Other authors?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

For a Tolkienesque spin on him, I'll say that Pullman is the literary equivalent of Melkor: incapable of creating beauty, himself, he takes what is already good and beautiful and twists it.

Yeah, well... If it makes for a good story...

Don't forget that Tolkien borrowed ruthlessly from myths, folklore, history, and literature. That's what good authors do: they take what's already there and they twist it.

Originally Posted by davem

Actually, some of the most 'Tolkienesque' stuff out there are the Icelandic Sagas.

Discussed here if you're interested... Though you might do better to call young John's work Icelandic-esque instead...

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

(MM seems to think that the way to give a character depth is to make him act like a sullen teenager. That's doesn't make him deep: it just makes him low.)

Worked for Bill Shakes with Hamlet...

In any case, to avoid being particularly snarky without necessity...

I got through LWW as a kid, and another one... can't remember which... before Lewis got boring. Lewis spoon feeds his audience. I tried again a year or two ago before deciding that just because you're famous doesn't mean you're worth slogging through. It's nauseatingly claustrophobic to read Chronicles and downright incomparable to Tolkien's work.

I read Pullman's work at some point during my teenage years and while I found it interesting in terms of ideas, I also found it easy to - guilty cough - skip entire sections. I look at the covers and think, "You know, I know I've read that..." yet I found the works almost entirely unmemorable. I could take a guess at plot lines and themes and probably be right, but I'd be unwilling to stake money on any of it. Everything's worth a read, but for my money, Pullman's not worth my bookshelf.

As for actual recommendations...

Beowulf, The Vulsunga Saga, The Old Testament, The Divine Comedy.

Yes, yes, I know! Too easy.

They barely count as recommendations. It's like reading the same thing half the time. But we were asked for similar...

Here's my main reason for this post...

If any of you have read it, I wouldn't doubt you're about to raise a dubious eyebrow and wonder at my logic for calling them similar.

Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife is the only book I've read since LotR that has captured my interest, my academic mind, my emotions, and my ability to manage my time with anywhere near equality.

You might shun me for saying it, but I actually prefer Niffenegger's story to any of Tolkien's. Naughty me.

Here's why I'm willing to suggest a story that's sci-fi and not really fantasy on a Rings forum: the magic of the writing itself. The themes of fate, love, sacrifice, and waiting. Seriously, I haven't found a story that made me feel this warm and fuzzy since I was a kid and borrowed a beat up copy of the Fellowship from my brother's English teacher. It's both heart-wrenching and hilarious, and is a treat for artists or bibliophiles. I had a blast picking out quietly inserted literary references. One morning, let me share, Claire and Henry's dawn breaks with rosy fingers.

And though it's not a book, I have issues with the separation of anything really. Everyone ought to go watch Pan's Labyrinth. If you insist on the written word, track down the film script if you can. I haven't read it, but if it's anything near the finished product, it's worth the effort.

EDIT: I forgot! How could I forget? Milton. Go purr your way through Milton. Paradise Lost... oh it's wonderful...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes, Milton, Dante, (parts of) Old Testament- but do try to get an edition with the Gustave Dore engravings. *Well* worth it.

And of course Iliad, Odyssey, Morte d'Arthur (don't feel guilty about skipping some- Malory became a better author as he went along), and maybe Aeneid (in places reads too much like second-rate Homer, or naked Julian propaganda).

[Mithalwen]

To be rather more populist, though I do think him a wonderful writer, how about Terry Pratchett? He uses his created world to say the unsayable about our own rather than to create a mythology and is delightfully irreverent but discworld is the only "created world" that has a fraction of the appeal of Arda.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I'm interested because I do not know...was Narnia written before or after Joy Gresham?

Lalwende,

Regarding this question.....if you want to see a different side of Lewis, try reading Till We Have Faces. I always felt it was the best piece of fantasy/myth that C.S. Lewis attempted. His depiction of the two sisters shows a depth of understanding that isn't apparent in the Narnia series. Till We Have Faces was composed after the marriage to Joy (Narnia was before). His understanding of women seems to have taken a giant step forward in the interim.

When I first read Narnia, the Susan stereotype did not bother me. I was a young teenager and knew a lot of girls who exactly fit the Susan stereotype. I righteously consoled myself with the fact that I was not one of these airheads but a "Lucy" who definitely merited entry to Narnia . However, looking backwards from a different vantage point, I am less comfortable with how Lewis depicted women, whether in the Narnia series or in his sci/fi--their roles seem so limiting. Still, the feeling is not so visceral that I can't get around it to read and enjoy his stories.

I will put in another word for T.H. White and the Once and Future King. Shippey once talked in an interview how Tolkien and White were unique--both the product of a particular education system and world view that had now vanished from the world--so there couldn't possibly be anyone to take their places. At the time I hoped he was wrong but now I am beginning to believe him. The interview was fascinating, and I wish I could find that link, which has somehow disappeared in the shadowlands of the internet.

[Lalwendë]

Cheers Child! I did suspect that Narnia was the product of his bachelor days - only a man who has got used to living without women could produce a character like Susan.

Fea - Pan's Labyrinth - good call. I reckon you might like Isabel Allende's The House Of The Spirits if you liked that - book, not film, as the film was pants.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I reckon you might like Isabel Allende's The House Of The Spirits if you liked that - book, not film, as the film was pants.

I've got it on my bookshelf. It was assigned for a class I walked out of just before it was actually due for discussion, so I've read about half of it, but never got around to finishing. I'll scoot it up my to-read list.

If anybody wants to torment themselves with names (like reading the Silm, I swear), take a stab at Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude. Sixteen illegitimate Aurelianos in one family!

[Morwen]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

Lalwende,

Regarding this question.....if you want to see a different side of Lewis, try reading Till We Have Faces. I always felt it was the best piece of fantasy/myth that C.S. Lewis attempted. His depiction of the two sisters shows a depth of understanding that isn't apparent in the Narnia series. Till We Have Faces was composed after the marriage to Joy (Narnia was before). His understanding of women seems to have taken a giant step forward in the interim.

When I first read Narnia, the Susan stereotype did not bother me. I was a young teenager and knew a lot of girls who exactly fit the Susan stereotype. I righteously consoled myself with the fact that I was not one of these airheads but a "Lucy" who definitely merited entry to Narnia . However, looking backwards from a different vantage point, I am less comfortable with how Lewis depicted women, whether in the Narnia series or in his sci/fi--their roles seem so limiting. Still, the feeling is not so visceral that I can't get around it to read and enjoy his stories.

But what of his portrayals of Polly, Jill, or Aravis? Especially Aravis who shows a lot of resourcefulness and a take charge attitude with respect to her life, refusing to settle for her arranged marriage and venturing off on her own. The Susan who is discussed in "The Last Battle" doesn't represent the norm for his female characters.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

I will put in another word for T.H. White and the Once and Future King. Shippey once talked in an interview how Tolkien and White were unique--both the product of a particular education system and world view that had now vanished from the world--so there couldn't possibly be anyone to take their places.

I believe in many cases during The Once and Future King White surpasses Tolkien in the depth of his characterizations. He certainly has the better wit, I should think (the whole dialogue between Pelinore and Grummursum which consists mostly of 'wots' is particularly humorous, or the Hedgehog referring to 'His Majesty' as 'Maggie's Tea' or later just 'Tiggy'). But both offer a profundity and heightened sense of sadness that transcends the bounds of fantasy, and is sorely missing in many of the other works mentioned in this thread.

Certainly, they go about presenting their ideas differently (White's overt anti-war sentiment is offered without apology, whereas Tolkien's Christian ethic is subsumed in his work); however, one can still tell they are cut from the same cloth.

Regarding classic literature (Mallory, et al), I have just finished reading Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais for the first time since college (hence the epithets in my sig line), and I would heartily recommend it for anyone that has no fear of earthy language and a myriad classical allusions. Voltaire's savage satire of Leibnizean philosophy, Candide, although not a fantasy, is surreal enough to warrant mention with these other works.

[littlemanpoet]

Megan Whalen Turner published the third in her series, which is in the Youth section of the library, but is too good to be limited to that audience. The three titles are "The Thief", "The Queen of Attolia", and "King of Attolia". Its template is ancient Greek culture and geography but the story is not historical fiction, rather fantasy that happens to use certain aspects of the real world. Very well written, fun to read, and deep enough to make one think. Highly recommended!

[Lalaith]

It's not just the lipstick stockings and invitations stuff, with Lewis. Look at Eustace's parents, for example. Their great crime seems to be that they have installed progressive views in their son (feminism, republicanism, vegetarianism, lack of corporal punishment etc) and this has made him the whiny, pompous little coward he is at the start of Dawn Treader. I did like the Narnia books as a child, but I didn't like the way that Lewis involves the reader in snide asides about liberal values, rather than just presenting his case and letting the reader make up his/her own mind.
(Although there is a rather amusing Oxonian dig at the Other Place in Dawn Treader - Eustace's ghastly trendy parents live in Cambridge....)

Oh and I second the recommendations for Norrell and Strange....brilliant...and south American magic realism. Marquez and Allende are great. I also recommend - slightly different but wonderful, intellectually rigorous fantasy nonetheless, Jorge Luis Borges.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

But both offer a profundity and heightened sense of sadness that transcends the bounds of fantasy, and is sorely missing in many of the other works mentioned in this thread.

I don't know. Pullman had me weeping helplessly like a child several times: the 'severed child' found clutching a pickled fish; what happens to Lyra not long afterwards; what Lyra has to do in order to enter The Land of the Dead; Lee Scoresby and his daemon Hester. I feel weepy just thinking about those scenes now...what I will be like in the cinema if they have these scenes, doesn't bear thinking about.

You just cannot write about people who have 'visible souls' in the form of sentient animals and their fates without stirring up emotions. I felt Pullman had tapped into something deep-rooted by showing how vulnerable life really is. Every death in Lyra's world is tinged with sadness, even the deaths of bad guys.

Not even Tolkien managed to wring such a response out of me - maybe if he had killed off dear Bilbo, but even that wouldn't come close....

And if you want the same kind of thing, wait until you get to the closing chapters of The House Of The Spirits...

[littlemanpoet]

I have to wonder about writers who are that good at manipulating the emotions of their readers; of course, it takes the reader's willingness.