Or 'presents,' actually--there have been a few of them, and we expect more, not to mention the fictional ones
Some discussion has occurred lately concerning the nature of magic, its limitations, and its history, in fantasy literature--old and new (and perhaps yet to be created):
http://doomthatcame.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/places-of-power/
Some have suggested (in the comments section to the blog above) that: " If you want to have the fantasy universe bear a strong resemblance to
the real pre-industrial Earth, that requires that the available magic be
sharply limited" (Doom goes on to explain that this leads him to write magic as a clandestine activity, with problems of associated sinisterness).
I think there are other ways of viewing magic, in literature we read and that we create, and that perhaps some of the other angles have actually been more successful. Specifically, I think another way of approaching the limitations in magic is to adopt the medieval (pagan) way of viewing such things: we have all sorts of legends, and many phenomena which are outside human control, yet the present day we see around us is rather clearly devoid of obvious magic. Combining that with their creation and other myths, it becomes natural to write as if many magical elements have passed out of the world or become more secret, replaced by a more prosaic age of man, with magical knowledge lost as well. Yet, there's a sense among those who put their thoughts down on paper that, especially as you travel farther back in time, and get into times which are part-legend and part-history, you're more likely to credit (and write down) perfectly reasonable assertions such as that Egil Skallagrimsson, the ninth century viking, came from a family who were werewolves or berserks on one side (it's not clear to what extent those two concepts overlapped in Germanic lore and custom; there is evidence of both for Egil's grandfather, and Berserk means 'bear shirt,' but the historical memory of them by 1200 [i.e. the age of sagas] seems to be rather dim). Another (huge) man who features early in that story--his name is Bjorgolf, and he's a northern local lord in Norway--has 'hill-giant blood' in his family. All this, including a later companion of Egil's, strong and doughty, of whom it's said 'people were of two minds over whether he was a shape-changer' comes from a text probably written just after 1200, but it's clear from other texts that Norwegians and Icelanders widely regarded a certain queen Gunnhild, wife of Eirik Bloodaxe (son of Harald Fine-hair) to have been skilled in witchcraft.
As for wizards, there's a sense in 'Egil's Saga' (obviously the one I've looked into most recently) of knowledge fading; an attempt at love-runes succeeds only in making its target ill, until the story's hero destroys them and makes a new set of runes. It's even suggested that Eirik was driven out of Norway by his brother Hakon due to a rune-stick planted against him by Egil (after King Eirik refused to give Egil justice in a legal matter), though it's deliberately left ambiguous whether there's any causality there.
If you take this idea to its logical extension, and assume that this Saga, like 'Sagas of Norwegian Kings' (which includes important legendary and mythic material at the beginning, some of it translated from myth into quasi-mortal legend) and 'The Prose Edda,' were all indeed 'put together' by Snorri Sturluson, then one can see a pretty clear line from a Cosmogony and age of As and other gods, and great works of creation, down through an age of (more active) gods and giants and a Midgard (i.e. our world) filled with heroes, wizards, and artifacts like the sword gram ('angry'), sharp enough to cut out a dragon's heart or slice apart a piece of willow fluff floating downstream toward its edge (and whose poetic material and brilliant 'Volsunga Saga' may be based on distant, 5th century Burgundian (a German tribe) characters...to the more proximate age of vikings (say, Egil's ninth century), when some magic was still remembered, a troll still found in the mountains here and there and Berserks (who may have been warriors who either used drugs or animal-god rituals to whip themselves into a frenzy fearful in battle, or else have had some other connection to bear and wolf spirits or gods--though I'd add Kveldulf's ['evening wolf') example of falling weak and ill after a battle, a phenomenon makes clear was known among Berserks, may suggest some sort of drug hangover in the days after a battle--still surrounded Norway's founding king, even if the texts no longer seem to remember quite what they were, and the occasional troll can still be found hiding up in the hills.
...And from there down to the present day, i.e. the 'present' of 1150 or 1250, when the sagas were written, or else the 'present' of a fantasy world with echoes of more powerful or active gods and sages in previous days. People might still go to an old woman for runes bearing Othin's wisdom (and, crucially, his name and deeds), but Christianity was otherwise central to the culture, and everyone could look around them and tell that if magic really had once been so pervasive as it was in the age of Sigurd, or Egil, or Woland--or Cuchulainn and Conall Cernach and Oisin; or Rama and Lakshman (and Hanuman); or Moses--then it had rather clearly faded. The Christian priest had control of the society's most important mystic powers (including over your soul), and no one quite seemed to know if Maponos had originally been a great hero...or the Sun God himself.
The main problem with this viewpoint, of course, this way of rendering and dealing with magic, is that our friend JRR has beaten this horse half to death in his latter work, 'The Lord of the Rings,' so filled with echoes of a past so much greater (why didn't he just write about that, if it was so much more goddamn magical? huh?). And writers influenced by him have since then beaten the horse another quarter of the way to oblivion. So one does need to be careful.
For an alternative, authored by the most influential fantasy author of the first half of the 20th century ('The Hobbit' may have been published before the war, but its influence wasn't felt until at least the 1950s), and quite possibly of the whole thing (hint: probably no Tolkien without him), I put forth 'The King of Elfland's Daughter':
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780345431912-10
It's Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany's almost-masterwork, and its influence is clear in the writing of Michael Moorcock, among many others. And whoever buys this copy gets to support the world's greatest bookstore, which is a positive good to humanity (and which has a truly impressive selection of old and new books at reasonable prices). As for the plot?: 'we would be ruled by a magic lord' (further hint: be careful what you wish for...).
(PS - I'm sure Amazon has copies, too. Just search for 'elfland's daughter')
I have to go write some pages of my own, now, which, not coincidentally, include my own version of a search for magic. So Happy Easter (named for Eoster, presumed to be a West-Germanic fertility goddess, probably associated with the dawn. And bunnies, obviously) for 2013 (or whenever you're reading this), everyone.
-Randall (Anglosaxon for 'noble wolf')
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Penultimate comments on Realism and 'grimdark' in Fantasy (I hope)
In writing my brother, I realized I had some further thoughts on this several-year-old conflict--whether grim realism (some say an overwrought version thereof) is truly a necessary development in 'realising' the fantasy genre, or simply an exercise in increasing titillation of readers. I thought I'd put some version down here:
In a break from the fantasy and acting worlds, I read an article today about the AWP conference (which was in Boston last weekend. I went in 2011, in DC; and ended up with a lot of notes for 'literary' writers and agents I've never used, but may some day, I guess.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112633/awp-conference-2013-writing-boom-time-declining-readers
I also read a lot of blogs about the whole 'realism/grimdark' controversy that apparently is consuming the modern fantasy world. Having examined the matter pretty fully, I'm sort of pleased to find myself...not all that concerned about it. Yes, it was good Martin and others exploded certain restrictions, and made a gritty and bloody version of the medievalized genre that involved 'Knights Who say Fuck' and more sexuality--not that, say, Robert E. Howard hadn't done a lot of that circa 1930, or that it's not good to have Tolkien doing his distinct thing wherein he celebrates an (occasionally somewhat boring and underdeveloped) English/Germanic version of chin-up, morally uncomplicated, energetic heroism--though I don't generally find Tolkien's excursions into mediocre poetry in LoTR very compelling (he simply was a poorer poet than his model, William Morris, whose poetry actually makes sense and adds to scenes in context), nor do I care for Tolkien's digressions where briefly pretends he's writing a Germanic epic of some sort, bringing clashes in idiom, values and verse into the prose. But then, I would think that, seeing as I'm a lover of the craft of the novel, and all that highly developed narrative realism and its variations since the late nineteenth century can bring us.
In any case, what surprises me about the whole controversy is how little impressed I am by the whole thing, and how little it seems relevant to me as a writer, now--which isn't to say that bloggers on both sides haven't made good points (especially, surprisingly, those writing against the bloodiest grimdark--but then, the bloodiest stuff does seem to have gotten rather carried away and absorbed with itself, so they may just be right on that score)....
In any case, I guess what I'm saying is that I've read enough of Bakker to know that Herbert + Tolkien + generic cynicism about religious movements and a bit of pretentiously inserted 'chaos theory' adds up to nothing of interest, if all we have of content is 200 pages of worldbuilding and sixty pages of (rather depressing) plotting, diluted within 1000 chock-filled pages of grit, incestuous detail among ruling dynasties, and demon-rape--most of which I think I can get more easily switching back and forth between Robert E. Howard, Kane of Old Mars, and Hentai (though I admit I've never tried, and I'd miss the overblown sense of self-importance that powers Bakker through his very long books). However, this Joe Abercrombie fellow may have something to say, particularly later in his career, when it seems he's learned to develop his characters better. In any case, no concerns of the controversy seem to directly affect how I write. I'll insert exactly as much violence and sex as seems appropriate and useful for a given story, without regard to any abstract concerns about whether any new ground needs to broken (or avoided) regarding a genre previously censored of the realism of the dark side of human society. Cause others have clearly taken care of that for me, with all their 'realist' subjects, and just nasty ones: you know, rape, death, chevauchee-warfare.
If anything, I will say that it seems that too much has been done to make the genre 'adult' over the past few years (though I will say that Tolkien's apologists in this debate do occasionally come off as a bit dim about the way Tolkien pulled punches regarding violence or the brutality of decisions in wartime, missing the point of how pragmatic and brutal the reality can be, and how Tolkien sometimes elided such details in his narratives--nevertheless, Tolkien's dualistic view of the world is not completely complicated on his part, and it's part of what makes his books interesting and memorable. The fact that he did it rather better in 'The Hobbit's 'The Battle of Five Armies' and its aftermath than in LoTR is also perhaps worth noting.... However, overall, I'm willing to give Tolkien a pass on his portrayal of war and its ethics. My understanding is that he was present at one or two of the great battles of The Great War, and that's enough education for any intelligent man to inform about how he's going to address warfare on the page, education that, say, Richard Morgan, does not appear to share (and which let's face it: which of those two has the taste forviolence on the page realism?). Morgan also claimed memorably to have rewritten an equivalent of Denethor with 'a battle-axe in his hand,'
if I remember correctly, which is a substantively foolish claim, considering
that the original Denethor makes a big deal not only of subsisting on war rations himself, but appears to wear weapons at all times, send his own son to near-certain death in battle, and also makes the stupid claim that he sleeps in his mail armor! Which...I
may be biased, as a life-long insomniac, but I suspect is nearly
impossible thing to do, and certainly a very silly one for any sort of medievalist (TOLKIEN) to suggest. Anyone who's worn the stuff for five minutes
knows this. Ring mail is HARD and HEAVY and STIFF, even if you're wearing the appropriate padding beneath. Considering the relative pointlessness of wearing the stuff in bed, instead of, you know, posting guards--unless your goal is to be too sleepy to manage the war during the day, I suspect all you'll succeed in doing is smelling a little foul and rusty(which, in fairness, medieval people probably did quite a lot).
In summary, Denethor is already an absurdly militaristic warlord, who orders a foolishly aggressive military action and who just happens to be very old and rules as a general, not a captain in the field.
In a break from the fantasy and acting worlds, I read an article today about the AWP conference (which was in Boston last weekend. I went in 2011, in DC; and ended up with a lot of notes for 'literary' writers and agents I've never used, but may some day, I guess.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112633/awp-conference-2013-writing-boom-time-declining-readers
I also read a lot of blogs about the whole 'realism/grimdark' controversy that apparently is consuming the modern fantasy world. Having examined the matter pretty fully, I'm sort of pleased to find myself...not all that concerned about it. Yes, it was good Martin and others exploded certain restrictions, and made a gritty and bloody version of the medievalized genre that involved 'Knights Who say Fuck' and more sexuality--not that, say, Robert E. Howard hadn't done a lot of that circa 1930, or that it's not good to have Tolkien doing his distinct thing wherein he celebrates an (occasionally somewhat boring and underdeveloped) English/Germanic version of chin-up, morally uncomplicated, energetic heroism--though I don't generally find Tolkien's excursions into mediocre poetry in LoTR very compelling (he simply was a poorer poet than his model, William Morris, whose poetry actually makes sense and adds to scenes in context), nor do I care for Tolkien's digressions where briefly pretends he's writing a Germanic epic of some sort, bringing clashes in idiom, values and verse into the prose. But then, I would think that, seeing as I'm a lover of the craft of the novel, and all that highly developed narrative realism and its variations since the late nineteenth century can bring us.
In any case, what surprises me about the whole controversy is how little impressed I am by the whole thing, and how little it seems relevant to me as a writer, now--which isn't to say that bloggers on both sides haven't made good points (especially, surprisingly, those writing against the bloodiest grimdark--but then, the bloodiest stuff does seem to have gotten rather carried away and absorbed with itself, so they may just be right on that score)....
In any case, I guess what I'm saying is that I've read enough of Bakker to know that Herbert + Tolkien + generic cynicism about religious movements and a bit of pretentiously inserted 'chaos theory' adds up to nothing of interest, if all we have of content is 200 pages of worldbuilding and sixty pages of (rather depressing) plotting, diluted within 1000 chock-filled pages of grit, incestuous detail among ruling dynasties, and demon-rape--most of which I think I can get more easily switching back and forth between Robert E. Howard, Kane of Old Mars, and Hentai (though I admit I've never tried, and I'd miss the overblown sense of self-importance that powers Bakker through his very long books). However, this Joe Abercrombie fellow may have something to say, particularly later in his career, when it seems he's learned to develop his characters better. In any case, no concerns of the controversy seem to directly affect how I write. I'll insert exactly as much violence and sex as seems appropriate and useful for a given story, without regard to any abstract concerns about whether any new ground needs to broken (or avoided) regarding a genre previously censored of the realism of the dark side of human society. Cause others have clearly taken care of that for me, with all their 'realist' subjects, and just nasty ones: you know, rape, death, chevauchee-warfare.
If anything, I will say that it seems that too much has been done to make the genre 'adult' over the past few years (though I will say that Tolkien's apologists in this debate do occasionally come off as a bit dim about the way Tolkien pulled punches regarding violence or the brutality of decisions in wartime, missing the point of how pragmatic and brutal the reality can be, and how Tolkien sometimes elided such details in his narratives--nevertheless, Tolkien's dualistic view of the world is not completely complicated on his part, and it's part of what makes his books interesting and memorable. The fact that he did it rather better in 'The Hobbit's 'The Battle of Five Armies' and its aftermath than in LoTR is also perhaps worth noting.... However, overall, I'm willing to give Tolkien a pass on his portrayal of war and its ethics. My understanding is that he was present at one or two of the great battles of The Great War, and that's enough education for any intelligent man to inform about how he's going to address warfare on the page, education that, say, Richard Morgan, does not appear to share (and which let's face it: which of those two has the taste for
In summary, Denethor is already an absurdly militaristic warlord, who orders a foolishly aggressive military action and who just happens to be very old and rules as a general, not a captain in the field.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Warwick Davis: 'Who's the Peck Now!'
An interview for the new blu-ray of the always-interesting title-actor (and agent for British short actors) of the children's 1980s Ron Howard live-action fantasy classic 'Willow:' Warwick Davis-
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/this-week-dvd-blu-ray/warwick-davis-talks-willow-film-legacy-belly-tattoo-200435187.html
Fair warning: 'Willow' was definitively not a 'grimdark' film (which genre the last few posts have been concerned with), though it knew how to use death as an emotional weapon, and had a memorable section where a dying (and losing) war-leader literally spits into the face of his skull-helmed opponent in defiance, before the sword is twisted further. The same character told an old friend of his (who had evidently shown himself disloyal in the past), found in a compromised situation betraying impending death, to 'sit in your coffin and rot.' So keep in mind that 'grimdark' elements are not a completely new innovation, even in the relatively tame literature and film of human children. After all, were it not for the existence of 'The Princess Bride,' 'Willow' would probably be remembered as the great children's fantasy film of the 1980s (though I think it's failure to build on Phil Tippet's 'go-motion' (for the earlier 'Dragonslayer') for its own dragon-beast is an unfortunate missed opportunity in the fantasy special effects history--1988 was the perfect moment to develop such a technology, before computers were being stretched to do (fairly poor) jobs on such effects, but an era in which physical effects had developed, in films like the Star Wars and Indian Jones trilogies far beyond their previous capacaties. In fairness, though, this film does feature the first example of CG morphing anywhere, it's just a little sad that they didn't spend the time to make an effective model-and-motion-based giant fantasy beast that would've been impressive to audiences and a beautiful success to compare with the dinosaurs of five years' later's 'Jurassic Park' (which, today, look a bit dated).
In any case, my respect for the irrepressible Warwick Davis knows know bounds--or at least only the same bounds as those that contain the brilliant and much-underused Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who after a few iconic speculative fiction roles in the mid 80s, strangely got relegated to b-movie status. Humans. In any case, it looks like there'll be more use of Mr. Davis as Jawas, Yoda flash-backs, and ewoks and what-not in the new 'Star Wars' films, however they turn out, quality-wise. So that'll be something I'll be happy to see again.
-CB the undying
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/this-week-dvd-blu-ray/warwick-davis-talks-willow-film-legacy-belly-tattoo-200435187.html
Fair warning: 'Willow' was definitively not a 'grimdark' film (which genre the last few posts have been concerned with), though it knew how to use death as an emotional weapon, and had a memorable section where a dying (and losing) war-leader literally spits into the face of his skull-helmed opponent in defiance, before the sword is twisted further. The same character told an old friend of his (who had evidently shown himself disloyal in the past), found in a compromised situation betraying impending death, to 'sit in your coffin and rot.' So keep in mind that 'grimdark' elements are not a completely new innovation, even in the relatively tame literature and film of human children. After all, were it not for the existence of 'The Princess Bride,' 'Willow' would probably be remembered as the great children's fantasy film of the 1980s (though I think it's failure to build on Phil Tippet's 'go-motion' (for the earlier 'Dragonslayer') for its own dragon-beast is an unfortunate missed opportunity in the fantasy special effects history--1988 was the perfect moment to develop such a technology, before computers were being stretched to do (fairly poor) jobs on such effects, but an era in which physical effects had developed, in films like the Star Wars and Indian Jones trilogies far beyond their previous capacaties. In fairness, though, this film does feature the first example of CG morphing anywhere, it's just a little sad that they didn't spend the time to make an effective model-and-motion-based giant fantasy beast that would've been impressive to audiences and a beautiful success to compare with the dinosaurs of five years' later's 'Jurassic Park' (which, today, look a bit dated).
In any case, my respect for the irrepressible Warwick Davis knows know bounds--or at least only the same bounds as those that contain the brilliant and much-underused Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who after a few iconic speculative fiction roles in the mid 80s, strangely got relegated to b-movie status. Humans. In any case, it looks like there'll be more use of Mr. Davis as Jawas, Yoda flash-backs, and ewoks and what-not in the new 'Star Wars' films, however they turn out, quality-wise. So that'll be something I'll be happy to see again.
-CB the undying
In response to Joe Abercrombie on the benefits of 'grit' in fantasy
From the previously linked posts:
"George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, surely the gold standard of gritty epic fantasy, is also rapidly becoming the most successful epic fantasy of this era, and he its definitive living writer. There are still plenty of writers and publishers very successfully putting out more traditional stuff if you really need another righteous hero endlessly prevailing against the odds.
...So, yeah, shitty gritty books are no better than shitty shiny books. But I proudly and unapologetically assert that there’s a great deal more to grit than a capacity to shock and titillate. Although I must equally proudly and unapologetically assert that I do sometimes quite enjoy being shocked and titillated."
(UPDATED: Another link, this one something of a polemic against 'splatter fantasy,' though I enjoy his calling out of Terry Goodkind for 'pornographic [&S&M] fantasy'http://bondwine.com/2013/01/28/a-song-of-gore-and-slaughter/)
I'm going to cut through the false dichotomy fallacy in Abecrombie's assertion of a choice between the 'shitty-gritty' and 'more traditional stuff' about 'another righteous hero endlessly prevailing' (obviously, good fantasy need be neither that nor gritty the gritty stuff some have a problem with, and presumably, Abercrombie is aware of such work himself if he glances at the trade magazine now and then), and note that Martin is certainly not the genre's 'definitive living writer.' Not after writing volumes four and five of his series--books characterized by a) the continued unnecessary slaughter of characters, b) the unnecessary introduction of new plotlines because Martin evidently can't stand to finish his book, and so complicates further, and c) really mostly nothing at all happening for nine-hundred or so pages each. The TV series is going to be in serious shit when it comes time to do a season for them, which I suspect is part of the reason they've split the third book in two, to buy themselves time.
Beyond that, yes, Abercrombie argues effectively that grit can add depth and realism, beyond shocking and titillating--he does not, however, contradict the observation that the 'shocking and titillating' part of grimdark is a phenomenon of diminishing returns unless one keeps increasing the level of violence/titillation, nor does he provide much, in that section of his argument, to justify grimdark by its own lights other than essentially noting that it can be fun, fun, which, unfortunately applies to a lot of bad things, and which (am I really the one forced to make the prudish argument, here?) can be problematic when measured against the potential social cost of the dissemination of continually increasing quantities and graphic of rape and murder (especially when, as with R. Scott Bakker, though not Abercrombie himself, to his credit, everything besides the demon-rapes is ungodly boring and also a straight rip-off of either Tolkien or 'Dune'). So congrats to Abercrombie for his intellectual honesty, here and elsewhere, but his argument that this type of writer are doing the best of work is not, in all cases, a particularly tight one: it should be noted that: 'I like being titillated' doesn't necessarily quite have the rhetorical consequence or throughput to get you to 'these are good books, worth the writing and the reading.' For that you have to measure the rest of his argument carefully, and think how well the bits about realism, thematic and character development apply to the human mind and world, and to the material currently being produced (hint: even the demon rape scene in R. Scott Bakker, which I desperately wanted to enjoy, considering how much effort I was putting into paying attention to the damned thousand page Dune-God-Emperor-of-Dune-LOTR rehash, was fairly boring and possibly out of place. Oops, spoiler; don't worry, Bakker is clearly a talented guy but his time is clearly better spent elsewhere, possibly in the field of fantasy criticism or editing or in hand-illustrating editions of 'Dune' for collectors who want each page illustrated with the David Llynch version of the characters).
For what it's worth, I have always been a supporter of some level of grittiness beyond that found in Lewis, Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander being included in fantasy lit (and believe the novel as a form climaxed, if anywhere, with late nineteenth-century gritty realism rather than the silliness that followed), so I do not consider myself particularly in opposition to Abercrombie's overall position (though his position is much more developed and perhaps darker than mine).
I also wonder....Abercrombie states in his post that he dislikes high-falutin old-timey language. Does this mean he also dislikes the flabby, Anglo-saxon-influenced prose (and mildly ghastly poetry) of good old JRR, too? For what it's worth, I think a position at least as regards Tolkien's later works, would be both consistent and legitimate ('The Hobbit's' language is lighter and more targeted to its audience, and the poetry probably better and more selectively and effectively deployed)
I'll close with the moneyquote from Tom Simon, above (which predates the latest and most extreme development in grimdark fantasy): 'We need to recognize that splatterporn is a beast that will devour our souls if we let it; and we need to stop feeding the beast, and instead feed our souls on something that will sustain them. We shall need such sustenance in an age where the obsessive description of acts of despicable evil is routinely mistaken for art.'
As applied to George R. R. Martin, at least the first three volumes, I'm going to call this inaccurate hyperbole. But is there something to it, after all, especially as Westeros darkens and Terry Goodkind churns out the same warmed over S&M porn horror dressed up with wizards, not to mention these newfangled authors, Morgan, Erickson, Abercrombie (who some say improves as a writer as he's aged)?
"George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, surely the gold standard of gritty epic fantasy, is also rapidly becoming the most successful epic fantasy of this era, and he its definitive living writer. There are still plenty of writers and publishers very successfully putting out more traditional stuff if you really need another righteous hero endlessly prevailing against the odds.
...So, yeah, shitty gritty books are no better than shitty shiny books. But I proudly and unapologetically assert that there’s a great deal more to grit than a capacity to shock and titillate. Although I must equally proudly and unapologetically assert that I do sometimes quite enjoy being shocked and titillated."
(UPDATED: Another link, this one something of a polemic against 'splatter fantasy,' though I enjoy his calling out of Terry Goodkind for 'pornographic [&S&M] fantasy'http://bondwine.com/2013/01/28/a-song-of-gore-and-slaughter/)
I'm going to cut through the false dichotomy fallacy in Abecrombie's assertion of a choice between the 'shitty-gritty' and 'more traditional stuff' about 'another righteous hero endlessly prevailing' (obviously, good fantasy need be neither that nor gritty the gritty stuff some have a problem with, and presumably, Abercrombie is aware of such work himself if he glances at the trade magazine now and then), and note that Martin is certainly not the genre's 'definitive living writer.' Not after writing volumes four and five of his series--books characterized by a) the continued unnecessary slaughter of characters, b) the unnecessary introduction of new plotlines because Martin evidently can't stand to finish his book, and so complicates further, and c) really mostly nothing at all happening for nine-hundred or so pages each. The TV series is going to be in serious shit when it comes time to do a season for them, which I suspect is part of the reason they've split the third book in two, to buy themselves time.
Beyond that, yes, Abercrombie argues effectively that grit can add depth and realism, beyond shocking and titillating--he does not, however, contradict the observation that the 'shocking and titillating' part of grimdark is a phenomenon of diminishing returns unless one keeps increasing the level of violence/titillation, nor does he provide much, in that section of his argument, to justify grimdark by its own lights other than essentially noting that it can be fun, fun, which, unfortunately applies to a lot of bad things, and which (am I really the one forced to make the prudish argument, here?) can be problematic when measured against the potential social cost of the dissemination of continually increasing quantities and graphic of rape and murder (especially when, as with R. Scott Bakker, though not Abercrombie himself, to his credit, everything besides the demon-rapes is ungodly boring and also a straight rip-off of either Tolkien or 'Dune'). So congrats to Abercrombie for his intellectual honesty, here and elsewhere, but his argument that this type of writer are doing the best of work is not, in all cases, a particularly tight one: it should be noted that: 'I like being titillated' doesn't necessarily quite have the rhetorical consequence or throughput to get you to 'these are good books, worth the writing and the reading.' For that you have to measure the rest of his argument carefully, and think how well the bits about realism, thematic and character development apply to the human mind and world, and to the material currently being produced (hint: even the demon rape scene in R. Scott Bakker, which I desperately wanted to enjoy, considering how much effort I was putting into paying attention to the damned thousand page Dune-God-Emperor-of-Dune-LOTR rehash, was fairly boring and possibly out of place. Oops, spoiler; don't worry, Bakker is clearly a talented guy but his time is clearly better spent elsewhere, possibly in the field of fantasy criticism or editing or in hand-illustrating editions of 'Dune' for collectors who want each page illustrated with the David Llynch version of the characters).
For what it's worth, I have always been a supporter of some level of grittiness beyond that found in Lewis, Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander being included in fantasy lit (and believe the novel as a form climaxed, if anywhere, with late nineteenth-century gritty realism rather than the silliness that followed), so I do not consider myself particularly in opposition to Abercrombie's overall position (though his position is much more developed and perhaps darker than mine).
I also wonder....Abercrombie states in his post that he dislikes high-falutin old-timey language. Does this mean he also dislikes the flabby, Anglo-saxon-influenced prose (and mildly ghastly poetry) of good old JRR, too? For what it's worth, I think a position at least as regards Tolkien's later works, would be both consistent and legitimate ('The Hobbit's' language is lighter and more targeted to its audience, and the poetry probably better and more selectively and effectively deployed)
I'll close with the moneyquote from Tom Simon, above (which predates the latest and most extreme development in grimdark fantasy): 'We need to recognize that splatterporn is a beast that will devour our souls if we let it; and we need to stop feeding the beast, and instead feed our souls on something that will sustain them. We shall need such sustenance in an age where the obsessive description of acts of despicable evil is routinely mistaken for art.'
As applied to George R. R. Martin, at least the first three volumes, I'm going to call this inaccurate hyperbole. But is there something to it, after all, especially as Westeros darkens and Terry Goodkind churns out the same warmed over S&M porn horror dressed up with wizards, not to mention these newfangled authors, Morgan, Erickson, Abercrombie (who some say improves as a writer as he's aged)?
Gritty Realism, 'Grimdark' & the development of fantasy, good or bad?
Diapadion linked me to this response to the previously linked rant against some of the fantasy genre's (sexist, racist) excesses. I haven't read it completely, yet, and to some extent it seems to be a response to the previous critique, but so far it's reintroduced me to the idea that post 1990 'gritty realism' in fantasy is not necessarily a good thing that lends itself to social criticism and a more accurate reflection of reality. The discussion seems to still be in progress:
http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/02/25/the-value-of-grit/
"Grimdark is a phrase I’m hearing quite a lot, which seems by definition to be pejorative – excessively and unnecessarily dark, cynical, violent, brutal without purpose and beyond the point of ridiculousness. There’s often what seems to me a slightly weird double standard applied of, ‘I find this thoroughly horrible and disgusting therefore the author must have intended me to be titillated and entertained!’"
Hmm. I'd welcome any further commentary here, including on the treatment of women and races in the previous linked post (I've always found it a bit odd that Tolkien, in particular, got away in a recently post-Nazi age in writing of a beautiful high civilization of the medieval type, currently fading away for lack of genetic purity and characterized by very white men who have genetically distinctive grey eyes (and tend to sport 5 day shaves all the time, according to Peter Jackson's version. I think they must carry around those clippers, with the 4/16" shield and pouches full of AAA batteries, since I'm assuming the watchtower of Amon Sul, even back in the day, didn't have 110v power).
But I digress. So, yeah, 'grimdark.' More of a problem than a benefit to the genre? The debate has raged several years, now, it seems.
Question: is there a way George Martin's books are not equivalent to the development of 'gritty' Realist technique that still dominates English-language fiction writing to a significant extent, the art-house market partially aside, in the separate genre of 'fantasy' that developed from multiple sources but took something like its modern form around the 1980s with imitators of Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lloyd Alexander? Is Martin different from David Eddings, who began inserting realistic prose and modernish characters and describing women below the neckline, all in contrast to Tolkien? Is it not good that fantasy no longer limits itself aesthetically to the range of content acceptable to Alfred Lord Tennyson, an accusation Eddings made about Tolkien's limitations of material (hint: he also couldn't write women). David Eddings himselfwas rather a mix of generic and an innovative, story-focused writing when he first started out, a widely popular writer of the 80s and early 90s, who turned evil at the same time as George Lucas, producing more and more horrible tracts filled with trite characterizations, lazy prose self-satisfied storylines, slow pacing and myriad other sins, just because publishing houses from the mid-90s had decided to throw vast amounts of money at him to produce anything that could be sandwiched between two covers. He got even more if it could be tied back in some way to his original Belgariad, no matter how shockingly self-satisfied and trite and--by the way, contradictory to the original legends he'd set up--it was. Sigh. It should be admitted that some have nothing good to say even about Eddings' early work, but by 1998 or so, Eddings was evidently at the point in his career where he lacked the self-awarness to know what would happen if he just indulged himself. Maybe that's what happens....you grow a bit cynical when Del Rey is giving you three million a book to flatulate your way through four-hundred pages of predictable, tv-trope-filled conventionality and insults to teenage (i.e his presumed readership at that point? I don't know who else, man) intelligence--I am referring, of course to the late Eddings series 'The Tamuli,' which a good friend of mine once described, memorably and accurately as 'an offense against all human language.'
But I digress from grimdark into fantasy's 90s excesses (which all this bloody 'realism' is perhaps in part a reaction to?). Let us restart the discussion by noting that, while Tolkien is wrongly credited as the inventor of fantasy, it's true that he influenced a generation of writers to react, either in favor of his model and also in opposition to a sort of Tennyson-style aesthetic of acceptable material (i.e. the model of the widely read, influential Arthurian fantasy poems of the 19th century: 'Idylls of the King,' which rolled through major parts of the Matter of Britain in the rolling iambic pentameter that Tennyson perfected perhaps beyond any other poet (and rather specialized in) in English). Self-censorship probably occurred as a result of his, Lewis and Tolkien's visions, with widely varying results in terms of quality of material produced (Just as Tolkien's own incorporation of previous innovations yielded mixed results: Lord Dunsany's innovations in the field was mainly successful, if unacknowledged, but his and CS Lewis' use of William Morris's secondary worlds and Germanicism (explicitly acknowledged) yielded perhaps more mixed results, and Tolkien's incorporation of Morris's talent for poetry in-context went steadily downhill (i.e., it worked fairly well in 'The Hobbit,' but the less he thought of himself as producing a modern novel, and the more he thought of creating a quasi-Anglo-saxon epic complete with 'Battle of Brunanburh' type legions of dead captains listed, the less effectively his poetic interludes seemed to be (but the innovation of using poetry was Morris's, not Tolkien's; Morris was just a better poet than Tolkien, and made sure the context was more appropriate.
Arguably, Tolkien got more right than wrong, and his and Lewis and Morris' medievalising were a powerful force in the genre, and seem to have permanently changed it, though there's as much or more focus on the high and late medieval as Tolkien's beloved Anglosaxon-influenced stuff.
But back to the present topic:
"Realism, people. Lots of those who praise gritty writing talk about its realism. Lots of people who criticise it assert there’s nothing realistic about splatter and crushing cynicism. You’re both right! Realism is an interesting concept in fantasy. If we were aiming at the uncompromisingly real we probably wouldn’t be writing in made up worlds with forces that don’t actually exist. So things are often exaggerated for effect, twisted, larger than life. But we can still aim at something that approximates real life in all kinds of different ways. Where the people and their behaviour and the outcomes of their actions are believable."
Hmm. I'll buy it--yet it seems pretty incomplete as a defense of most of the Grimdark stuff out there, starting with Driz'zt and moving to Martin and into the present (as it were)...
PS - I don't knov where exactly my sympathies lie, though I will say that Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Chalion/Fivefold Pathway of the Soul' seem to me to have done as much to advance the quality of the fantasy genre as the more widely disseminated Martin. So perhaps we're focusing too much on style and form at the expense of content (I'm sorry, but this Mark Lawrence fellow kind of sounds like he just writes bad, incredibly violent books. About a sociopath. Gory details or no, that seems to be the fundamental content and I'm not convinced that the trail of blood blazes its way through to a worthwhile psychological insight. Sorry).
PPS - Here's another link, which effectively describes the escalating stages in the publication of 'grimdark' material in fantasy, and offers a pretty coherent argument as to when it ought to be considered good material (i.e. there has to be a reason for it regarding the world/characters/aesthetic developed). He doesn't pass judgment on specific work.
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2013/02/grimmy-grimmy-dark-dark.html#
http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/02/25/the-value-of-grit/
"Grimdark is a phrase I’m hearing quite a lot, which seems by definition to be pejorative – excessively and unnecessarily dark, cynical, violent, brutal without purpose and beyond the point of ridiculousness. There’s often what seems to me a slightly weird double standard applied of, ‘I find this thoroughly horrible and disgusting therefore the author must have intended me to be titillated and entertained!’"
Hmm. I'd welcome any further commentary here, including on the treatment of women and races in the previous linked post (I've always found it a bit odd that Tolkien, in particular, got away in a recently post-Nazi age in writing of a beautiful high civilization of the medieval type, currently fading away for lack of genetic purity and characterized by very white men who have genetically distinctive grey eyes (and tend to sport 5 day shaves all the time, according to Peter Jackson's version. I think they must carry around those clippers, with the 4/16" shield and pouches full of AAA batteries, since I'm assuming the watchtower of Amon Sul, even back in the day, didn't have 110v power).
But I digress. So, yeah, 'grimdark.' More of a problem than a benefit to the genre? The debate has raged several years, now, it seems.
Question: is there a way George Martin's books are not equivalent to the development of 'gritty' Realist technique that still dominates English-language fiction writing to a significant extent, the art-house market partially aside, in the separate genre of 'fantasy' that developed from multiple sources but took something like its modern form around the 1980s with imitators of Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lloyd Alexander? Is Martin different from David Eddings, who began inserting realistic prose and modernish characters and describing women below the neckline, all in contrast to Tolkien? Is it not good that fantasy no longer limits itself aesthetically to the range of content acceptable to Alfred Lord Tennyson, an accusation Eddings made about Tolkien's limitations of material (hint: he also couldn't write women). David Eddings himselfwas rather a mix of generic and an innovative, story-focused writing when he first started out, a widely popular writer of the 80s and early 90s, who turned evil at the same time as George Lucas, producing more and more horrible tracts filled with trite characterizations, lazy prose self-satisfied storylines, slow pacing and myriad other sins, just because publishing houses from the mid-90s had decided to throw vast amounts of money at him to produce anything that could be sandwiched between two covers. He got even more if it could be tied back in some way to his original Belgariad, no matter how shockingly self-satisfied and trite and--by the way, contradictory to the original legends he'd set up--it was. Sigh. It should be admitted that some have nothing good to say even about Eddings' early work, but by 1998 or so, Eddings was evidently at the point in his career where he lacked the self-awarness to know what would happen if he just indulged himself. Maybe that's what happens....you grow a bit cynical when Del Rey is giving you three million a book to flatulate your way through four-hundred pages of predictable, tv-trope-filled conventionality and insults to teenage (i.e his presumed readership at that point? I don't know who else, man) intelligence--I am referring, of course to the late Eddings series 'The Tamuli,' which a good friend of mine once described, memorably and accurately as 'an offense against all human language.'
But I digress from grimdark into fantasy's 90s excesses (which all this bloody 'realism' is perhaps in part a reaction to?). Let us restart the discussion by noting that, while Tolkien is wrongly credited as the inventor of fantasy, it's true that he influenced a generation of writers to react, either in favor of his model and also in opposition to a sort of Tennyson-style aesthetic of acceptable material (i.e. the model of the widely read, influential Arthurian fantasy poems of the 19th century: 'Idylls of the King,' which rolled through major parts of the Matter of Britain in the rolling iambic pentameter that Tennyson perfected perhaps beyond any other poet (and rather specialized in) in English). Self-censorship probably occurred as a result of his, Lewis and Tolkien's visions, with widely varying results in terms of quality of material produced (Just as Tolkien's own incorporation of previous innovations yielded mixed results: Lord Dunsany's innovations in the field was mainly successful, if unacknowledged, but his and CS Lewis' use of William Morris's secondary worlds and Germanicism (explicitly acknowledged) yielded perhaps more mixed results, and Tolkien's incorporation of Morris's talent for poetry in-context went steadily downhill (i.e., it worked fairly well in 'The Hobbit,' but the less he thought of himself as producing a modern novel, and the more he thought of creating a quasi-Anglo-saxon epic complete with 'Battle of Brunanburh' type legions of dead captains listed, the less effectively his poetic interludes seemed to be (but the innovation of using poetry was Morris's, not Tolkien's; Morris was just a better poet than Tolkien, and made sure the context was more appropriate.
Arguably, Tolkien got more right than wrong, and his and Lewis and Morris' medievalising were a powerful force in the genre, and seem to have permanently changed it, though there's as much or more focus on the high and late medieval as Tolkien's beloved Anglosaxon-influenced stuff.
But back to the present topic:
"Realism, people. Lots of those who praise gritty writing talk about its realism. Lots of people who criticise it assert there’s nothing realistic about splatter and crushing cynicism. You’re both right! Realism is an interesting concept in fantasy. If we were aiming at the uncompromisingly real we probably wouldn’t be writing in made up worlds with forces that don’t actually exist. So things are often exaggerated for effect, twisted, larger than life. But we can still aim at something that approximates real life in all kinds of different ways. Where the people and their behaviour and the outcomes of their actions are believable."
Hmm. I'll buy it--yet it seems pretty incomplete as a defense of most of the Grimdark stuff out there, starting with Driz'zt and moving to Martin and into the present (as it were)...
PS - I don't knov where exactly my sympathies lie, though I will say that Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Chalion/Fivefold Pathway of the Soul' seem to me to have done as much to advance the quality of the fantasy genre as the more widely disseminated Martin. So perhaps we're focusing too much on style and form at the expense of content (I'm sorry, but this Mark Lawrence fellow kind of sounds like he just writes bad, incredibly violent books. About a sociopath. Gory details or no, that seems to be the fundamental content and I'm not convinced that the trail of blood blazes its way through to a worthwhile psychological insight. Sorry).
PPS - Here's another link, which effectively describes the escalating stages in the publication of 'grimdark' material in fantasy, and offers a pretty coherent argument as to when it ought to be considered good material (i.e. there has to be a reason for it regarding the world/characters/aesthetic developed). He doesn't pass judgment on specific work.
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2013/02/grimmy-grimmy-dark-dark.html#
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Link: violence and the development of the fantasy genre
This thought-provoking blog post discusses George RR Martin and his ilk in modern fantasy. Comments to follow at some point:
http://alltheworldsbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/game-of-thorns-or-this-partially-being.html
http://alltheworldsbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/game-of-thorns-or-this-partially-being.html
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