
The Anti-Tolkien - pepys
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/anti-tolkien
======
PhasmaFelis
Right, yes, the guy who famously despises escapist fantasy, and whose most
popular and prolific character is an albino elf-prince who has the most
awesome magical sword in the world, and totally kills anyone who fucks with
him, and takes drugs any time he wants, and has bitchin' magical adventures,
and totally acts like he doesn't give a fuck about anything, but horribly
tragic things keep happening to the people he loves and it's so _romantic_ you
could just _die_.

Escapism for goths is still escapism, and there's nothing wrong with it either
way. Tolkien is great. Moorcock is great. It's all good.

------
ajuc
I liked Moorcock books as a teenager, especially the Runestaff cycle, but they
felt a little shallow to me when I reread them recently. Maybe it's because of
the new more sophisticated fantasy books I've read since then. Elric cycle was
a little better in that respect, but still felt "backward".

I think there are a few writers more deserving to be called "Anti-Tolkiens":
obviously George R. R. Martin for Game of Thrones, and less known Andrzej
Sapkowski with his short stories cycle about The Witcher (only 1 out of 2
short stories collections - The Last Wish - is translated to English, but it
is worth reading just for the fresh and original view on fantasy book
structure - it's short stories, nicely packed with interesting and original
multi-sided conflicts, each short story shows different conflicts, and it's
about characters and conflicting interests (and points of view), not about
Good and Evil, Chaos and Law or anything like that.

It's different from regular fantasy in the way that Stanisław Lem Cyberiad is
different from regular sci-fi. Highly recommended. Novels by Andrzej Sapkowski
are a little worse, but in the short stories he's brilliant.

BTW Moorcook accused Sapkowski of copying his character, because Geralt (the
Witcher) is old albino fighter anti-hero. It always felt to me like Moorcook
should actually read the books - the similarities are just apperances - Geralt
is very different (and more intersting IMHO) character than Elric.

Good short review of The Last Wish with most points that make this a great
book:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1cMitE530](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1cMitE530)

~~~
gambiting
Lem is hands down my favourite Sci-Fi author, mostly because of how different
he is to everyone else. His novels from 60s or 70s could have been written
yesterday, they feel just as fresh. Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult
to recommend them to any of my English friends, as translations are poor and
hard to come by. I've spent a little fortune trying to get a copy of "The
Invincible"(my favourite) for a friend, because it was only released in
English once, in New York, for two years(1971 and 1972), so good copies are
very hard come by. And it's a poor translation because it was translated from
Polish to German then to English.

~~~
vanderZwan
Are you aware of the recent translation of his _Summa Technologiae_ to
English? Have yet to read it myself, but read some very positive reviews!

~~~
gambiting
I had no idea there were any recent translations - I will have to give it a
look! Thanks.

------
bollockitis
It makes me wonder if Moorcock has ever actually read Tolkien. As I've gotten
older, some of the shine of Lord of the Rings has worn off, no doubt
precipitated by the movies which relegated Tolkien's rich world and epic
themes to consumerist junk pocked with spring-action Legolas toys and
Hollywood-inspired video games. So, yes, Tolkien's world was sometimes very
two-dimensional and naive. His characters and dialogue were sometimes
laughably simplistic, but I prefer to think of LOTR as a vehicle for exploring
larger themes of power and evil.

LOTR was written against the backdrop of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and a
world where good and evil didn't seem very ambiguous, yet think about how many
times this ambiguity comes up: Gollum. Good or evil? Saruman? Boromir? There
is nothing childish or "Pooh-like" about these characters. They are very real,
very intense confrontations with good and evil. Even Bilbo and Frodo
themselves struggle with this. We assume the ring has the power to corrupt,
but is the ring truly doing the corrupting, or is this lust for power
something innate within that the ring simply exploits for its own purposes?

And what defines true power? Is it the ring itself? Is it the one who carries
it? Frodo and Sam, two of the smallest of the races of Middle-Earth manage to
bring down the most powerful of enemies with little more than courage and a
desire to do what's right, while the powerful (the humans of Rohan and Gondor)
quibble amongst themselves and their leaders are easily manipulated or go mad
with sorrow and fear.

Long story short, I think Moorcock is wrong. I find the idea of a drug-
addicted elf more ridiculous than anything Tolkien ever wrote. It's as though
Moorcock defines fantasy as merely a setting through which he can play out his
literary amibitions. That isn't to say there's anything wrong with a drug-
addicted elf, it's just that drug addiction -- a so-called "real" problem to
Tolkien's alleged "Pooh" problems -- does not alone elevate one's work to
higher stature, nor should it be used a bludgeon to demote the work of others.
I have learned far more about life and human nature from Tolkien than I have
from Moorcock, and Tolkien's work was more entertaining too.

EDIT: Oh, and if you want to read some incredibly clever and unique sci-
fi/fantasy, check out anything by Gene Wolfe or Jack Vance. Wolfe's Book of
the New Sun is brilliant, and Vance's Lyonesse trilogy is amazing.

~~~
elwin
> It makes me wonder if Moorcock has ever actually read Tolkien.

Probably he just didn't read it thoroughly enough. Recent writers put
characterization and moral ambiguities at the forefront of their stories, like
Moorcock wanted. Tolkien (and the pre-modern works he imitated) put those
elements in the background and make the reader dig them out.

Agreed about Jack Vance. I recommend Eyes of the Overworld/Cugel the Clever.

~~~
Retric
What I find so facinating about this is 'complex' charaters in modern fiction
are really a dumbing down of the art form.

------
mipapage
"But Moorcock, one of the most prolific living fantasists, sees Tolkien’s
creation as little more than a conservative vision of the status quo, an
adventure that brings its hero “There and Back Again,” rather than into a
world where experience means you can’t go home again...”"

Can someone explain this to me? Well Bilbo does go home, he knows it is
temporary and home - to/for him - is not what it once was, and Frodo's story
line out-and-out states that he is going thru a change where he cannot go
back.

If this is truly what Moorcock thinks, I don't see it.

~~~
rosser
I think he's talking about something very similar to China Miéville's critique
of fantasy (and, frankly, some SF) literature: that so much of the genre is
ultimately this politically reactionary, "Oh, if only we could restore the
rightful king (or his heir — and notice how it's _always_ a male), everything
would be swell again!" sort of thing.

The "home" Moorcock is decrying Tolkien's return to is the golden age that
never really existed in the first place — except in fiction, where you can
paint a rosy picture of the past and proclaim it true by author's fiat.

~~~
wpietri
Yes. If you look at protofascist movements, very often there's a hearkening
back to a mythical golden age.

As an adult, I now am also not so comfortable with Tolkein's strong emphasis
on race and tribe. Or how it's the intrinsically evil dark or unnatural
peoples from the south versus the fading pure white peoples from the north.

Fun stories, and I'll happily read them, but I think it's instructive about
some human inclinations that, if indulged, take us to ugly places.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Tolkien's work can be naive and problematic on matters of race, but it's a
mistake to think that he himself was racist. He was furiously opposed to the
Nazis well before it was fashionable to be so, and the same with apartheid.

Describing LotR as good white northern people vs. evil black southern people
is extremely inaccurate, I think. Some of Sauron's minions were dark men from
the South, but see Sam's reaction when he finds one of them dead: "He wondered
what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil at
heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home;
and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."

The unshakably evil nature of the orcs is certainly problematic, and it's fair
to say that Tolkien wasn't conscious of the implications there; but it's also
fair to say that orcs are created things without free will, and Tolkien
thought of them more like self-replicating war machines than like people of
any earthly race. Humans (and elves and dwarves and hobbits) of whatever color
are invariably shown as being moral beings with the capacity for both good and
evil.

~~~
wpietri
I'd happily believe that he wasn't consciously racist. But I'd find it hard to
believe he had no racial bias; even today things like Project Implicit show
most people as biased, and he grew up in a very different era.

But still, I think the way he exaggerates various human race and class
characteristics into Essentially Different Peoples and then puts together a
giant race war is problematic as anything other than light entertainment.
Great battles of Good vs Evil are fine for kids' stories and escapist fantasy,
but I think Moorcock and others are spot on that it's troubling to the extent
that people take it more seriously.

------
cjslep
I'm in the process of reading _The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft_ and there was
an interesting brief comparison of the fantasies of Tolkien and Lovecraft
(both born within ~2 years of each other).

While Tolkien's fantasy world is structured, ordered, able to be understood,
and extremely detailed by its author, Lovecraft's fantasy world is
unstructured, chaotic, any attempts at comprehension result in madness, and
leaves much to the imagination by its author[0].

As a huge fan of Tolkien, D&D, and the typical fantasy tropes, reading
Lovecraft as a sort of antithesis of Tolkien is very refreshing.

[0] Sadly, could also be because Lovecraft passed at a much younger age.

------
soufron2
This article is a piece of shit. The guy has read Tolkien and Moorcock and
draw generalizations from there. Man, Moorcock wrote epic pooh in 1978. Apart
from this narrow point of view, he executes every other important ideas of
Moorcock in few short sentences : its impacts on other writes, the development
of the fight between chaos and law instead of good and evil, etc.

And as influence go by, the white walkers of game of thrones are way more
moorcockquesque than anything else.

Let's make a piece on the New Yorker that would be called "the anti new york
times".

~~~
alricb
Well, they do mention Pohl's evil twin, Frederik Phol (a soup nazi of the
vietnamese persuasion)

------
jarpineh
I find the premise of the article odd. Characterization of Hobbit in the
movies as something that was made "trying to honor every one of J. R. R.
Tolkien’s footnotes, appendices, and letters" and fit into LOTR film trilogy.
Since Jackson did not have a licence to anything other than Hobbit, LOTR books
and its footnotes, that's what they used. Where they went with it made it
impossible for me to watch more than the first film...

I don't get what are the values of this "morally bankrupt" middle class
according to Moorcock, if Tolkien's work is confirmation of those. Destruction
of nature for profit, corruption of power, strong being capable of using evil
either blindly or wantonly. That is shown as bad, whereas simple, polite and
modest (albeit with great amounts of food, ale and tobacco) life is good. I'd
want a any "class" to adhere to those.

As for being Anti-Tolkien, I'd have to see some one produce as much content,
build a world so intricate and even write a fable of it. Works of Tolkien have
so many aspects beyond the stories of Hobbit and LOTR, that saying something
is anti- to that feels too simplistic. I have read only a few of Eldrich
books, but what I remember from those was not so encompassing or ambitious.

If you choose this one aspect from Tolkien's works and decide to attack that,
you certainly can, but what you actually accomplish? I'd rather read good
fantasy from any writer, be it simple or complex. I'm currently re-reading
Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy, which might be classified as a children book,
but it's still very enjoyable and intelligent for an adult me.

------
qznc
Kirill Eskov is the most literal Anti-Tolkien with his fanfic "The Last
Ringbearer".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer)

------
akanet
In the same vein, an article[1] in The Telegraph entitled "The Hobbit: How the
'clomping foot of nerdism' destroyed Tolkien's dream - and the fantasy genre"
makes a few similar points.

I'm inclined to agree with them - Tolkein's brand of endless minutiae does not
a good novel make. His is a world of casually racist undertones and completely
shallow characters. The good and bad guys in Tolkein are good and bad for no
particular discernible reason, and I think fantasy has yet to dig its way out
of Tolkein's shadow.

However, I think new wave (and an emphasis on stylism in general) has done a
lot to rehabilitate sci-fi. Personally, I think Gene Wolfe and M John Harrison
deserve a lot of praise for pushing the genre along. Harrison's "Light"[2]
comes to mind as a modern incarnation of a new wave novel that still manages
to earn its sciency stripes.

1: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11289765/The-
Hobbit-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11289765/The-Hobbit-How-
the-clomping-foot-of-nerdism-destroyed-Tolkiens-dream-and-the-fantasy-
genre.html)

2: [http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-
Harrison/dp/0553382950](http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-
Harrison/dp/0553382950)

~~~
sliverstorm
What should I make of the basically terrible reviews of "Light"? I am curious
to read it to see what you are talking about, but 3.2/5 on Amazon usually
amounts to "really quite terrible".

~~~
obstinate
Same thing you should make of the extremely high ratings that Cassandra Clare
novels get
([https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/150038.Cassandra_Clare](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/150038.Cassandra_Clare)).
For those who aren't aware, this author is a serial plagiarist whose novels
are basically ripoffs of already not-that-great books like Twilight
([http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/fandom-guide-cassandra-
clare-...](http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/fandom-guide-cassandra-clare-mortal-
instruments/)).

------
tptacek
_For all the claims of devil worship lobbed at Led Zeppelin, Satan doesn’t
make a single appearance in their lyrics. Tolkien is where their real
allegiance lies, with references to Gollum, Mordor, the Misty Mountains, and
Ringwraiths. Moorcock, however, came of age during rock’s ascension and
understood rock’s power to give electrified life to his creations. Moorcock
worked directly with bands like Hawkwind and Blue Öyster Cult as both a
spiritual and literary guru._

Telling.

Here's "Epic Pooh", confusingly updated with references to JK Rowling and
Philip Pullman:

[http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953](http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953)

And here's Auden's wide-eyed original review of _Fellowship_, referenced at
the start of that essay:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1954/10/31/books/tolkien-
fellowship.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/1954/10/31/books/tolkien-
fellowship.html?_r=0)

~~~
dllthomas
_" For all the claims of devil worship lobbed at Led Zeppelin, Satan doesn’t
make a single appearance in their lyrics."_

Well sure, not if you play them _forwards_...

------
squozzer
I try not to get too deep into these literary controversies - newcomers always
have to reject some of what came before to establish their sense of novelty.
Every British rock band will trash-talk the Beatles a little for the same
reason.

The comparison of Tolkein to the Fab Four (Five for those who count G. Martin)
isn't accidental - both defined their genres.

And if I remember my Elric, his "drug habit" wasn't metaphorical heroin, but
insulin. He needed it to survive.

------
riffraff
> But more often his presence is seen the form of loving nods as, when, in the
> “Game of Thrones” television series, someone yells out “Stormbringer” when
> King Joffrey asks for possible names for his sword.

FWIW, I'm quite sure someone in the crowd also shouts "terminus" which would
be a gene wolfe reference, and something else I didn't quite catch.

------
firephreek
I think if you have to tell other people how deep and amazing your own work
is, it might not be that deep or amazing.

------
tsotha
This guy is the very definition of an ankle-biter.

------
yupitstrue
I honestly think that lord of the rings is the worst piece of literature I've
ever seen.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I really suggest you read more.

