[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

I think one reason that the criticisms of Pullman and Moorcock come across as petulant (at least to me) is that it's the work that is the ultimate argument. The way to really "defeat" Tolkien and win your argument over him is to write a book that is so much better (technically, ideologically, or whatever) that it transcends LotR so completely as to reduce it to irrelevance or at least quaintness (in the most dismissive sense of that word). For those guys -- who are at least moderately successful in their own right, but who still live in the shadow of Tolkien -- to write essays bashing him is like Charles Barkley writing essays on why Michael Jordan is overrated. No. If you want to prove that Jordan is overrated, you've got to prove it on the court where it counts. Talk is cheap.

You are, of course, right as rain, Mister Underhill. It is the imagination that must be gained.

Yet, SF is one of the most gabbling of genres, perhaps because its status was once so often dismissed. And with the advent of the fan convention, authors can hardly be blamed for becoming engaged in the discussion of the beast. The talk is simply a symptom of the popularity of the genre and the access which fans have to writers. To say nothing of internet discussion forums.

Originally Posted by Lal

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.

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.

Umm, I don't think it is quite that easy to dismiss an 'agenda' in Tolkien, although I would call it a perspective. Sauce mentions the religious element which came to the fore in Tolkien's imagination as he aged, but the elements which hold LotR together are mythology and linquistics/philology. This is similar to, say, Ursua K. LeGuin's use of an anthropological perspective. For Tolkien, it is an historical world view which permeates his writing, a world view writers like Pullman and Moorcock find intrudes upon their enjoyment of the books.

Originally Posted by davem

It changes him & those around him & on his final return from Faery he is filled with loss & regret & a knowledge that 'there is no real going back'. Frodo cannot go back to the Shire, Smith cannot go back to Faery, both end bereft.

See my previous post in reply to Esty for how spun candy fits with the ritual passing of generations, life, time.

I wonder if it is only the SF authors who use the archetypes of science and technology as the basis of their fantasy who have such difficulties with Tolkien? I've been looking at Le Guin's attitude towards Tolkien, which is not only different from those of Pullman and Moorcock, but more subtle as well.

Here are a couple of links with Le Guin's comments on Tolkien.

NPR discussion of Tolkien, with Le Guin, Shippey et al

Tributes from Le Guin at Green Books

This second one is an amalgamation of her comments in The Language of the Night, which I have at hand and will skim to see what else one can provide.