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

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

You know, I was originally rather intrigued by mentions of the "parody," but this review--despite its favorable stance towards Yeskov's work--seems to have put me off it altogether, because it makes the Russian book sound like it has a genuinely simplistic agenda, which is to prove Tolkien wrong. I don't know. Maybe I'm just more used to the sort of revisionism and reevaluation that happens in history circles, and there a "more nuanced view" isn't one that just goes out to prove the orthodoxy wrong on all counts, but to reexamine the evidence in order to see where the old consensus falls down _and where it still holds its own against more recent attempts at reexamination_. Seen this way, taking Tolkien's book and turning its morality _entirely_ upside-down just doesn't sound like presenting a more realistic or more complex view of Middle-Earth to me.

[kaigou]

I enjoyed Tolkien when I was in fourth grade (9 y/o), and I found the movies an interesting adaptation (if something baffling, because I failed to see, and still fail to see, the point of some of the revisions)... but I've never really cared much beyond that. Tolkien worked when my mind was simpler and my understanding of the world's complexities was minimal (and also, perhaps, because I read the trilogy not long after returning from a trip to the UK, so some of the books' romanticism was more grounded for me, having seen a place that would qualify as his green-and-simple-land)... but within a year, I left it squarely in the dust for more complex works.

That said, the point of the second excerpt was to note the growing willingness of reviewers to draw a line between fanfiction & parody/satire. Back when The Wind Done Gone was published and there was all that hoohah about whether it was copyright violation, I don't recall ever reading any mention of anything called "fanfiction" in relation to the book. Something in the stigma of the term is slowly falling away. Given the continuing lack of legal precedent concerning copyright vs fanfiction and so on, it makes me wonder if eventually there might be little value in a legal precedent due to the court of social opinion having already delivered a verdict.