Pullman rips on LOTR, others

[Gwathagor]

Like I said.

[obloquy]

In our own western culture you can find this in the fashion industry where frailty and the look of adolescence is preferred over the look of a real, healthy, full grown woman. It is all to do with power; if women are kept in a state of childhood they pose no threat both in terms of their own potential power or the power other men could gain by 'stealing' them.

Or maybe young, thin girls are actually more attractive than what you call "real, healthy, full grown women." Out of curiosity, do you suppose there's a single mastermind dictating the repression of powerful women, or is it a syndicate with an official charter and handshake? Then again, maybe fashion isn't exactly "all to do with power." Maybe fashion is fashion, and the struggle of women seeking more independence and influence has a little more to do with thousands of years of near-universal patriarchal tradition than what designers are selling to anorexic celebrities.

By the way, guys rule and girls drool.

[Eönwë]

Well, lots of authors "borrow" from others. Imean, at least Tolkien's is done discreetly, or at least, a lot of his books are his creation (but it does have a bit of a biblical connection).

But look at people like Christopher Paolini, he writes about King called Hrothgar. That is just Beowulf in disguise, not to mention his elves and what he calls urgals but sound verey similar to orcs.

And people like Terry Pratchett just take ideas from everywhere...

But thats just how life is as an author... *wink wink*

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by obloquy

Or maybe young, thin girls are actually more attractive than what you call "real, healthy, full grown women." Out of curiosity, do you suppose there's a single mastermind dictating the repression of powerful women, or is it a syndicate with an official charter and handshake? Then again, maybe fashion isn't exactly "all to do with power." Maybe fashion is fashion, and the struggle of women seeking more independence and influence has a little more to do with thousands of years of near-universal patriarchal tradition than what designers are selling to anorexic celebrities.

By the way, guys rule and girls drool.

You're dicing with death there, you'll have half the female Downs membership going "Tch"

Though to be serious, this argument about the link between fashion and power can actually be seen in history. I know not many historians are interested in what styles of frock the lasses wore and when (being that guns and swords and planes and stuff are more interesting - including to me) but there is a clear correlation between styles of dress and attitudes towards women. To take a recent example, the later 1940s saw a return to fitted, corsetted, and impractical styles just as women went back to their kitchen sinks to clear the factory jobs for returning men from war. But I shall not bore you with any more lecturing as that's getting right off the point

Getting right back to the issues Pullman has with Tolkien, the worst that can be said about it is that Pullman just doesn't find Tolkien 'serious' enough, and I have to say this is down at least to some essential differences between what the two men hoped to achieve.

On the one hand Tolkien was working from a basis of epic, heroic literature such as Beowulf and the sagas, at times quite dispassionate in that they do not examine what is happening in the characters' heads; whereas Pullman works more from the intense poetry of Milton and Blake which examine psychological matters and personal spiritual viewpoints.

One of the criticisms of Tolkien is that his characters are one-dimensional - this is because we are used to modern fiction which gets into the heads of characters, not to sagas which simply tell the tale. A lot of people do not realise that like in a Viking saga, in Tolkien's world we learn about the character and their motivation from the words he/she says or the deeds he/she does. Contrast that with Pullman, very much the modern writer, who uses the authorial voice, not the character voice, to tell us why Lyra wants to do this or that. And then go and read some Blake and you will find just the same thing.

So it boils down to influences and by extension, taste. Tolkien liked one thing, Pullman likes another. Tolkien, it must be noted, also "cordially disliked allegory", a particular form of writing in which the authorial voice is scrawled in red pen all over the page, and the form Lewis and Pullman have both chosen, to a certain extent; Tolkien didn't like Narnia and I think he also wouldn't have liked HDM, for artistic reasons.

Something else is important and this is that what Tolkien created was more than a 'mere' book. LotR is a precision crafted narrative, a world with just about everything it needs built in and added on. That is what you can get if someone is allowed most of their adult life to create one book - perfection. You certainly do not find this with Lewis and Pullman - much as I find HDM dazzling, it is full of errors and incongruous stuff, things which just don't 'fit' and narrative bad choices. The same is true of Narnia (together with the clunky nursery style and Pigwiggenry I find tedious). And Harry Potter. All these were conventional novels, churned out relatively quickly in comparison to Rings, which wasn't really a novel in any conventional sense but a perfect representation/reproduction of Tolkien's alternate world.

So is Pullman actually objecting to something which is quite outside normal literary conventions anyway, when he calls Tolkien boring?

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

You're dicing with death there, you'll have half the female Downs membership going "Tch"

Though to be serious, this argument about the link between fashion and power can actually be seen in history. I know not many historians are interested in what styles of frock the lasses wore and when (being that guns and swords and planes and stuff are more interesting - including to me) but there is a clear correlation between styles of dress and attitudes towards women. To take a recent example, the later 1940s saw a return to fitted, corsetted, and impractical styles just as women went back to their kitchen sinks to clear the factory jobs for returning men from war. But I shall not bore you with any more lecturing as that's getting right off the point

I don't see the correlation. I see a general atmosphere of conservatism that leads women to dress conservatively, and to carry out a certain traditional role while the men resume their old jobs.

Modern fashion has nothing to do with power. Most fashion designers are either women or gay men: where's their motivation to keep women from looking powerful?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by obloquy

I don't see the correlation. I see a general atmosphere of conservatism that leads women to dress conservatively, and to carry out a certain traditional role while the men resume their old jobs.

Modern fashion has nothing to do with power. Most fashion designers are either women or gay men: where's their motivation to keep women from looking powerful?

You're wrong, thus proving fashion is indeed a ladies' thing

Originally Posted by Bb

The difficulty lies in how very, very far Lewis falls from the concept and understanding of spirituality which can be found in other writers and other people of more enlarged grace, hope, and charity.

Yes. Lewis instead gave us a kind of begrudging grace, and a strictly rationed hope. This is why Tolkien stomps all over Lewis as he just didn't bring that stuff into it - you get the sense that even Gollum got something in the end.

[Folwren]

Tolkien may have been correct about a lot of things, but if he 'stomps all over Lewis' (I know you meant Lewis' writings and I took it as such), then he was not correct in that opinion.

Look. So far as I am concerned, I actually admire Lewis more than any other author that I have ever read, and that includes Tolkien. All this argument about whether or not his protrayal of Susan and what it meant is right or wrong or stupid or whatever is very, very shallow, and doesn't really belong here on the Barrow Downs. People - you're better than this. I believe that all of you who are putting Lewis down because of this issue are smarter than you're making yourself look right now.

If you want a true look at what Lewis believed, read his other books - Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, Miracles, The Screwtape Letters (those are probably the most pertitent to this conversation), even Till We Have Faces...

[Lalwendë]

I've nothing wrong with Lewis being a bit sexist etc. As I've said, many other writers also have their PC failings but it doesn't stop me liking them if I find their writing good. However, I get a little fed up with the apologies for Lewis which don't wash and would find discussion of him and his work much more interesting if people did not blindly leap to the defence.

Note I'm not the only one who thinks this, many greater minds than mine share this opinion, including Betjeman, who personally knew the man rather too well. And as we're here to discuss books (I'm quite sure Lewis was as nice as anyone, long as you weren't cluttering up the snug of the Bird and Baby with a WI meeting :P), then my disappointment with Narnia is also shared with none other than one Professor Tolkien. I don't care how smart or not I'm making myself look when I share such good company

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Yes. Lewis instead gave us a kind of begrudging grace, and a strictly rationed hope. This is why Tolkien stomps all over Lewis as he just didn't bring that stuff into it - you get the sense that even Gollum got something in the end.

That's a fascinating comparison, Lal, between Susan and Gollem. One of Tolkien's great achievements in LotR is, I think, his depiction of pity--the word itself is currently unfashionable, although the behaviour is not--especially for Gollem. Gandalf's talk with Frodo early in Bag End colours so much of the moral vision of Middle-earth. Even the ends of Saruman and Grima ring true morally--nothing contrived there, but a logical acting out of the impulses and consequences which the entire story unfolds. It isn't petty or narrow minded or self-complacent.

Really, when I think of Lewis and Susan, I can't help thinking of Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre at the charity school for orphans forcing the teachers to cut off the girl's hair because it was naturally curly and thus a symptom of the terrible vanity girls fall prey to.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

That's a fascinating comparison, Lal, between Susan and Gollem. One of Tolkien's great achievements in LotR is, I think, his depiction of pity--the word itself is currently unfashionable, although the behaviour is not--especially for Gollem. Gandalf's talk with Frodo early in Bag End colours so much of the moral vision of Middle-earth. Even the ends of Saruman and Grima ring true morally--nothing contrived there, but a logical acting out of the impulses and consequences which the entire story unfolds. It isn't petty or narrow minded or self-complacent.

Really, when I think of Lewis and Susan, I can't help thinking of Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre at the charity school for orphans forcing the teachers to cut off the girl's hair because it was naturally curly and thus a symptom of the terrible vanity girls fall prey to.

Tolkien also gives out a far more powerful message of growth. Wrapped up in the narrative motif of the journey or quest is also the inherent idea that this is more then merely moving across a map with a job to do, it is also an interior journey in which all the characters grow and grow up. The growing up is in a literal sense for Merry and Pippin who grow taller and also become responsible adults instead of remaining as two slightly aristocratic fun-loving boys. It is in a spiritual sense for Frodo and for Gollum in two very different ways, but with both receiving pity (and perfect, satisfying endings consistent with their characters) at the end of their suffering. It is also in a metaphorical sense for Sam who develops social aspirations after seeing a world beyond taters.

In not dealing with the issue of growth Lewis missed a trick. Instead what his message does is tell us that growth is not the answer, that stasis is in fact preferable. Susan does indeed 'grow' but is punished for it. She doesn't stand a chance. Aside from that, it's also a cop-out. She is not given the satisfactory and consistent endings that all of Tolkien's 'bad guys' are and you get the sense that Lewis simply stopped caring about her once he got to the thorny question of what he was going to do with a normal young woman. It gives the impression that he didn't think about what he was going to do with her, that he just took some Tippex to her character.

And I think this is why both make and female readers find this so odd, so unsatisfying and why it ruins Narnia for so many to see a much-loved character dealt with so dismissively. Neil Gaiman called it infuriating and this is one of the reasons behind his story "The Problem Of Susan" - he hoped to write something equally as irritating and inconclusive.

Nice analogy in Jane Eyre there too. I'm also reminded of the girl in The Magdalen Sisters who is shipped off to a life of torment in the laundries just for being pretty.

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

You're wrong, thus proving fashion is indeed a ladies' thing

Along with gross oversimplification, conspiratorial delusions, and mistaking collateral effects for deliberate ones. No wonder Old Navy and the gay men of Hollywood have coalesced over this plan to keep you ladies from gaining any meaningful influence.