Book Fucking Talk
- Thread starter bryce0lynch
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Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
So, I've been reading The Fellowship of the Ring to my kid lately. It is interesting, I have probably read it a dozen times before, but having to consciously read every word has changed the book for me. I first read it when I was 10, and I think I tended to gloss over parts of it, and continued to do so on subsequent readings.
The travel sections are very long, and I can see that Tolkien had a similar interest in landscapes, and the impact of terrain on travel, that I have as an adult. Unlike me he never seems to have learned that consumers of the narrative (of novels or DM narration) may have less patience for it. In fact he seems to have moved in the other direction; I have also read the Hobbit aloud and I recall the terrain descriptions were vague enough to confuse the action.
Another thing that is happening is that the language surrounding the Nazgul, including the phrase "black riders", is leading to a lot of questions and side discussions in this post-BLM world. My kid is reacting strongly to phrases like hobbits talking about "that black fellow", and the nuance that it is actually the wraith of a white dude seems to be lost.
And then, while noticing that imagery that he perceives to be problematic even though it may not be (except to the extent that black is associated with evil, and then given as an appellation to a race), he does not notice more subtle turns of phrase that are actually more difficult. Like the description of the Southron man who visits Bill Ferney: "[H]e caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes ... [Frodo thought] 'He looks more than half like a goblin.'"
That imagery would have been common around the time Fellowship was published. Look at this depiction of a Japanese man from a contemporary Captain America comic. What is really interesting is when you compare it to this image of a goblin from the 3.5 Monster Manual. The imagery we absorb in our youth is so insidious, I doubt the artist in the latter case was even aware of what influenced him. Which I need to figure out how to deal with if I want my kid to get the good parts of LotR without absorbing the bad.
The travel sections are very long, and I can see that Tolkien had a similar interest in landscapes, and the impact of terrain on travel, that I have as an adult. Unlike me he never seems to have learned that consumers of the narrative (of novels or DM narration) may have less patience for it. In fact he seems to have moved in the other direction; I have also read the Hobbit aloud and I recall the terrain descriptions were vague enough to confuse the action.
Another thing that is happening is that the language surrounding the Nazgul, including the phrase "black riders", is leading to a lot of questions and side discussions in this post-BLM world. My kid is reacting strongly to phrases like hobbits talking about "that black fellow", and the nuance that it is actually the wraith of a white dude seems to be lost.
And then, while noticing that imagery that he perceives to be problematic even though it may not be (except to the extent that black is associated with evil, and then given as an appellation to a race), he does not notice more subtle turns of phrase that are actually more difficult. Like the description of the Southron man who visits Bill Ferney: "[H]e caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes ... [Frodo thought] 'He looks more than half like a goblin.'"
That imagery would have been common around the time Fellowship was published. Look at this depiction of a Japanese man from a contemporary Captain America comic. What is really interesting is when you compare it to this image of a goblin from the 3.5 Monster Manual. The imagery we absorb in our youth is so insidious, I doubt the artist in the latter case was even aware of what influenced him. Which I need to figure out how to deal with if I want my kid to get the good parts of LotR without absorbing the bad.
You can't be too careful with these things. My grandmother told me that Hitler got started by reading a single page of Oriental adventures. Before you knew it, bam! WW2. Hirohito was so angry when he saw a copy that he got Japan involved to stop the racism against his people. This was just after The Last Samurai had come out in cinema, so relations were already strained. The problem was that at the same time, all of Japan was playing DnD, and the entries in the MM got them all confused so they thought Chinese people were to blame and invaded Manchuria instead. Think of all the deaths that could have been prevented if Hitler and the Nazi high command had just played Apocalypse World! Thank
New recommends!
The Kalevala: The finnish epic that no one has ever heard of (except Ed Greenwood). Read the strange, poetic, oddly ambiguous adventures of the three great heroes of Finnish legend; Vaïnamoïnen the Old, Ilmarinen the Smith and Lemmikaïnen the asshole in their exploits centred around the Sampo, a magic mill that grinds both salt, gold and grain. Contains: All new mythological creatures that you have never heard of. Demon Oak Trees, Elks, Jack Frost, the forest gods Tapio and Mielikki and the Old Man in the Sky and his adversary, The Demon! Sojourn into mythic Darkland and beyond the shores of the Land of the Dead. Read of the tragic fate of Kullervo, the prototype for a generation of brooding fantasy villains, witness bizarre scenes where our heroes sing the world into being, fix marriage problems and all of this interspersed with common sense life advice from medieval Finland. Do all this with oddly repetitive synomic descriptions that add a dreamlike duality to the descriptions and you are in for a treat.
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki: Short but sweet. A series of interlinked tales concerning the exploits of the Danish line of Kraki and their feuds, marriages, betrayals, trials and dooms. Set somewhere in 5th century Denmark, history and legend are interwoven. Centaur deer children, evil sorceresses, evil dragons, were-bears and magic swords take place alongside marriage-tussling between Hrolf Kraki and the evil king Adil of Sweden. A grim, captivating, doom-haunted legend, a must for anyone who is into Vikings.
Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoejevski: Every once in a while the shores of Elfland lose their lustre and I am drawn to the wellspring of mundanity to peruse Literature with a Capitol L. "Brilliant, Insightful and Highly Readable" says some tossfiddler of the New York Times. I don't fucking know if Dostoejevski's almost autistic tendancy to describe every room and character alongside with his heavy handed use of internal monologues counts as 'highly readable' but it is a good book. Raskolnikov, driven by desperation and financial hardship, kills an old pawnbroker and an innocent witness and makes away with her money, which he never spends. A thoughtful meditation on guilt, the effect of crushing poverty, morality, vapid intellectual vanity and the drive behind criminal acts, framed as a series of captivating dialogues between beautifully nuanced characters.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury: A quintessentially american horror novel that served as the cradle from which entire careers were sprung that also ruined DnD. It feels like all of Stephen King and half of Neil Gaiman has been condensed into a single, immaculately written, poetic coming-of-age tour de force of the two young boys Jim Nightshade and William Holloway as they attempt to save their town from the sinister machinations of the enigmatic Mr. Dark and his Secret Pandemonium Shadow Show. I think this one might be the root of every evil Carnival Cliche that takes years off of Bryce's lifespan every time he runs into it and for good reason because its fucking awesome. Bradbury manages to inject the carnival with supernatural malice while maintaining . Thrill at the Maze of Mirrors, marvel at the Carousel that takes you forward or backward in time, shiver at such monstrosities as The Dust Witch, The Skeleton, Mr. Cooger and of course, Mr. Dark, the Illustrated Man himself. Pretty great.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I love this book. The Mr. Dark is the inspiration for a major villain in my campaign world (sans carnival). Can't wait until the players bump into him!
TerribleSorcery
Should be playing D&D instead
Based on the Finns I know, allow me a few guesses:
"You work, then you die."
"If you don't feel like drinking - drink until you do."
"Yeah, yeah. Get something done."
(one about ice fishing)
The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
And David Wingrove! I'm still trying to decide which stereotypes he's depicting most negatively in these Chung Kuo novels. Hurray, everybody loses!
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logruspattern
Guest
I don't think @Beoric 's comment was to be understood as a comment on the direct causality between the media we consume and the deeds we do. I understood it as recognizing that there are 'dick moves' in art and asking the question, "What do I make of it?" Using the cited passage as an example, do I decide to pass judgement on Frodo, Tolkien, both, or none? What do I think about it? Is it a teaching moment?
Hitler didn't need to read a recipe to become a degenerate fucking savage. That's just Europe. They've gone a mere 75 years with no continental war and all of a sudden they're patting themselves on the back thinking it's a fucking utopia.
I recently reread LotR in German. I remember the last time I read it was as a kid and I found it a drag. This time I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy the Fellowship and finished it quickly. Same with the first half of Two Towers. The second half of Two Towers took me months to finish. I like the travel scenes and how Tolkien handles it. Frodo bores the hell out of me though. Once I powered through that, the first half of Return picked up for me again. The second half of it, when it returns to Frodo and Sam, was thankfully less of a slog than their adventure in Two Towers.
Frodo is a one-dimensional pack animal. He's not necessarily a bad guy for hobbit gentry. But Sam's donkey probably could have carried the ring to Mordor with more stiff upper lip and less trouble. Sometimes Tolkien is able to depict Frodo's mental and physical torture via Ring so that I can pity him. But then Sam seems to shrug off the burden for the short time he carries it. He's tougher, more interesting and more likeable for me as well.
I like LoTR's deeds of arms and of distant allies coming to aid a friend in need at just the right moment. The monolithic evil of Sauron and his minions bores me. What's the motivation to be evil? What is his interest in the lands beyond Mordor? Greed and power don't strike me as plausible motivations for a supernatural evil.
Sam and Frodo's relationship annoys me too. I can no longer stomach the glorification of English class-based society. I can't understand why fantasy can't distance itself from that. It ruins an otherwise good story for me and has done so for years. I think it dawned on me when I started reading through my collection of Jane Austen novels. Love the writing. Good stories. Good humor. But after reading two JA novels back to back, I got sick of English gentry problems and haven't read the collection since. Same with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I read it and sent it right off to the used book store. I imagine Harry Potter has this problem? At the very least, the problem of a hero being born and not made. I'm skeptical of English writers for this reason, although others have these shortcomings. Edit: I would be remiss not to include American G. R. R. Martin and Game of Thrones in this. Even if he does strip the veneer off the gentry and royalty in his series. A medieval fantasy without European-style monarchy would be nice.
On that note my book recommendation for today would be the Scots Quair trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Damn fine books about a Scottish village before, during and after WWI. Beautiful writing, setting and characters.
On a different note, has anyone else read LotR in translation? Was the translator as literal as the German one was? It really threw me for a loop at first and I don't see what benefit it has for the reader. For example, 'Baggins' was translated as "(German word for 'bag') + in". 'Rivendell' was "broken + valley". I don't think Tolkien named these things with those English meanings in mind, but I don't know.
Edit 2: Grammar
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TerribleSorcery
Should be playing D&D instead
This Moorcock essay on the subject may be to your tastes then:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/engl.../bibliography/2.7moorcock_m.1978epic_pooh.pdf
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logruspattern
Guest
The essay is not my taste either. It takes Moorcock 13 pages to say what he really wants to say, which is, 'Fuck you.':
I prefer people to just come out and say or write 'Fuck you' if that's what you really mean. His argument is to quote a passages from authors he likes and dislikes and to 'compare' them by saying, "Look! This author writes objectively better!" Can an argument about likes and dislikes ever be anything other than subjective? Such an argument is more or less a pretense for ad hominem attacks; you attack someone's taste instead of them, but really you are saying the other person's taste is shit and he is also shit for liking what he does.
Then he ends the essay with the good old, "Everybody's getting dumber!" line. Of course the implication is that 'everyone' means 'everyone but me'. He forgot to mention the greatest, most original, most underappreciated writer of them all in his essay: Michael Moorcock. Or perhaps it was modesty on his part. An intelligent reader will note the glaring omission.
The essay seems like English academic ivory tower dick measuring to me. Don't let the hot ash in your pipe fall onto your cock while you're trying to decide to use the Imperial or metric side of the ruler, Michael.
I doubt I'll ever revisit LotR again in my life. I'll probably read the Hobbit because I enjoy it and it has less that annoys me than LotR. But since reading one and a half Elric novels as a kid and laying them aside, I have never seen a reason to read Moorcock.
"[...] our intellectual decline and our free-falling academic standards." This even more so than Tolkien embodies the gatekeeping and condescension of English class and society.
Two orcs
Officially better than you, according to PoN
Translation of The Lord of the Rings into Swedish - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Rivendell sounds like a severe place, which it is in the books, a final fortress of the elves. Vattnadal (water dale) sounds ethereal and serene, more like it's depicted in the movies.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I had always disliked Moorcock's work. I was planning on re-reading it soon, to give it another chance---to see if I could get past his sad, droopy, tragic faux-Hamlet characters that wear away at my patience for inaction.
...but this dude is bitter. Talk about "misanthropic"---he's the pot calling the kettle black.
Piss off, grumpy, old, bitter, Mr. Moorcock, you and your over-inflated ego too. Folks like this that raise themselves up by dumping on the simple pleasures of other---Phewy! Jealousy and Pride, thy name is Moorcock.
...but this dude is bitter. Talk about "misanthropic"---he's the pot calling the kettle black.
Guilty as charged. What of it?
Piss off, grumpy, old, bitter, Mr. Moorcock, you and your over-inflated ego too. Folks like this that raise themselves up by dumping on the simple pleasures of other---Phewy! Jealousy and Pride, thy name is Moorcock.
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This comment betrays an astonishing lack of historical literacy. If you knew anything you would know we live in an era of peace that is virtually unprecedented. If you are going to drop sweeping statements like that you should at least be bothered to read the thing you are lambasting. Also take in mind this is not a forum for political discussion, you can be flagrantly bigoted against Europeans on other forums and receive finger-snaps and you-go-gurls aplenty.
Why should motivations for human evil not extend to supernatural evil? Supernatural evil is one step closer to its source, its platonic exemplar. Supernatural motivations for evil and good should be more 'pure' in either direction, then their natural counterparts. Evil out of necessity or evil out of expediency, where ideal is compromised by the disorganization of the mundane world, is a thing for mortals. To have looked upon the blackened heart of original sin, to know defiance against order itself, to know ambition unfettered by mortal bound, that is the evil of the Supernatural.
I.e. Can I please have a medieval story without anything medieval in it? Class systems are not exclusive to england or europe, all feudal societies have incorporated them. Since fantasy is an emulation/evocation of the myths of the past it stands to reason that some shadow of our common body of legends should remain in them. If you want non-european fantasy, which I suspect is your true and more blatant motive, you silly self-loather you (I am cautiously pegging you as a German Humanities Graduate), you can always try something like Ursula Le Guin, Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, Viriconium or Zelazny, whom you have already read. Fuck, try Ricardo Pinto's Stone Dance of the Chameleon series. It has Gay in it!
And just when I thought we could never see eye to eye. Moorcock thinking he can criticize Tolkien is hilarious.
Why won't those stupid proles abandon Tolkien, which is comfort food, and realize THAT MOORCOCK'S WORK IS DEEP OKAY. I WRITE BROODY ALBINOS THAT ARE NOT LIKE YOUR REGULAR TROPES OKAY? HAVE YOU EVEN READ KULLERVO? DEEP. ANARCHY! It's just that people are afraid etc. etc. etc.
Very often literally that. The analogy becomes much more transparent if you read the Silmarillion. Morgoth is Lucifer.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Yes (was aware of that), but in an even more general sense --- how to role play semi-"rational" villians in D&D, it is less unsettling to think of exaggerated Pride and a "War against God's Universe" than it is to consider just an unrestrained wallowing in the baser sins (lust, gluttony, etc.). The latter makes for a very gritty/gross "adult" game, whereas the former just provides motive for megalomaniacs and G-rated cosmic atrocities.
There was a sort of 90s animu trend of having villains with complicated or even altruistic motives that required horrific atrocities to see the through that can be played every once in a while as counterpoint but in general, lust for power is a credible and realistic motivation at any tier. The motivations of realistic villains are often not complex. Like us they have impulses to do bad things, but unlike us they act on those impulses. It can be interesting to look at a conflict in a morally neutral fashion and to portray your opponent as essentially moral but with opposing goals in the napoleonic fashion (again, see animu or even the odd legend) but there must be a reason, other then hatred of Tolkien, to motivate such a decision.
I recall apologetic fantasy novels like Carey's Banewreaker + Godslayer that did Lotr with moral grey but the end result is much weaker then the thing it is riffing off. It is comforting to think that all villains have an intelligable motive and are not bad people but the true face of evil is beyond negotiation and beyond simple economy. I think the best portrayal in series might have been the Skeksis in the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. There is a point where the Al'Maudra (a sort of Queen) confronts the Skeksis, who she thinks are their benevolent saviors, with the news that there are rumors that they drain her people for immortality and they just tell her that its true. She tries to negotiate with them, to offer them the lives of 7 of her people every year in exchange for peace, and they just mock her for her lack of principles and laugh at her. Its a brutal scene (as far as puppets go) that stuck with me for the cruelty and depravity with which evil is portrayed. Very good show.
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logruspattern
Guest
Maybe. It also wasn't meant to be an example of it.
Nor is that why I joined this forum. You also made that clear in the 5e thread. Yet despite many more words devoted to clearly non-political opinion and critique, the remark construed as political received the laser focus from posters. Even though it was simply an aside for me and just one more thing to critique about the edition. It was not for the purpose of making a political point.
The 'politics' firewall also failed to prevent Beoric's post above and your reply to it. I know why you are choosing to enforce the rule in regards to my comment but it is still a selective application of the rule.
There are interesting posts at this forum, hence why I decided to give it a try. There are also some things I've read that I am less than enthusiastic about. I'm not just referring to this page in this particular thread.
I have no interest in discussing politics here (or anywhere online) or in causing a stir in your clubhouse. I have no interest in arguing about anything here. But I no longer agree to abide by the explicit as well as the implicit terms of service. I know this means I need to bow out. I'm not laboring under the delusion that this will be a matter of import for any of us.
I'm posting this reply and then I'll submit my request for deletion of my account and personal information for this forum.
DangerousPuhson
Should be playing D&D instead
Yet another forum member disenfranchised by overly-nitpicked details, needless fixation on asides, and the fundamental misinterpretation of their core message.
Sorry to see you leave, logrus.
You must do as you see fit. Since you have not committed any bannable offence you are welcome to rejoin in the future should you decide to change your mind.
EDIT: I shall carry your name that it may not be forgotten.
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