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Old 11-08-2003, 03:14 PM   #13
Aiwendil
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Join Date: Mar 2001
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Sting

Child of the 7th Age wrote:
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Pullman as a representative of the "modern" school, both with his emphasis on internal characterization and his questioning stance on religious belief and institutions....

Tolkien as the defender of "tradition"---standing much closer to the epic works that spell out the story by external deeds and acts, along with his sympathies for more traditional religious views.
I think you are right - but at the same time, I don't think Pullman's modern outlook alone is enough to account for his inability to find psychological depth in Tolkien's characters. Rather, it is a particular type of modern outlook, indeed a particular type of modern literary outlook; and this need not be tied to a modern outlook in other regards.

For example, I would say I have a rather modern outlook (though not "post-modern") with regard to science, religion, and such things. I would call myself a secular humanist; and I would say that I am tend toward an anti-religious, pro-scientific, supremely analytical view of things. And yet The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book; and yet I in many ways prefer the traditional school of external characterization to the modern. It takes something more than a modern outlook to be blind to the kind of implicit depth Tolkien gives his characters.

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Interestingly, in "real" life, we stand somewhere between the two in regard to characterization. We have access to our own thoughts and feelings, but can only interpret others through the prism of their speech and acts.
Very true. One might say, if one were prone to making blanket over-generalizations, that the modern preference for internal characterization is an outgrowth of the Enlightenment's focus on the individual.
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