"There's a tone to [Tolkien's writing] that pretty much all English children's fiction has. It feels to me, as an English person who grew up with Children's Hour on the BBC, which always had that tone, that they were basically trying to ease me into [...] being a good kid. And I didn't like stuff that asked me to be a good kid. [...] And I don't like children, or indeed hobbits, as the protagonists. I've never been able to get on with kids as protagonists. I like grown-ups as protagonists even if they're not really grown-ups -- like Conan."
That's Michael Moorcock talking to Hoi and Jeff on the Appendix N Book Club podcast. I feel exactly the same way. Although I'm too young to have listened to Children's Hour, that was my reaction to The Lord of the Rings, which I tried reading in my mid-teens but to this day haven't finished, having got no further than the encounter with the wights. Tom Bombadil was such a deus ex machina that I just couldn't be bothered after that. (Here's the Breakfast in the Ruins podcast making that very point.)
Probably I should give it another go. I also abandoned Titus Groan in my early twenties, only to rediscover it a few years ago and now it's one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. On the other hand, I never got beyond the first LotR movie -- so it can't just be the prose style that put me off. Maybe I'm just too familiar with SPI's War of the Ring boardgame, which I played so often that I know the story anyway. (And I don't think Bombadil is in the boardgame, which must have helped.)
Is there any popular fantasy or SF classic that just doesn't click with you? The comments are open.
My five-minute list: A Wrinkle in Time, Samuel Delaney, Narnia, Lord Foul’s Bane, Stephen King, Oz, Song of Ice and Fire, Mary Stewart, The Night Land, China Miéville, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and all the sequels to Ringworld.
ReplyDeleteI have fond memories of Ringworld, but I haven't looked at it in decades and I never bothered with the sequels. I tried reading a Narnia book at primary school but the teacher pointed out it was a Christian allegory and I dropped it like a hot brick. Samuel Delaney -- I keep trying to like his work, but it doesn't click. Stephen King is OK when he's not doing fantasy (Misery, Dolores Claiborne) but the opportunity to insert a supernatural resolution makes him lazy. Also, he needs to cut about 20% of all his books. As for A Wrinkle in Time -- I absolutely loathe it.
DeleteFunnily enough I had just started responding The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant when Baron's Lord Foul's Bane comment popped up. Being a completist I finished them, a few days out of my life I'm never getting back (well, the first and second chronicles, I didn't realise he'd released a third until now).
DeleteYou'll be unsurprised to learn I'm going to defend Stephen King most robustly, Dave! His short stories are excellent. There's only John Whitbourn's that I enjoy as much. Some of this early works I also rate very highly (Salem's Lot, The Shining) and the first four books of his Dark Tower were good. I do concede some of his later stuff isn't so good, he seems to be descending into Dean Koontz territory with some of his most recent work. I also agree for the most part with your supernatural/lazy ending/cut 20% points.
Also in Stephen King's defence, he once made a point that someone had a go at him at a book signing about his work being so nasty. "Why don't you write something uplifting, like The Shawshank Redemption," they said. "That's one of mine as well," he replied. "No it isn't," said the other person, and walked off.
I'll have to admit that I've never read "Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption" short story, Andy, though I love the movie. Stand By Me is another -- never read "The Body" on which it's based. And The Green Mile. I really owe it to King to try those, at least.
DeleteYou can at least kill two birds with one stone with King's Different Seasons then, Dave. They're probably his best stories and film adaptations. It also includes Apt Pupil, which isn't bad. Ian Mckellan is in the film adaptation of that, so links in with The Lord of the Rings film comments at least! The Green Mile (book) suffers a bit from the episodic nature in which King originally released it.
DeleteAlthough a completist, I never managed to get far into Dune. I suppose it's not fair to comment about a work that I've not completed (or at least given a fair crack of the whip too), but both film adaptations haven't inspired me to revisit the book.
I've never even tried to tackle Dune, Andy. It was one of those SF books that was widely regarded as a big deal even when I was a teenager, but it just didn't appeal. I love the boardgame, though.
DeleteI'm pretty sure I've seen Apt Pupil but can't remember anything about it now. Cat's Eye (the movie again) is more vivid in my memory, but I can't have seen that since it came out.
I've just taken a look at Cat's Eye, Dave. I've definitely seen the first two stories as I remember James Woods and Robert Hays in it. Strangely, I have no recollection whatsoever of the third story. I'm wondering whether my VHS didn't record it properly! That might have to be tonight's random feature. Gerald's Game which I've watched recently was one of the better adaptations.
DeleteOn the subject of adaptations, I've just got around to The Man In The High Castle (a bit repetitive but not bad and I've started so I'll finish). Phillip K Dick is on my list to read. As is Moorcock actually.
I'd forgotten about The Man in the High Castle, Andy, though it was on my viewing list for a while. I never read the book, so I shall wait for your verdict after seeing a whole season before I go looking for it.
DeleteThe story I remember best from Cat's Eye was one about a man on a penthouse ledge. It was like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Obviously pretty memorable as I can visualize scenes from it nearly 40 years later -- but, as usual with movies, I don't remember the ending. (I regard that as a feature, not a bug.)
I liked the first Dune novel, the rest got predictably worse. I've read the Man in the High Castle and liked it, then watched the adaptation and liked that too. Different flavor altogether, as is so often the case. My review: https://themichlinguide.wordpress.com/2019/11/29/the-man-in-the-high-castle/
DeleteI had been thinking I'd just watch the first season, but the promise of an actual ending might tempt me as far as s4. From your description it seems to fall in the same category as Deighton's SS-GB and Spinrad's The Iron Dream. Presumably MAR Barker was trying for something like that (though with considerably less actual writing ability) with his pseudonymous novel Serpent's Walk. I'm more interested in the-rot-from-within stories than Nazi German invasion stories -- It Can't Happen Here or The Plot Against America. The scariest thing about fascists is not that they might attack across the border but that they're among us right now.
DeleteBtw I see you've reviewed the Hornblower stories. I keep meaning to read those (yep, because of the ST:TOS connection) but there are so damned many of 'em. Maybe I just need to pick one at random.
DeleteOuch, the Hornblower books can be so very different from each other. The scenarios Forester puts his protagonist through are really different, and Hornblower can be almost a different person depending on when in his life you catch him. Things also change as he's poor and without influence through the early ones, and in the later ones he's a big cheese. Ah well, random is random, luck of the draw. I hope you enjoy.
DeleteI wonder which book(s) Roddenberry was thinking of when he developed the character of Captain Kirk -- unless that's just a myth.
DeleteI bet there's a rewritten fanfic version of Hornblower with Spock- and McCoy-alikes!
This is from my copy of the Writers Guide: A shorthand
Deletesketch of him might be "A space-age Captain Horatio Hornblower",
constantly on trial with himself, a strong, complex personality...On the other hand, don't play Kirk like the captain of an
1812 frigate in which nothing or no one moves without his
command. Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu and Uhura are a trained
team and are well able to anticipate information and actions
Kirk needs.
And that's not a good analogy to Hornblower. As I observed, the officers and crew of a ship know their jobs and go through their duties without direction. They come to the captain for decisions and timing when appropriate.
DeleteRegarding the fanfic, I could see Kirk as Hornblower and Spock as Bush. But it can only be Mrs Hornblower who takes a role like McCoy's.
DeleteHa, and another thing: Hornblower usually leads the landing parties himself! Definitely a model behavior for Kirk!
DeleteDoes he get as much sex as Kirk, though?
DeleteAfraid not. H2 only has four conquests we know about!
DeleteI thought Regency-era naval officers would have a rather more eventful love life than that. Hornblower not that horny, maybe?
DeleteHeh. He spends his younger years penniless and at low rank, has clinically-low self-esteem, he's tone-deaf so doesn't dance or go to the opera, and he marries early. Guy had the odds against him!
DeleteLow self-esteem? Doesn't sound a bit like James Tiberius Kirk!
DeleteI've always struggled with the Conan stories. I like the idea of a cheerfully anachronistic mash-up held together by a central character, but I find those that I've read rather clumsy. They're great fuel for games - I recently ran a one-shot based on Tower of the Elephant that went very well - but I struggle to enjoy them as stories.
ReplyDeleteMoorcock's essays (polemics!) are great fun, but while I chuckle at his attack on Tolkien, I'm not sure that his argument stands up. Yes, the Fellowship of the Ring starts as a cosier cousin of The Wind in the Willows, but it grows steadily darker. And the Bombadillian god on the crane is the sort of cosy comfort that becomes increasingly scarce as the story goes on.
For me, Tolkien far surpasses Howard and indeed Moorcock as a writer of *action*. The Moria sequence - Balin's tomb, "we cannot get out", "drums in the deep", orcs, glimpses of trolls, the Balrog - is a far superior action sequence than anything either of those authors ever wrote (and I have plenty of time for Moorcock's fiction).
There are other things Tolkien does superbly too. My favourite chapter is "The Uruk-hai"; there's mastery in the way that Tolkien creates a sort of Stockholm syndrome, so that by the end you almost admire Ugluk and want him - horrid as he is - to get away. And "The Tower of Cirith-Ungol" is a great, creepy action sequence. The great battle sequences - Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields - are tremendous too. And details like the Dead Marshes and Sam's sympathy for the fallen Southron give the story a depth that must stem from Tolkien's experiences on the Somme - a depth that you just don't get in most fantasy stories.
I agree with you on the films, though! And on Peake: the first two Gormenghast books are tremendous.
You've nailed exactly what I'm worried about, JC. From excerpts I've heard on podcasts, the later parts of the book do sound like they're more my cup of tea. After all, I abandoned LotR when it was only just shading out of the cosy Shire bits, and I remember enjoying the wights. So maybe I do need to dive back in and persevere till it gets darker.
DeleteAs for Conan, I enjoyed those stories as a teenager and occasionally I look again at my favourite ones, ie the early Weird Tales stuff like "Tower of the Elephant". It's generally true that if you're looking for fiction to use as the basis of a roleplaying scenario, choose bad/pulp fiction. Rider Haggard's She, for example, is a pretty dull novel but I got a great game out of it.
I love your "review" of LOTR, JC. You articulate it well. I've been a fan of those since my teen years.
DeleteWell I read Sword of Shanarra again recently. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid, I think I read several of the series. It was woeful. I got to the end but really don't know why I bothered. I can't believe they made a Netflix series of it. The writing was so simplistic and the characters were cardboard cut-outs. I really had no attachment to any of them!
ReplyDeleteWe all enjoyed some absolute trash when we were young, Nick, so no finger-pointing on that score. Netflix probably made the Shanarra show just to take a poke at Amazon's Tolkien output. I generally don't bother with any fantasy drama series -- not even The Witcher, though I enjoy the games. Mostly shows like that get away with bad writing because they know they can rely on fantasy or SF fans watching regardless.
DeleteOoh, I hated Shannara. Forgot about that one.
DeleteI don't find Terry Pratchett funny, but that's down to differing senses of humour. I find Tolkien's writing insipidly dry. I'm not convinced RE Howard can write at all; there's a difference between Leitmotiv and just repeating yourself a lot, which he doesn't seem to have understood.
ReplyDeleteI like REH's storytelling instincts in some of the yarns (eg the opening of "Rogues in the House") but he can read like an LLM with very limited training. I've read a couple of Pratchett's books, not my thing and the humour is a bit repetitive; I admire his work more than I like it.
DeleteAdmiring Pratchett's work rather than liking it sums up my position exactly. I feel the same about Mark Twain, though he's not entirely germane to the discussion.
DeleteI had to google the acronym LLM; the first few hits were for the Master of Laws, 'a postgraduate degree designed for law and non-law graduates to to enhance your academic legal knowledge'. I'm not sure which untrained LLM would produce better prose!
I spend half my time talking about LLMs so I assume everybody does! Sorry about that.
DeleteA little Discworld goes a long way, although I'd love to play there in an RPG. Tough to do comedy consistently in gaming, though. I wasn't that enamored with Howard upon first read, but just recently I went through and read all his Conan stories in one binge. I was surprised how much I enjoyed them!
DeleteI need to read Gormenghast properly. I saw the TV series as a child and found myself sympathising with Steerpike for living in such an oppressive society that was so willing to let his talents and intelligence go to waste due to an accident of birth and figuring that although the subsequent murder spree might be a bit much, I decided that it was the society's fault for making murder sprees the only vehicle for social mobility. I also somehow knew that this is not an opinion that adults want from children, so I never shared it. I think I would get bored trying to read any of the books that don't have Steerpike in.
ReplyDeleteSteerpike is a fascinating character, and he's in books 1 and 2, but there are other captivating storylines (Flay and Swelter, for example) and other compelling characters (such as Fuchsia). I must admit I can't see why they thought a TV show was a good idea -- so much of what makes it great is Peake's style and the interiority. But if any execs from Amazon, Netflix, etc, are reading I'd like to recommend The Worm Ouroboros and Lord of Light as a couple of SF/fantasy books that might provide something different from the usual Narnia/Middle-Earth/Shannara/Witcher vaguely medieval vibe.
DeleteI tried both Gormenghast and Ouroboros many years ago and couldn't get through them. ATM I can't remember whether I read Lord of Light, or merely something similar. Have to look into that at some point.
DeleteOther than multiple books by a handful of favourite authors, my two favourite fantasy works are The Lord of the Rings and (REH's) Conan. It's interesting reading the opinions on them here. Time hasn't diluted my own opinion of them. They became favourites when I first read them in the 80s and that didn't change when I read them again ten or so years ago. Where as King's books lead me to his films, it was the Bakshi and Schwarzenegger films that led me to the books. I stalled with The Lord of the Rings books at the Bombadil bit originally as well, although I think it was for no other reason than the chapter wasn't in the film and it just seemed to go on unnecessarily. After that though, it was Bomb(adil)s away and there was no stopping me. I'll just take the opportunity to get my bi-annual reference on Dave's blog to Bakshi's film being the most underrated in cinematic history!
DeleteI've been binge watching The Man In The High Castle, Dave, so have almost finished it. Baron's review seems pretty spot on. I certainly agree with the comment that first series are often the strongest. Also, I suppose the problem with binge watching is that the brain seems more aware and less forgiving of the repetitiveness than weekly episodes over a number of years. In summary, I wouldn't go out of your way but it's not at all bad.
Personally I prefer the more Weird Tales-y Conan stories, Andy. When it gets more action-orientated then it sometimes feel as if REH reskinned a yarn he couldn't sell elsewhere. I became a fan with the Lancer editions -- those gorgeous Frazetta covers! -- but I also liked Barry Windsor Smith's pre-Raphaelite Conan in the comics. Funnily enough, though I was a Buscema fan as a kid, I just didn't grok his Savage Sword of Conan comics.
DeleteI regret getting rid of those Conan paperbacks, Dave, if only to hold and look at the covers.
DeleteGoing back to your original question, or at least a variation of, I thought the fourth book from Tales of the Dying Earth, Rhialto the Marvellous, was significantly inferior to the first three. Admittedly the bar had been set very high and Vance perhaps never intended it to be "more of the same". I've just had a vision of Bernhard Black's bookshelf filled with omnibus editions, significant fractions of which have been ripped out to varying degrees!
I've just seen how much those early Conan comics can go for, Dave. I strongly suggest having a deep dive in your attic!
DeleteIt's a raw wound, Andy. I had almost all the Silver Age issues of every Marvel title, and I foolishly flogged the lot for about fifteen quid in my mid-teens. Recently I saw just one of the comics I used to own on sale for £300. I lost tens of thousands of pounds -- and, even worse, I lost cherished childhood memorabilia. But it's my own fault.
Delete