Yvonne,
I'd like to tell you that you did a great job giving a pretty negative
view on Tolkien without being derogatory. I wish my own diplomatical
skills were a little better. I like Tolkien maybe because I see it like
somehow more realistic than usual representation of what life was like in
Medieval Europe. Since this may sound strange, let me explain.
When I was growing up being a white minority in a very traditional Asian
country, I always noticed how much more native people there were
connected to their cultural past than Europeans and European-dominated
cultures of the First World. Honestly, I did not envy them too much,
because I don't think I'd like to live exactly like my ancestors a
thousand years ago and follow a bunch of outdated and meaningless rules
just because "it's our tradition". However, it was interesting to see
that any more or less literate person could recite poems of some guy who
had been dead for twenty five hundred years, and that any teenager was
basically an expert in traditional folk songs, dances, and clothing.
What made me remember this here in America, was The Eve of Nations --
one of those student activities held at the University of Oklahoma the last
Spring before they kicked me out. Students from dufferent countries
(mostly Asian) gave pretty stunning presentations of songs and dances from
their countries. They were very good: music, costumes, and performance
itself. To the extent that it was hard for those unfamiliar with the
specific culture (I, for example, know nothing about Malaysia other that
they have a king and that you get a death penalty for possession of 20 grams
of marijuana) to distinguish them from professional performers. And all of
them were students with totally non-artistic majors, like Electrical
Engineering or International Business.
Our European Student Association (which I asways suggested to transform
into a coed sorority, since all we were doing there was partying) came up
with one joined number. A crowd of people dressed in pajamas got out on the
stage and sang, rather awfully, Freire Jacob in several different languages.
That was it for the European folk culture presented, and hopefully,
squeesed between a guy from Central Africa giving a fascinating solo on a
drum, and a group of Indonesian girls dancing in elaborated costumes, this
failure was not noticed or remembered.
I don't know if you agree with me, but I think that the only
trace of what European culture before Post-Industrial, or even Industrial
age was like, can be now found only in fairy tales. All that stuff about
knights in shiny armor, faire ladies, King Arthur, and so on. But people are
still curious sometimes, what had been going on there, before the steam
engine was invented. Maybe that's also part of the reason why Umberto Eco's
The Name of the Rose, set in a 12th senury monastery, was such a success.
Strangely for a fantasy, most of Tolkien's books have some sense of
realism absent from traditional fairy tales, hero-rescuing-a-princess
type or those hilarious Disney versions of the classics (like them turning
Little Mermaid into an action movie structured like one of the Hong Kong
karate flicks we liked to watch in junior high). For example, when
characters set to go somewhere, they don't just hop on a horse and enter the
gates of the destination point in the very next scene. They have to ride or
walk for weeks, in rain and cold weather, without nylon clothes or
water-resistant shoes, sleep on the ground, and defend themselves from
enemies with swords, which unlike guns, require facing the person at the
close distance. Their castles are dark and cold, with no water or
electricity, and the only medicine available is magic, which means in
reality people were dying like flies. And the characters still have
some energy and willingness to go through all that in order to fight some
evil. I find it kind of romantic.
When I read the first three books in my teens, my favorite character was
Gandalf. He always knew better than anyone what was going on. He had to
fight the most dangerous creatures, like Barlog, or Saruman. And when he
got killed, they sent him back in a different image so he could later sail
West with Elves when his mission was complete.
Anyway, Tolkien's books have a lot of imperfections. Besides being
sexist, I think it's also pretty racist. Besides, he often get carried
away with making the language too much of "the-ancient-manuscript" style.
However, some passages in the book were breath-takingly beautiful.
Marina
"Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society
happens to be selling at the time."
Naomi Wolf
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:52 PDT