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Old 09-25-2002, 08:43 PM   #14
littlemanpoet
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
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littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
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Thank you all for some very thoughtful responses.

Mark: I love George MacDonald's fantasy. I have read Phantastes through twice, and especially love the tale within a tale of the young man who knows the art of fencing (with saber), who buys a mirror in which is trapped a young lady, and how he saves her.... (find the book for how it happens - I won't tell). I've read Lilith, a strange, strange book, and many short stories, including The Golden Key, which is quite amazing, but even more so is The Castle. And The Princesa and Curdie is great, too. JRRT and CSL both loved MacDonald. There are moments when GM really has the Faerie feel, but having written in the late 19th century, his books have a Romantic or Victorian flavor to them. Very fascinating writer.

As a matter of fact, I AM writing my own. It has more of the Faerie feel now than it ever has, I'm glad to say. I guess I finally reallly know what I want to read, so that's what I write. Now here's the irony: I'm fully aware that MY story, too, is going to lose that Faerie feel as it moves into a more epic tone, but I hope that my eucatastrophe succeeds in bringing the Fae back. Okay, spoiler there, but not too much, I hope.

Bill Ferny: I think you're close on Tolkien's loathing, but having just finished reading The Scouring of the Shire again, I think his especial loathing was, as you say, the industrial encroachment, but also (think of Ted Sandyman) the orcifying or ruffianizing of hobbits. That translates, in my mind, into a dehumanization that happens to us who are at the mercy of the machine age, which is caused by our lack of connection with the world of nature.

Speaking of which, Nar, I'm sure you do not mean "nothing but" family love, joy and bliss, as important as those are; because I also believe that there is a strong emphasis on connection to the natural world - think of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil - also think of Alf Prentice and the Queen of Faerie. The connection to nature is strong; this is an essential aspect of Faerie. Thus, trout, blue herons, oaks, deep springfed pools and cliffs and cliff swallows, and ferns and thickets and all the rest. Old Man Willow. The Old Forest. Hedgerows. Wild heaths.

Thanks, Nar, for the insight into the early writings of Tolkien in the Tale of Tinuviel, etc.

The Silmarillion is myth. The Lord of the Rings is an epic romance, so said J.R.R. Tolkien. The Hobbit and Smith of Wooton Major are fairy tales.
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