Gopnick does fantasy

“The Lord of the Rings,” “Twilight,” and Young-Adult Fantasy Books : The New Yorker

The always readable Adam Gopnick has a discussion here about "high fantasy for young adults", and starts with a look at Tolkien in a way that I can almost approve (ie it's sort of disparaging.)

I liked the wittiness of this bit:

It’s true that his fantasies are uniquely “thought through”: every creature has its own origin story, script, or grammar; nothing is gratuitous. But even more compelling was his arranged marriage between the Elder Edda and “The Wind in the Willows”—big Icelandic romance and small-scale, cozy English children’s book. The story told by “The Lord of the Rings” is essentially what would happen if Mole and Ratty got drafted into the Nibelungenlied.

 this too:

Modernist ambiguity, or realist emotional ambivalence, is unknown to Tolkien—the good people are very good, the bad people very bad, and though occasionally a character may be tossed between good and evil, like Gollum, it is self-interest, rather than conscience, that makes him tip back and forth. Betrayal and temptation happen; inner doubts do not. 

and this:

What substitutes for psychology in Tolkien and his followers, and keeps the stories from seeming barrenly external, is what preceded psychology in epic literature: an overwhelming sense of history and, with it, a sense of loss. The constant evocation of lost or fading glory—Númenor has fallen, the elves are leaving Middle-earth—does the emotional work that mixed-up minds do in realist fiction. We know that Westernesse is lost even before we know what the hell Westernesse was, and our feeling for its loss lends dimension to those who have lost it. (There is also, in Tolkien, the complete elimination of lust as a normal motive in daily life. The wicked Wormtongue lusts for Éowyn at the court of Rohan, but this is thought to be very creepy.)

Of course, as I am happy to explain that I dismiss LOTR on the basis that I lost interest after about 100 pages both times I tried it, and found the first movie boring, I have no idea what characters Gopnick is talking about in that last sentence; but anything that criticises the book in any respect appeals to me.  It's very, very hard to find other people who share my attitude.   You try Googling for anti-Tolkien mutual support groups - it's been a while since I did, but I couldn't find one.

But seriously: I think Gopnick has given me better justification for my disdain, so for this he must be praised.

By the way, the rest of the article talks about other examples of fantasy that appeal to young adults, particularly the Eragon series, and even Twilight, and he makes some pretty good points that I think my regular reader Tim would like to see.  This part in particular:

 And the truth is that most actual mythologies and epics and sacred books are dull. Nothing is more wearying, for readers whose tastes have been formed by the realist novel, than the Elder Edda. Yet the spell such works cast on their audience wasn’t diminished by what we find tedious. The incantation of names is, on its own, a powerful literary style.

True, I think.   Although I did like what the Coen brothers did with the Odyssey.  :)