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Sherwood's
Writing Riffs That is, the “problem” of Tolkien for writers of fantasy. Anyone who decides to write fantasy these days is going to have to at least think about the influence Tolkien has had on this type of literature, even if to reject his work, his thought—everything he stood for. This requirement was in most writers’ minds during the seventies and, perhaps, part of the eighties, and then Tolkien’s LOTR seemed to drift into classic status: something quaint and hard to read. Many writers of fantasy grew up reading those who came after, and commenced their own careers without ever having read Tolkien.
Then the movies came along. Now Tolkien is once more in the contemporary eye, and young people, as well as old, are giving the books a read.
Do they hold up? I believe so. It looks, in fact, as if Lord of the Rings is here to stay, whether the Edmund Wilsons and Michael Moorcocks of the literary world like it or not.
The writer of fantasy these days does well to contemplate why the books are considered a benchmark in evolving literary standards. Of course, one first has to define exactly what “benchmark” means in this context. Does it mean theme, plot, quality, some combination, or does it mean that a fantasy “must” contain orcs'n'elves and ring quests and little furry-footed people?
We certainly see plenty of examples of Tolkien’s influence out there. Dragonlance has made good, steady money selling novels based on the Tolkien's plot structure and tropes such as elves and orcs, etc.
In considering what Tolkien means, we have to glance at what he did: his fantasy was removed firmly from whimsy, both light and dark. Alice in Wonderlandbeing an example of whimsy, and some maintain that Ghormenghast is a kind of dark, intellectual whimsy; I don't know, I've never been able to finish it. But I have trouble staying focused on any form of whimsy. The effect on me--and maybe this is very idiosyncratic--is that it feels like fever dreams, which I don't like. (And twee whimsy, that is very cute whimsy, puts me off.)
Tolkien used all the adventure tropes of his time--high minded quests, noble characters--but he managed to imbue it with profoundly effective reality, which is, when you break it down, a genius combination of his decades of world building...and his personal experience of the horrors of war. World War I's shadow lies long through Lord of the Rings. No one can do everything Tolkien did, because no one has his experiences, or his knowledge. LOTR might remain the greatest for many people, for others he's merely the 'first', and writers since them have produced works more effective for that readership. Subsequent epic works are less reticent than Tolkien was, and less gender-specific, making quicker and more adventurous reads, though none of them seem to carry the firepower of Tolkien's unique experience. What makes LOTR fascinating for the older reader are the insights peculiar to a man who was forced to watch his peers die in the trenches of World War I, taking with them a way of life that is gone forever. Reflections on the inexorable passage of time, the gratefulness the contemplative person feels for moments of unexpected beauty, might resonate somewhere below the consciousness of a younger reader who is looking forward to a life not yet shaped--and who craves action in reading.
Fantasy writers since have often focused on one or more aspects of what Tolkien did: some with fancy worldbuilding and maps, others with involved quests after magic objects—objects, I note, that they just about always have to rescue from a bad guy, and use, rather than take to the bad guy's territory, and destroy. We find noble characters, or semblances of same. And there are the more romance-oriented fantasies, which feature very, very pretty elves (or elf-like beings elevated by beauty and powers above humanity) who, despite their powers, show roughly the same view of time and space, and share the same emotional characteristics as the human characters. They just say it in more stately language
That's not to say that there hasn't been good fantasy written since Tolkien, because I don't believe that's true. But it's not the same as Tolkien; we can recognize tropes, some of which form the deep bones of the work of those of us who came after, others use tropes consciously, but the books do different things.
The concept that many have trouble with is that sense of wonder that underlies Lord of the Rings. I believe that it is connected very strongly to the religious impulse, and LOTR is a deeply religious book. Now, the religious impulse, however we decide to define it, exists in most humans to a greater or lesser degree. For Edmund Wilson fifty years ago, and Michael Moorcock more recently, LOTR seems to be a silly tale fit only for the kiddies, and what is all the fuss about, anyway? For these writers the universe appears to be confined to human interactions, period.
In short, if calling Tolkien’s epic a benchmark signifies a work that is layered, well-constructed, a world with inner consistency and characters with complex motivations, needs, and goals, the sense of the familiar and the sense of the alien, and above all, the sense of wonder, well, then, yes, he's a benchmark. But I think that's a description of great literature. |
