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

[maire]

I'm with phoebezeitgeist in not having found Tolkien to be presenting an idyllic simpler life. To me, LoTR was very much the story of how small-minded, somewhat xenophobic people (hobbits) can raise themselves above that to be heroic (if they're willing to and encounter suitable circumstances). If the Shire at the start is meant to look idyllic, I'm confused, because to me it looks petty, gossipy, small-minded, and confining. Certainly the four hobbits who leave on the quest seem to think so.

The Shire they return to at the end certainly finishes with an idyllic year, but that year is told of sandwiched in with the deaths/departures-for-heaven of about half the main characters. (Some people may have got to enjoy the England that Tolkien's son was fighting for as he wrote the novels, but not everyone.)

I also found that I felt I had a better image of Tolkien's ideas after I spent some time living in Stourbridge in England. The river that the town is built on is the Stour (probable source of Tolkien's 'Stoors'). The area was naturally rather beautiful, but the human effect on it was pretty horrible -- mostly just bricks, concrete, and graffiti. I gather that in the twenties it would have had more soot as well. I tend to describe it as 'the part of England that put Tolkien off the Industrial Revolution.'

Furthermore, I think Tolkien was at least semideliberate in the way he portrays monarchy. People feel very relieved after a war that it's over, and things look good, but they fall rapidly back to 'normal'. Eomer and Aragorn spend a good bit of their reigns still fighting the wars that started before they were crowned. I also don't think the story of Aragorn's ancestors (the great hero who leads his people to a new kingdom in the sea, and his descendants who get pettier and nastier every generation until Numenor/Atlantis is destroyed completely) is put in accidentally.

[kaigou]

Again, I have no irons in the fire when it comes to political systems, except insofar as to note that an ordained leader -- regardless of whether he's earned it, or would've been a good leader regardless, or any other extenuating circumstances -- is still ordained. To that degree, yes, it's a fantasy, and to that degree, yes, I think some people buy into the notion that some guy in the sky (or any other power-that-ordains) could go about ordaining.

Beyond that, though, if I have any issues with Tolkien myself, in terms of his simplicity, it's in his racism. Lighter skin is good, darker skin pegs you as evil/bad/monstrous. That went right past me as a child, but as an adult, I realized just how simplistic and offensive his presentation is. Though that offense was in part my own repugnance that I'd not twigged on that embedded authorial racism earlier. There's a strong streak of Tolkien's own privilege in there -- not that I'm surprised, given his background and his upbringing and his culture -- but it still took a lot of any remaining shine off the story for me.

If a big part of fantasy is being able to "easily identify the bad guys" (and, via ordination, "easily identify the good guys") that is just as much fantasy as the magic. I'm not saying it's always bad [as in, is always a failing of the story], and I don't think the original article was necessarily saying [it's always automatically bad], either (whether or not the satirical redux argues such).

Me, though, the idea of anyone being given the position of rulership due to ordination... personally, I think it's complete bunk. That 'born to rule' is the reason we've still got white men convinced they're the only ones fit to tell the rest of us what to do, so stories that blindly, even happily, let this be unquestioned are stories that (as an adult) I find boring and simplistic. Or maybe I just have this thing about someone getting their position solely thanks to being born into the right family -- whether or not the person does eventually earn it, and regardless of how messy everything else is, it's all still powered by this facet of ordination. Take that out, and as a reader, I'm a great deal happier.

(This is possibly also why I really enjoy fantasy works in which the main theme is revolutionary, in which a supposedly-ordained leader is pitched out with the bathwater. But that could just be my inner socialist twelve-year-old rebel talking, there.)

[maire]

I do agree with you about the idea of ordination. I'm not comfortable with it as a reason for people to be ruling anything.

OTOH, arguably Tolkien's hero in the novel is the lower-class character (Sam) who volunteers to be involved and who steps up to the plate when the hereditary hero (Frodo, who inherited the ring) fails. It's Sam who takes over the ring quest, either by carrying it, or by carrying Frodo, all the way through Mordor.

It's Sam who is portrayed as setting up the new, better society in the Shire at the end, not Frodo. And it's Sam who has the strongest character-development arc -- he is the character most fundamentally changed by his experiences (except possibly Gimli). This doesn't fit in the with 'ordination' thing at all.

At the end, he shows an ordained king ruling far away, with little detail. He also shows a guy with no powerful or notable family history, from a poor background, become the Mayor of the Shire with a great deal of detail. And he shows two hereditary rulers completely stuffing up their rule (Denethor and Theoden). One is salvagable with good examples and forced removal of poor advisors. The other is not. I don't think this overall picture supports the idea that Tolkien's main theme was the rightfulness of inherited rule. Honestly, I think he portrays so many different results of inherited or ordained rule that it's not reasonable to take any of them as having his full support. The Numenoreans are definitely a line of god-ordained kings. They fall, taking their entire island with them. Aragorn is a god-ordained king. He does well. Galadriel doesn't like the god-ordained system in heaven (Valinor), strikes out on her own in what is then the hinterlands, suffers terribly, and eventually establishes the most beautiful place on earth.

(Tolkien's most explicit look at ordained heroes suggests his opinions matched yours more than you seem to think, too. The 'ordained' person, intended by the Valar to overthrow Sauron is the upper-class demigod Saruman. He fails. He fails so badly that he turns into the secondary villain. Gandalf's assumption of his role is great, but not what was planned by the 'gods'.)

As far as being able to tell good guys and bad guys apart by skin colour, I know much is made of this, very validly, but I don't think it was the author's *intent*. Good guys: all white, yes (in this prehistoric Europe). Bad guys: Saruman, Grima, Denethor, and various faceless groups from the east and south. I think it's sad that Tolkien was caught up so far in his cultural assumptions that he felt safest saying of the east and south that he simply didn't know what happened there. He sent them two wizards and said explicitly that he didn't know what happened with them. But I do think he was definitely trying, over and over again, in his novels to say that it was actions that mattered more than what one looked like or who one's forebears were, even though he obviously thought cool ancestors was a nice thing to have. I think it's awful that he set up his world to equate dark with evil and then continued that with skin colours. It's horribly racist. However, it's taking things too far to say he provided colour coding of heroes and villains. His villains are quite able to be fair. He says so rather often.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Sam the hero? YES. Bloody hell yes. I've always read Sam as the real main-character-cum-hero of the story, regardless of whatever Tolkien may have intended with him. Come to think of it, we actually see the journey to Mordor more often through Sam's eyes than through Frodo's, at least once they got beyond Bree.

[maire]

I'm pretty sure Tolkien was genuinely trying to do multiple heroes, rather than one. But Sam's easily the one who both has real character development and who is unambiguously heroic.