Posted 25 April 2006 - 07:32 PM
All of this comes down to misunderstanding Tolkien's work. I don't think Tolkien would have considered himself a novelist, and I don't think he can rightly be called an author in the same sense that we call Erikson an author. LotR is meant to be read the way you would read epic, not the way you would read epic fantasy. If it fails next to actual epic, that's something Tolkien might have cared about. He's rolling in his grave being compared to modern fantasy writers though, I assure you.
Now, about Tolkien's world. It grew out of a combination of things. First, Tolkien's love of languages. He invented languages for his own amusement, and then created people to use them. Then he made a history to go along with those languages, that accounts for their similarities and differences. Some people underestimate what a massive undertaking this is, and the staggering level of genius it requires. There's a reason no fantasy author has come close to Tolkien since, and that's that no fantasy author that I know of could rightly be said to possess staggering genius. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a master of languages, and among the foremost minds in the history of his field (philology).
Second, Tolkien was an expert on mythologies, especially of Northern Europe. The mythology of his world, ie the Silmarillion, is so natural, it reads like long forgotten lore of this world. No one else has ever come close to this either, because they always screw it up by letting their modern sensibility come into it. Tolkien crafted a complex mythology that passes the supreme test - it is not entirely consistent. He didn't write a D&D manual, he wrote myths the way he read them -- fractured, inconsistent, and elusive. This all gives the illusion that his work represents a once living world. Erikson lets some elements of this come into his work, most likely due to his knowledge of archaeology and anthropology, but his mythology is weak. It doesn't read like genuine mythology, because it's constantly undercut by his post-modern sensibilities and his insistence on grounding his characters in the real world, not the other world. Which brings me to another of the advantages of Tolkien's mythology. What many criticize as weak characterization, I would call classical characterization. His characaters aren't meant to be people, they're meant to represent something. Ultimately the plot of LotR is irrelevant, because you're not meant to read the plot, but the themes.
The third thing that Tolkien's world grew out of is his world view, in particular his belief in good and evil. That's unfashionable now. You don't see it in Erikson at all. For Tolkien, a devout Catholic, good and evil were very real, and confirmed twice in his lifetime. He fought at the Somme, and lost most of his friends to the evil that is mechanized warfare, which is itself the inevitable byproduct of industrialism. Then, later in his life, he watched history repeat itself, only more horrifyingly. An evil empire actually came into existence during the 1930's, and threatened to destroy everything good and beautiful in the world. At least, that's the only conclusion a man like Tolkien, with his religion and his interest in mythology, could arrive at. So he deals with evil in his work as a real force that must be defeated.
Now, in order to appreciate how evil is defeated in LotR, you have to set aside your sensibilities and desire for action. Front and centre throughout the book (it's one book, people) is the idea that victory against evil cannot be won on the battlefield. So while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are running around getting in fights everywhere, they're achieving nothing compared to Frodo, who must overcome the temptation of his burden. Frodo (and Sam, for that matter) represents innocence and purity. If anyone in Middle-Earth could resist the temptation of the Ring, it is Frodo. Frodo desires no power, no wealth, no fame. Frodo is better than any of us. And get this: he still fails the test when put to it, or at least would have had the choice not been taken from him. In the end, for all Frodo's goodness, even he couldn't resist the Ring, and that's about the most chilling thing I can imagine.
Frodo is not Christ, you see. That's the key. He is a Christ figure, you're supposed to think of Christ, but like the Biblical prophets of the Old Testament, for all his purity and for all that he is better than all others, he is not Christ, and he gives in to temptation. The comfort is that evil destroys itself. Gollum, consumed by the evil of the Ring since he gave into temptation immediately, destroys both himself and the Ring. Frodo survives, the greatest person in Middle-Earth, but he has been destroyed himself by its evil. He was taken by evil and he was never the same afterward.
Ultimately, this makes for a very poor novel. It's hard to read at times, especially if you want it to be a novel. But it's not. You don't read Tolkien, exactly, you study him. And you have to be prepared for the reality of the book, which is that good and evil are real, and that the book has something to say about them. Tolkien fails at his attempts at poetry, it's true. He also fails in the way his language fluctuates between the children's story, the epic, and yes, even the novel on occasion. But this is only a problem if you are looking for a certain type of prose, the type that we're taught to appreciate with every novel we're force-fed as school children. And of course, certain storytelling elements don't conform to our sensibilities of proper pacing and such.
So I can see why some people don't appreciate Tolkien. I think they're totally wrong, of course, but I guess I can understand it if you're a fan of fantasy novels. Tolkien didn't write fantasy novels, though, and would disapprove thoroughly of MBotF.
But hey, he's dead now. I like MBotF, a lot, it just doesn't even come close to Tolkien. Not in the same league, because it's not even playing the same sport.
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