Decent article on the Tolkien phenomenon from the Voice.
The importance of the material must be recognized. LOR drew the template for virtually every epic fantasy since. It may appeal to adolescents, but they represent the last, best, hope of the imagination, before the compromises of adulthood. Such compromises may be the subject of "grown-up" literature, but the unstoppable spring of Tolkienesque fantasy evidences a basic facet of our being. The template fits sci-fi futurism just as well as medievalism: the generality of a truly mythic chord being sounded. Tolkien does not fall into the typical cliches of pulp-fiction type fantasy. Violence, sex, and magic are central, but are consistently underplayed. His overwhelming nostalgia and melancholy are alien to Hollywood's understanding of the heroic epic. Scale is different than size, and this is where many followers have lost the way. The vastness of his tale is not so much a matter of length, as it is the implication of an entire world of untold tales, fleshed out by the extensive pseudo-scholarly appendices. This presentation of the material as some sort of discovered text links the work to things like Borges and Pynchon, and even Poe's early detective stories. It seems to be a gloss on a larger truth, which supersedes the author.
And the reader. Unlike the comic books, and other fantasy forms I've enjoyed over the years, Tolkien never fed my ego-fantasies, but served to weave me into something larger; a frame of reference in which the ego was but the focal point of loss. In this sense, his work is about as serious and adult as stories get. It triggers a nostalgic pain so acute that growing up becomes the escape. The sixties, the heyday of Tolkien-mania, has often been similarly critiqued, and I'd make a similar defense. I always think of Tolkien when I hear this song by the Incredible String Band, exemplars of the Hobbit-swilling hippies of yore.
You Know What You Could Be
by Mike Heron
Read your book and lose yourself
In another's thoughts.
He might tell you 'bout what is
Or even 'bout what is not.
And if he's kind and gentle too,
And he loves the world a lot,
His twilight words may melt the slush
Of what you have been taught.
You know what you could be.
Tell me my friend,
Why you worry all the time
What you should been.
Listen to the song of life.
Its rainbow's end won't hold you.
Its crimson shapes and purple sounds,
Softly will enfold you.
It gurgles through the timeless glade,
In quartertones of lightning.
No policy is up for sale,
In case the truth be frightening.
You know what you could be.
Tell me my friend,
Why you worry all the time
What you should be.
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The importance of the material must be recognized. LOR drew the template for virtually every epic fantasy since. It may appeal to adolescents, but they represent the last, best, hope of the imagination, before the compromises of adulthood. Such compromises may be the subject of "grown-up" literature, but the unstoppable spring of Tolkienesque fantasy evidences a basic facet of our being. The template fits sci-fi futurism just as well as medievalism: the generality of a truly mythic chord being sounded. Tolkien does not fall into the typical cliches of pulp-fiction type fantasy. Violence, sex, and magic are central, but are consistently underplayed. His overwhelming nostalgia and melancholy are alien to Hollywood's understanding of the heroic epic. Scale is different than size, and this is where many followers have lost the way. The vastness of his tale is not so much a matter of length, as it is the implication of an entire world of untold tales, fleshed out by the extensive pseudo-scholarly appendices. This presentation of the material as some sort of discovered text links the work to things like Borges and Pynchon, and even Poe's early detective stories. It seems to be a gloss on a larger truth, which supersedes the author.
And the reader. Unlike the comic books, and other fantasy forms I've enjoyed over the years, Tolkien never fed my ego-fantasies, but served to weave me into something larger; a frame of reference in which the ego was but the focal point of loss. In this sense, his work is about as serious and adult as stories get. It triggers a nostalgic pain so acute that growing up becomes the escape. The sixties, the heyday of Tolkien-mania, has often been similarly critiqued, and I'd make a similar defense. I always think of Tolkien when I hear this song by the Incredible String Band, exemplars of the Hobbit-swilling hippies of yore.
You Know What You Could Be
by Mike Heron
Read your book and lose yourself
In another's thoughts.
He might tell you 'bout what is
Or even 'bout what is not.
And if he's kind and gentle too,
And he loves the world a lot,
His twilight words may melt the slush
Of what you have been taught.
You know what you could be.
Tell me my friend,
Why you worry all the time
What you should been.
Listen to the song of life.
Its rainbow's end won't hold you.
Its crimson shapes and purple sounds,
Softly will enfold you.
It gurgles through the timeless glade,
In quartertones of lightning.
No policy is up for sale,
In case the truth be frightening.
You know what you could be.
Tell me my friend,
Why you worry all the time
What you should be.
- alex 6-08-2001 9:10 pm