some looking to find anybody mention that they found a prortrayal of someone's emotional state compelling, or that they were thrilled by the decsription of a battle. In many case, Tolkien does not describe violence at all, limiting himself to laundry lists of who killing who/what.

Is this like the critique that Star Wars showed the destruction of Alderaan without depicting the devastation to the planet itself?

I can't cite a quote of description because I don't have the books with me. I don't have any of the descriptive prose "off the top of my head" because there's SOO much of it. I'd never argue the books aren't DENSE. They are.

I can find a few things on the internet. This isn't one of my favorite passages but, from the siege of Gondor...

"Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a c0ck crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

"And as if in answer, there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last."

And then there's this one, which IS one of my favorites:

"So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of the Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his undead sinews to his will."

I find those words VERY evocative. Wistful, almost. Like I said, nobody has to like it, but those of us that do have our reasons.

 

[dcas]

Actually, I quite liked Friday, at least in part because the protagonist was an african-american woman, unlike many others in science fiction.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but where is it stated that Friday is black? I read it ages ago, and I recall that the cover of my copy portrayed a buxom white woman with short hair.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I am fairly certain that Friday is not any kind of minority or else she would not have been able to marry into her original S-group (the one that didn't want one of its daughters marrying a Tongan).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Maybe. Contrary to popular belief, Howard is not really among them simply because most people haven't read him (in many cases, even if they think they have). Plus, there's still debate as to whether he was actually any good or not. Even people who defend his work sometimes admit that it is not as polished as it might be and is not particularly nuanced.

I just spent my lunch hour reading some Howard (thanks to the Wildeside Press) and I agree that Howard is not as polished as he could be. But he is raw, energetic, and hugely influencial. Lots of people haven't read Shelley or Stoker, but due to Frankenstein and Dracula they are nonetheless among the Big Four for the Gothic horror genre. Ditto H.G. Wells for War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man, and Stevenson for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (All of which, btw, are worth reading.)

I do agree with you about Peake, and he would definitely be in consideration for the Big Four IMHO. He was a better writer than Howard in many ways, but not as influential by far.

J K Rowling is there too.

Not in my book.

I've read all the Harry Potter books, but she isn't particularly clever with plot, theme, or character. If anything deserves to be called Epic Pooh that would be the Harry Potter novels. YMMV and IMHO, of course.

Her books may be selling -- and more power to her for that; at least it gets kids started! -- but they don't share the depth, complexity, or human understanding/realism required to be make her one of the Big Four. The best thing I can say about Harry Potter is that, at the end of the first movie, a young child behind me said "The book was better." So, for that alone, JKR will always have a place in my heart.

I'd put Moorcock more on the line with Clive Barker.

I'd put Moorcock on the line of early Clive Barker. IMHO, Barker is the better author.


RC