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08-05-2007, 03:38 AM | #1 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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Tolkien A or B?
I read an interesting item in the Grauniad's books blog this week examining Anthony Burgess's claim that all novels are either:
A - conventional, using plot and character to engage with the world or B - ultimately devoted to exploring form and language To quote the blogger, in case you aint read the article: Quote:
What distinguishes Tolkien from so much other fantasy to me is his love of language, his play with narrative form, his sense that language and culture are deeply linked. In many ways to me, he awakens a sense of Englishness and English history by exploring the roots of our language. Yet he also churned out a cracking yarn and it has much to say about The World. What do you think? Is Tolkien A or B?
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08-05-2007, 07:40 AM | #2 | |
Laconic Loreman
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As C.S. Lewis remarks in Tolkien's obituary...he says that Tolkien 'had been inside language.' I think that's an excellent way of putting it and part of the reason why Tolkien wrote a fantasy story people love to read.
I'm going to use another author (J.K. Rowling) as an example. Rowling by no means is an awful author who can't write her way out of a paper bag. But the difference between Rowling and Tolkien is simply Tolkien was in a whole different league. Rowling has managed to write several stories that are a great joy to just sit down and read. She (like Tolkien) managed to create a believable fantasy world of her own (in my opinion ). But what seperates Tolkien apart from Rowling is, I think, Tolkien's knowledge of language. I guess this is what happens when a philologist writes a story as Tolkien points out in an interview with The New York Times: Quote:
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Fenris Penguin
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08-05-2007, 09:51 AM | #3 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,996
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Busy with a holiday weekend here with little time for keeping up. But in the mean time, Lal could you explain what you mean by this phrase?
Thanks muchly and see y'all after the festivities.
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08-05-2007, 02:43 PM | #4 |
Fair and Cold
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There are actually three types of novels in this world:
Novels for people who can count, and for people who can't. I'm personally allergic to the idea that you can categorize novels this way, and I'd spank Burgess if I had the chance. Not to say that this is a bad thread, naturally. It's an interesting question. I'd say Tolkien is both. I think most great writers are both - be it apparent or not.
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~The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. This is one of mine~ |
08-07-2007, 02:24 PM | #5 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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Quote:
Boro - Rowling is a good example here. I think in some ways she does approach language, but it's quite limited. I wonder if that's because of her preferred narrative style or just to keep it simple for her target audience? Where she does tackle language is in her use of names - Dumbledore's for example are quite revealing (it's worth a look on Wikipedia for some more ideas on what her names mean). But there's the rub for me. Tolkien's original intention for writing was to find a place for language, to position his created languages within stories - as where would language go if it was not for stories? For him, narrative and language were inextricably linked, a much older way of looking at the idea of story. Maybe it's not that Burgess was wrong, just that he was only referring to modern views of the novel?
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08-07-2007, 08:03 PM | #6 | |
Illusionary Holbytla
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 7,547
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I dislike the separation of all novels into one of those two categories. While some, no doubt, fit squarely into one or the other (having read few of the novels given as examples in the blurb that Lal quoted, I can't really express an opinion), I think that the very best of stories combine the two elements; they should be intrinsically linked with each other.
Nor do I see why a novel using plot and character to drive the story must be "conventional." This, in particular, revolted me: Quote:
The language is like the framework and structure of writing; the story it tells should be the picture... or even, in some cases, the other way around. But you can't dispense with either part. An unframed picture is incomplete, and a frame without a picture is simply ridiculous. |
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08-08-2007, 11:13 PM | #7 | |
Wight
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 204
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Quote:
What really strikes me about Tolkien is how well the books hold up as they are reread. Every single sentence has a role in the book and they can be appreciated at multiple levels, but sometimes more so on the 3rd (or 6th or 9th) reading. He captures the physical texture of the landscape, for example, and this contributes to the overall mood on the earlier readings, but evokes additional "texture" on subsequent readings. His prose style is beautifully delineated at every level, whether he is describing a great event, or a simple landscape through which his characters are moving. Rowling has some of this ability, especially in her later books where the prose description becomes much better, but she is not going to match the Master. This ability of Tolkien to capture the great themes while maintain absolute crystalline, laser-like clarity (sort of like a great white Burgundy) is what makes him a great writer IMO... The comparison here would be more likely Joyce's Ulysses, which is "championship game" prose, as Nabokov said, and not the murkier alphabet soup of Finnegan's Wake...
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`These are indeed strange days,' he muttered. `Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass.' Last edited by CSteefel; 08-08-2007 at 11:16 PM. Reason: Adding comment |
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