What does the sixpence = ?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Tolkien's popularity is especially strong amongst those who speak a language closely related to English, such as the Nordic, Dutch, and German peoples.

I think that if this is true then it may be more to do with effective translations than anything else. English is in the same language 'family' as German and Dutch, and the subtleties of the language in LotR may have been easier to translate. But I do say "if this is true" as there are huge Tolkien fanbases in France, Spain and Italy, which have languages from a different "family".

I'm not sure about whether there are 'cultural' reasons or differences between what the literary critics like and what people as a whole enjoy. But I do think that much modern literary fiction has disappeared up something (euphemism ) in the attempts to make use of style and structure more important than story. I've read a fair few novels lately where potentially good stories were marred by too much tinkering with structure; usually this has resulted in very poor and disappointing endings to novels which have almost become formulaic.

Obviously the popularity of Tolkien has much to do with narrative, and constructing a good story is perhaps the most difficult part of writing. Characters are easy enough, but plot lines are not. Certainly an original plot line is just about impossible as all the best ones have been taken; maybe some writers of literary fiction seek to compensate with clever stylistics? Or perhaps they simply know far too much about literary theory and have allowed it to stifle their stories?

I'm not sure that LotR does appeal to us on any kind of 'racial' basis. Why? My reasoning behind this is that it is immensely popular in the US, and the population of the US is incredibly mixed due to a long history of immigration.

Originally Posted by lmp

I think it has to do with language. Shippey is a philologist, and a self-professed non-Christian (which I read in JRRT:AofC). Anyone who has read Carpenter's biography of Tolkien has learned of the "Lang vs. Lit" battle in Oxford that raged from the late 19th century in to the 1970s, when Lit finally won upon the apparent natural death of Lang, more's the pity. As some of us know, all of Tolkien's fiction is based in Language first. He knew words and their histories and functions far better than anybody else who wrote fiction in the 20th century.

Well, I can only speak about UK English departments. I know that most of the English degrees in this country are combined Lit/Lang degrees. The Language element is almost always taken up with Linguistics, or more specifically, structural linguistics, studying the language as it is currently is. This might also include some socio-linguistics, but rarely if ever do students get to study philology, the subject is just about dead. Maybe this accounts for the steady stream of critics who cannot appreciate Tolkien's work?

[Bergil]

Some sage once described every political group going to the library and destroying anything that could possibly be contrued as offending them. Nothing was left, not even the thesaurus.

[littlemanpoet]

Translation broadens our topic. Perhaps it is not language. But I recall that Tolkien was generally displeased with many of the translations into other languages because the translators thought they knew so much and actually knew so little, which drove JRRT to distraction.

Still, to the degree that the translations are true to Tolkien's careful word choices (not to mention all the other aspects of story), LotR seems to reach down to something that contemporary novelistic fiction can't touch. Myth made applicable to people now.

On page 221 of Author of the Century, Shippey relates Northrop Frye's five literary modes:

• myth - the characters in a work are 'superior in kind both to other men and to the environment of other men' ... the 'hero is a divine being and the story about him will be myth'
• romance - characters are superior only in 'degree (not kind) to other men, and again to their environment'
• high mimesis - (tragedy or epic) - where the heroes and heroines are 'superior in degree to other men but not to natural environment'
• low mimesis - level of the classical novel - characters are on a level with us in abilities, though maybe not in social class
• irony - we see ourselves looking down on people weaker or more ignorant than us

LotR, according to Shippey, functions at all levels at different times, depending upon the purpose at a given point in the story. This gives it scope such that it can deal with issues in a way that a story written in only one of the five modes, cannot.

So think of these characters, and think about what mode(s) s/he is written at:

Gandalf
Samwise
Frodo
Saruman
Sauron
Aragorn
Boromir
Gaffer Gamgee
Tom Bombadil
Elrond
Eowyn
Faramir
Denethor
Theoden

What's the point? Maybe this is a little bit of the sixpence, and maybe this helps explain why contemporary literati simply can't get their minds around what LotR is doing.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

. . . .

• myth - the characters in a work are 'superior in kind both to other men and to the environment of other men' ... the 'hero is a divine being and the story about him will be myth'
• romance - characters are superior only in 'degree (not kind) to other men, and again to their environment'
• high mimesis - (tragedy or epic) - where the heroes and heroines are 'superior in degree to other men but not to natural environment'
• low mimesis - level of the classical novel - characters are on a level with us in abilities, though maybe not in social class
• irony - we see ourselves looking down on people weaker or more ignorant than us

LotR, according to Shippey, functions at all levels at different times, depending upon the purpose at a given point in the story. This gives it scope such that it can deal with issues in a way that a story written in only one of the five modes, cannot.

So think of these characters, and think about what mode(s) s/he is written at:

Gandalf
Samwise
Frodo
Saruman
Sauron
Aragorn
Boromir
Gaffer Gamgee
Tom Bombadil
Elrond
Eowyn
Faramir
Denethor
Theoden

What's the point? Maybe this is a little bit of the sixpence, and maybe this helps explain why contemporary literati simply can't get their minds around what LotR is doing.

Well, I was hoping to have time to comment on your idea about Hebrew/Classical/Germanic sources for western culture and now I have this to consider! The first idea is intriguing, especially thinking of Matthew Arnold's thesis about the two cultures, the Hebraic and the Greek. "Barbarian" cultures had much to overcome in terms of aesthetic and cultural assumptions.

But time only for a quick observation. Isn't it true that usually (although not always), irony is considered not compatible with myth or romance? I can see myth, romance and the two forms of mimesis operating at different times in LotR, but to what degree is irony represented? I'm not saying we can't find irony in it, but I wonder how much an ironic stance would impede or obstruct the mythic or heroic stance.

[HerenIstarion]

I'm up to half of the first page, but lest I forget to do it when I read it through and (if) find myself disposed to longer post, I'll post the link now - Tolkien - Enemy of Progress. Seems relevant. With regards to pulling critics of that kind to see for themselves - Mr. Brin was personally invited by yours truly to come and see for himself, but, as far as my knowledge reaches, never appeared.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, I was hoping to have time to comment on your idea about Hebrew/Classical/Germanic sources for western culture and now I have this to consider! The first idea is intriguing, especially thinking of Matthew Arnold's thesis about the two cultures, the Hebraic and the Greek. "Barbarian" cultures had much to overcome in terms of aesthetic and cultural assumptions.

But time only for a quick observation. Isn't it true that usually (although not always), irony is considered not compatible with myth or romance? I can see myth, romance and the two forms of mimesis operating at different times in LotR, but to what degree is irony represented? I'm not saying we can't find irony in it, but I wonder how much an ironic stance would impede or obstruct the mythic or heroic stance.

Sorry to overload thee!
From memory
since I do not have the book with me...
Usually, yes, if not handled well.
Tolkien however chooses his story to tell
through the mediation of halfling wit
to whit,
hobbits such as Gaffer,
always a laugher,
give us a chance to look down
at a perspective lesser than our own
as a mediation from the high
such as Elves who are not so nigh.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

I'm up to half of the first page, but lest I forget to do it when I read it through and (if) find myself disposed to longer post, I'll post the link now - Tolkien - Enemy of Progress. Seems relevant. With regards to pulling critics of that kind to see for themselves - Mr. Brin was personally invited by yours truly to come and see for himself, but, as far as my knowledge reaches, never appeared.

Very interesting article - and the one from which Johann Hari quoted too. Brin has at the very least considered the issue and not simply thrown out random unpleasantries like so many of the critics seem to have done. Though I am quite at a loss as to say exactly what Brin is railing against in Tolkien's work; it seems to be the very idea that it is set in a kind of world that has passed. If this is the case then I cannot fathom why this is such a 'bad thing'. There are reams of historical novels available, many of them in the literary fiction genre; just to pick one which has a nostalgic view of the past - Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. Regret and looking back are major themes in fiction. Perhaps the critics then do not like Tolkien's use of historical images as he does not use them ironically? To suggest decay?

Or does he? Decay, as we know, is one of Tolkien's most important themes. I think that if critics could for one moment get over the fact that in Tolkien's work there happen to be horses rather than Porsches, swords instead of guns and kings instead of CEOs then they may begin to see some of the worth in the writing. I am not sure what some people expect to be honest, after all, Tolkien's work is fantasy, so of course it is not full of modern things! But if they could get over themselves and their self-congratulatory feelings that they live in such an enlightened age (debatable to say the least) then they may find that in fact Tolkien's work raises incredibly modern questions. And no, I won't list them here again...that would take forever...

[littlemanpoet]

Is not the expectation amongst the literati some combination exclusively of low mimesis & irony? Is it not the supposed failure of Tolkien's works to meet this expectation that has caused the literati to reject it without due consideration?

mayhap:
"I want my ironic characters to be human, not some kind of d****d fairy hobbit!"
or:
"A hero? What kind of good story that means anything for today have a bloody hero who wields a sword? What, am I expected to read Conan the Barbarian next?" (sneeringly)
or:
"If I'm expected to read about gods and goddesses, the least he could do is have sex or some kind of Freudian issue; or at the very least, make it politically relevant. I mean, really!"
et cetera....

[drigel]

In any group, there are always some who always take an inverse philosophical approach. The eternal outsider, as the Brin article suggests, will decry the uplifting of any civilization, as it will inevitably do so on the backs of others, especially from the persepective of an easterner or an orc. The very fact that that the subject of the works is western European in scope automatically causes ire to some.

[davem]

LotR (& the Legendarium as a whole) does present 'traditional' Western (ie 'Christian') values without irony or condemnation. I think this is enough for most critics to condemn it. It is the epitome of 'dead white male' culture (& from our perspective most of the characters are dead white males, being that the events of the story took place 7 or 8 thousand years ago.

Aragorn tells Eomer that moral & ethical values do not change, & are the same among Elves & Dwarves as they are among Men. This is a clear rejection of moral & cultural relativism, that all moral codes are equally valid. In short, Tolkien is stating that some values are better than, suerior to others, - even worse, that some are Right & some are Wrong.

It seems to me that this is at the heart of the reason some critics so dislike Tolkien's works - they may like irony, but are not offended by its absence to that degree.

Of course, this eternal moral value system does pre-suppose some ultimate source exterior to Mankind. If accepted, Tolkien's position requires people to aknowledge an objective moral code, (& an objectively existing 'source' of that code). Hence, LotR belongs with 'pre-Enlightenment' works - as Tolkien said it is a 'heroic romance'. I think this is why many of the very same critics who condemn LotR have taken HDM to their hearts.

What I find most interesting though, is that these critics are not able to accept Tolkien's philosophical position even within the secondary world. They are incapable of not projecting it onto the primary world. Shippey has said that many of Tolkien's early critics read the book, responded to it, but then realised they didn't like the fact that they had responded to it & so turned on Tolkien (paraphrasing his words in the documentary 'JRRT: A Film Portrait'). The work touches a chord in them that not only do they not want touched, they hadn't even believed that chord was there to be touched. Its like an extreme form of reaction-formation

Or something like that....

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Of course, this eternal moral value system does pre-suppose some ultimate source exterior to Mankind. If accepted, Tolkien's position requires people to aknowledge an objective moral code, (& an objectively existing 'source' of that code). Hence, LotR belongs with 'pre-Enlightenment' works - as Tolkien said it is a 'heroic romance'. I think this is why many of the very same critics who condemn LotR have taken HDM to their hearts.

I think another root may be that we exist in a world where we are growing increasingly smug and self satisfied that we know; one of the drawbacks to the Age of Reason is that Reason has simply replaced wonder and become as dogmatic as wonder once could be. The critics seek out the clever, the self-referential, the knowing. In contrast to this, Tolkien is not knowing, he leaves it for us to discover the answers in his work - he encourages wonder, which is a most dangerous thing to someone happy in their own self-knowledge, such as a critic can be.

Originally Posted by davem

Aragorn tells Eomer that moral & ethical values do not change, & are the same among Elves & Dwarves as they are among Men. This is a clear rejection of moral & cultural relativism, that all moral codes are equally valid. In short, Tolkien is stating that some values are better than, suerior to others, - even worse, that some are Right & some are Wrong.

I've got to say, I think there is quite a lot of moral relativism in LotR; I think it is no mistake that Gandalf is the Grey wizard given how he makes Frodo think for himself about Gollum and whether he is evil enough to be put to death. I also think that in the shape of Gollum we see a mass of contradictions such as we see in real people. Other characters reflect this to a lesser extent, e.g. Denethor and Boromir. While the text sets out what each of these characters do and how it leads to their downfall, it is not didactic; Tolkien merely shows the consequences, he leaves it to us to 'judge'.

However, what Tolkien draws upon in his work are values which are indeed universal, among them ideas of sacrifice, service, honour. For many of these values there are right and wrong ideals. Maybe some are uncomfortable with the idea that there are things which are right and wrong, which in turn makes me uncomfortable that these people might be opinion formers in our world.

[Bergil]

This seems an example of several wel-thought-out, invalid arguments.

Sauron's army was the one that included every species and race on Middle Earth

l
no, it wasn't. Sauron's army consisted of Ainuir, Men, Orcs, and trolls, if you count trolls. the good guys had Ainuir, Elves, Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits, if you count Hobbits.

If the guardians of wisdom kept their wonders locked up in high wizard towers, instead of rushing onto PBS the way our unseemly "scientists" do today?

Hey, quick, tell me how a computer works. unless you can explain everything from the atomic level up, the point is invalid. and how many nobles and royalty are in the Fellowship? 3.5. Legolas, Boromir, and Gimli. (Aragorn is the .5, he doesn't really count).

The thing is, neither of these arguments are stupid, just wrong. The people who write these things genuinely beleive it. POLITICAL STATEMENT WARNING The best point about progress in any Lord of the Rings was made accidentaly, by Peter Jackson in that scene where Aragorn and Frodo are on the stairs in moria and have to fall forward or back, or they'll die. That's us. we have to either ditch our technology and all the fun we have, develop it better fast, for a great life or 2112, or die from enviromental problems. now it's looking like we'll end up in the abys. END WARNING.

What am I trying to say? I don't know.

[drigel]

Just to keep it going, ill play a little you-know-who's advocate, in the sprirt of the Brin article - which struck me as more of alternative observation than critique - but that may be just me (yea i actually do [as per usual] agree w/the consensus of posters here)

If accepted, Tolkien's position requires people to aknowledge an objective moral code, (& an objectively existing 'source' of that code).

Ah, but who's code is it? It seems to me that some of Aragorns Numenorian ancestery was not wholly Good per say. Much of the time when they came to ME "...they appeared now rather as lords and masters and gatherers of tribute than as helpers and teachers..." What would those tributee's opinion be of the mighty Numenoreans?

We know why the Edain were favored by the Vala, but why were the generations of decendants of the other tribes punished for their forefather's sins? The sons of Amandil after all were not directly of royal decent, rather 2nd cousins removed. So what right did they have to rule? And why would someone from Rhun honor that right?

However, what Tolkien draws upon in his work are values which are indeed universal, among them ideas of sacrifice, service, honour.

Individual heroic romantic ideals. But like the Exiles, does might make right?

Sauron's army was the one that included every species and race on Middle Earth


no, it wasn't. Sauron's army consisted of Ainuir, Men, Orcs, and trolls, if you count trolls. the good guys had Ainuir, Elves, Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits, if you count Hobbits.

umm I may be once again all alone, but with the exception of the incredible (Wizards, ents, trolls, eagles etc.), I would submit that all of the above mentioned really are just expressions of us. Children all of us

edit

What I find most interesting though, is that these critics are not able to accept Tolkien's philosophical position even within the secondary world. They are incapable of not projecting it onto the primary world.

quite so. I can find no counter in my bag o' tricks for that one.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bergil

no, it wasn't. Sauron's army consisted of Ainuir, Men, Orcs, and trolls, if you count trolls. the good guys had Ainuir, Elves, Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits, if you count Hobbits.

I read very recently somewhere in the Opus that Sauron's army contained menbers of every race save Elves. but I can't quite remember where.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by drigel

We know why the Edain were favored by the Vala, but why were the generations of decendants of the other tribes punished for their forefather's sins? The sons of Amandil after all were not directly of royal decent, rather 2nd cousins removed. So what right did they have to rule? And why would someone from Rhun honor that right?

Permit me a moment to sidetrack the main discussion and correct a bit of an incorrect statement you have made regarding the legitimacy of the House of Elendil to rule Middle-Earth.

You state that Amandil and his offspring were not of direct royal descent, but were in fact 2nd Cousins Removed. While this may be the case regarding their most direct kinship with the last of the Numenorean sovereigns, Ar-Pharazon and Tar-Miriel, it was not this "joint ancestry on their mother's sides" sort of kinship that Elendil based his claim to the Kingship of the Realms in Exile, but on his descent from Tar-Elendil's ELDEST child, Silmarien.

Furthermore, as the leaders of the Elendili, Elendil and his sons were already the leaders of the founding fathers of Gondor and Arnor. Why would they have lost this right to rule their followers after the destruction of Numenor? A destruction that they only escaped due to the foresight of Elendil.

As for your final statement, regarding why the Easterlings would acknowledge the rule of the Heirs of Elendil, the answer is the same as why the Welsh acknowledge the Queen of England, or the Puerto Ricans the rule of the American President, or the people of Rome the rule of the Italian government: Conquest by the peoples who DID acknowledge those parties as their proper rulers.

Okay, I've made my point...

You may return to your main discussion.

[drigel]

good points Formendacil i stand corrected.
So, might does mean right? that was the point I was trying to stumble towards.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by drigel

So what right did they have to rule? And why would someone from Rhun honor that right?

Unfortunately, the statement I'm going to make is the selfsame used by some to accuse Tolkien of racism, and still by some to vindicate their 'white supremacy'

The right of Kings of Men to rule was based upon unity of Three Races blood (and the Third Union of Elves and Man through Aragorn/Arwen was uniting that bloodline into one House again) - that is, Maiar, Evles, Men. Kings of Men were partly 'divine'. The 'divinity' and 'right to rule' was confirmed by Eru's intervention into Beren-Luthien matter. It may be argued that since Eru granted that union, He granted rule of its descendants likewise. So answer is 'no' - 'might' does not equal
right'.

Yet not only bloodlines, mind you, but the 'right thing' too (and that's why Tolkien ain't racist) for the truth about ME is that in ME there actually is a Paragon of Good - Eru. Those who confrom to that Paragon more than others are more in the right and have more of the right. Ar-Pharazon was no less 'pure-blood' than Amandil, but he chose the wrong path.

I suppose this is one of the indirect reasons for literati to be at diggers with Tolkien (see the points made about religion in posts above)

Also, the fact is, Aragorn was not forcing himself and his realm upon unwilling peoples:

LoTR

In the days that followed his crowning the King sat on his throne in the Hall of the Kings and pronounced his judgements. And embassies came from many lands and peoples, from the East and the South, and from the borders of Mirkwood, and from Dunland in the west. And the King pardoned the Easterlings that had given themselves up, and sent them away free, and he made peace with the peoples of Harad; and the slaves of Mordor he released and gave to them all the lands about Lake Núrnen to be their own.

Hard to see 'expansionism' here, ain't it?

There are certain rules:

LoTR

Men of Gondor hear now the Steward of this Realm! Behold! one has come to claim the kingship again at last. Here is Aragorn son of Arathorn, chieftain of the Dúnedain of Arnor, Captain of the Host of the West, bearer of the Star of the North, wielder of the Sword Reforged, victorious in battle, whose hands bring healing, the Elfstone, Elessar of the line of Valandil, Isildur’s son, Elendil’s son of Númenor. Shall he be king and enter into the City and dwell there?’
And all the host and all the people cried yea with one voice.

Despite all his blood and all his right, Aragorn needs approval of his future people to 'be king' first.

Besides,

Pippin to Denethor's servants:

And as for orders, I think you have a madman to deal with, not a lord.

Implication is as follows: when the lord has turned aside from the 'right path', even if he be 'rightful' lord, there is no obligation any more to follow his orders.

Just another 'besides':

'Behold! I go forth, and it seems like to be my last riding,' said Théoden. 'I have no child. Théodred my son is slain. I name Éomer my sister-son to be my heir. If neither of us return, then choose a new lord as you will.

I.e. Lords are 'chosen'. Criteria of choice may count on 'bloodlines' and may, again, not.

And more - when people is unwilling, the ruler may be 'sent forth' (case of Felagund)

Short summary - 'right to rule' is based on three factors - blood, people's will and following Eru's will. While 'blood' is a matter of importance, and people's will counts, Eru's will if by far superior.

Again, combination 'indigestable' for some, I suppose.

Originally Posted by mithalwen

I read very recently somewhere in the Opus that Sauron's army contained menbers of every race save Elves. but I can't quite remember where.

See the link in my previous

[drigel]

I suppose this is one of the indirect reasons for literati to be at diggers with Tolkien (see the points made about religion in posts above)

Heren I totally agree - my views are the same, and my submissions were to (I hoped) spark discussion, because those are the lines of thought that are out there. reletivism - ugh thats why the critisism is there - right and wrong are so clear and uncomplicated in the works, to the dismay of the critics. And as i sit here and think about the works in total, the complications that do arise are seldom self inflicted, rather the result of an agent of the devil, example: Glaurung & Turin. This was a time and a place where good was really good and evil very evil.

[HerenIstarion]

I think David Brin did read something somewhere since the original publication. Unless I'm 'mightily mistook', the article as it now stands on salon.com is not the same we commented upon three years back. There are odd bits of an older version shining through, but he must have edited it - it is more sober and less caustic than I remember it.

[Bêthberry]

I'd like to turn this thread back to an earlier comment lmp made on it.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

On page 221 of Author of the Century, Shippey relates Northrop Frye's five literary modes:

• myth - the characters in a work are 'superior in kind both to other men and to the environment of other men' ... the 'hero is a divine being and the story about him will be myth'
• romance - characters are superior only in 'degree (not kind) to other men, and again to their environment'
• high mimesis - (tragedy or epic) - where the heroes and heroines are 'superior in degree to other men but not to natural environment'
• low mimesis - level of the classical novel - characters are on a level with us in abilities, though maybe not in social class
• irony - we see ourselves looking down on people weaker or more ignorant than us

Now, I've lately been doing some reading other than Tolkien--don't laugh, some of us do escape his lure from time to time!--some of which has to do with how we understand language. And I've been wondering about this last description of irony. Does Shippey really describe Frye's sense of irony as "looking down on people weaker or more ignorant than us?" 'Cause I really don't see that as Frye's or the more common understanding of irony.

Here's a couple of online definitions: Cambridge online ; Dictionary.com.

This might ramble a bit, and I'm not sure where it's going, but I wonder about this idea that irony involves words which mean other than they first appear to mean.
This is just an extension of all literary language, which is non-literal, much like metaphor itself. It also might suggest deceit in some hands, of course, and that might itself be something absent from Tolkien. (Hmm, this could get us into that old 'poetry never lies' thing.)

So, I've been thinking, this kind of irony, how common is it in Tolkien's art? How common are metaphors, for that matter?

Maybe it is the absence of this kind of literary language which drew the ire of critics? After all, the modernist writers were heavy on irony and detachment. Is it possible that Tolkien, in aspiring to write a history for his fantasy, in fact created a style which ran against the main tendency of story, to create non-literal language? Could those critics have been spooked by Tolkien's attempt not at fantasy but at making fantasy appear real, historical, literal?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've been reading Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-Earth and found some good thoughts in the section "Readers vs. Critics" of his introductory chapter. Here are two pertinent quotes:

...the literary community, whose silence on Tolkien ... is broken only by an occasional snort of derision which seems to pass for analysis.

The single greatest obstacle to appreciating Tolkien's work is sheer literary snobbery.

The rest is well worth reading, but time constraints allow me only to serve this little appetizer that will hopefully intrigue others to read the whole menu!

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Thanks for those, Estelyn. I've been reading Persuasion lately and remembering that the by the end of The Big Read everyone who wanted to be identified with the intelligentsia was recommending that people vote for Jane Austen to keep Tolkien out of the top spot. What occurred to me last night, as I read a conclusion that was as unnecessarily long as it was predictable, is that Austen isn't any better than Tolkien; she's just such an accepted part of the landscape of English literature that her status as a 'great' writer is simply taken as read. That's not to say that Austen doesn't deserve to be rated highly - after all, Persuasion was published posthumously and unrevised - but that if one were disposed to find fault with her novels it would not be difficult to compose quite as much vitriol about her as certain intellectuals do about Tolkien. 'Literary snobbery' was the phrase that should have occurred to me then: some people are in, some are out; artistic merit is only one of the considerations.

Further to Bêthberry's comments, I've had occasion to read other works by Tom Shippey, specifically on the subject of humour (and not in any way touching on Tolkien). When describing Anglo-Saxon humour, he sees adversarial comedy (he recycles the German term gegeneinanderlachen) as a major theme. Apparently he subscribes to the school of thought exemplified by Anthony M. Ludovici, that laughter is primarily a display of self-perceived superiority, and that humour is an attempt to provoke such a response. He was probably a little careless with his terms in Author of the Century, largely as a result of using somebody else's, and perhaps he would have done better to have found another German phrase. Certainly 'irony' is not the best term for a style of humour in which we look down on the characters, but I find myself unable to think of a better. Perhaps 'satire' or 'lampoon' would be closer to what he was trying to say.

I think, Bêthberry, that you have something in Tolkien's seriousness and realism, but I think that it causes trouble for him because it is focused on something that is not regarded as important. We have embraced empirical science as the arbiter of truth, to the extent that the terms 'truth' and 'reality' have to some extent become blurred into one another. In pursuing a more medieval view of truth, Tolkien has devoted too much seriousness to something unworthy, something that is not 'real' (a direct portrayal of an empirically demonstrable reality). Tolkien's truths are spiritual, worse still explicitly Christian. It's acceptable for the Gawain poet to talk about green giants riding into Camelot with perilously absurd challenges, but only because he wrote in the fourteenth century and is now old enough for simple membership of his readership to suggest intellectual accomplishment. More importantly, the spirit of our age is very different to that of his. We live in an age that distrusts authority, is uncomfortable with ceremony, and feels at best embarrassed by Romance in its medieval literary sense. We are an age of iconoclasts, and Tolkien was not only paying the old respects to those symbols, but building a whole museum in which to preserve them. Any form of magical or divine kingship looks to modern eyes like an attempt to establish a natural order, in which every person is assigned a role by an undeniable authority. In an age in which 'democracy' is the watchword (to the extent that the meaning of the term has been lost in a haze of incense), an age in which we applaud social mobility and fluidity, and promote equality even at its own expense, Tolkien's structured hierarchies, objective truths and rejection of advancement and progress as synonyms is bound to ruffle one or two feathers.

Witness Philip Pullman, Oxford scholar, fantasy author and poster-boy for opponents of Tolkien. He seems uncomfortable with C.S. Lewis' statements about Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia. He says that her ceasing to be a friend of Narnia by becoming more interested in invitations, nylons and so forth is a statement that reaching adulthood (perhaps I should say 'sexual maturity') made one wicked, or in some way cut one off from God. What he has apparently failed to notice is that Lewis only mentions the superficial trappings of maturity: of course an overriding interest in parties, cosmetics and fine clothes (it was post-war Britain - my grandmother still remembers painting fake stockings onto her legs) are the antithesis of spirituality. Actual spiritual maturity, expressed in placing these things in their proper perspective, is more important in this or any other time than the mere physical ability and desire to reproduce. However, somehow in Pullman's thinking the idea that spiritual growth is more important than physical experience has become confused with the actions of the Inquisition, which is one of the reasons why I find his philosophy to be adolescent and petulant.

Perhaps, far from being immature, Tolkien is too mature for an age that has invented the teenager, then made youth, beauty, wealth and pleasure its gods, democracy its king, equality its law and progress - in any direction and at any cost - its goal. The childish elements in his writing are on the surface: hobbits and goblins, whereas the deeper themes, the more serious thoughts, provide a foundation and an underpinning for them. Too often I read a novel and feel that the childish and superficial has formed the basis, whereas the profound and contemplative lie on the surface like a cheap veneer. Perhaps more than anything else, this is the result of a profoundly immature adolescent desire to appear mature. Perhaps, and I think that this is probably true of more of Tolkien's detractors than we might like to think, the dislike really does stem from the elves, dwarves, dragons and hobbits. These things belong in the nursery, and grown-ups should not take an interest in them. Otherwise we imperil our dignity and our credibility as readers: we risk appearing silly, and that would never do. Tolkien himself might add that our word 'silly' derives directly from Old English sælig, 'blessed, fortunate', but such philological flippancy scarcely aids the current discussion.

Of course, many of these things were as true in Tolkien's day as they are now. He addresses the issue of the fantastic as a theme for the nursery in his own essays, and many of the comments on the immaturity of his writings came from critics of the 1950s. Perhaps, though, this can be explained by Tolkien's situation: he adhered to Victorian narrative styles because he was himself a Victorian, albeit sufficiently late-born to qualify as an Edwardian too. His chosen field was perfectly adapted to enable him to live in the past, and his own convictions, so out of step with the fashionable intellectual mood of his time, were only reinforced by his immersing himself in a literature that took for granted his own outlook. I doubt that it was possible for a man like him to write something fashionably intellectual after about 1650, but had he been writing then, I expect that The Lord of the Rings would appear in the same course syllabi as The Faerie Queene. It would appear that in terms of literary merit, time heals all faults as well as all wounds.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Squatter

Perhaps, far from being immature, Tolkien is too mature for an age that has invented the teenager, then made youth, beauty, wealth and pleasure its gods, democracy its king, equality its law and progress - in any direction and at any cost - its goal. The childish elements in his writing are on the surface: hobbits and goblins, whereas the deeper themes, the more serious thoughts, provide a foundation and an underpinning for them. Too often I read a novel and feel that the childish and superficial has formed the basis, whereas the profound and contemplative lie on the surface like a cheap veneer. Perhaps more than anything else, this is the result of a profoundly immature adolescent desire to appear mature. Perhaps, and I think that this is probably true of more of Tolkien's detractors than we might like to think, the dislike really does stem from the elves, dwarves, dragons and hobbits. These things belong in the nursery, and grown-ups should not take an interest in them. Otherwise we imperil our dignity and our credibility as readers: we risk appearing silly, and that would never do. Tolkien himself might add that our word 'silly' derives directly from Old English sælig, 'blessed, fortunate', but such philological flippancy scarcely aids the current discussion.

I think it could be right that many people do not look beyond the surface of Tolkien's work. Thinking about many of the discussions on here, we talk quite often about how what we have read in Tolkien reflects the human condition; it's even something of a convention among Tolkien fans that his work is primarily about mortality, as Tolkien famously stated his work was about Death in a television interview.

Now, I am thinking of reading some Ursula le Guin again as I have not done so for some time, so I was looking up what it said about her on Wikipedia. Here's an interesting passage. Yes, another example of a mis-reading of Tolkien's work:

Le Guin is known for her ability to create believable worlds populated by strongly sympathetic characters (regardless of whether they are technically 'human'). Her fantasy works (such as the Earthsea series) are more concerned with the human condition than the works of traditional fantasy authors (such as J.R.R. Tolkien), and they often explore political and cultural themes from a very "un-Earthly" perspective.

We know that Tolkien explores the human condition in his work. We also know that though his work is not allegory, it contains some very important lessons on power, bravery, forgiveness etc. etc. I would also argue that Tolkien's work is hugely Modern (with a big M) as he gives us what is at face value a secular world, and a world which is beset with suffering without reward. His work is a product of War, as Modern (maybe even as post-Modern) as Gormenghast or Slaughterhouse-Five. This work was created out of a love for old languages and old stories; it has swords and epic poems and Elves and so-on. But it isn't an antiquarian work at heart, it's a big, sprawling work of modern fiction which appeals to us in some way because of the relevance of what he was saying. Even the style is Modern as Tolkien plays with form and structure in so many ways.

At Tolkien 2005 Verlyn Flieger made a little hint about Tolkien's work being Modern - it was in the title of a lecture she was scheduled to give, a 'mask' for her actual lecture which was to read from Smith. But she introduced the session with her statement that she thought Tolkien was Modern and said she would leave it at that for the present. I'm hoping she does work on this, because I'd love a respected critic to come out with a work focussing on and arguing for Tolkien's place as Modern.

[davem]

Just in case anyone's interested I found this response to accusations of racism in Tolkien's works.

Some very insightful comments, including:

The good guys in the story are not racially segregated, but representative of various types of social structures. In fact, the good guys' race is incidental, because the "bad guys" in the story are not another race. Sauron is an evil wizard, not a foreigner, and the orcs are elves who were tortured out of their minds and souls until nothing but empty husks remain. They're "black" in the story not because torture somehow robbed the elves of their Caucasianess, but because they're burnt by hellfire and have become creatures of the night.....

As for the "slant-eyed" thing, well the eyes are the windows to the soul, and the fact that today we use more PC terms "shifty-eyed" and "beady-eyed" doesn't mean we get to point fingers at a years-dead author for not knowing the term "slant-eyed" would one day become offensive.