Lesifoere said:
Apparently, someone told me once, liking Tolkien has something to do with being English. Or something. I've no idea, some Tolkien fans are bizarre.
Agreed. The whole chanting stuff in Elvish over his grave is rather... eccentric to say the least. I suppose it's better than doing heroin, or something. As for the English thing... well I don't know, because of the aforementioned mountains thing, I tend to associate him with Wales, myself. But Wales is only next door, so, close enough.
Lesifoere said:
Can you at least give me the benefit of the doubt with regards to my intelligence and reading maturity? I'm not rushing pell-mell to worship at the altar of Mieville or Vandermeer just because I think they're different; I find their settings cool, their writing evocative, and their characters people I can care about.
I don't know anything of your intelligence and reading maturity; I wouldn't presume to know anything... but if I were to, I'd presume by your posts you're better read than I am. I've read embarrassingly little for a wannabe hack. I was just reacting to your statement that:
Lesifoere said:
People need to read better fantasy. I can fairly quickly name a number of titles that don't revolve around D&D rip-offs, saving the world, and all that old, stupid shit. I can even name some where the ending isn't all magical happiness rainbow wheeee.
I may be misinterpreting your words, but I took this statement at face value: equating better fantasy with inverting basic tropes. I have no doubt your personal views are far more complex than this, but as a blanket statement, it was easy fuel for a general polemic.
Lesifoere said:
Or because I resent archetypes and am throwing a fit of reader-ego.
I was refering to writers, not readers. I think it is easy for an inexperienced writer to try and reinvent the wheel without learning to ride a bike. I say this, because I did it myself. It's easy to decide you're going to be edgy and original and throw all the cliches out the window, but once you've got so far, you look back and find you've repeated all the old cliches by accident as you're writing without a grasp of the form.
Lesifoere said:
In fact, I doubt very much there's an author alive who can do that sufficiently well for me to pick up the book with a blurb reading anything along that line, or along the line of "...an ancient evil is rising... will ____ defeat it?" or "a dark emperor must be defeated to restore..." Call it disillusionment. See something done shitty long enough, and surprise, surprise, one's no longer inclined to give it another try.
Sounds like a few marketing departments should sack their copywriters, though I suppose if something is complete shite, they don't have much to work with.
Personaly, when I read the blurb on the back of books, my brain just rearranges everything into graph form, which is irritating, because it completely fucks my sense of immersion. Regardless of the setting, or the blurb, I just subdivide everything into external conflicts or internal conflicts. Eg.
Underdogs trying to save the world? External conflict.
Residents trying to save their local hospital? External conflict.
Politician trying to maintain power during a recession? External conflict.
Everything kinda starts looking the same when your brain is locked into such a reductive way of thinking. For a while, it really screwed me up - I suppose being young and arrogant just added to my cynicism. Even the most original settings and premises got deconstructed by my sick brain into categories A/B B/A B/B etc. After a while, I just thought, "Fuck it, I need to start enjoying things on their own terms again."
It's left me with a lasting suspicion of anything that seems gimmicky though. I was a little wary of PS:T when I first discovered it. It seemed a bit too self-consciously "out there", like it was trying to make up for some kind of shortfall... but I bought the damn thing anyway and was happily proved wrong.
Lesifoere said:
And I said, or implied, that it has a rainbow-fart unicorns happy ending when?
Let me go back to your post.
Lesifoere said:
I can even name some where the ending isn't all magical happiness rainbow wheeee.
Tolkien's writing is hardly his strong point. The prose drags on needlessly, the characters aren't terribly complex,
You made a point about people needing to read less cliched fantasy, and followed it with a remark about Tolkien's lack of sophistication. Were the two paragraphs directly related? By your response, I'd say no, but seeing as LotR was being discussed, I felt it was appropriate to use it an example. Also I like LotR, and wanted to defend it, so I used the opportunity to match it to the criteria you provided for stuff that isn't cliched fantasy malarky.
Lesifoere said:
Hell, his prose is drier than Dickens'--it takes itself very, very seriously.
I agree, but I don't consider Dickens' prose that dry. Dickens' prose is very wordy and rambling, but it has a lot of verve and colour to it.
Lesifoere said:
That's partly what I find insufferable with his fiction, actually. Outside of maybe The Hobbit and the first few chapters of LOTR, his stories are told in deathly earnest
I come across so much smirking irony these days that I quite like a bit of earnestness... but I'm mostly with you here. The Hobbit and LotR were the only things I could really hack of Tolkien's. I found The Silmarillion to be unreadable - a glorious chronicle of Tolkien's obsession, yes - but still unreadable. Then there's that annoying Tom Bombardil guy. Okay, Bombardil worked as a counter to the scarreeeyy wraiths in LotR, but I don't think I could hack an entire story about him.
Lesifoere said:
So, funnily enough, is mine. Are you under the impression that I'm advocating taut literary fiction that I imagine to be clever?
Not so fast.
I said:
Honest genre fiction is a major cause of mine. I started off writing taut short stories that I imagined to be clever... then I progressed to genre fiction.
I was charting my own progression as a writer: I started off trying to write "cutting" short stories with the occasional obnoxious twist. I was trying to be self-deprecating about my former pretention, and stating that I feel my current writing to be a progression.
I was prattling about myself. I'll confess to being egotistical, but not insulting.
Lesifoere said:
Or that "different" genre fiction by default results from "a fit of ego"? Funny how nobody seems to see any middle grounds.
I see plenty of middle ground. I was trying to make a case that generic high/epic fantasy can function as a valid starting ground for more things than it's often given credit for. I want to see new and beautiful stories myself, but I feel the best way to achieve that is to master the existing forms and see which ways you can twist and express them. I feel that making conscious attempts to overthrow existing tropes will usually result in writing cliches by accident.
It wasn't a specific attack on your position: 'tis just that I saw the excuse to join in, and I tend to gush and go off on tangents. Remember, I'm the Codexer that likes cute doggies, and BG, and various other stupid things. :D
EDIT:
Hazelnut said:
Moby Dick once, but after 2-3 pages I was bored and confused - so I decided to leave it until another time, which has not yet come..
I'll forgive anyone that reaction to Moby Dick. I think you have to be in a specific state of mind to enjoy it... like, picking up the book and saying to yourself "Right! I'm in this for the long haul!" and then throwing yourself
completely into Melville's world.
I love Melville, but even I'll happily admit he's an obtuse, rambling git. He makes me think of an old sailor on cannabis.