Michael Moorcock interview in New Statesman (Epic Pooh Redux, now with extra Martin)

[sologdin]

I'm sorry.  That may be intelligible, in some sense, but it is not an intelligible criticism.  Accusing a work of fiction of being consoling is like accusing food of containing vitamin C.  Sure, it may be true as a value-neutral statement, but as a criticism, it is not meaningful.
 
The one thing about "Epic Pooh" that is clear is that Moorcock means to trash Tolkien.  So try again.  

consolation is kinda gross, and charging a text as being part of a literature of consolation is plenty significant on my end of the spectrum. on your end, by contrast, consolation might be considered a virtue, or, as you contend, neutral. i get that this is contested ideological space; i do not get that your position or M's position is unintelligible. this sort of objection deflects from the argument, which is fairly straightforward: T advances fairly standard rightwing ideas in the LotR, and M loathes those ideas; they are in fact loathsome ideas, whatever the aesthetic virtue of the text otherwise.

to mieville, this argument becomes:

or Tolkien, the function of his fantasy fiction is consolation. If you read his essay On Fairy Tales you find that, for him, central to fantasy is the consolation of the happy ending. He pretends that such a happy ending is something that occurs miraculously, never to be counted on to recur. But that pretence of contingency is idiotic, in that immediately previously he claims that all complete fairy stories must have it [the happy ending]. It is its highest function. In other words, far from never being counted to recur, the writer and reader know that to qualify as fantasy, a consolatory happy ending will recur in every story, and you have a theory of fantasy in which consolation is a matter of policy. Its no surprise that this kind of fantasy is conservative. Tolkiens essay is as close as it gets to most modern fantasys charter, and hes defined fantasy as literature which mollycoddles the reader rather than challenging them.

that's a bit more plainly stated, i think.

regarding "means to trash Tolkien"--this is akin to the old lament that criticism of the policy of the united states during the GWB administration was 'bush-bashing' or 'america-hating.' this objection is not establishing a counterpoint to the argument, but rather advances ad hominem. it's cool; M is trying to provoke y'all. consider y'allselves provoked. M proclaims victory.

[Darth Richard II]

I still to thus day don't understand how people can read LotR and think it has such a happy ending.

[sologdin]

although we are saddened that the old world is slipping away, and cry in our beers that the good old days of conservative myth are over, at least the monarchy is safe and evil is punished and the swarthies know their place!(?)

[The Marquis de Leech]

T advances fairly standard rightwing ideas in the LotR, 

 

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

 

(Yes, it's The Hobbit, not The Lord of the Rings, but the point still stands).

[The Marquis de Leech]

although we are saddened that the old world is slipping away, and cry in our beers that the good old days of conservative myth are over, at least the monarchy is safe and evil is punished and the swarthies know their place!(?)

 

The conflict isn't republic vs monarchy or  whites vs swarthies. It's about power and the rejection thereof.

[ChillyPolly]

 

How in the world do you think I take it?

 

No idea.  You seemed to suggest that Mr. Moorcock would take it seriously.

[Larry.]

I'm feeling this sense of deja vu all over again...

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm feeling this sense of deja vu all over again...

 

Only because Moorcock keeps saying stupid stuff. The New Statesman interview was this month.

[slant]

Asimov, Clarke, Tolkein, and the people who interpreted ASoIAF for GoT are all IMO much better writers than Moorcock. So don't really care what Moorcock has to say about them, just like to read Moorcock's works all the same. 

 

agree with the things Sologdin posted on Moorcock

 

Could not read Pullman easily, I didn't like the writing style. But they made for good movies, surprised that the atheist theme would have such strong objections. Have to start on this Icewind Dale thing

 

 

GoT might have some soap opera elements, but it's laughable for Moorcock to accuse someone else of being soap opera. The Elric books are big soap operas, with Elric being one of the most emo drama queen protagonists of all time.

Yes, lol, very emo and goth. 

[Errant Bard]

The conflict isn't republic vs monarchy or  whites vs swarthies. It's about power and the rejection thereof.

I always had the impression that it actually was industrial age democracies vs feudal age monarchies here, with the feudal age being idealized as some sort of peaceful bucolic eden. And inevitable corruption, here barely delayed by our heroes.

[Jo498]

I think Tolkien's ideas were conservative but non-standard even in the 1930s and the picture is rather inconsistent. Because the bucolic Shire seems only formally somewhat feudal (some families are rich landowners and also influential) and rather shows the bucolic paradise with hardly any governing at all.

And the empires like Gondor (or what's left of it) are no bucolic paradises although obviously idealized as well.

The bad and orcish thing is not democracy (because the Shire is rather close to democracy, the commoner Sam can become Mayor) but industrialism as a particularly vile manifestation of greed and power (over nature). It's not that there was some democracy in Mordor or Rohan that was shown as corrupting or deficient compared to Gondor.

 

Besides, placing a heroic-fantastic story like LotR in anything but a quasi-medieval-archaic feudal age would definitely have been a political statement in the 1950s. Idealized quasi-medieval feudalism is more or less the default setting for fairy tales.

[Errant Bard]

Jo:

Indeed there was no democracy to be seen in Sauron's forces or even with Saruman, Melkor and others, and it was obviously heavily influenced by the great war for its stance on industrialism and the power structure of both faction.

... Yet I really do get the feeling that the underlying message is that old ages were greater, with better, purer men and that the ideal government was a monarchy or ploutocracy, forms of government that obviously were in the past lead by great, peaceful, fair men, with the rare exception of those who listened to the voices telling them to test the limits set by god or the traditions of the world... Hence new developments are implicitly and explicitly shown as entirely evil: mechanisation, rejection of kings, of gods, of traditions. that's industrial age versus bucolic feudal age.

The very insistence on the "fading" of great men -who always happen to be the leaders-, the importance given, even in battles, to the actions of a few individuals and the absence of any popular feedback (it's largely by right/by blood that you get to be a hero in Tolkien's World. Except for Sam, our token proletarian, who gets to be in power at the end, when the great men went away -still showing the theme of decadence/fading in passing) shows to me a disparaging of the idea of democracy: as I said, when Sam gets to be mayor it seems to only be because the better options of feudalism have vanished, it's "diminishing", to use a word he makes Galadriel use, if I remember correctly.

As for the corruption, it's how LOTR depicts the transition from bucolic feudal to industrial/democratic age, and not only with the shire, but even with Frodo himself: old times are getting corrupted. (of course in the story they miraculously resist and go back to a only slightly tainted bucolic world at the very end, but the point is made).

Besides, placing a heroic-fantastic story like LotR in anything but a quasi-medieval-archaic feudal age would definitely have been a political statement in the 1950s. Idealized quasi-medieval feudalism is more or less the default setting for fairy tales.

Heroic-fantasy was not codified at the time, and it was still a deliberate choice to write this story in this setting, so I am not sure I understand your argument there. I mean, it sounds like you are saying: "It's like you say because it's not different". Well, duh.

[Jo498]

I completely agree that the "decline" idea is extremely strong in Tolkien. And that this might be the strongest obvious conservative element. But for all we know that is simply due to general decline of "all that's fair" and the "growing of the Shadow. It's not due to democratic tendencies. And only the quasi-early-modern industrialism is shown as bad. It's not connected with democracy (because it is autocratic rulers like Sauron and Saruman that run their "satanic mills"). The amazing buildings of earlier ages (e.g. Minas Tirith) are apparently not opposed to bucolic idylls. Supposedly they were all built by happily fed skilled craftsmen, not by slave labor. As I said, Tolkien does not really seem to care about realistic economies.

 

The corruption of men and elves is not cast in terms of the overthrow of a rightful king or socialist tendencies. Even if the ambitions of Denethor and Boromir can be understood in that way, it would not be a democratic revolution but simply a new ruling house in Gondor. Like in real history the Carolingians (who had been stewards) replaced the Merovingian ruling house.

 

My argument in the last sentence was that using a pseudo-medieval feudalism as a setting for a fantastic tale is not particularly noteworthy in itself. Unless you want to do the marxist-style analysis I linked to further above.

 

Although the genre was not hard-coded yet virtually all real-word epics or romances take place in such a setting, so it would have been obviously making a political point to have different political systems in the realms of middle-earth. Political systems do not really play a role in the narrative. They are by default the way they are and the conflict between good and evil is not correlated to competing political systems. Although Mordor is close to a militarist totaliarian state with slave labor (we do not know much about the economy of Mordor) the conflict is not cast as one between militarist totalitarianism and feudalist empire.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Well, the cardinal sin in Tolkien is pride. From Melkor to Sauron to Saruman to Feanor to Thingol to Thorin Oakenshield, haughtiness is doomed for a fall. I don't think that can really be viewed in political terms.

 

The other sin (though portrayed far more sympathetically) is trying to resist change. The Elven Rings were an exercise in trying to slow down time... and allowed Sauron an opening. Denethor has devoted his entire life to maintaining a crumbling status quo, to his own tragedy. The later Numenorean Kings tried to hang on and resist death, the Gondorians developed a tomb obsession (and Tolkien notes their cultural similarity to Ancient Egypt). Tolkien wasn't exactly a big fan of Saruman-style reform, but he doesn't portray social mummification very favourably either.   

 

Gondor and Rohan, ostensible good guys, are clearly grey in the wider setting. Rohan stole Dunlending land, and had terrible kings like Fengel; Gondor had a civil war over blood-purity (the Slytherins blood obsessives are the baddies), and are descendants of the decidedly dodgy Numenorean Empire. The most powerful human in all Tolkien's writings is Ar-Pharazon (just as the most powerful Elf is Feanor, the most powerful wizard Saruman, and the most powerful being Melkor). Humble is good. 

[Ran]

I think Moorcock is a fine writer, but whose body of work also reveals himself to have a generally low opinion of writing as a profession, meaning the majority of his output seems to have been written at hell-for-leather pace with the help of alcohol-fuelled binges. Famously, he was churning out stories in 24 hours (much booze involved) to help keep [i]New Worlds[/i] afloat. Some of the Eternal Champion stuff is genuinely good, but a good portion of it is at best middling. Works like [i]Mother London[/i] represent Moorcock at his best.

 

That said, I don't think consolation is "gross", as such, but Tolkien's theory on the purpose of "fairy stories" is very narrow. Yet at the same time I think it's probably incorrect to take his theory there and apply it to the entirety of his work -- or even the entirety of LotR. It is one possible function of fantasy to console and bring unlooked-for joy and hope, and there's nothing wrong with that, but fantasy can do more. And Tolkien was aware of that, as one sees looking at the body of his work -- [i]The Children of Hurin[/i] offers no consolation, but Tolkien poured a great deal of time and energy and emotion into this dyscatastrophic narrative which offers no sort of happy ending for anyone.  (And, before any Tolkien scholars jump in, yes, he struggled mightily with the fact that there was no consolation, and went back and forth on things like Mandos's prophecy of the Last Battle and Turin's role, etc. But the struggle shows that despite his thesis in "On Fairy Stories" he found value in not providing eucatastrophe.)

[The Marquis de Leech]

I see The Children of Hurin (along with the Fall of Gondolin) as an exercise in putting your characters through absolute hell. It's the darkness before the following eucatastrophe, which is Earendil making it through.

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

I would classify Tolkien as a Wagnerian-style palaeoconservative who saw the old aristocratic world order as doomed and rotted through with corruption but genuinely thought it had produced the best of men and best of rulers and yearned for a return to that once existent order. The anarchist element in his thinking is actually a very old strain of English rural anti-hierarchism which you see already in people like John Ball (Peasants' Revolt) and the Levellers, which is based around the idea that it is human avarice that produces human misery and consequently if people just remove the corrupt old order and can agree to live harmoniously, then a better and good society can exist. So in some ways Tolkien is closer to the thinking of Wat Tyler than a socialist like Moorcock. We can also see the difference between Men and Elves as lying in the former's greed for earthly power, which the latter for the most part lack (Silmaril madness aside). The dwarves too, though a noble people, are shown to fall from grace and awaken the enemy due to their greed for metals (though unlike Men they are insular and do not harm others due to powerthirst).

 

The new industrial bourgeois capitalist order thus comes out as the true enemy in Tolkien, for it is entirely bent around the pursuit of avarice, both money and power, for avarice's sake, whatever the human and environmental cost. Sauron is evil because of his lust for mastery at all costs, his despoilment of the earth and his deformation of Men and Elves. This is certainly a conservative viewpoint, in that power is not to be lusted after because it is the preserve of the Valar to give and take it away (as Ar-Pharazon learns to his cost). But it is not, as was mentioned above, a support for the power of the State (which under capitalism usurps or corrupts the ordained monarchic order). At the same time, it does not support the democratic aspirations of the proletariat, for whilst agrarian anarchism is idealised, the masses of the industrial cities are viewed as corrupted by capitalistic greed and twisted by the suffering induced of working at the machines that deform and destroy the good earth that Samwise is so fond of. Urban mob rule in Tolkien's view will simply continue capitalism's exploitation of nature and the human pursuit of unwarranted power. What is desired is a return to agrarian gentrified democracy, a rejection of the pursuit of power for power's sake and a closer, less destructive relationship with nature, an idyll represented by the Shire. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

I actually see Tolkien as a Tory Catholic version of William Morris. Both came to very similar conclusions from completely different starting points. And seeing as Morris was actually a (non-conventional) Marxist, this explains The Lord of the Ring's indeterminate place on the modern political spectrum.

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

I actually see Tolkien as a Tory Catholic version of William Morris.

Pretty much. There's even been comparison made between Tolkien and Morris' writing style, with A Dream of John Ball being cited as a direct influence on his writing (and, as noted above, John Ball was part of the rustic proto-anarchist English utopianism both Morris and Tolkien harked back to): 

 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M7IQ4jTC0esC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=Tolkien+%22john+ball%22&source=bl&ots=p_KIdLOCpL&sig=S8HSoo49QRXaSRx6UXvGcQiDLA8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMIhMOamuqCxwIV5wjbCh32SwTi#v=onepage&q=Tolkien%20%22john%20ball%22&f=false (p. 60)

 

& 

 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vSpceyhof4IC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=Tolkien+%22john+ball%22&source=bl&ots=Xh8Ve1NpL9&sig=NEm3WRuLBNL4GxmKz0Z61cqa-ek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMIhMOamuqCxwIV5wjbCh32SwTi#v=onepage&q=Tolkien%20%22john%20ball%22&f=false (p. 42)

[Hello World]

I wonder if Moorcock has read Bakker.

 

Don't think he's been on this forum, so no.