Just as a fair warning, Moorcock is not necessarily a Tolkien fan. This is a reprint of an older article talking about epic fantasy (Tolkien and those after him) in terms of bourgeois Tory infantilism and the language of nostalgia and nursery rhymes.
Epic Pooh.
Side note, apparently Moorcock now lives not too terribly far from me, in a town where we used to go camping. Which is pretty cool and may necessitate a field trip.
Here's a slightly different take on the man himself:
ReplyDeletehttp://hugeruinedpile.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-round-matchup-david-eddings-vs.html
I'm an enormous Moorcock fan (I have a fifteen volume hardback collection of his spec work) but he's awfully full of it sometimes. As you, Ms Wilder, are fond of saying, YMMV.
Hah, well, having read both Moorcock and Tolkien and liked Tolkien better, I have to admit the essay doesn't 100% sell me, but I loved all the quotes. Actually the main thing it makes me want to do is read Winnie the Pooh. That passage was lovely.
ReplyDeleteI do think the social questions and implications are worth looking at, even if I don't necessarily agree with all of Mr. Moorcock's analysis (eg: the hobbits are pretty much the bourgeois-est fantasy creations ever, but I don't think it necessarily follows that you can, with any intellectual honesty, say that Sauron and the orcs are mapped onto the proletariat).
Thanks for the link! I love a good article.