Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Lalwendë]

Ho, more good examples of just how wrong Barthes was - arguments all over the place are the result!

The plain fact is that the theory that the Author Is Dead is against Reason. It is an intellectual return to primitives beating each other over the head with haunches of reindeer meat (or clubs - but reindeer meat is more visceral an image). The logical conclusion of the notion is that Nothing Is Right, Nothing Is True, All Is Chaos. Yet no writer sets out with this aim beyond those who devote themselves to pure free-form poetry or stream of consciousness gumpf. All writers have Purpose. It might be vague, it might be complex, it might be indecipherable, but it is there. All that the Barthes theory does is allow us to abdicate all sense of intellectual rigour and 'hey man', just go with the flow.

It also, of course, ensures that academics are never out of work or short on new papers to write as there's always something else to say, even if it is a load of carp.

Hmm, how often do fans discuss whether Tolkien intended his work as Christian? Lots. We're discussing his Intent there of course. Basing discussion around his Intent does not mean we must accept his intent, indeed, we cannot agree that he did intend that. It is interesting and fruitful to talk about nevertheless. You simply do not get that if you want to follow Barthes. You just spend weeks on end going 'hmmmm' and 'after you' and nothing gets anywhere - and only the possessor of the longest words survives. Hermeneutics? Simulacra? Pretentious? Exactly.

And there's a deep irony in examining and subjecting Tolkien to a theory he would have deplored with all his heart. It was Barthes, Derrida, Foucault (their names make me feel quite ill) and his ilk who ethnically cleansed study of his great love, Etymology, from Universities worldwide. They stood for everything he hated.

[Thenamir]

Originally Posted by Jacques Derrida, on Why the Chicken Crossed The Road

Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, $%^&, DEAD!

X

[Lalwendë]

Any fool could have told him that Le Chicken was just trying to get away from the farmer who wanted to stuff its liver full of fat until it exploded.

[Thenamir]

The only restriction is on publishing such fiction for profit, & by extension on attempting to make a reputation as 'Tolkien's Literary Heir'.

Interesting that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time volumes (for which, apparantly, he gets paid by the pound) are plastered with a quote from a New York Times reviewer, "Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." One can scarcely imagine the disgust such a quote engenders on this site.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

Interesting that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time volumes (for which, apparantly, he gets paid by the pound) are plastered with a quote from a New York Times reviewer, "Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." One can scarcely imagine the disgust such a quote engenders on this site.

'Comparable to Tolkien at his best'. I remember reading that on a novel by one Fred Saberhagen, though I'm sure it would be very difficult to count the number of Fantasy writers who have been compared to Tolkien, promoted as the 'next' Tolkien, or, as with Jordan here, stated to be 'superior' to him.

What's interesting is that whether they are being promoted as his replacement, his equal or his superior, they are all compared to Tolkien. Tolkien is the standard by which they are all measured.

And those few who aren't compared to him seem to have an animus regarding him - one thinks of Moorcock & Pullman. It all seems to be about Tolkien in one way or another.