It's hard not to be swept up in the enthusiasm for The Hobbit. I mean the movie, rather than all the GW products, which (as with the LoTR) leave me soundly unmoved. As I'm reading Michael Moorcock's rollicking epic fantasy series The History of The Runestaff at the moment I remembered that he'd written something wonderfully damning on Tolkien - it is, of course, his excellent essay Epic Pooh. (The link takes you to an up-dated version).
This collided with another recent ponderance of mine that I've never - never - successfully re-watched the LoTRs movies. My only attempt, with the fattened version of The Fellowship... ended about half way through. It's actually rather dull and un-compelling (aside from the fact that they could've just flown to the end of the third book, blah, blah, blah).
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| Don't leave the Shire because all experience beyond is dangerous. And everyone you meet will be a thinly veiled racial stereotype. |
If you've never read Moorcock's essay then I urge you to now. Some highlights include:
On Tolkien and 'merrie England':
On 'the Shire':
On the strangely undeveloped sense of what 'evil' is:
And a broadside on crappy mainstream sf and fantasy:
On Tolkien and 'merrie England':
"Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven't got the approval yet to put a new one in."
On 'the Shire':
"The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are "safe", but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are "dangerous". Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference."
On the strangely undeveloped sense of what 'evil' is:
"After all, anyone who hates hobbits can't be all bad."
And a broadside on crappy mainstream sf and fantasy:
"If the bulk of American sf could be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits."