Moorcock blasts Tolkien

[Mark Hope]

Good lord, yes. The failings of JRRT are minor beside the people regurgitating his works endlessly with increasingly diminishing returns.

That said, I think JRRT's shorter works are stronger than LotR and count The Hobbit as one of my favorite works of all time, with Farmer Giles of Ham close behind. (I also love Winnie the Pooh.)

Funnily enough, I couldn't give a hoot about LotR's pacing, length and occasional bouts of flaccidity. I read it more like an immersive experience of Middle Earth. I'd be quite happy if it were twice the length with three times as many songs about dead elves and trees ...

But yeah, The Hobbit is great from start to finish as a coherent novel. And I have a soft spot for the bear of little brain as well.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

In addition, Tolkien was one of the first, if not the first, to use the story elements PapersAndPaychecks wrote about. The late Professor did it well. However, I do not think it is fair to blame him for the fact so very many other good writers have used those same story elements until they ran them into the ground. And the bad writers have just kicked dirt over them, burying them deep.

Yup. Creating a seminal work that attracts hoards of imitators for generations is not a sign of weakness of the original material, even if it might arguably be a real annoyance.

 

[LordEther]

Raven Crowking, I agree with most of what you said, particularly involving the complexity of LotR, its presentation, and its characters. I feel the need, however, to throw out some thoughts on the "moral ambiguity" angle. I think the divide on the two writers' moral ambiguity stems from a difference in its perceived definition. I would agree with you that Tolkien's work is full of a number of characters who try to do good in a world that might not reward such attempts. Some of these characters fail and making poor choices. Fairly consistently, though, in LotR, the reader has a pretty good indication of what constitutes good and what constitutes evil. While there are exceptions, they are just that... exceptions. So, while usually, Tolkien does a great job at providing situations in which only a special sort could possibly hope to do the right thing, Moorcock, in my opinion, is much better at providing situations without a clear right/wrong divide.

For example, in RotK, we know what Denethor should have done during the attack on Minas Tirith. At the very least, we know "It's over! I'm lighting myself and my son on fire!" is not the right answer. The question, however, in that circumstance is, what kind of person would it take to do the "right" thing and face down the situation alongside one's people and the brave knights of the city?

It's a very real and significant question, but it's of a completely different nature than we find in Moorcock's writing, in which protagonists regularly find themselves in situations where (thematically or ethically) "correct" responses don't seem to exist.

What the reader would have done were (s)he the deposed Elric after Yrkkoon (or whatever that guy's name is) took over Imryyr likely depends less on the individual's idea of right or wrong than on his or her expedience and personality traits. Because, really, there aren't too many thematically or ethically "correct" things to do when you're an emperor and your cousin steals your empire and your girlfriend (who happens to be another cousin) and your subjects don't much like you anyway, and the only people you can turn to are more people who really don't like or trust you and can't get along amonst themselves either. The key question here is less about the difficulty involved in pursuing the "right" course of action than it is a matter of actually identifying that course of action. Here, upon seeing what Elric chooses to do, after the initial "Man, what?", the moral question is likely more along the lines of... "Well, what was he supposed to do?"

That may not make as much sense as I hoped it would... but... meh. Just some thoughts.

 

[fusangite]

Moorcock criticises a group of celebrated writers of epic fantasy for children, including Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Richard Adams. His criticism is based on two principal grounds: the poverty of their writing style, and a political criticism. Moorcock accuses these authors of espousing a form of "corrupted Romance", which he identifies with Anglican Toryism. The defining traits of this attitude are an anti-technological, anti-urban stance which is ultimately misanthropic, that glorifies a vanished or vanishing rural idyll, and is rooted in middle-class or bourgeois attitudes towards progress and political change.

To quote the Big Lebowski,

Well, yeah.​

What is disingenuous and ludicrous about Moorcock's position is not the truth of this statement which is basicaly undeniable (except that there is a huge oversimplification of the consciousness of a class) but the idea that one cannot or should not appreciate literature with whose political perspective one does not agree.

If I only read great literature by people whose values I completely agreed with, my reading list would be short and I would have missed almost all of the greatest reading experiences of my life.

Tolkien is puts forward a racist Victorian worldview in his books with which I disagree. But his romantic attachment to premodern lifeways is not exclusive to racist Victorians; much of the contemporary left holds similar views as evidenced by its vigorous defense of aboriginal group rights and traditional life ways including such things as hereditary aristocratic governance. Furthermore, there are also the Christian aspects of his writing which, again, are shared by many people who do not identify with 19th century romantic English Tory thought.

There is a lot in Tolkien's worldview or literary project to object to. But I can't think of many other great writers about whom this statement is not also true.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

An example of going wrong in the film where dialog was changed was Eowyn's confrontation of the Witch-king, IMO.

The film attempts to be coherent to a viewer who has not read the book. Such changes are a necessity of the change in medium.

I am sure that Tolkien rolled in his grave when the Uruk barked "Meat is back on the menu, boys!" but the line works extremely well nonetheless.

(Tolkien would have absolutely abhorred a distinctly French word like 'menu' sneaking its way into Middle Earth. One of his motivations in creating Middle Earth was to explore the pleasures of the particular sounds of English's pre-Norman roots, as well as create a mythology with the richness and appeal of, say, Arthurian England with none of the borrowed French trappings.)

 

[Thanatos]

Consider, for a moment:

The Hobbit was first published in 1937 - two years before Moorcock was even born.

Moorcock's Elric sequence started in 1963, nearly a decade after LotR.

The authors are men of different generations, with vastly different perspectives. Given the differences in times, and the history that passed, I think it reasonable to expect that the audiences wanted different things, too. Critique that ignores the historical perspectives of the author and audience misses much that informs the writing.

QFT.

I like both of them, but they do have very different writing styles. When I read the article though, I think that Umbran nailed it on the head

Of course...I like alot of easy fantasy novel reads like the Eberron books, some Dragonlance and some of the other books (the one with the fairy and justicar come to mind)...so...I'm easily entertained by both simple and complex stuff.

At the end of the day, far more often then not, I've enjoyed a tale for a few hours and don't feel I wasted my money or time and thats what counts to me. Though, on occasion, I have found I picked out a real stinker...

 

[Doug McCrae]

It seems to boil down to a conflict of save escapeism black and white fantasy vs. shades of grey more ambiguous and dark fantasy.

There's a lot in Moorcock that is black and white imo. Certainly not his heroes, Elric and Erekose are especially morally dubious. Many of his villains are pure evil though - Bishop Belphig from Phoenix in Obsidian and Princess Sharadrim from The Dragon In The Sword are both utterly selfish hedonists who cause the death of thousands in pursuit of their own pleasure. The gods of Chaos that the Eternal Champion often opposes have similar attitudes. At the end of Stormbringer the titular sword famously states 'Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!'

Moorcock draws very clear distinctions between different cultures in many of his books, presenting some as healthy, others as deeply unhealthy. The hero invariably ends up fighting for those that are healthy against those that are unhealthy. Examples of healthy cultures include the Scarlet Fjord from PiO, Ghestenheem from TDitS and the Eldren culture in The Eternal Champion. Examples of unhealthy ones include Rowernarc from PiO, Granbretan and Melnibone.

 

[JohnSnow]

As another writer once said, the play's the thing.

But "the play" isn't the story. The play is the presentation of the story. Romeo & Juliet is not West Side Story. And My Fair Lady isn't the same as the Greek myth Pygmalion, even though it's based on it.

The story is...well...there's only so many stories to tell. So any given story (plot) itself is usually a regurgitation of a hundred other stories that have come before. Twists and turns and style are all that distinguishes one author's version of the hero's tale from another. Part of Tolkien's "style" was to write the thing as if it were an epic narrative about a fictional world, complete with poetry, languages, et cetera.

Different authors, of all literary merit, make different choices where to be on that continuum with any of their given works. I think LotR would benefit from a Princess Bride-style "good parts" version. YMMV.

As an aside, you're aware the "good parts" thing is something Goldman made up out of whole cloth, right?

I do disagree with your opinion. Which is all this is: your opinion.

You don't have to LIKE what he was writing, but you can't criticize it for style.

No, I really can. I can criticize the choices he made as self-indulgent and momentum-killing, which I think they pretty much inarguably are. You can choose to not mind, which is also your right.

But the problem is you're criticizing his style because it's not what you would do. You call his choices self-indulgent and momentum-killing, but to say that it's "inarguable" is, absurd. That's your opinion. I grant you couch it with a phrase like "pretty much" which gives you a whole lot of wiggle room.

Maybe I don't mind because I don't think his choices are momentum-killing. Maybe I like the way the narrative works. You don't. That doesn't mean I'm wrong and you're right. My opinion is just as valid as yours.

You can choose not to enjoy Tolkien's style, but to argue it should have been different is to make it a different book by a different author. If you don't like it, fine, that's your right. But it's awfully presumptuous of you to make claims about how books "ought" to be written.

Finally, to address one thing Mark said:

Can't agree with you here. (Moorcock) doesn't trumpet his own writing at all. Epic Pooh - in fact, Wizardry and Wild Romance in its entirety - is notable for its complete lack of reference to any of Moorcock's own work.

But simply by writing the essay, he was drawing attention to himself. Saying, basically, "Look at what I have to say" and, oh, by the way, I'm a writer too. I can't blame him for it, but I'm sure he wasn't oblivious to the buzz the article would generate. And the resulting potential interest in his works liable to come out of it.

Not to say he didn't agree with it, but being controversial IS usually a good way to get people's attention.

 

[taliesin15]

Part of the problem with that is Moorcock is lumping together some very different writers! For contrast, see comments about Tolkien (much more extensive and well-thought out, one should add) by Harold Bloom (a number of works) and Northrop Frye (The Secular Scripture).

No doubt Tolkien was an Anglican Tory, but he wrote some deeply moving and gripping works. Lord of the Rings grows with power each time I re-read it. It has even more power for me having read many of his sources, beyond Beowulf (which itself merits serious study), namely the earliest English poetry out there like The Seafarer, The Wanderer and early English riddles.

Just the fact that Tolkien invented several languages alone assures he will be considered one of the greats for centuries to come. But, and I'm someone who likes Moorcock, I mean, come on. Elric? Will anyone really be reading this a hundred years from now? Talk about people in glass houses.

 

[Prophet2b]

There is a lot in Tolkien's worldview or literary project to object to.

Or agree with and learn from, if you look at the glass from another angle.