tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post1627992072703942599..comments2024-01-05T01:21:21.702-08:00Comments on <center>SPECULUM CRITICUM TRADITIONIS</center>: Eucatastrophe vs. Yog-Sotheryskholiasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-46313796792603750972011-04-15T22:26:47.444-07:002011-04-15T22:26:47.444-07:00Alf,
Mieville is beautifully succinct on the poin...Alf,<br /><br />Mieville is beautifully succinct on the point about loss, when he says that after the War of the Ring, "you can't even get a decent dark lord," and have to put up with the limping, bitter Saruman. <br /><br />As to escape and healing: I simply deny that JRRT has anything to do with wanting to give us a place to hide from the "primary world." Not only is Middle-earth in some wise the very ancient past of this world (or so I would argue; as I believe Tolkien said, "Middle-earth is Europe"), but every "secondary" world is meant to <i>enchant</i> aspects of this one ("enchant" being a technical term, in a sense, for Tolkien, a point I found underscored in Curry) -- one might say that a secondary world is the primary world <i>sub specie enchantmentatis</i>, if you'll pardon a barbarous pseudo-Latinism. It is meant to turn our attention back to this world -- <i>not</i> to give us a substitute. This is why the "road goes ever on," despite the fact that the story <i>qua</i> story "is over before it begins." I do think JRRT believed in some sense that subcreation had a very deep function and had something to do with the mechanism of salvation itself -- c.f. "Leaf by Niggle," which as you T. clearly thought of as the companion piece to "On Fairy Stories". <br /><br />"Hope without guarantees" -- yes. What else is there? We don't have the assurance that the historical dialectic is on our side. All we have is the surety that the good is the good. Yr thoughts on the internet as a palantir -- with all the concomitant dangers -- is a little sobering. Bateson says someplace in <i>Angels Fear</i> that we strongly need asymmetry of information. This might be a good example.skholiasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-70781684846129034102011-04-15T14:53:50.274-07:002011-04-15T14:53:50.274-07:00This is a fascinating piece, Skholiast. I've b...This is a fascinating piece, Skholiast. I've been waiting for someone to really run with the deep connections between Lovecraft and Tolkien. (In a pop-cultural aside, I think that the series Babylon 5 is the only site where I've seen these mythologies deliberately combined--though perhaps not in quite so profound ways that you engage with here. Maybe there are others?)<br /><br />Part of what interests me here is what you say about consolation and loss. With you (I think), I am not at all persuaded that The Lord of the Rings is, in Moorcock's famous words, "Epic Pooh." If anything, I see Tolkien's Middle Earth as also disconsoling. An image of health that we see in Middle Earth defamiliarizes our own wounded earth and makes us see it as it *could be* yet again. That creates unease--but not, for me, merely the impulse for transcendent escape. The consolation I find in seeing Saruman (or indeed, Sauron) at work in the BP oil leak is the conviction that if confronted, he ultimately will not win. <br /><br />But the route of escape, and the question of what we are escaping *from* and *to* do really matter. I think it's no small thing that Tolkien's world is both transient and also worth fighting for. The sense of incarnational presence in the landscape is palpable. <br /><br />What interests me in connection with Lovecraft on this point is that the very things that are supposed to console us--for instance, the route of E.M. Forster's "only connect"--are for Lovecraft the most dangerous. Hence, this passage: <br /><br />"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."<br /><br />The danger of the Palantir was that of seeing TOO MUCH, and thereby thinking one sees all (as did Denethor). I sometimes wonder if the ecological defeat many of us feel right now comes from being hobbits with internet connections. It's easier to fight when knowing less. Hence, as Patrick Curry might argue in his excellent book Defending Middle Earth, the "hope without guarantees" offered in The Lord of the Rings might do more to heal this earth than expanding the glut bad news we read each day. Thoughts?Alfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958067552460104971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-86864200981886038782011-04-12T19:50:14.107-07:002011-04-12T19:50:14.107-07:00Amod~~ Too bad about your comment. But maybe it wa...Amod~~ Too bad about your comment. But maybe it wasn't Blogpost who ate it... maybe it was The Goat With A Thousand Young. Ia Sub Niggurath! Anyway, you'll get another chance I hope -- the stuff on JRRT just ran on and on, and I had to cut the post short. There's at least one follow-up to come.<br /><br />Om~~ I also have a post simmering about <i>The City & the City</i> which will eventually be ready for posting, I hope. And the reason I liked it was precisely thanks to the world; the reason it faltered for me was precisely the plot. I forgave it for its bathos, though -- I just assumed bathos was part of the theme.skholiasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-30596528893499675942011-04-12T19:10:01.557-07:002011-04-12T19:10:01.557-07:00Skholiast, I really enjoyed this post. I wrote a c...Skholiast, I really enjoyed this post. I wrote a comment about it which the Blogspot site somehow managed to devour. Suffice it to say that I consider myself a lover of fantasy even though I don't read much fiction - and this is no doubt because I love a compelling world more than a compelling plot.Amodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15978621252917667363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-70322558780704958522011-04-12T16:38:21.029-07:002011-04-12T16:38:21.029-07:00But if the writing is poor the inventiveness will...But if the writing is poor the inventiveness will not support it. Genre fantasy can be lazy, so much comes with the package, a mere gesture can indicate worlds that have been built up by others. I'm reading <i> The City and the City</i> at the moment and I find it poor enough fare, in terms of hard boiled cop fiction sub sub Leonard. I was never a Tolkienite, yes I fell asleep during the movie. <br /><br />I understand why the common run of philosophers prefer science fiction. It is the only way they can immerse themselves in myth or perhaps it is a fad of the present generation without religion and no longer jung and easily freudened.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.com