a few things

[kaigou]

From a Salon essay about the English-language translation of The Ringbearer, a satirical/parodic take on The Lord of the Rings. First, tying into both myth-making and a broader pop culture application, per the issue of fantasies in re women's roles, this food for thought:

"The Lord of the Rings" wouldn't be as popular as it is if the pastoral idyll of the Shire and the sureties of a virtuous, mystically ordained monarchy as embodied in Aragorn didn't speak to widespread longing for a simpler way of life. There's nothing wrong with enjoying such narratives -- we'd be obliged to jettison the entire Arthurian mythos and huge chunks of American popular culture if there were -- but it never hurts to remind ourselves that it's not just their magical motifs that makes them fantasies.

And an intriguing reaction from the reviewer, too, in the final paragraph:

Yeskov's "parody" -- for "The Last Ringbearer," with its often sardonic twists on familiar Tolkien characters and events, comes a lot closer to being a parody than "Wind Done Gone" ever did -- is just such a reminder. If it is fan fiction (and I'm not sure I'm in a position to pronounce on that), then it may be the most persuasive example yet of the artistic potential of the form.

And since translations and language have been on my brain, this paragraph from an interview with Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things:

To be able to express yourself, to be able to close the gap—inasmuch as it is possible—between thought and expression is just such a relief. It’s like having the ability to draw or paint what you see, the way you see it. Behind the speed and confidence of a beautiful line in a line drawing there’s years of—usually—discipline, obsession, practice that builds on a foundation of natural talent or inclination of course. It’s like sport. A sentence can be like that. Language is like that. It takes a while to become yours, to listen to you, to obey you, and for you to obey it. I have a clear memory of language swimming towards me. Of my willing it out of the water. Of it being blurred, inaccessible, inchoate… and then of it emerging. Sharply outlined, custom-made.

Comments

[susanna]

There's nothing wrong with enjoying such narratives -- we'd be obliged to jettison the entire Arthurian mythos and huge chunks of American popular culture if there were -- but it never hurts to remind ourselves that it's not just their magical motifs that makes them fantasies.

The logic of this sentence escapes me completely. What if indulging in the mythos of King Arthur is indeed problematic?

Just consider the last part of the story - that the king might return from his lake and restore its beautiful, perfect kingdom? There's a similar myth in Germany, not about King Arthur but about about Emperor Barbarossa waiting in the mountain Kyffhäuser to restore his realm. Heine makes fun of this myth: he visits the emperor in his mountain and tells him that nowadays kings get guillotined. The emperor is shocked about this respectlessness (not only killing the king, but also how it was done), and Heine decides that we don't really need an emperor, neither to liberate nor to reign us.

Heine was wise, refuting the old myth, and history would have taken a better course if more people had listened to him.

So, yes, maybe there is something wrong in the Arhurian mythos and indulging in it (at least in certain ways, and dreaming of a simpler life is such a problematic way), and maybe there is something deeply wrong with the ideals of Lord of the Ring.

[kaigou]

I would think the logic of what you're arguing is possibly the same as what's implied in the final part of the paragraph, that it's not just the fantastical that makes a story fantasy. Indulging in dreams of a simpler life while bypassing the problematic aspects is also a fantasy, and removing the magical does not necessarily resolve the dichotomy.

[susanna]

Actually, I find the phantastical rather unproblematic. I have no issues at all with the phantastical moments in Terry Pratchett, and the same goes for Harry Potter, or Naruto. I have no problems with suspending disbelief when it comes to dragons or orks. (I am too lazy to pick up "on fairytales" by Tolkien at the moment...) What I resent is the regressive political dreams. (There aren't any to be found in Terry Pratchett, or, well, not many, which is why I don't mind the phantastical in his stories at all.)

The faulty logic of the sentence is the following: "We should not complain about Lord of the Rings, because then we would have to complain about the King Arthur Myth too" - but what if this latter assumption was wrong?

[kaigou]

Again, I think that's the point: that the fantastical (magical) may not be the only aspect of fantasy that makes something classified as 'fantasy' (the genre).