I finally read Lord of the Rings in full. Between translations (both Polish and German, back when I could read German) struggling to capture the tone and Tolkien requiring a certain mindset, I still can't blame myself for dropping the book time and time again, effectively reading via spaced excerpts until recently. Still, it's good, but probably suffers from the same problem GEB does: because it's the first one to do its thing, it means a lot of the stuff it inspired have a better flow even if they only tackle one of its themes/aspects. It's appreciated, there's value in reading it as a classic/progenitor of sorts, but it probably will never become one of those books I can just pick up and enjoy. It did deepen my appreciation of the movies, though, and they don't require much of a setup. Słowo jest w człowieku (The word is in the man/person) by Jan Miodek - a famous Polish grammarian writes about common/public mistakes, word usage evolution, and linguistic oddities in a fun way. I liked his TV program (yes, seriously) as a child, and seeing his name on a prominent place at my local library made my day. Unfortunately, it's one of those books that are not only untranslatable (or at least in a way that'd preserve his flair, cf. Tolkien above) but likely unapproachable without, like, C1 level of comprehension in Polish... which, as in most languages, includes a lot of natives. I'm also trying to read the Vulgate Bible, and it's an uneven ride. There are whole chapters that go in smoothly only for me to stop and go "holy shit, future imperative outside a textbook or Cicero!" or "which of those comes first?" or be otherwise confused. Annoyingly, even though I was never religious, went through confirmation mostly because 'it can matter to certain people' advice from my priest... I didn't realize how well-catechized I ended up being. There are disturbingly long passages where I don't read Latin but recall Polish, and I haven't been to a mass in, dunno, 12 years? The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Sherlock Holmes in SPAA... I mean, medieval HRE. Though I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the book nearly as much if I didn't have The Autumn of the Middle Ages in fresh memory considering all the 'change in the air and passing/ending of ages' themes. The whole story within a story within a story recursive framind device was a bit distracting, but I can't help but think people focus too much on it? I mean, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein dips down to what, a flashback in a dream in a memoir in a letter in a letter, all as hazy and unreliable as in Eco, and nobody who read Franky bitches about that? Dunno, I liked it.
There's this idea that LoTR was "first" that has no basis in truth. Tolkien no doubt grew up reading Dunsany. Jon Bauer was a celebrity decades before Tolkien sat down to write The Hobbit. While Tolkien was writing it, Robert Howard pumped out 21 stories of Conan the Cimmerian (and died). The magic system in Dungeons and Dragons isn't taken from LoTR, it's taken from (international bestseller) The Dying Earth, which was published four years before Fellowship of the Ring. The problem with everything else, though, is it's all dangerous. People die. Blood is shed. Endings aren't always happy. A place without civilization is a tricky place to live and wizards tend to fuck up your shit. Lord of the Rings persists because it makes everything cozy. Frodo is Pooh. Sam is Eeyore. Aragorn is Christopher Robin. My wife loves it? She had a pair of Pound Puppies named Frodo and Bilbo. Me? I'd read Dying Earth, a few Conans and the whole of Vardeman's Cenotaph Road series before taking on The Hobbit in 4th grade which is probably why I've never been able to see LoTR as anything but trite bullshit. It's the era's Harry Potter - "let's make everything cute and British but also inescapably about the English caste system."Still, it's good, but probably suffers from the same problem GEB does: because it's the first one to do its thing, it means a lot of the stuff it inspired have a better flow even if they only tackle one of its themes/aspects.
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Sherlock Holmes in SPAA... I mean, medieval HRE.
Then I'll get back to you once I read Dying Earth. It's not unknown to me, Vance especially the D&D magic system is even called 'Vancian', but iirc his books were nigh impossible to get in Poland. Still are, even though there (apparently) was a 2010 translation reprint. That's honestly a good summary? I was entertained, but ended up confused by both detractors and praises. I liked it because Eco has clearly put a lot of effort towards authenticity and made the 'heady' meanings of meanings of the book digestible and, for a lack of a better word, plain to think about. Contrast it with, dunno, Salman Rushdie, with whom I honestly don't know if I'm too uncouth and uncultured to glimpse his brilliance or intuitively caught on the wink meaning of 'magical realism' as 'flat, meandering story'. No comment on Dean Brown; that thing practically fizzled out by the time I was in 4th grade.I mean, Name of the Rose is entertaining up to a point. And it's interesting up to a point. And I'm sure it's all metaphorical and shit.
I had Reddit sockpuppets in the names of every major character in The Dying Earth. In my opinion, Jack Vance and American fantasy are the Bauhaus if Itten didn't leave. Don't get trapped into thinking there's a lot of it; the original Dying Earth is an anthology of short stories written prior to 1950, and then there are two legit Sagas written in the '80s. They're okay but not relevant. I think the more an egghead likes a book, the more they make it "important." I've never wanted to bother with Salman Rushdie; prior to his fatwah nobody really gave a shit so all of a sudden his work had to take on enough meaning to support an East V West clash of ideals. What was that shit newspaper in France? Charlie Hebdo? Ain't nobody said anything nice about Charlie Hebdo until AQAP started shooting cartoonists. My go-to is Margaret Atwood. She's a shitty author (shut up, she is). She's self-important. She's, by all accounts, a dreadful person. But because she writes pulp sci fi along the lines of "fear the Republicans" the eggheads support her in her assertion that she doesn't write sci fi, sci fi is grubby and she's important. Lather, rinse, repeat for David Foster Wallace. Meanwhile, Stephen King was out getting rich in the literary wilderness for 40 years, bane of English teachers everywhere, until he started dissing Trump on Twitter. All of a sudden his shit's literature. He's a terrible writer and you don't need to read him ever. All you need is the following: 1) Anthony Burgess' review of Holy Blood, Holy Grail in 1980 was "someone should make this into a novel" 2) Dan Brown did exactly that 3) The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail sued him for plagiarism 4) Dan Brown argued "holupaminnit, you said yours was non-fiction" and the authors came back with "well... but nobody really believed that, did they" 5) Things went as well as expected Holy Blood, Holy Grail? A breathless pseudoacademic conspiracy theory. Da Vinci Code? An Encyclopedia Brown mystery. If you ever come across a copy, voice Robert Langdon as Bullwinkle the Moose and Sophie Neveu (yes, really) as Rocky the Squirrel. I was entertained, but ended up confused by both detractors and praises.
No comment on Dean Brown; that thing practically fizzled out by the time I was in 4th grade.
Still, Dying Earth sounds interesting, and I prefer it as short stories. Some authors and works are just better that way, and this seems like it'd be the case, going by intuition. You're probably right. Dunno if it's better or worse that I almost never read the stories about the books/authors I read. On the one hand, I can at least argue little bias/influence apart from the source of recommendation. On the other, I guess it ends up with me looking clueless most of the time. "You read Brown, liar!" "No?" "Remember that book about NSA being attacked by mutating cryptogram double-teamed by two one-note nerds, with superfluous murderer and 'muahaha'-grade office intrigue in the background that led nowhere? That was Digital Fortress." "Oooooh. God, I'm so sorry you have to remember it." "Your rant was the best part of that road trip." Now we're watching Rocky and Bullwinkle.All of a sudden his shit's literature.
He's a terrible writer and you don't need to read him ever.
I think LotR was the first to have elves and hobbits and dwarves and orcs in the way that's instantly recognizable. I agree that its a cozy story, and 1000% caste system, though imo LotR is a lot more thoughtful and I'd argue that the whole 'magic is fading and evil will eventually win but we'll fight while we can' tone makes it not all twee feel-good fluff.
And I would argue that counts for less than you think. One of the things I like about modern fantasy is the trope that Elves are assholes. Tolkien was basically at "look how cool this lost race of ubermensch are" while modern fantasy is basically "elves love the smell of their own farts." On the one hand, it's a bunch of children's books. On the other hand, it very clearly reflects Tolkien's understanding and trauma of The Great War. I think it's the duality that bugs me; by trying to be both it does neither well. The thing about American fantasy of the era is the good guys and the bad guys were human. You couldn't hide your actions behind ethnic tension. America fought a war over slavery; the British didn't think it was worth fighting a war over genocide until it was on their doorstep.I think LotR was the first to have elves and hobbits and dwarves and orcs in the way that's instantly recognizable.
I agree that its a cozy story, and 1000% caste system, though imo LotR is a lot more thoughtful and I'd argue that the whole 'magic is fading and evil will eventually win but we'll fight while we can' tone makes it not all twee feel-good fluff.
I also just finally read LotR after bouncing off it a few times. I had the opposite takeaway though, at least having played a lot of D&D but not having read a lot of fantasy novels, that - wow it was so much better and more thoughtful than the modern take.
Just Dungeon & Dragons and associates, plus of course the movies. As well as vague awareness of like, video game plots & tropes. What struck me the most was how LotR was very anti-war in a lot of ways which absolutely does not carry over. I can completely agree it was like Star Wars, especially in that: Star Wars (4 at least) was good! It had an incredible aesthetic that I fell in love with instantly, the story is simple and nice, every line is iconic. But more Star Wars just isn't that interesting and it did seem like everyone was trying to make their own worse version for a while at least.
I didn't say it isn't thoughtful or as thoughtful, just that it doesn't flow as well. I think most people who aren't pretentious literary students would be pro Tom Bombadil's removal, and it doesn't take a lot of digging to find it's a remnant from the time Tolkien wasn't sure if LotR would be a full-on children's book or not. The book could easily lose about 50 pages of descriptions and scarcely anyone would care? I could go on, but to me at least, it's simultaneously polished and rough as hell. EDIT/Addendum: Maybe to elaborate and add a bit of comparison with GEB (you CS folks love it): GEB waxes poetics about recursion for pretty much its entire body, comparing recursive changes of a structure to fugue and drawing parallels. I have no doubt that, just as SICP, it was mind-blowing at its time. But today? I learned about this shit in high school CS and middle school music classes, respectively. Putting it together is perhaps non-trivial, sure, but with the benefit of GEB doing a lot of the work, people who came after can do it all in a matter of 3 hour lecture. So a lot of their impact is just lost on me: I got it in a refined version before, so the progenitors feel clunky.
"Cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms" being the author's summaries of not only GEB (1979) but also Dawkin's The Selfish Gene (1976), I am fully ready to argue that GEB was an intellectual's retreat from Reagan. American culture was big on trite wordplay back then. It was largely insufferable.GEB waxes poetics about recursion for pretty much its entire body, comparing recursive changes of a structure to fugue and drawing parallels. I have no doubt that, just as SICP, it was mind-blowing at its time. But today? I learned about this shit in high school CS and middle school music classes, respectively. Putting it together is perhaps non-trivial, sure, but with the benefit of GEB doing a lot of the work, people who came after can do it all in a matter of 3 hour lecture.
Yeah totally - see what you mean about the Tom Bombadil & that. I like the prose now, but especially the first chapter is very long and academic and not exactly a page turner. Re: GEB also haven't finished it despite starting but I totally agree with you there, nothing felt like 'mind blowing'. For LotR though, I went in expecting to not be that impressed since I had all the cultural osmosis already and had seen the movies etc and, for me at least, it had a different tone and character and earnestness that I think the modern versions lost at some point. (I do still love the movies though). Recently read some Sherlock Holmes and did get that feeling though- everything was such a predictable trope, but I suppose at the time it was a lot more new
I'm not sure, but it was certainly influential. That's why we see it as trite and need its retelling repackaged. By the way, if you like British humor (humour?) with commentary on (among others) writers stealing and redoing things, I recommend Upstart Crow.Recently read some Sherlock Holmes and did get that feeling though- everything was such a predictable trope, but I suppose at the time it was a lot more new