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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3466976" data-attributes="member: 4937">Gah.  It's a shame that this thread is so interesting.  Moth to the flame and all... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />I find your appeals to populist arguments very self-serving, because you have in this thread inclined to decry popularity as a test of fitness when it suits your purpose and adopt an elitist stance on what is worthy literature.  But never mind that, just what block of readers are you claiming is larger than Tolkien readers?  Harry Potter readers?  Where are this great majority of readers that doesn't include people who don't enjoy what I refer to in my statement?  It's not like I'm talking about small minorities of the readership here.LOL LOL.  I don't know who should be more offended by that, but it rather reminds me of Mr. Harrison's finale of 'World builders are like George Bush!' and its just as funny. No it is not.  It is more evident in speculative fiction, which Guy Gabriel Kay has pointed out in writing more eloquent than mine, is not that descriptive of a term since fiction is by its very nature speculative.  But what it is really particular to is 'illusionism', which I what I call the desire of the writer to create the sense in the reader that the fiction is true on some level and not merely fiction (there may be some more widespread accepted term, and if so I'd be happy to hear it).  First of all, not only do I disagree that it is a categorically different enterprise, but Mr. Harrison's essay does appear to regard the two enterprises as being different - which is entirely what you would expect of a writer who is ranting against illusionism in general and not the use of the fantastic in fiction.  And of course, this is what you'd expect of a writer who has used the fantastic to write novels exploring and attacking illusionism.And for that matter, aren't modernists more noted for throwing open the window and trying to puzzle out what's inside and thier relationship to it?  Do you seriously think that Tolkien is not trying to puzzle out his relationship to what is outside him?  I baffled by that perspective.Well, yes.   I believe that I in fact said the opposite.  A story without world building is like an iceberg which is entirely floating on the surface.  Everything to be seen is seen.And the Lord of the Rings isn't?  And for that matter, the claim that its not merely a map of Dublin but also of Western civilization is supposed to convince me less world building is involved?LOL.  Oh, dear.  I hold a quite different opinion.  Much of what you praise as human drama, strikes me as characters being dragged around doing things merely to serve the needs of the story, and not because it seems like something people are likely to do.  Which is why, to bring them back up, the characters in the Great Gatsby seem so shallow and hollow and difficult to relate to to me.  They have to be in order to serve the writers needs, which is to create a paticular bit of illusionism regarding what it is like to have been in aristocratic rural NY in the 1920's - even though we can feel fairly certain that it really wouldn't have been like that because real life is seldom so like a story.  To use a modern example of this sort of 'human drama', in the 'Gillmore Girls' Lorelai, Luke, and Chris don't have these tempetuous break ups because the characters are real people acting in realistic ways (although the authors do alot of world building and other sorts of illusion making to create that appearance), but rather they do these things because it suits the needs of a romantic TV comedy series that its main characters never fully resolve the sexual tension between them.  Like clockwork, as the seasons change so do the characters, and they don't say and do stupid things because people say and do stupid things (although people do) but because they need to have some excuse to break the characters.  And this is typical 'human drama' stories, because in them, if people are honest and don't act preciptiously and speak to each other with consideration then you don't have a story.  You don't have conflict, so you can't have a story.  But rarely do these conflicts ever strike home to me, but rather they always seem as contrived as an Oscar Wilde play - which incidently I'd rather watch than most so called 'human dramas'.It's funny, but I don't.  I'm courious as to why you think that is all there is to see?   A phrase you keep tiresomely using, even though said songs don't in fact exist and those Hobbit songs which do exist and are not disguised exposition, take up no more than about 2-3 pages of the whole work.  Besides which, you'll get no complaints from me criticizing the quality of Tolkien's poetry, although its worth pointing out that most of his poetry is in fact disguised English folks songs right down to the tune.</blockquote>

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