Bankrupt Nihilism

A quick summary of events so far as I understand them:

Self-proclaimed conservative blogger Leo Grin wrote a post entitled "The Bankrupt Nihilism of our Fallen Fantasists", in which he lauds Robert E. Howard's Conan and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as champion examples of both inspiring prose and a grand, optimistic mythic tradition. (Equating the two strikes me as weird, since they seem to be very different works, but I suppose both have scruffy guys from the far North country who eventually become the kings of great civilizations. I would argue that misses the point of both works, though). He goes on to criticize the execrable work of modern cynical fantasists, who don't have real heroes anymore, just a sad cavalcade of failure and feces that pretends laughably to sophistication by rejecting the old order in any hateful way possible.

Joe Abercrombie (one of the writers specifically listed) wrote a very charming blog post back, in which he argued the old order was not destroyed but merely added to, and that he quite liked Tolkien, but figured J.R.R. had done it well enough the first time that it didn't need to be endlessly repeated.

Adam Whitehead pointed out that Tolkien and Howard both have quite a dark, cynical, and salacious streak in their writing (he points a lot of fingers at the Silmarillion).

And Magemanda points out there are loads of books out there keeping a mythic tradition well alive, it's just that they're written by girls, and she wonders if Mr. Grin is aware there are also female authors.

I do recommend the posts (and the others I'm sure have been written about this). I don't know how much new I have to say. Like many of the later commenters, I think Howard and Tolkien have some profound philosophical opposition to each other, with Conan being a story about how a mighty savage man comes into a decadent and degraded society (as, indeed, all societies must be when they begin to measure men by any metric other than their raw will and strength), and puts to work his cunning and his heroic strength as a thief, a pirate, a murderer, and a mercenary before eventually building the fame (and conspicuous body count) to rule as king over lesser men; and Tolkien being the story of how the decline from a more civilized and cultured age was slowed (but not stopped) due to the cooperation between peoples of the free nations, the inherent resilience to the corruption of power by simple people who wanted nothing more than a lazy, amicable six-meal-a-day life, and by a simple act of mercy against someone who deserved by all objective measure to die.

If the above makes it sound like I don't like Conan, that's really not accurate. I do, but I take it with more than one grain of salt.

I'm at the disadvantage of not having read Mr. Abercrombie's books, though they've all been recommended to me highly by friends I trust.

Mr. Grin writes: "What I actually cherish is something far more rare: the elevated prose poetry, mythopoeic subcreation, and thematic richness that only the best fantasy achieves, and that echoes in important particulars the myths and fables of old." Which, I have to admit, evokes to me stuff I think Mr. Grin would very likely hate: Kelly Link and her mad, postmodern fairy tale retellings; Neil Gaiman and Tim Pratt's fabulous takes on the Greek furies, immortality, and the mythic cycle; Hell, that's pretty much an exact description of Catherynne M. Valente's "13 Ways of Looking at Space/Time".

But (and forgive my speculation here if it's not accurate) I don't think Mr. Grin would actually like any of those. I think he's hoping more specifically for fiction revolving around Guys with Swords, in which Evil is uncomplicated and Good is strong and virtuous. I'm only making fun of him a little when I say that, because I quite like having those stories in the mix too. Too many stories without hope, or without characters who seem to struggle toward an ideal rather than merely scrape out an existence, can build up a kind of sludge in you that makes even something well written feel more hollow and depressing than it would alone. And while you can argue (with easy success) that "good guy defeats scheming, irredeemable bad guy and saves helpless interchangeable semi-naked girl" is a format that can get tedious, I'd argue Howard, for example (and Leiber after him) can pull it off with enough variety to keep it interesting many a time (though, again, I'd argue none of those characters are what you would call "upstanding" or "morally pure").

This is an argument I see over and over again amongst people who like fantasy- wherein a subgroup of people which is predominantly, though not exclusively, conservative white males bemoans that fantasy isn't as good as it used to be in the old days of high adventure that didn't have to mean something more than a thrilling yarn or be weighted down with postmodern politically correct guilt (again, stop me if I've misrepresented that stance). I'm not sure how reconcilable it is, except, as Mr. Grin does say, that I can read what I like and he can read what pleases him. I don't personally see the various types of fantasy out there as mutually exclusive, but I certainly know lady readers who feel completely unwelcome and excluded in the types of stories Mr. Grin is lauding, and I suspect he would feel offended and marginalized in theirs.

As I said, I don't know how to reconcile it, or if it's even possible.



(PS: I do apologize to Mr. Grin if I've misrepresented him at any point. I did my best to capture the spirit of it, and I hope I've not put words into his mouth.)

PPS: A few more blog posts about it, here (this one includes the words "possibility bong") and here.