Steven Erikson writes some great fantasy, but it is true that there is not much deeper meaning to be found there. For Fantasy that explores philosophical issues, I recommend Angela Carter, Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and maybe some Ursula K. LeGuin.
Thanks mom, but it was just a typo. Seriously though, I have no idea why I did that. I just got home from the gym after running for an hour having only eaten a bowl of oatmeal five hours earlier. Then I made brownies for my wife, who was not feeling well. I may have been partially psychotic; just the type that affect capitalization. As mentioned, I got wiped out and ran out of steam, so I'll explain "depends". I've been a Moorcock fan for years, and he's had many Existential themes in his work, has addressed Nazism subtly, humanism, and even why you don't need fantasy---in his fantasy books (I can explain that). He's the only fantasy author I can think of whose stories you can apply to your life. I'm certainly not saying there's aren't more. On the other hand, good science fiction can be very thought provoking. I enjoy the AI theme of creatures who can think, but aren't governed by greed for money, women, and stuff as the stories ask how we would deal with them. The same thing can be said for an Elf because maybe they represent beautiful people who are good at everything, but that a "now" problem, not a future one. In SF, you can explore any question about humanity in a fun and exciting package. I just read a very good novel called Version 43 that had everything you could want in such a novel. Anyway, I find myself going to SF when I want thought provoking, Military SF when I want courageous pure action, and Fantasy when I want wild creativity, like Steven Erikson. Also, thanks for pushing for an explanation! What people get out of fantasy has fascinated me for decades.
I admire Erikson for being a creative machine. I recall reading his third Malazan book and somewhere in the book an MC walks around a corner and there's a talking frog! I thought, now things are getting crazy, in a good way, but then the frog never returned. It's like any thought entering his head hits the paper. I stopped reading him for about three years after that because I thought his books were like Lost (the show) which I knew would go nowhere. A couple months ago I got rid of many books and couldn't give the fourth book away so I read it, and loved it! It wasn't about anything, but it was interesting with a great MC of a variety I normally wouldn't like, but he made me. I like.
Yes, that's a very good one. Erikson is an author whose books make me simply enjoy the act of reading itself. I also like the fact that he doesn't hold the reader's hand too much. When I first read "Gardens of the Moon," I remember the fun of having pieces fall together without the author really ever putting them together for me. Some people I've loaned the book to have disliked it for that very reason - being thrust into the action with little or not backstory and just being taken along for the ride. Erikson's co-creator of the Malazan universe, Ian Esselmont, has also written a couple of books that take place in the Malazan world. I only read his first one, "Night of Knives," but I thought it was quite good. It takes place before the timeline in Erikson's books and sheds some interesting light on earlier events.
I read most of the Anne Rice vampire novels and they were filled with all kinds of great stuff, but that's not the fantasy I'm talking about. I'm talking about idealized ancient times with hobbits and elves. To clarify, when I'm talking about philosophy I'm mostly focused on issues of Existential Philosophy (interesting to read), which has to do with life being absurd, meaningless, and the only meaning is what we give it. Also, I enjoy the topic of human nature. For instance, what if humans are the smartest being in the known universe after we discover aliens. What it we invent AI and could have them as slaves; what will we do. I hate guys like CS Lewis. I'm an atheist but I greatly admire Jesus' philosophy, whether he was real or not. He said that you should never kill anyone, forgive infinately, and not even talk about religion too much. Meanwhile, Lewis has Jesus as a lion (no) and Santa giving out implements of murder to kids, who ten proceed to kill people. That stuff is like something that needs to be explored for it's warped imperialistic wartime politics and it's not philosophical in my opinion, but more of a propaganda piece. In the same vein, there's a classic movie called Sargent York with Gary Cooper, based on a true story. York gets called to WWI and says that he's a Christian and he's not allowed to kill anyone. The recruiters explain the benefit of killing for the US, and York goes on to kill the most people ever and becomes famous! Woopie! Meanwhile, WWI was a war fought strictly for rich people. Harry Potter: I think this is a great story for kids who have a crappy life and have been abandoned by parents, had traumas, etc. The message is that you and your friends can make it through a crazy world. That's a pretty simple message but nice. However, the magic bit blows it to a degree, because real people don't have that option. Still, I think it's uplifting. One of my favorite modern philosophy books is Iain Banks, The Player of Games. It's about how you can wage war and totally destroy a society by undermining its basic principles nonviolently. I'm pretty sure the west already does this, but the novel is thought provoking because it raises questions about how to incorporate people without mass murdering them first. Thus, it's deeper than a lot of stories talked about. And, again, this is what I think, not what you should think. I'm thowing my ideas out there for fun discussion.
I'm going to get Esselmont's books as soon as I can. I have Midnight Tides to read and then maybe I'll throw one of his in the mix. I love being thrown in the middle of the action and having to figure things out; it really gets my imagination going. As long as I know the author has some point to the story, I'm ok with not having things spelled out. It seems that he respects his readers which is great. Erikson has some epic characters and I'd be happy to read solo novels when he gets done with his series, if he's no in a coma by then. My favorite is Icarium, who is not human and travels with this beastman who helps keep him calm, because when he's not he becomes destructively insane, and then forget that he was. I could read a bunch of that business. Currently, his books are good for people with excellent memories and low frustration tolerance.
Which is called High Fantasy, a very specific kind. ;D High Fantasy is essentially building a whole other world. And even that has a lot of themes and motifs depending on the piece. Sadly, the majority of it seems content ripping Tolkien off rather than making something of their own. /le sigh See, I find existential philosophy horribly boring to read. I think it depends on your world view. Personally, I find that I simply cannot relate to those books at all. I find myself having my suspension of disbelief shattered with them. That and Post-Modern literarture, which essentially goes 'ideal love doesn't exist, everything is meaningless, what do we do next'? Since my very assumptions are the opposite, 'Ideal love is alive, everything has meaning (down to a very blade of grass), and so we live and love as best we can continuing in the tradition. However, I think the main issue I had with your last post was saying fantasy was devoid of philosophy, when you meant a very specific kind of philosophy. Ya gotta be more specific dude! XD I think the problem is you are not looking at it from C.S. Lewis's perspective. He grew up during WWII, and lost some dear friends to it. One who he had promised to take care of the mother of, and who died. C.S. Lewis stayed true to his word for years until the mother died. It's actually fascinating reading how WWII affected him specifically. To him, who lived during this era, evil (especially powerful evil) was not to be given foothold. I cannot imagine him being able to completely separate the White Witch from figures like Hitler. His world view informed him that such tyrants must be deposed. After all, your imperialistic approach falls apart on the fact that the White Witch is a Queen, a true queen, who is overthrown and destroyed for tyranny. He also wrote it awhile after WWII ended, so I am not sure about Propaganda...(then again, could have been written during another war that I don't know of). Also, Aslan =/= Jesus. At least not exactly. Aslan carries many Jesus like themes, but I find it hard to believe that C.S. Lewis didn't know what he was doing when he picked the lion as a symbol instead of the Lamb, which is more closely associated with Jesus. Aslan carries on many aspects of God the Father, who is mostly seen in the old testament, and the Holy Spirit. Both which are less peaceful in their rest. I would say that outside of his nonfiction, The Chronicles of Narnia are his most straight-up christian work. All of his work is informed by his world view, like all of ours is, but works like 'Till We Have Faces' are actually more pagan in the way the gods and religion act then Christian. Which is appropriate, as it is based in the myth of Eros and Psyche. If you go into his other fiction thinking it will be like the Chronicles, then you are in for a surprise. XD ...Ironically, I am none of those. XD I think our differing world views have us look differently at the piece. One of my friends wrote a entire essay on the themes of life, death, and love on Harry Potter for her English Senior semester, and got a A. However, being that I am more interested in the spiritual themes of a piece, it would make sense that I would spot them more, while I would probably miss a lot of symbolism concerning existentialism in other pieces because I am not as interested in it. I think every society that has power would try that in this world where if one in-power place makes a wrong move, you might have missiles aimed at you. Of course, for however much I believe in meaning I also have a somewhat dim view of humanity and human nature at times (which is balanced by a more positive view at other times, depending on what facet of humanity is being discussed). But that does sound like a interesting novel, might have to check it out. Does it have a sad ending? I mean, personal 'Of Mice and Men' sad, not just dperessing and bleak. I only ask because with books like OMaM I spend roughly two hours bawling my eyes out when I reach the end and have to plan accordingly, aka not finishing it at 12am where I wake up the household with my wails or right before I go somewhere. And same! I always love a good discussion.
In fairness, Tolkien got a lot of his ideas from Norse mythology, and William Morris, George McDonald and Lord Dunsany developed the high fantasy genre well ahead of Tolkein. You could say that Tolkein was ripping off those sources, although I'd be more inclined to point out that there's nothing new under the sun and ask whether it's being done well.
Eh, I'm talking about the 'copying without making their own' kinda deal. That's the only time I consider ripping it off. XD Afterall, there is nothing new under the sun, like you said, our job as writers is to simply reintroduce and reinterpret these things. ...It just gets a little ridiculous when everything feels and looks like it came out of a Tolkien novel, just with shoddier writing and less meaning. But then again, I am really freakin' tired of the same old elves. Tolkien was original when he interpreted them that way. After the 100th person who transplanted them afterward, it gets a little grrrrr worthy.
People have to quit buying that stuff, then. The reason so much of that stereotypical fantasy is out there is that many publishers and authors think that is what Fantasy fans want. And they're probably right. Look at how much of the fantasy aisle at a Barnes and Noble is packed with Dungeons and Dragons game-related fiction, for example. The high-quality fantasy becomes hidden in the throngs of more generic fantasy books, but the more generic fantasy books sell.
In what way were Tolkien's elves original? It's been a while since I read Dunsany, but I remember his elves as being much like Tolkein's. I'm not knocking Tolkien, the scale and detail of the world he constructed were incredible (although his writing style drives me up the wall), but he casts such a huge shadow that it's easy to miss the foundations he built on.
Jesus is often referred to as a lion in the Bible - it's symbolism, that's all. The idea of war and battle isn't actually so bad as you think - it's a metaphor for the spiritual battles that Christians are often warned against. In the Bible, it is said that we, as children of God, are fighting against Satan and other spiritual forces and there's a very real spiritual battle going on. The apostle Paul says that we are to "put on the armour of God" - which includes the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness (I think it's righteousness), and there's belt and boots too, though I forget what they represent - and last but not least, there's the sword, which represents God's Word. It's the idea that we are to tolerate no evil - and when it comes to sin, evil and Satan (which the White Witch clearly represents), we are to kill it off without mercy, cut it all off. (The ruthlessness of this is quite clear, especially when Jesus says that if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, it is better to lose a hand than for you to be thrown into hell. This doesn't mean we are to physically cut off our hands, but it symbolises the severity of sin, and that it is better to cut something off completely - like when a drug addict is trying to recover from cocaine - to completely get rid of what causes you to sin) In light of that, the whole battle idea is actually quite ok. You just have to remember to look at it from the Christian perspective - you must remember what it is the White Witch is actually meant to represent, and therefore the attitude one should have towards it. And most of all, I suppose you just gotta remember that the whole thing is a symbol - none of it is really meant to be taken literally. CS Lewis is not encouraging a physical battle, but rather it portrays the spiritual battle that everyone's in.
I couldn't make it past the the Hobbit, to be honest. I mostly have just read about the stuff and skimmed important passages and features, depending on what I am researching. The length of descriptions kill me. As for Dunsany, I feel chagrined to say that as a fantasy lover I hadn't head of him. I know what I will be reading this weekend! But as for his elves, they do seem to have many points of similarity with Tolkien's, though since I haven't become familiar with Dunsany I can't say for sure. Nonetheless, Tolkien at the least popularized the current High Fantasy Elf Trope, because though Dunsany was popular in his time his works are not read nearly as widely as Tolkien's. And with Tolkien, since he DID give a widely realized world and gave the elves a fairly new spin, or at least borrowed a fairly new spin and made it work and blended into his world (as he did write it so the elves are a part of the world and have a fully realized identity and history, even if he borrowed heavily on the themes and general attitude). Really, my main complaint centers on the word 'transplanted'. I have yet to read a elf that is Tolkien-esque in nature that feels organic to the world and a product of the author's interpretation in modern literature. People simply seem to stick to the tropes and not seek to understand their creations in relation to the world they made, and many times to the itself is filled with tropes and not a interpretation by the author, but a copy of bits and pieces they find 'cool'. Of course, I am only talking about the majority of what I have seen. Mind, I work in a library so I am not talking about the general 'I go in to pick up a book I heard good reviews on', and I see many pulp books that many probably don't know even exist.
Except that in these sorts of novels, where you have some idea of absolute evil, it isn't treated that way. The fantasy worlds that are created do have absolutes, implicitly if not expressly, and operate in that framework. It would be a tremendous stretch, and indeed an absurdity in and of itself, to suggest that the way good and evil plays out in works like those of Lewis' Narnia books could be used to justify something like the 9/11 attacks.
I think that's generally the case. Religion is just a good way to get people to flock to your banner. It's not necessary for atrocity by any means. See Stalin, for example.
Pretty much. And look at the French Revolution, another prime example of just needing to stir people up for something that unites them. It can be anything.
Interesting. I'm not an expert on Lewis or his work by any means. I do have "Out of the Silent Planet" in my to-read stack. I think that even though good and evil tend to be absolutes in a lot of fantasy work, as you say here they are defined in individuals by actions. You wouldn't see Lewis' characters flying a plane full of innocent people who happened to be non-Aslan followers into a building.
Was that even aimed at me? If so, you couldn't possibly have misread my post any more. It makes no bloody sense as an answer to what I wrote.
I was talking about this quote. As we were talking about C.S. Lewis equipping the kids for war against the White Witch, who was a murderous Tyrant, it seemed to apply. If I misread what this qote was talking about, then my apologies. However, I made many other points as well, with that one being the smallest.
no but he did kill off a whole pile of them in a train crash in the Last Battle. Out of the Silent Planet (is that the name of the Mars Trilogy ?) is really good and worth a read. Also Great Divorce the journey through hell.
I think Tolkien had a "social construction" message that was two fold and it was about the day he lived rather than being speculative. There was the obvious dislike of industrialization and the opposite of the Nazi message that ubermen (strong and ruthless) are the heroes of life. They attempted to start their own religion with elf like beings as the origin of white people instead of the mideast idea of Adam and Eve. Tolkien shifted that to the Hobbits who were not very physicially fit little guys as heroes. From what I read, he denied that, but I don't believe it. On a side not, when I went to see the movies the audience who freak out when the elves showed up. I thought that was ironic.
I've read a couple of the Drizzt novels and they D&D, correct? Anyway, I laughed and almost didn't buy when I saw they had Hobbits called "Halflings" which seemed shameful to me. But, I guess on one hand it's a little sad. I suppose there's millions who wish Tolkein was immortal and still writing so these knockoffs are a kind of fan fiction and less of a ripoff. It doesn't really appeal to me though, but I believe in the power of entertainment to help people have fun, so I'm not putting it down.
