Moorcock's exemplarily bad essay on Tolkien

[Extollager]

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2015/06/michael-moorcocks-epic-pooh-essay-on.html

At the least I thought I'd stir the pot a little.

 

[MWagner]

Whatever the merits and flaws of Moorcock's original essay, the diatribe against it in the linked blog certainly doesn't do Tolkien and his fans any favours. For all his conservative sentiments, I doubt the professor would have attached his name to this sort of screed:

...The bohemian middle class have a snobbish disdain amounting to disgust, directed against the old English hard-working and (mostly) clean-living 'bourgeoisie'; and always they side with tramps, prostitutes, muggers, thieves and beggars; their values are aristocratic: amoral and hedonistic; their gods are style and cool...

...The irony is that Moorcock's brand of middle class moral rebelliousness is now the official ethics of mainstream bureaucracy and civil service; his transgressive sexual practices and orientations are now taught and advocated in primary schools; his once-edgy feminist privileging is now enforced by everybody including the Royal Mail, the Royal Mint, the Royal Society and the Royal Family...

And no doubt Moorcock is delighted to have people such as the author of the blog post proving his case only too well that Tolkien and his supporters are dyed in the wool conservatives of the most archaic hue.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

???!

 

[hitmouse]

I agree with MWagner. I have doubts about the merits of Moorcock's critique, but the blog has all the quality of a histrionic 6th form analysis.
I would add that the contention that: "Tolkein is excluded from the literary establishment" is a bit silly.

 

[MWagner]

The oddest comments I came across in the blog are: 1) The author became a Christian because he was fascinated with the Inklings and they were Christians. That's some serious fanboyism. 2) Any Christian who tolerates pre-marital sex is no true Christian at all.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Nothing to see here. Poor Blog does poor criticism of poor essay.

 

[Toby Frost]

So, from Moorcock's perspective; virtue is wickedness, courage is cowardice, deep scholarship is criticized as populist, everything beautiful is named ugly, truth is put down as evasion - and all the opposites.

I'm not a great fan of Moorcock, and I do think that he strikes a lefty-rebel pose too readily, but I think this is just simplistic and wrong.

It is right, I think, to say that the Lord of the Rings sees the problem in Middle Earth as being the wrong man (well, being) in charge, when really no man ought to be in charge, but LOTR isn't a political comment on post-war Britain: it's a sort of extrapolated, complex artificial myth. It isn't direct satire the way the world of, say, Animal Farm is.

Tolkien's values of Christianity and traditional morality cannot legally be expressed either in public or in private.

Yes they can. I think this might say slightly more than the author intended.

 

[pklentz]

At the least I thought I'd stir the pot a little.

Moorcock is possibly my favorite author, and I read that essay in the book where it first appeared. In that same book, he savages Robert E Howard for the one-dimensional female characters of Conan, yet MM's own females in the Elric books seem to exist solely to fall madly in love with Elric on first sight, just because he's a badass. So to some degree, MM does "say things" and I think there's a bit of a mischievous desire to offend going on in these essays. However, his central point I would agree with completely: Tolkien is fantasy with no "edge" to it. It's cozy. Its values are Victorian, middle-class, and traditional. It's fantasy you can lend to your great grandfather. When he wrote for pulps in the 1960's, MM was part of a rebellion against the "traditional" fantasy whose godfather was Tolkien. Just as youthful energy transformed music in those decades, the Elric saga and MM's other works generally are a sort of "punk rock" fantasy with energy and attitude, whereas Tolkien is, in my opinion, more a concerto for strings. It's possible to like both, or you might prefer one form over the other, but generally, Bach has a more universal appeal than, say, the Sex Pistols. The former makes no one feel uncomfortable. The latter makes some people feel the need to leave the room. I'll stay in the room to hear both, but I know which I prefer.

And I believe the ranting blogger above reacted exactly as MM intended!

 

[Ursa major]

In case anyone is interested in more comments about Moorcock's Epic Pooh essay, in addition to this thread (which is about Bruce Charlton's reaction to it), there's another (well, at least one other) Chrons thread about it.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

Personally, I read the essay and the blog post at the weekend, and agreed with both of them .

Tolkein was a middle-class fantasy writer sitting in Oxford, mythologising a rural England that never really existed. Moorcock was a middle-class rebel fighting the fantasy orthodoxy because it was there. I like some of Tolkein's books and many of Moorcock's books, but neither were writing gritty, realistic fiction.

Which isn't a bad thing per se, because most people aren't looking for gritty, realistic fiction, they're looking to get away from the gritty, realistic world for a few hours.

 

[MWagner]

Which isn't a bad thing per se, because most people aren't looking for gritty, realistic fiction, they're looking to get away from the gritty, realistic world for a few hours.

That's true. However, I suspect it's more true now than it was 50 years ago. Tolkien grew from obscurity to fad because a generation of bohemian students who rejected modernity took up his romantic and anti-industrial message. I think it took a lot of people surprise that the most comfortable and affluent generation that had ever walked the planet should reject the system that made their material affluence possible.

And a lot of pop culture in the mid-20th century was gritty and realistic. Crime thrillers were more popular than escapist genres. Popular fiction tended to be set in the contemporary, real world. And then there's the transition that saw SF, with its fascination with the future, technology, and progress, give way in popularity to bucolic fantasy of Tolkien and his imitators.

Today, we take the overriding appeal of escapist, romantic, anti-modern fiction for granted. But it's a fairly recent development, and it remains a head-scratching paradox that as our comfort and material affluence have increased we increasingly seek escape from the present. Maybe people need to be removed from the grinding oppression of rural poverty for a couple generations before they can idealize the past.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

we take the overriding appeal of escapist, romantic, anti-modern fiction for granted.

OTH there is Urban Fantasy and Post Apocalyptic.
People like to escape

It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.

People can be affluent (relatively compare to 80% of world) and be stressed out by pointy haired boss, cow-orkers*, house mates, parents, siblings, partners etc ...

[* co-workers are OK]

 

[Brian G Turner]

Tolkien is fantasy with no "edge" to it. It's cozy. Its values are Victorian, middle-class, and traditional. It's fantasy you can lend to your great grandfather.

I'd actually disagree. The Hobbit is a fun adventure, but by comparison Lord of the Rings is grim and dark - heck, that's how my friends at school described its appeal to me. The undertones of LoTR are of genocide and the end of innocence...and every hero in the story fails and then dies. It's an incredibly pessimistic story. I'd be tempted to suggest that The Lord of the Rings was the original grimdark novel - but I'd probably get lynched if I did.

 

[pklentz]

I'd actually disagree. The Hobbit is a fun adventure, but by comparison Lord of the Rings is grim and dark - heck, that's how my friends at school described its appeal to me. The undertones of LoTR are of genocide and the end of innocence...and every hero in the story fails and then dies. It's an incredibly pessimistic story. I'd be tempted to suggest that The Lord of the Rings was the original grimdark novel - but I'd probably get lynched if I did.

Yes, there's surely failure and death, but there's plenty of room for that within the scope of what MM says and I tried to paraphrase. I don't want to get into the exact nature of Victiorian values, but they aren't about the world being a bright, sunny place. They acknowledge evil and adversity. I guess in the simplest terms, what I mean to say is that hypothetical great grandpa (who's seen world wars and whatnot) will probably finish LOTR thinking that his great grandson is a good kid getting wholesome messages that fit his worldview. Lend him Elric of Melnibone OTOH.... and he will reach the scene where Elric's court music is created by torturing slaves who are each surgically altered to scream in only one note, and (at the very least) he will ask, "What's wrong with you, boy!?"

 

[Toby Frost]

Aren't two things being confused here, anyway?

1 - Moorcock doesn't like Tolkien's way of writing and
2 - Moorcock doesn't like Tolkien's politics.

I have to say that many books I've disliked politically I also felt were badly written, but I'm sure that someone whose politics I don't agree with 100% - le Carre, say - could write very well. The problem comes, I think, when the need to make a political statement twists the truth so that the portrayal of whatever reality - even a fantasy one - isn't convincing. But I don't think Tolkien falls into this trap. I have problems with Tolkien, but most of them are about his writing and his interest (which is his right as the author) with things that I find dull, such as songs.

With all respect to Moorcock, Elric’s singing slaves just sounds kind of silly to me. It’s arch-villain stuff (Wuh-huh-huh!). I find Tolkien’s view – effectively, that all things are moving towards their end – far more unsettling because it’s not there to show how “dark” one character is – it’s basically true.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't want to get into the exact nature of Victiorian values, but they aren't about the world being a bright, sunny place.

Oh, I agree with you.

I've simply been itching to raise the point for the long time that Lord of the Rings has far darker undertones than many people give it credit for - especially in recent discussions on whether modern fantasy is getting too "grim" or "dark".

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Lord of the Rings has far darker undertones than many people give it credit for

Though perhaps not as much as H.P. Lovecraft. Been reading him for research purposes... I can't imagine HPL fans will like my views, esp. on the quality of the actual writing of late 1920s works.
There has always been grimdark (Shakespeare took the pre-existing King Lear stories and made them grimmer and more tragic).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I don't want to get into the exact nature of Victiorian value

There were more than one set, and some very much in conflict with each other. For example Christmas Carol, (Dickens) is NOT a Christian story and as well as annoying money grabbing materialists would ALSO have annoyed a wide spectrum of Victorian Christians (which had about as many conflicting world views and the three main incompatible Anglican factions existed then). There is no doubt that Dickens was a reformer.

 

[MWagner]

With all respect to Moorcock, Elric’s singing slaves just sounds kind of silly to me. It’s arch-villain stuff (Wuh-huh-huh!). I find Tolkien’s view – effectively, that all things are moving towards their end – far more unsettling because it’s not there to show how “dark” one character is – it’s basically true.

To be fair, Moorcock was portraying a decadent civilization, in the tradition of sword and sorcery authors like Howard and Leiber. And his Melniboneans are a memorable invention. Martin pretty much rips off his Targareans directly from Moorcock (pale and decadent, prone to madness, ride dragons).

And I'd say for me, one of Tolkien's biggest weaknesses is the blankness of his villains. Sauron is about as textured and memorable a villain as Skeletor from the He-Man cartoons. How do we know Sauron is evil? Because his minions kills trees and there's and there's black smoke around his base. And... well, that's about it. In the worlds of sword and sorcery authors like Moorcock, it's human nature that can be evil and depraved, and it doesn't need any help from Skeletor and his cartoon hordes of unhumans.

 

[pklentz]

To be fair, Moorcock was portraying a decadent civilization, in the tradition of sword and sorcery authors like Howard and Leiber. And his Melniboneans are a memorable invention.

Perfectly put. Devoid of context, it sounds like arch-villain stuff, and in most other hands it would be.

And I'd say for me, one of Tolkien's biggest weaknesses is the blankness of his villains. Sauron is about as textured and memorable a villain as Skeletor from the He-Man cartoons.

I think you just pinpointed a big part of the reason I personally "grew out of" Tolkien after about 6th grade. [I hear the chorus of boos already.]