Well, quite an interesting (not to mention exhaustive) discussion! Congratulations to Kalessin for a provocative topic and to all for the articulate examination thereof. As usual these days, I’m late to the party, but I’ll try to see if I can find a fresh contribution or two that I can slide in edgewise. Forgive me if a few of these thoughts are dated in terms of the discussion. Seems I’ve been in the midst of composing a reply for over a week, but each day brings fresh new posts and a rapid advance of the conversation.
Form and Meaning – a fundamental problem?
I’ll join the general chorus in commending your work in the post at the top of this page, Nar. In this day and age, fantasy faces a double-whammy – a market that wishes to dumb-down the form in order to reach the broadest possible audience and to sanitize the meaning into trite, easily digestible (and above all, inoffensive) aphorisms.
I still feel the original question (or one of them, in any case) remains unanswered, though. Why is modern fantasy literature still a world with legions of Salieris and only one Mozart? Are we to believe that somewhere out there, gathering dust in a desk drawer (or several), is a magnum opus of power and skill commensurate with (but not imitative of) LotR whose publishing and discovery has been blocked by mere market forces? Are we so cynical that we believe that such a work wouldn’t be discovered by
someone if it passed across a few dozen editors’ desks today? Any lover of science-fiction can name a score of masters of the art without hesitation. Lovers of fantasy fiction might struggle to name half a dozen, and always Tolkien towers above other aspirants to the throne. Science-fiction is periodically revolutionized and reinvigorated by new authors and varied new movements; fantasy fiction (i.e., swords-and-sorcery fiction in this context) remains depressingly static and repetitive.
Does the fantasy genre have some inherent flaw which dictates that we’ll only receive one great masterpiece in our time? Or, conversely, is the form so inherently difficult and challenging (compared to other genres) that only a precious, gifted few are capable of mounting to its summit?
Post-modernism
I’ll admit it. I’ve seen this phrase bandied about for nigh onto a couple of decades now, but I’ve never had more than a tenuous grasp on what it really means. It’s a slippery term and seems to mean different things to different people. I went and found a definition on a university website:
Quote:
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Postmodernism: Main features include (1)Pastiche: a putting together of elements of style from radically different contexts and historical epochs. (2) Reflexivity: the capacity to be self aware, often accompanied by a sense of irony. (3) Relativism: the absence of objective standards of truth. (4) An opposition to certain classical artistic techniques such as narrative -- telling a story in an ordered sequence closed off at the end -- and representation -- attempting to depict reality. (5) a disrespect for, and a wish to cross, traditional artistic boundaries such as those between popular and high culture and between different artistic forms. (6) A lessened belief in the importance of the author as the creator of the text.
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Now, I’m certainly not saying this is the last word on post-modernism, I just want to provide a basis for discussion.
So the one that really caught my eye was number 3 – “the absence of objective standards of truth”. Now it’s my turn to see your devil’s advocacy and raise you, Kalessin. You’ve argued passionately and skillfully against reading too much of Tolkien’s spiritual belief system into his work, preferring instead to view LotR as a broadly accessible piece that defies “ownership” by any particular religion or group. Is it possible that we’ve gotten what we wished for when we vehemently deny the Christian underpinnings to Tolkien’s work – fantasy that has no spiritual weight behind it, no conviction, no sense of high moral truths, but that instead substitutes a cheap, banal, sanitized, Cracker Jack morality where the bad guys are mustachio-twirling villains and the good guys are square-jawed Dudley Do-Right types (or, alternatively, rogues-with-hearts-of-gold) and no one ever
really has to make any hard choices. Incidentally, I’m not saying that Christianity has a corner on the market, but since the conventions of the swords and sorcery genre are inextricably linked with the history of Europe, I’d say that Christianity at least sits at the head of the table (if you’ll pardon my mixed metaphor).
Art, Aesthetics, and Meaning
Aiwendil, though you’ve explained your position re: the requirements and definitions of Art with great articulation and persuasiveness, I must say I find a curious disconnect between your assertion that "The purpose of art is to be aesthetically beautiful (or ‘entertaining’)" and your slamming of the likes of Britney Spears. Spears and her ilk seem to be the ultimate expression of your assertion – they produce “art” which has been engineered to be nothing more than aesthetically (i.e., sensually) pleasing. But perhaps here I’m doing a disservice by lumping all mediums under the general umbrella “art”. What I’m taking away from your arguments is this: that the purest, most legitimate form of art is that which is all form and no content. In some mediums, this may be a tenable argument, but I think that in literature, it cannot hold. All literature expresses some form of morality, whether wittingly or unwittingly.
Art As An Instrument of Change
Aiwendil, your argument here is again well-taken – though I think that in today’s world, where we live and die in an environment steeped in media that has a global reach, I think that the ability of art to effect change in the world has grown considerably. Maybe not individual works of art, but artistic trends, and the ethics transmitted (again, wittingly or unwittingly – or maybe half-wittedly) thereby.