[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Child

Just a minute here, SpM . If we ask Moorcock and Pullman, surely we must invite Tolkien as well!

Ah, but there are surely more than enough people here to speak up on Tolkien's behalf - with a far greater inclination to "take his side" and to take the time to consider carefully the materials available in this regard.

Originally Posted by Child

I enjoy the writings of all three authors, but my personal sympathies are closer to Davem's on this issue.

My sympathies too lie more with Tolkien on these issues. Yet I would rather engage constructively with what the likes of Pullman and Moorcock have to say than simply shout it down. And I do find much of what they do have to say (Pullman in particular) of interest, even if I do not agree with all of it. The parallels betwen what Pullman has to say on the nature of writing and what Tolkien himself said in this regard are, as has been pointed out previously, fascinating.

Originally Posted by drigel

I would daresay there are few out there like me who have spent a lifetime enjoying the works, and the reason I (we) do isnt the underlying thesis, or the political social message.

I would count myself in that category too. While I can see applicability in Tolkien's works, they are to me, first and foremost, entertaining and engaging reads. I do not think, as Pullman and Moorcock appear to, that novels necessarily have to tell us something about our world (on a direct and conscious level at least) in order to have literary merit or value. Funnily enough, though, I enjoyed the works of Pullman and Moorcock in much the same way as I enjoyed Tolkien's works - as entertaining reads. I wonder what they would make of that? They must accept, surely, that many of their readers will approach their works in the same way, particularly as their greatest appeal will be among younger readers.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

He does deal with political issues such as the environment and corruption/power (both often go hand in hand ) ...

Yet not, for Tolkien, inevitably so. In Tolkien's works, power corrupts if employed in the service of evil. But power and authority can be exercised in the service of good, too, as in the case of Aragorn's rule. Manwë's rule is another example. I suspect that Moorcock and Pullman would take a different view, namely that power and authority is almost always a corrupting influence. I find myself rather in agreement with that approach, when considering the "real world", although I do not find Tolkien's treatment of the issue as lacking credibility, in the context of Middle-earth.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It would be wrong to confuse his status as middle class white Catholic male with what he wrote, as the text does not bear out the kind of writing we might expect from that stereotype.

I think that it does, to a degree, including in some of the ways which Moorcock identifies. But I agree that this is not comprehensively the case. Tolkien was a complex character (but aren't most of us?). I take the point made by Child about different values within the text being ascribed differing value over time and between different readers/critics. And I also take the point which both of you make concerning Tolkien's enviromentalist leanings. Both Pullman and Moorcock gloss over those aspects of Tolkien's works with which they might have some sympathy, were they to consider them, and focus on those elements which they find disagreeable. That's understandable, I suppose. Given that the works do not appear to appeal to them on an insitinctive level, it is natural for them to look to why this might be.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Maybe this is why people like Pullman and Moorcock don't like Tolkien. He isn't taking a party line of any kind, just going with what is important regardless of any agenda.

But, as I understand it, on the basis of Tolkien's own statements (as expressed in his Letters) and on many commentators on his works, he did have an agenda of sorts. Not political, maybe, but certainly religious (consciously so in the revision) and, to a degree, social/environmental. That is not to say that he wrote LotR to "preach" or to persuade anyone to his own viewpoint. But, to my mind, his agenda certainly influenced what he wrote. Pullman and Moorcock dislike LotR not because they perceive no agenda but because they see it, at best, as irrelevant and, at worst, as dangerous.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

No, I would not put Tolkien's work on the right hand end of any political scale ... And like Child has said, the fact that Tolkien's work appeals to so many diverse people and can be read in so many different ways suggests that there is indeed no agenda there.

I do not disagree about the diverse appeal of Tolkien's works. But I do wonder why his most vociferous critics (Greer, Hari, Moorcock etc) are those with left-wing leanings. I also wonder why it seems to be the case that those who seek to criticise Tolkien's writings are always so vociferous in doing so. Is it, as has been suggested, a consequence of frustration at their widespread and enduring appeal? Are there any critics of Tolkien who adopt a more reasonable, constructive approach? Based on what I have read, Pullman would appear to be the most reasonable of them all ...