Some people...
Feb. 7th, 2008 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerI've been reading a fascinating book, The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy by Leonard S. Marcus. It basically consists of a series of interviews with a number of prominent authors of fantasy for young people: among them Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Brian Jacques, Ursula K. LeGuin, Madeleine L'Engle, Garth Nix and several others.
Including Tamora Pierce and Philip Pullman.
Many, if not most, of these authors give a lot of credit to JRRT and LotR as influences of one sort or another on them. And even those who have veered from Tolkien's vision still appreciate his marvelous accomplishment.
I think most of us know by now Philip Pullman's opinion, however. And it would just make me angry to quote him right now. I'll save *that* rant for another day. Suffice it to say it's just another thing that confirms my opinion of him as a self-important twit.
I was *VERY* surprised at what Tamora Pierce had to say, though.
She started out very flatteringly, and then, well I had to blink at her conclusion...
"Q. What did you think of The Lord of the Rings?
A. Tolkien was earthshaking. It was about great causes and dying nobly, which interested me a lot for some reason. It left me all weak-kneed. I re-read the books at least once or twice a year until I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I was a major fan!
So Tolkien is where I started. But in a way everything I write now is in contradiction to what I found in Tolkien. After a while, I noticed that in the real world there was no such thing as Good versus Evil. And I noticed that I didn't know any pale, noble, suffering, dignified people like Tolkien's characters--anybody ethereal. I didn't know anyone, like Gollum, who was all black and gnarly and fled in the light. Everybody I knew went to the bathroom! Nobody in Tolkien had a sense of humor, except Sam, who was a servant. I'm the kind of person who makes bad jokes in hospitals. And of course Tolkien was all about male heroics."
Naturally no one expects the newer writers to follow *exactly* in JRRT's footsteps--I have read, and liked, several of Tamora Pierce's books, which have a definite feminist slant, something that would be quite alien to poor old JRRT, who was a man of his own time.
But, yes, there *is* Good versus Evil in the "real world". It is perhaps less cut-and-dried than in Middle-earth, but it happens. And I certainly don't consider any of JRRT's heroes as "pale" and "ethereal"--they are certainly never *described* that way, though they are "noble" "suffering" and "dignified"--and there are most *certainly* people in this world who are noble and dignified and suffering! As for "going to the bathroom", of course everybody does--why waste time saying so, unless it contributes to the plot? They went out for a "sniff of air" or to "take a walk".
Still, those are opinions that are, I suppose, arguable, though I do believe easily refutable.
But--no sense of *humor*?!? Did she read the same books I read? Good heavens, the hobbits were *always* cracking wise and bantering--*all* of them, not just Sam! And Aragorn was absolutely snarky at times--he had a wonderfully dry sense of humor! So did Gandalf! What about the way Legolas teased all the mortals on Caradhras? What about Boromir's crack about "doughty Men with shovels"?
No sense of humor indeed! *hmmph*
Including Tamora Pierce and Philip Pullman.
Many, if not most, of these authors give a lot of credit to JRRT and LotR as influences of one sort or another on them. And even those who have veered from Tolkien's vision still appreciate his marvelous accomplishment.
I think most of us know by now Philip Pullman's opinion, however. And it would just make me angry to quote him right now. I'll save *that* rant for another day. Suffice it to say it's just another thing that confirms my opinion of him as a self-important twit.
I was *VERY* surprised at what Tamora Pierce had to say, though.
She started out very flatteringly, and then, well I had to blink at her conclusion...
"Q. What did you think of The Lord of the Rings?
A. Tolkien was earthshaking. It was about great causes and dying nobly, which interested me a lot for some reason. It left me all weak-kneed. I re-read the books at least once or twice a year until I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I was a major fan!
So Tolkien is where I started. But in a way everything I write now is in contradiction to what I found in Tolkien. After a while, I noticed that in the real world there was no such thing as Good versus Evil. And I noticed that I didn't know any pale, noble, suffering, dignified people like Tolkien's characters--anybody ethereal. I didn't know anyone, like Gollum, who was all black and gnarly and fled in the light. Everybody I knew went to the bathroom! Nobody in Tolkien had a sense of humor, except Sam, who was a servant. I'm the kind of person who makes bad jokes in hospitals. And of course Tolkien was all about male heroics."
Naturally no one expects the newer writers to follow *exactly* in JRRT's footsteps--I have read, and liked, several of Tamora Pierce's books, which have a definite feminist slant, something that would be quite alien to poor old JRRT, who was a man of his own time.
But, yes, there *is* Good versus Evil in the "real world". It is perhaps less cut-and-dried than in Middle-earth, but it happens. And I certainly don't consider any of JRRT's heroes as "pale" and "ethereal"--they are certainly never *described* that way, though they are "noble" "suffering" and "dignified"--and there are most *certainly* people in this world who are noble and dignified and suffering! As for "going to the bathroom", of course everybody does--why waste time saying so, unless it contributes to the plot? They went out for a "sniff of air" or to "take a walk".
Still, those are opinions that are, I suppose, arguable, though I do believe easily refutable.
But--no sense of *humor*?!? Did she read the same books I read? Good heavens, the hobbits were *always* cracking wise and bantering--*all* of them, not just Sam! And Aragorn was absolutely snarky at times--he had a wonderfully dry sense of humor! So did Gandalf! What about the way Legolas teased all the mortals on Caradhras? What about Boromir's crack about "doughty Men with shovels"?
No sense of humor indeed! *hmmph*