Difference between Tolkien and the 'modern Fantasy' authors?

[power to the J]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I'd be interested in examples of this you cite; but I'm willing to wager that they fall under the headings I describe above: comparison, contrast, and deepening the implications and emotional resonance (for both the characters and the reader) of ongoing events, thus making the story itself more impactful -- hardly "fluff" or gratuitous. Another purpose it serves is to show that each of the characters here has a life every bit as important; theirs simply remains "a tale untold", but as much a part of the fabric of the whole as the "greater" events depicted; by including such, Tolkien makes us more aware of the scope and implications of the main thread of the narrative; it takes on wider and deeper meaning and applicability. As I've remarked elsewhere, I've read the darned thing close to 20 times over the past 40 years, in its entirety, and I'm afraid I can't think of an example that fits either of those terms.

I'm reminded of the passage where Faramir and his men ambush the Haradrim, and Sam is looking at the body of one of the enemy, and we're given a moment's insight into that man's life through Sam's eyes. Now, that can be considered as a "nice moment" of characterization or a "wasted" bit of description, but the fact is that it not only provides the reader with a better understanding of the world Tolkien has presented, but it also provides Sam with an understanding that the issues aren't black-and-white, and serves as an ironic contrast to Frodo's empathy with Gollum, which Sam (until much later, and even then only dimly) does not share, as here Sam shows something very like that sort of empathy, but for a being who is actually much more "other" than Smeagol. In fact, it may be the very fact that Smeagol/Gollum is, in origin, closer to Sam that prevents Sam from having that ability to feel for him, for if he does so, he has to recognize his kinship and all that that implies... and that is simply too dangerous to his most basic understanding of the world and the difference between the good and the evil in it. Again, it serves to say many different (yet related) things, and to increase the depth and emotional complexity of the action -- hardly fluff, gratuitous, or wasted.

You give a good example, but there are other examples that are useless. Now, there is, of course, backstory that is necessary for a peice of fiction to be sucessful, but I think LotR goes over the top.

This thread is about Tolkien and modern fantasy authors, and I'm going to choose my favorite: George R.R. Martin, and his excellent series, A Song of Ice and Fire. It's tough to compare these works as far as substance, but I think in the department of writing style it is possible.

I challenge anybody here who thinks that LotR is better than ASoIaF to read The Fellowship of the Ring and then A Game of Thrones (or vice-versa) and tell me that there isn't a lot of fluff in LotR, and pleanty of material that can easily be cut.

GRRM lets me get into his world and become immersed through what they experience and only tells me the details essential to the story. To fully immerse myself and enjoy a story to the fullest I dont need to know everything about it; I only need to know what will affect the chatacters in their future. LotR gives me details that make me bored, and thus takes away from my connection to the world. By telling me what happens directly to the characters I am more immersed in the world because I feel like the characters are real and thus care more about what happens to them, and that leads to me being immersed. In LotR, I feel like I am reading a textbook half of the time, and this just makes me more and more disconnected from the world and the characters.

[Ursa major]

"It is the refuge of barren authors, only, to crowd their fictions with so great a number of events, as to suffer no one of them to sink into the reader's mind. It is the province of true genius to develop events, to discover their capabilities, to ascertain the different passions and sentiments with which they are fraught, and to diversify them with incidents; that give reality to the picture, and take a hold upon the mind of a reader of taste, from which they can never be loosened."

That Gibson fellow sure took the words out of my mouth.

In my own opinion, a novel (or series) should be a good balance of plot, environment, characters and prose; all of these aspects should be believable (prose included) and all should exhibit a variety to maintain interest in the process of reading.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by power to the J

GRRM lets me get into his world and become immersed through what they experience and only tells me the details essential to the story. To fully immerse myself and enjoy a story to the fullest I dont need to know everything about it; I only need to know what will affect the chatacters in their future. LotR gives me details that make me bored, and thus takes away from my connection to the world. By telling me what happens directly to the characters I am more immersed in the world because I feel like the characters are real and thus care more about what happens to them, and that leads to me being immersed. In LotR, I feel like I am reading a textbook half of the time, and this just makes me more and more disconnected from the world and the characters.

I like your summation here, and I think this is where the difference in tastes comes into play. Essentially, this is a much more modern take on things, and shows a narrowing of focus, rather than broadening of experience. Both are perfectly valid approaches, but the more modern one is much more focused on entertainment of a lighter, rather shallower sort, rather than expressing through one's art an experience of life (or certain aspects of life). The latter requires more patience and care in both the writer and reader, as it presents its primary characters against the living backdrop of their world, whereas the approach you describe is much more that of setpieces in a contrived sequence where only the primary characters are given any semblance of life, and even there it consciously excludes their interaction with the larger world around them. While this can be entertaining, it seldom conveys any genuine insight into the human condition (other than through conscious didacticism).

In Tolkien's case, the world is real, it has depths far beyond the focus of the main story; as I noted above, it has myriads of untold stories just around the corner, of some of which we catch a fleeting glimpse, while of others we only hear hints. But it is a world with much greater depth and thickness, and -- as was noted in one of the early reviews of The Hobbit -- it is "a world that seems to have been going on before we stumbled into it" and, for that matter, will go on long after we leave it; whereas the modern writers' worlds are very much literary contrivances rather than the result of a deep inner vision. As such, they will have less detail, because they are conscious constructs, and inevitably will have less depth and richness of depth and texture and detail. When I say the world is real, what I am referring to is that -- as Tolkien himself brings out in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" -- it is very much a revisioning of the real world, it is solidly based on the writer's experience of what Tolkien would call the primary world, rather than a milieu created to fit a story the writer wants to tell. In Tolkien's case, it is something of the other way around -- the stories grow ineluctably out of the nature of the world in which they are set, rather than the world being built to fit the story.

The upshot of all this (and where the conscious artistry does come in) is in the selection of which parts to include; which parts to tell fully, which to present fragments of, which to shadowily hint at, and which to leave only in the characters' minds, influencing how they react to the world around them. In order to give his "sub-creation" (again, using his own phrasing) such profundity, each detail included in LotR plays a necessary part. The reason why such aren't required by the writers you mention is because the world they present simply doesn't have this thickness of presence; it is a theatrical set built for the purposes of telling the story, nothing more. (Again, this is not to denigrate such, I happen to enjoy both, and think that both are worthy endeavors, but simply to make the distinction that one does, by its very raison d'être, have more depth to it than the other.)

[paranoid marvin]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I like your summation here, and I think this is where the difference in tastes comes into play. Essentially, this is a much more modern take on things, and shows a narrowing of focus, rather than broadening of experience. Both are perfectly valid approaches, but the more modern one is much more focused on entertainment of a lighter, rather shallower sort, rather than expressing through one's art an experience of life (or certain aspects of life). The latter requires more patience and care in both the writer and reader, as it presents its primary characters against the living backdrop of their world, whereas the approach you describe is much more that of setpieces in a contrived sequence where only the primary characters are given any semblance of life, and even there it consciously excludes their interaction with the larger world around them. While this can be entertaining, it seldom conveys any genuine insight into the human condition (other than through conscious didacticism).

In Tolkien's case, the world is real, it has depths far beyond the focus of the main story; as I noted above, it has myriads of untold stories just around the corner, of some of which we catch a fleeting glimpse, while of others we only hear hints. But it is a world with much greater depth and thickness, and -- as was noted in one of the early reviews of The Hobbit -- it is "a world that seems to have been going on before we stumbled into it" and, for that matter, will go on long after we leave it; whereas the modern writers' worlds are very much literary contrivances rather than the result of a deep inner vision. As such, they will have less detail, because they are conscious constructs, and inevitably will have less depth and richness of depth and texture and detail. When I say the world is real, what I am referring to is that -- as Tolkien himself brings out in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" -- it is very much a revisioning of the real world, it is solidly based on the writer's experience of what Tolkien would call the primary world, rather than a milieu created to fit a story the writer wants to tell. In Tolkien's case, it is something of the other way around -- the stories grow ineluctably out of the nature of the world in which they are set, rather than the world being built to fit the story.

The upshot of all this (and where the conscious artistry does come in) is in the selection of which parts to include; which parts to tell fully, which to present fragments of, which to shadowily hint at, and which to leave only in the characters' minds, influencing how they react to the world around them. In order to give his "sub-creation" (again, using his own phrasing) such profundity, each detail included in LotR plays a necessary part. The reason why such aren't required by the writers you mention is because the world they present simply doesn't have this thickness of presence; it is a theatrical set built for the purposes of telling the story, nothing more. (Again, this is not to denigrate such, I happen to enjoy both, and think that both are worthy endeavors, but simply to make the distinction that one does, by its very raison d'être, have more depth to it than the other.)

I think I agree - the novel LOTR feels like an extract from an entire history of Middle Earth. Tolkein speaks to us of things of which we know little or nothng as though they were commonly-held facts - as though we ourselves were citizens of Middle Earth studying a little of our history. Some are explained , others are not , and left to the readers imagination

the modern author tends to create a world inside one novel , or a series of novels- but it is devised purely as a means of telling one particular story. The world is created for the novel , whereas Tolkein creates a novel for the world

Which is the more successful method? Well , judge for yourself

[power to the J]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

While this can be entertaining, it seldom conveys any genuine insight into the human condition (other than through conscious didacticism).

That's why I use GRRM as my representation of modern fantasy authors; reading his works certainly does let us--as a reader--get genuine insight into the human condition, just not in the same way as LotR. Where LotR conveys most of the good guys as just plain ol' good guys, ASoIaF lets us meet many different characters with different opinions and beliefs, and the way that they see and react to an event can show us certain things about the character that shows true insight. How can we not have insight into human condition when the events that take place happen because of these different humans and what they choose to do?

Also, Tolkien may give us 'insight,' but, honestly, when I read the book I didn't really care much about what happened to the characters. I felt so dragged down by the information I was being given that I felt taken away from the characters, and the situation seemed unemotional (I think I've mentioned this before).

In Tolkien's case, the world is real, it has depths far beyond the focus of the main story; as I noted above, it has myriads of untold stories just around the corner, of some of which we catch a fleeting glimpse, while of others we only hear hints. But it is a world with much greater depth and thickness, and -- as was noted in one of the early reviews of The Hobbit -- it is "a world that seems to have been going on before we stumbled into it" and, for that matter, will go on long after we leave it; whereas the modern writers' worlds are very much literary contrivances rather than the result of a deep inner vision. As such, they will have less detail, because they are conscious constructs, and inevitably will have less depth and richness of depth and texture and detail. When I say the world is real, what I am referring to is that -- as Tolkien himself brings out in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" -- it is very much a revisioning of the real world, it is solidly based on the writer's experience of what Tolkien would call the primary world, rather than a milieu created to fit a story the writer wants to tell. In Tolkien's case, it is something of the other way around -- the stories grow ineluctably out of the nature of the world in which they are set, rather than the world being built to fit the story.

Okay, now you've got me and GRRM pinned to the wall. Tolkien did do the best job of world-building, but hetold me too much. Still, there isn't much of a comparison between LotR and GRRM as far as world-building. Now, I must go to my other modern authors!

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss has an obviously dense and thought out history, and he doesn't need to give us too much of it like J.R.R. Tolkien does. He provides information to his world without going into in-depth explanations of what just happened, and I still get it and continue to read on smoothly.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie is another good example. If you read this book it is obvious that Abercrombie has done much more than just draw a couple of maps and get to his writing. There is certainly a long and detailed history behind the world that The Blade Itself is set in, and we don't need to know the history of a race to enjoy the race in front of us.

Also, the two examples that I chose also work for your first point about insight into the human condition. Both move fast, but both also offer lots of insight. The Name of the Wind only offers us insight to one character (since it is told in the first person) but the insight that we get is enough for ten characters, and when I put that book down I felt like Kvothe was standing right next to me. The Blade Itself takes another and equally as effective approach. During scenes of dialog, the POV character will usually think about what he/she has said and what the person she/he was talking to said, and that will reveal more about the character's state of mind, ideas, and true feelings for the other characters in the book. Both of these books are triumphantly fast-paced, and they both give me pleanty of insight into the human condition.

PS: Both are the first book in a trilogy, so I guess my best argument for them will have to come when the trilogies are complete.

The upshot of all this (and where the conscious artistry does come in) is in the selection of which parts to include; which parts to tell fully, which to present fragments of, which to shadowily hint at, and which to leave only in the characters' minds, influencing how they react to the world around them. In order to give his "sub-creation" (again, using his own phrasing) such profundity, each detail included in LotR plays a necessary part. The reason why such aren't required by the writers you mention is because the world they present simply doesn't have this thickness of presence; it is a theatrical set built for the purposes of telling the story, nothing more. (Again, this is not to denigrate such, I happen to enjoy both, and think that both are worthy endeavors, but simply to make the distinction that one does, by its very raison d'être, have more depth to it than the other.)

This comes down to our own opinions, because to me there seems to be lots of very cuttable material that would make the book more enjoyable. With more cut, I would be able to focus squarely on the characters and the events that take place in their lives.

And I don't think it matters how much I want to be a part of the world offered by the author. I want to take all that they have to give me and get lost in it, no matter who it is. I just think that Tolkien gave me too much, GRRM gives me a little bit less than I wanted, and Abercrombie/Rothfuss gave me just what I like!

Also, another difference between Tolkien and the modern fantasy authors: LotR is nothing more than a fairy-tale. I think we can all agree on that. For that reason, nobody dies. To me, that is not what I like to read. One of the reasons I enjoy GRRM so much is because characters die and I actually feel nervous when a character is in peril. In LotR, I know that the character will escape, and that takes away from the experience. But, I'm a dark person, so it might be just my strange opinion.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by power to the J

For that reason, nobody dies. To me, that is not what I like to read.

Boromir? Theoden? Saruman? Sauron? Gandalf? Grima? Beechbone? Halbarad? Denethor? Gollum?
How many do you want?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by power to the J

That's why I use GRRM as my representation of modern fantasy authors; reading his works certainly does let us--as a reader--get genuine insight into the human condition, just not in the same way as LotR. Where LotR conveys most of the good guys as just plain ol' good guys, ASoIaF lets us meet many different characters with different opinions and beliefs, and the way that they see and react to an event can show us certain things about the character that shows true insight. How can we not have insight into human condition when the events that take place happen because of these different humans and what they choose to do?

Also, Tolkien may give us 'insight,' but, honestly, when I read the book I didn't really care much about what happened to the characters. I felt so dragged down by the information I was being given that I felt taken away from the characters, and the situation seemed unemotional (I think I've mentioned this before).

Here we're talking about different things. You are speaking of insight into a particular character; what I'm addressing is insight into the human condition -- something with much broader application (and implication). As for the "just good 'ol guys" comment: Boromir, who is a genuinely good person whose Achilles' heel is his very strength: his love of his people and his father, his belief in honor and tradition; all of which he sees threatened... and the perfect weapon is within his grasp... and he is made part of the mission to destroy that weapon; a paradox with which he struggles throughout the remainder of his life, and which finally overcomes him so that he nearly -- in attempting to protect these things -- destroys the only (faint) hope of defeatng the enemy. Something that anyone who has found themselves in an irresoluble dilemma can identify with strongly. Gimli: proud, strong, steadfast... and a coward (at least in his own eyes) when it comes to the point, where the very race (the Elves) he has long (by his people's traditions) despised proves unaffected; he has to deal with the scars of that shame for the rest of his life -- though, as in real life, he doesn't continue to moan and kvetch about it continually afterward; instead, it affects his reactions forever afterward. Ever been put in a position where you were faced with such a choice? I have, and I know several who have. Gimli's actions are very true to life here. You live with what you learn about yourself -- but those scars don't ever really heal. (Which, incidentally, may just be a hint as to another reason an exception was made in Gimli's case, and he was allowed to sail into the West.) Denethor: A very noble man; a proud, stern, but overall just man; driven by his pride in his people's traditions and an unspoken (and largely unacknowledged) resentment against the kings who had (in a sense) abandoned them to betray those very traditions -- the traditions which had been the very purpose of his family's line for centuries, and of his own existence all his life; a man whose pride and hurt drove him to essentially commit both his sons to death. Not to mention both Frodo and Sam (and Gandalf), who are much more complex than simply good guys. And there are countless more examples.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss has an obviously dense and thought out history, and he doesn't need to give us too much of it like J.R.R. Tolkien does. He provides information to his world without going into in-depth explanations of what just happened, and I still get it and continue to read on smoothly.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie is another good example. If you read this book it is obvious that Abercrombie has done much more than just draw a couple of maps and get to his writing. There is certainly a long and detailed history behind the world that The Blade Itself is set in, and we don't need to know the history of a race to enjoy the race in front of us.

Also, the two examples that I chose also work for your first point about insight into the human condition. Both move fast, but both also offer lots of insight. The Name of the Wind only offers us insight to one character (since it is told in the first person) but the insight that we get is enough for ten characters, and when I put that book down I felt like Kvothe was standing right next to me. The Blade Itself takes another and equally as effective approach. During scenes of dialog, the POV character will usually think about what he/she has said and what the person she/he was talking to said, and that will reveal more about the character's state of mind, ideas, and true feelings for the other characters in the book. Both of these books are triumphantly fast-paced, and they both give me pleanty of insight into the human condition.

As I've not read either (yet) I don't feel competent to comment here, save in a very general fashion on this last point. Once again, the example you use (at least, from your description) is insight into a character, but stated, didactic, when it comes to that one character, and assumed (from his own opinions) rather than given subtly, through their actions and brief insights into their thoughts and emotional states, when it comes to others. First-person narrative is a slippery thing (hence the "unreliable narrator" idea), as any insight the reader may gather must, necessarily, be filtered through a single character's perceptions, and therefore be incomplete and very open to error. This is not -- again -- to denigrate first-person narrative (a narrative choice I am strongly in favor of, as it opens up very rich possibilities for character development and ambiguity), but simply to note that it very seldom allows for the broader insight into the human heart save by implication, rather than statement. It is when the reader is questioning the narrative voice that the most insight is gained, including that into the narrator him/herself.

This comes down to our own opinions, because to me there seems to be lots of very cuttable material that would make the book more enjoyable. With more cut, I would be able to focus squarely on the characters and the events that take place in their lives.

And I don't think it matters how much I want to be a part of the world offered by the author. I want to take all that they have to give me and get lost in it, no matter who it is. I just think that Tolkien gave me too much, GRRM gives me a little bit less than I wanted, and Abercrombie/Rothfuss gave me just what I like!

Also, another difference between Tolkien and the modern fantasy authors: LotR is nothing more than a fairy-tale. I think we can all agree on that. For that reason, nobody dies. To me, that is not what I like to read. One of the reasons I enjoy GRRM so much is because characters die and I actually feel nervous when a character is in peril. In LotR, I know that the character will escape, and that takes away from the experience. But, I'm a dark person, so it might be just my strange opinion.

"Nothing more than a fairy tale" -- in one (very limited) sense, this is true, in that it is in the tradition of narratives about "Faërie"; but only in this sense. As noted in my previous posts, the book is rooted in Tolkien's very real experience of life (including having lost all but one of his friends during the First World War) -- and as for the comment that "nobody dies"... the book is permeated by death (necessarily so, given not only his own experience, but the fact that he was an Augustinian Christian, one whose views were very much lapsarian in nature). Again: Boromir; Gollum/Smeagol (who undergoes two types of death, be it noted: death of his original personality and death of the body, with his secondary personality); Theoden; Denethor; Saruman; Gríma (Wormtongue)... and, again, these are just a few of the deaths we witness... and all of them are (or had at one time been) "the good guys". The air of the book stinks with death: death of individuals, death of nations, death of hopes, death of ways of life... not to mention the death of innocence, as we see the hobbits change (compare, for instance, all of the four main hobbit characters in "Scouring of the Shire" with what they had been in "A Long-Expected Party"; as Saruman notes: "You have grown, Halfling.... Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel." (And, for that matter, what of the terrible possibility of the death of love -- the sort of deep and abiding love that faced the choice of death in an heroic struggle without flinching -- resulting when Arwen is truly face-to-face with the upshot of her choice... when she no longer has the option to alter the outcome, and loses literally everything; a deathless person now faced with the reality of their own slow death, having already lost all they love, yet not to find the release of death for long years to come?) What we see here is the reflection of an entire generation that has lost its innocence in the Great War. A "fairy-tale" this may be, but it is a far cry from "nothing more than a fairy tale". No; I don't think we can agree on that at all.

Again, what I'm seeing here (as with so many instances) is a much shallower, much more lax, reading of books that has become very much the norm these days... a trend begun a long time back; at least as far back as the old chapbooks and penny dreadfuls of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; a trend where, if a thing isn't put out there in black-and-white, it all-too-often isn't seen. And this is a pity, as it actually limits the layers and levels of experience one can receive from a book and makes it a shallower experience. A more attentive reading of LotR (or, for that matter, many older works) will, I venture to say, reveal that it has much, much more to offer about "life in the real world" than so many more modern works, because it reflects not just the author's thoughts on things, but their unconscious impressions of the world around them (people included) as well; and thus has much, much more to say about not characters, but genuine human beings, than has one where a writer (no matter how talented) has sat down and created a character to tell their story through. Once again, I think William Godwin's statement is applicable here, and the disparity between the types of things we are each describing is a shining example of what he is saying....

[power to the J]

By 'good guys' I meant the Fellowship. So, in regards to pyan's comments, only Borimir is a member of the Fellowship, and during his living time it is arguable that he was the least talked about or important. When I said nobody dies I mean nobody out of the Fellowship. I think even if Merry or somebody got killed off in the third book (of the whole saga, thus tTT) then the whole rest of the book would have been much more high-staked and emotional, but that is just my opinion.

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Here we're talking about different things. You are speaking of insight into a particular character; what I'm addressing is insight into the human condition -- something with much broader application (and implication). As for the "just good 'ol guys" comment: Boromir, who is a genuinely good person whose Achilles' heel is his very strength: his love of his people and his father, his belief in honor and tradition; all of which he sees threatened... and the perfect weapon is within his grasp... and he is made part of the mission to destroy that weapon; a paradox with which he struggles throughout the remainder of his life, and which finally overcomes him so that he nearly -- in attempting to protect these things -- destroys the only (faint) hope of defeatng the enemy. Something that anyone who has found themselves in an irresoluble dilemma can identify with strongly. Gimli: proud, strong, steadfast... and a coward (at least in his own eyes) when it comes to the point, where the very race (the Elves) he has long (by his people's traditions) despised proves unaffected; he has to deal with the scars of that shame for the rest of his life -- though, as in real life, he doesn't continue to moan and kvetch about it continually afterward; instead, it affects his reactions forever afterward. Ever been put in a position where you were faced with such a choice? I have, and I know several who have. Gimli's actions are very true to life here. You live with what you learn about yourself -- but those scars don't ever really heal. (Which, incidentally, may just be a hint as to another reason an exception was made in Gimli's case, and he was allowed to sail into the West.) Denethor: A very noble man; a proud, stern, but overall just man; driven by his pride in his people's traditions and an unspoken (and largely unacknowledged) resentment against the kings who had (in a sense) abandoned them to betray those very traditions -- the traditions which had been the very purpose of his family's line for centuries, and of his own existence all his life; a man whose pride and hurt drove him to essentially commit both his sons to death. Not to mention both Frodo and Sam (and Gandalf), who are much more complex than simply good guys. And there are countless more examples.

Boromir is a good example, I'll give you that much. But, I don't share your feelings about Gimli. Every story has characters with internal struggles, or else it is nothing. I think that you'd be hard pressed to find a book of LotR's legnth where a POV character/supporting character didn't have internal conflicts. Yes, I can relate with what he's going through, but that doesn't make me feel any closer to him emotionally. If there is a character in a story trying to decide whether or not to have peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese, that doesn't mean I'm connected to him just because I've been through the same thing. Gimli had problems, yes, but I never felt connected to him or cared all too much about his well-being. Gimli had problems, but this doesn't change the fact that he is a wholly good guy. So are Frodo and Sam. They don't do bad in the book, and they are just all around good. Boromir is one of the few characters who doesn't exist in white-and-black good or bad settings.

As I've not read either (yet) I don't feel competent to comment here, save in a very general fashion on this last point. Once again, the example you use (at least, from your description) is insight into a character, but stated, didactic, when it comes to that one character, and assumed (from his own opinions) rather than given subtly, through their actions and brief insights into their thoughts and emotional states, when it comes to others.

But both are examples of works where we see how they feel by what they do as well as what they think (and IMO the emotional state is the same as what they think). In The Name of the Wind, Kvothe--the protagonist--looks out at the world and since we as readers can only know what he thinks, we come to conclusions about other character's states based on what what they do and say. The Blade Itself is a book that gives me so much more insight into human behavior and feelings than The Lord of the Rings because it gives me feelings, actions, thoughts and opinions. It is incredible, and, like I did with The Name of the Wind, I felt like I knew the characters in The Blade Itself. It seemed as if they were people in my own life, and thus I have something close to an intimate connection to them, which is very far from my experience from reading Lord of the Rings.

First-person narrative is a slippery thing (hence the "unreliable narrator" idea), as any insight the reader may gather must, necessarily, be filtered through a single character's perceptions, and therefore be incomplete and very open to error.

But doesn't this offer as much insight into the human insight as anything, since we wonder whether or not what we are reading is what truly happened, and by questiong the protagonist, we discover things about her/him?



I certainly think that when you really think about LotR, it is just a dark fairy-tale.

Again, what I'm seeing here (as with so many instances) is a much shallower, much more lax, reading of books that has become very much the norm these days... a trend begun a long time back; at least as far back as the old chapbooks and penny dreadfuls of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; a trend where, if a thing isn't put out there in black-and-white, it all-too-often isn't seen. And this is a pity, as it actually limits the layers and levels of experience one can receive from a book and makes it a shallower experience. A more attentive reading of LotR (or, for that matter, many older works) will, I venture to say, reveal that it has much, much more to offer about "life in the real world" than so many more modern works, because it reflects not just the author's thoughts on things, but their unconscious impressions of the world around them (people included) as well; and thus has much, much more to say about not characters, but genuine human beings, than has one where a writer (no matter how talented) has sat down and created a character to tell their story through. Once again, I think William Godwin's statement is applicable here, and the disparity between the types of things we are each describing is a shining example of what he is saying....

Tolkien is a good writer, but to me the characters in LotR are nothing close to gennuine human beings. Don't you think somebody besides Boromir and the ringbearer himself would be tempted and try to take the Ring for themself? genuine human beings have flaws, not just problems. The characters you mentioned earlier had flaws, but not those in the Fellowship. I think that any of us would have done what Boromir did, and that is why he is--IMO--the most genuine human character. The reason I defend A Song of Ice and Fire, The Name of the Wind and The Blade Itself against Tolkien is because every character in those three works have more heart and soul than members of the Fellowship because they have flaws. The characters in the Fellowship seem above human because they're seemingly perfect. How is this genuine or relatable? Characters in 'modern works' have problems and flaws, and are thus much easier to relate to, and feel more genuine.

[pyan]

Merry Christmas, Power.
I doubt if either of us are ever going to convert the other, but it's really nice to discuss with someone who's only line of argument is "Because!"

[power to the J]

Yeah I think I'm just going to concede defeat here, because, as you said, there will be no conversions.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I find it very interesting -- and possibly revealing about the times we live in -- that so many readers only consider characters deep and realistic if they give in to their faults and temptations, instead of struggling with them and winning.

Must a character be exactly as weak as we are ourselves in order for us to identify with them? I know there are people in this world (lots of them!) who are stronger, braver, kinder, more ethical than I am. Why shouldn't I be able to believe in them, and suffer with them, and cheer their triumphs, when I meet such people in literature?

It would be different if the characters in LOTR didn't struggle with doubt and temptation and conflicting loyalties, but they do. Yet it seems for many readers the internal conflicts only count as conflicts if they bring the characters down. Characters who rise above are automatically considered unrealistic.

But the world isn't made with everyone down on the same mediocre level or below it. There is a whole range of human behavior from the fine and noble, to the low and mean, and books that concentrate on the baser part and deny the higher are not more realistic, they simply choose to focus on a particular narrow range which is certainly more commonplace but no more true to life. And frankly, I don't read fantasy in order to stay mired in the commonplace. I don't read it to meet people who are designated as "heroes" simply because they've been cast in a leading part and have more interesting adventures than I do, rather than because they have stretched themselves so that they might fill the role. While modern fiction often compresses the idea of heroism down to fit the outline of the commonplace man; for writers like Tolkien -- as in the real real world -- heroism is something a person grows into.

Characters like Frodo and Sam challenge us to become more than we are, to be the best that we have it in us to be. And that's a little discomforting, because it comes with expectations that we might have to inconvenience ourselves -- maybe even do more than that -- in order to meet them. On the other hand, the characters of some of the modern writers cited reassure us that we are fine just the way we are, because really there's no chance of being any better. And that's just not true. It's simply a comfortable fiction dressed up in gore and misery to make it appear braver and more realistic.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by pyan

Merry Christmas, Power.
I doubt if either of us are ever going to convert the other, but it's really nice to discuss with someone who's only line of argument is "Because!"

Just re-read this! I missed out a very important word....it should, of course read:

Originally Posted by pyan

Merry Christmas, Power.
I doubt if either of us are ever going to convert the other, but it's really nice to discuss with someone who's only line of argument is not "Because!"

*Embarrassed cough..*

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by power to the J

Yeah I think I'm just going to concede defeat here, because, as you said, there will be no conversions.

I'd hate to see you concede defeat, because you're bringing some good points to the debate and, as Pyan said, this is much more an enjoyable discussion/disagreement on strengths and weaknesses of particular writers than is often offered....

However... No, I disagree with LotR being just a dark fairy tale. I see Tolkien's own experiences in life (and those around him) coming out through the book; in fact, I think that's one of the book's great strengths, is that -- albeit in a much quieter fashion than we're used to these days -- it is a poignant human document. It presents people poised on that eternal dilemma between the ideal they strive for and the reality they attain. It also presents us with the very genuine human conviction that sometimes a fight has to be fought, even if the outcome is apparently completely hopeless. Endurance in the face of the belief that all is lost is one of the themes here, and I would argue strongly that the characters present that painful but nonetheless genuinely noble idea very powerfully.

Again, I can't agree with you on Gimli (who, by the way, is by no means among my favorite characters of the book; I find him an often thorny pain-in-the-neck... but very genuine). Nor do the other members of the Fellowship come off as spotless. Nearly all have their failures which endanger the rest -- in some cases, endanger their entire world. Pippin and the Palantir, Merry and his impulsiveness with Denethor (and his loyalty to Faramir, which came very close to distracting Gandalf at a crucial moment), Sam and his inability to see past his hatred of Gollum, which pushes Smeagol back over the edge at a point where he is quite possibly on the verge of regaining the "humanity" he had so long lost -- thus turning it to spite and hate and resulting in his pursuing his vengeance by leading them into the trap at Shelob's lair; Frodo's succumbing to the Ring at crucial points, finally donning it (rather than destroying it) and nearly ruining everything just at the moment of success, Legolas' pride and occasional arrogance, which nearly caused a schism in the Fellowship at Lothlorien... etc., etc., etc.

While these may not be on the level of committing a grievous offense against another member of the fellowship (or others), nonetheless these are very human flaws which either cause enormous damage or fail to do so by the turn of chance -- very much as it works in the real world, where wars have been fought over actions resulting from such character flaws. And this is only dealing with the Fellowship. All of the characters have rich backstories full of such complexity. Galadriel, for instance, who is exiled to Middle-earth because of her part in the rebellion of the Noldor in the First Age -- thousands of years of being cut off from her true home and kindred due to a single act of pride that resulted in the killing of hundreds of her kind. (This isn't gone into in detail in LotR -- that is only done in The Silmarillion -- but it is there, if you read the book carefully; cf. her song of parting in Lorien, "Namárië", also sometimes called "Galadriel's Lament".) Hence her prayer that Frodo may be given the gift denied her of sailing into the West (the only place where such scars as he bears may be assuaged, if not fully healed), should the time come.

The thing is, such details don't only enrich the background pointlessly to the tale -- they are things that influence, often in subtle ways, the main characters in their choices, actions, and feelings; they are parts of their world which they've often been aware of on a mythic or legendary level, but which are now brought home to them by personal experience with those involved. Thus it makes an impact on them, causing a growth and broadening of the main characters throughout the tale. Again, nothing in that book is extraneous; it all goes toward increasing the ties between the various threads and levels of meaning (both within the world of the story and in its applicability to our own).

It seems to me that, in one sense, we're talking about a more subtle as opposed to a more obvious, approach; adumbration rather than (as I noted earlier) didacticism. Again, I'd say that a closer reading of LotR would reveal the very things you see it as missing; because Tolkien certainly put them in there, he just did it in a much more quiet, subtle fashion than most modern writers do.

At any rate... you've also intrigued me a bit more about the works you mention -- something I've experienced quite a lot around this place -- so I will have to try to find some time to give them a try.

In the meantime, a happy holiday to you; I've enjoyed debating with you on this; as noted, it's always pleasant to have such a discussion with someone who brings thoughtful (and thought-provoking) things to the table....

[power to the J]

Pyan, I didn't want to start an argument with you so I ignored that.

And Teresa, everybody loses internal struggles once in a while, yet it seems that the characters of the Fellowship--save Boromir--do not, which makes them like superheroes, or just above regualr humans, and because of that I can't relate with them. Perhaps my expectations and ideals are a bit over the top and too demanding, but I just don't see Tolkien as the "greatest of all time" like most people do. Also, I had to get into this arguemnt just because of the first post, and felt I had to defend modern authors.

Happy holidays to you, J.D. as well. I'm going to re-read LotR soon (but that could be next decade) and then we can continue this argument, if I still feel the same (you never know).

Anyway, that's all.

*Dust suddenly appears, and when it fades, Power to the J has disappeared*

[j. d. worthington]

Interesting post, Teresa... went in while I was writing my own, apparently; and addresses some of what I was saying, but in much clearer terms.