In case you’ve missed it, a science fiction and fantasy writer of some small critical acclaim (he won a Nebula a while back and has taught at a high end writer’s workshop) has made statements saying Tolkien was racist. His evidence? Orcs, according to this writer, represent black people.
Personally, I think it’s racist to compare orcs to any race. This is fantasy, and there are a number of races in Tolkien’s works. Hobbits, elves, humans, dwarves. What ethnic group are they supposed to represent?
I think part of this is an attempt to drum up publicity because he as a new collection out. (I’m not going tell you who he is because I don’t want to give him any publicity.) Remember, this is a writer of some critical acclaim. In other words, he hasn’t published any novels and isn’t making a living from his writing.
I know it’s fashionable to attack the giants of the genre. It’s how you get a seat at the cool kids’ table. Personally, considering who some of the cook kids in the field are, I have no desire to sit at their table.
I do feel an urge to reread Tolkien, and the holiday break is coming. Tolkien is one of the masters of the form, and one who will be remembered long after many of the so called cool kids will be long forgotten.
Thanks Keith. This guy is a grandstanding jackass. I was going to write something about this, but I didn’t want to call attention to it. Frankly, didn’t think of handling it as you have.
Thanks, Jim. I debated saying anything at all, just because I don’t want to give him the publicity. I read his first collection, which is long out of print. It was published in 2000, and I read it sometime in the early 2000’s. I remember nothing about it.
I agree with you. I can just point and laugh at the stupidity of it all but then there is also a part of me that gets angry because this is a trend now, to belittle and/or besmirch the masters of old. It’s a terrible shortsighted thing to do.
Right, a part of me wants to ignore this,but another part wants me to rage because I can’t stand silently as everything good and just is attacked.
I’m listening to LotR on audiobook on my walks. It’s such a beautiful work, hearing it read is a fantastic experience. To read about these disgusting degenerates attack this work of love from a man long dead is infuriating.
My reaction is similar to yours. This guy deserves obscurity, but it pisses me off too much to let his attacks go unopposed. The quote about the bad men triumphing because good men do nothing comes to mind. There are reasons why certain works transcend their times. LotR is one of those works. It should be defended. I get that it’s not the type of fantasy that is to everyone’s taste. That doesn’t mean it should be attacked.
I’ve never been able to have enough consistent blocks of time in my schedule to try audiobooks. Maybe over Christmas, while I’m driving to see family. Or in January. The university is saying they’re going to send me to a new campus we’ve started overseas for a week to make sure some labs have everything they need to launch next semester. That might be something to listen to on the plane.
It is very shortsighted.
Isaac Newton said he achieved what he did in his career because he stood on the shoulders of giants. In doing so, he became a giant himself. Too many writers today try to achieve by tearing down the giants rather standing on their shoulders and building on what came before. Maybe because somewhere deep inside they know they can’t achieve that way?
This is true. Many of the greats became great because they started of emulating the writers they admired. That is how they themselves became great because through doing that they found their own voices.
Exactly. Trace the careers of any number of well-known and highly respected authors. You’ll see that their early stuff is often very different from their later work that made them famous.
Tolkien hated the Nazis and South African Apartheid. Does that sound like a racist?
Tolkien himself had a problem with the orcs since as a good Catholic he could believe an entire race wasn’t inherently evil. He just couldn’t find away to fit good orcs into the story.
Agreed. I know what you stated is true. I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t cite sources. Plus, I had gone to the doctor earlier with severe allergies, and the shot they gave me had me bouncing off the walls. A longer, more coherent post wasn’t going to happen last night.
Tolkien was not a racist. That’s documented. Sadly, he’s a convenient scapegoat because he’s dead and can’t defend himself.
Who?
*googles*
Never heard of him.
*Yawn*
Wake me up when somebody has something new to say.
I had heard of him. I had read his first collection over a decade ago and totally forgot I had read it. I also didn’t finish his Nebula award winning story because it was dull. There was also a story (which I’ve not read, IIRC) in which he takes some deliberate shots at Tolkien.
I think this is just a publicity stunt to generate sales for his new collection.
For the sake of perspective, Tolkien has taken a lot of criticism in his time. Edmund Wilson and Michael Moorcock heavily criticized Tolkien, but Tolkien has survived and even flourished.
Wilson was IMO everything wrong with criticism. He was failed writer (mostly) so he took upon himself to judge others books. Moorcock wrote some books I like but never anything as good as Lord of the Rings. Neither I believe read LotR in its entirety.
David Brin is another who has gone after Tolkien. I once heard him say at a convention (it was years ago, so this is a bit of a paraphrase) that Tolkien was an intelligent and articulate advocate of a worldview he despised while George Lucas was merely ad advocate of a worldview he despised.
I’ve not read much Moorcock, but most of what I have hasn’t done much for me. Wilson I’ve not read. Tolkien bashing seems to be something of a cottage industry, and life is too short to pay much attention to everyone who engages in it.
Moorcock was always an okay author with interesting ideas, but never anything more. Wilson was considered the major critic of his time. He brought to the forefront Marxist and Freudian criticism. So that should tell you how wrong he was.
I can tell Wilson and I would have very few views in common.
The notion that JRRT meant orcs to be perceived as negroes is ludicrous. They are inhuman, inhobbitlike, inelvish, indwarvish, etc. If anything orcs and the synthetic “race” of clonelike/”sorcerer-created” beings (a la Saruman’s works) are more like the unnatural “humans” in Brave New World. Of course JRRT (as many have noted–not Edmund Wilson, but he was a dufus critic almost all of the time) and his work will be one of the few authors and literary corpuses that will survive–I’m talking like the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, Spencer, Milton, etc. The breadth and depth of his imagination was/is unparalleled. And, on another point, simply not agreeing with an author’s “world view” is not a very valid basis for disparaging the author’s work. It’s overtly Christian in Lewis. It’s there, but pretty well camoflaged and indirect in Tolkien. If you can’t stand a theistic morality—don’t read the books, or simply write a trilogy that magnificently demonstrates atheism (I’m still waiting for that one). Theism and Fantasy have been interwoven since MacDonald. Even Morris with SIGURD is putting forth a religion–albeit pagan.
Hi, Frank.
Excellent points. I don’t understand why some people have to attack other authors on the basis of a difference in worldview. If an author’s views are that offensive, as you correctly pointed out, don’t read them.