Has Tolkien lost his crown?

[JamesL]

It's like arguing about whether blue is still the best color.

I wasn't aware it ever was the best colour...

In all seriousness, unless you use sales, awards, or something quantifiable, there's no way to answer the quesiton. Plot, characterization and world-building are too subjective.

I agree, this is really the main problem in terms of trying to evaluate Tolkien's influence on the genre in more modern times. It's easy to determine his popularity - book sales alone should be sufficient to achieve that - but influence is a totally different kettle of fish.

 

[KatG]

Ok, first off, people in literary circles do hold fantasy in high esteem. There are numerous SFF writers being studied in university courses, having dissertations and masters thesis written about them, etc. Apparently, Ursula LeGuin is still the current queen, because she doubles in literature and women's studies. There are quite a few pundits as well, award winning authors, and the like who are strong advocates for fantasy fiction.

Of the people in literary circles who don't hold fantasy in high esteem, they don't really have a problem with fantasy fiction. Have Knopf bring it out and they're thrilled. They have a problem with category SFF, which they see as a different animal and a pop culture product. Category SFF is the stuff they figure must have spaceships and elves. The reasons they feel this way generally have nothing to do with what's in the books, but more image factors such as that SFFs published in mass market paperback chiefly, by specialty publishers, that it's sold in a special section of the bookstore, that there are SFF fan conventions, that category fantasy developed from category SF which developed from pulp magazines in the 1930's, SFF's long association with comics and gaming markets, that they think SFF readers are only young white males who live with their parents because they're told that's who reads the stuff -- that there is a category market: a large group of fans who don't gather just around one author whose work they like but will read a large group of authors doing a type of story they like.

To many self-proclaimed literati, this means that it's not the authors' writing that readers care about, but what the authors are writing about that's important. Which means that category SFF, QED, can't be literary, to their minds. This is also an attitude that some SFF fans have about deciding who in SFF is literary and who is not, unfortunately. Which leads many to say that we should dissolve the category market and solve the problem. However, it's too late -- doing that will not change the prejudices already in place. We can only go forward, encouraging people to take a closer look at history and open their minds.

When Tolkein wrote LOTR, a sequel to The Hobbit that morphed, there was no category fantasy market, just some authors doing fantasy in general fiction, like Tolkein, a bunch of writers doing children's fantasy fiction, and some SF authors doing fantasy as well as SF, horror and mystery fiction. So even though it was the category specialty publishers who put out the very successful paperback editions in the U.S., and even though LOTR's sales record is largely due to category SFF fans, he is not seen as a fantasy author -- a category author. He's seen as a fiction writer who, as he was also a scholar, certainly wasn't writing just for a bunch of D&D players, don't you know. No matter how much the SFF fans embrace Tolkein, we don't get to knock him up in our column, elves or no.

To many, non-fans or fans, the category authors are just ripping off Tolkein, copying him for a pop sensibility, and that includes Martin. It includes China Mievielle if it comes to that. It's not a fair assessment. It will change over time. Whether Martin or any other author, even Rowling, will have as big an image as Tolkein on the fantasy landscape is something we can't predict yet. It's worth remembering that on the overall fiction landscape, Tolkein's shadow is a lot smaller. In our genre world, however, Tolkein still clearly looms very large.

 

[Astra_]

I dislike the "LACK OF FEMALE CHARACTERS"

Does it matter how many female/how many male/how many hermaphrodite/how many queers characters in the story as long as it is interesting?

I never thought about a story this way. An interesting approach

 

[DailyAlice]

Does it matter how many female/how many male/how many hermaphrodite/how many qeers characters in the story as long as it is interesting?

I never thought about a story this way. An interesting approach

Frankly, I don't find it interesting at all. Viewing every work of fiction as some kind of sociological treatise has been pursued by women's studies people for most of my adult life and it gets tiresome. Human beings we should be focusing on (because no matter how many alternate species we encounter in f/sf, human beings created them in their image).

LeGuin--a feminist to the bone--did a wonderful unisex kind of thing in The Left Hand of Darkness. It read beautifully. Then some cohorts persuaded her to start inventing pronouns and it ruined the prose, at least in one edition. I don't know what's going on with it now.

I guess I'm suspicious of fiction as a moral platform; you've got to be damned good to get it to work. They did a lot of that in the nineteenth century, most of it justifiably dead as, um, insert cliche here.

The only way to get good fiction is to let writers write exactly what they want. Let readers sort it out.

 

[Astra_]

The only way to get good fiction is to let writers write exactly what they want. Let readers sort it out.

Then some people would be out of .....job and they will have to look for a honest job for a change and they would be very unhappy.

Well said by the way

 

[wardog25]

It's like arguing about whether blue is still the best color.

I can't believe you even brought this up. Is the answer not obvious?

Of course, you first must define "best". Are you referring to popularity? Longetivity? Luminance?

Popularity can be very subjective, and is certainly effected by changes in location. Third world nations most definitely do not have the appreciation for blue that we, more "modern" nations can claim. But perhaps they lack the means, so we cannot fault them for this, nor can we draw significant conclusions from it - such as their overall appreciation for blue.

This is why longetivity is a much more accurate measuring rod. I defy anyone to argue that any color has had such a long and glorious reign at the top than blue has. Several attempts were made to dethrone it (of some significance were some strong pushes by mustard, pink, and teal in the 70s and 80s), but they did not last.

The only convincing arguement might be that in todays modern world, blue is no longer blue. Some would even claim that blue has been replaced and is no longer viable due to rise of others such as turquoise, cerulean, denim, navy, and periwinkle. But these are poor imitations to say the least. They would not own the popularity they claim today if it weren't for blue.

In the end, I don't think there is much of an arguement really.

 

[QuickTidal]

Frankly, I don't find it interesting at all. Viewing every work of fiction as some kind of sociological treatise has been pursued by women's studies people for most of my adult life and it gets tiresome. Human beings we should be focusing on (because no matter how many alternate species we encounter in f/sf, human beings created them in their image).

LeGuin--a feminist to the bone--did a wonderful unisex kind of thing in The Left Hand of Darkness. It read beautifully. Then some cohorts persuaded her to start inventing pronouns and it ruined the prose, at least in one edition. I don't know what's going on with it now.

I guess I'm suspicious of fiction as a moral platform; you've got to be damned good to get it to work. They did a lot of that in the nineteenth century, most of it justifiably dead as, um, insert cliche here.

The only way to get good fiction is to let writers write exactly what they want. Let readers sort it out.

Dear me. Okay, here goes with a more long winded explanation of what I meant by lack of female characters.

So, If this story was a small story about a band of male characters that took place in relatively confined area......then yeah, it makes sense, but this is a world tromping, supposedly diverse set of cities and towns and locations stretching from one side of middle earth to the other. So, in the grand scheme of how human beings are born, there ought to be an half-decent ratio of women to men. There isn't though, or actually....they aren't represented as such.

I don't need it to be a sociological treatise at all. I'm not saying that every book ought to have a quota of sex, race and religion. I'm saying that it ought to be believable, and quite frankly the world that Tolkien paints is not all that believable. So no, I'm not asking for equality, I am asking for a world where an equal number of women exist and you better believe there would be ones who have their hands ion the heroic pie. These men wouldn't exist without mothers.

 

[wardog25]

Dear me. Okay, here goes with a more long winded explanation of what I meant by lack of female characters.

So, If this story was a small story about a band of male characters that took place in relatively confined area......then yeah, it makes sense, but this is a world tromping, supposedly diverse set of cities and towns and locations stretching from one side of middle earth to the other. So, in the grand scheme of how human beings are born, there ought to be an half-decent ratio of women to men. There isn't though, or actually....they aren't represented as such.

I don't need it to be a sociological treatise at all. I'm not saying that every book ought to have a quota of sex, race and religion. I'm saying that it ought to be believable, and quite frankly the world that Tolkien paints is not all that believable. So no, I'm not asking for equality, I am asking for a world where an equal number of women exist and you better believe there would be ones who have their hands ion the heroic pie. These men wouldn't exist without mothers.

It isn't that there were no women, they just aren't mentioned. 99% of readers would have mentally added them in. Just because Bilbo and Frodo had no wives doesn't mean a large percentage of hobbits didn't. (it was even mentioned as a rare thing that Bilbo found an heir rather than fathering one)

Womens lib. wasn't something people got nearly as fired up about back then. It probably didn't cross Tolkeins mind, nor the mind of the majority of readers at the time that he was leaving women out.

Now-days, if someone writes a story about men fighting, people have a conniption when not enough women are mentioned. Yet people can write their sappy feminine drivel with 90% of the characters being female and nobody stands up saying "hold up! Where are the men? How were these women fathered?!"

One of the first rules of writing is don't introduce characters that have no purpose. Why bore readers with extra detail of all the women around Hobbiton? (it took long enough to get the story going as it was)

 

[Richard H. Fay]

Tolkien's works have stood the test of time. Just the fact that they are debated today means something. They will be around for a long time to come, unlike a lot of what's written today.

Personally, I think Tolkien's work transcends genre - it's literature.

I don't think Tolkien's work should be seen as something less because of his apparent lack of strong female characters - many of the stories he used as inspiration were also rather "male oriented". And the time and place Tolkien wrote in must also be taken into account, just like any other kind of literature.

Now, anyone can dislike Tolkien or any other author's work for a myriad of reasons, but that doesn't change the influence or importance of that author's work in general.

 

[ChrisW]

Tolkien's works have stood the test of time. Just the fact that they are debated today means something.

Would we be without the movies? I'm sure there would still be debate but not as much. Talk of Tolkiens influrence was fading away imo before the movies. They revived the debate along with his sales. Would be interesting to see his sales figures up untill the movies were announced and those after it.

 

[QuickTidal]

It isn't that there were no women, they just aren't mentioned. 99% of readers would have mentally added them in. Just because Bilbo and Frodo had no wives doesn't mean a large percentage of hobbits didn't. (it was even mentioned as a rare thing that Bilbo found an heir rather than fathering one)

Womens lib. wasn't something people got nearly as fired up about back then. It probably didn't cross Tolkeins mind, nor the mind of the majority of readers at the time that he was leaving women out.

Actually, this illustrates my point. You hit the nail on the head for me. Tolkien's era was a man's world still, and so that's why I don't like the fact that next to no women are mentioned.

You definitely hit the nail right on the head though. My comment is about the state of Tolkiens mind in a male dominated society.

 

[Richard H. Fay]

Tolkien's works have stood the test of time. Just the fact that they are debated today means something.

Would we be without the movies? I'm sure there would still be debate but not as much. Talk of Tolkiens influrence was fading away imo before the movies. They revived the debate along with his sales. Would be interesting to see his sales figures up untill the movies were announced and those after it.

I think a lot of things regarding "popularity" are rather cylical in nature. Remeber the Rankin Bass production of The Hobbit and The Return of the King? Or the other animated version of the first part of The Lord of the Rings? It was the seventies animated version of The Hobbit that first introduced me to Tolkien's stories.

Yes, the Peter Jackson movies undoubtedly helped boost the "popularity" of Tolkien's works, and helped introduce the books to a whole new generation, but that doesn't mean that the works would have been relegated to obscurity if the movies had never been made. Obviously there wouldn't have been Lord of the Rings movies without Tolkien's work to begin with - and such an ambitious project would probably not have been attempted or funded if the material was destined for eventual, inevitable obscurity.

How many different printings has there been now of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? Lots I would say. The Hobbit was first published in 1937, The Lord of the Rings in 1954 and 1955.

Keep in mind that Tolkien did influence pop culture in many ways - "Frodo Lives" as a slogan, and the undeniable influence on gaming through Dungeons & Dragons and then the Middle Earth Role Playing Game. I actually have a few solo Middle Earth Role Playing game books from the eighties. (And I still have my Disneyland record of the Rankin Bass Hobbit, too.)

Just because Tolkien's works may have ceased to be "chic" for a while doesn't mean his influence was necessarily dying. I think, after the bombardment of "Tolkienesque" fantasy, there was a reaction against thing "Tolkien" (and there may still be in some ways).

I, for one, am a writer who proudly states that Tolkien was a huge influence on me. I read other fantasy stories and played fantasy role-playing games because Tolkien first stirred my interest in the genre. I write fantasy because of him. Surely I can't be the only fantasy writer/poet who was strongly influenced by Tolkien's works.

And interesting side note: how many people are familiar with the word orc? Tolkien dredged up an extremely obscure Old English name and vague reference to an evil spirit or bogey and turned it into one of the standard evil beings of fantasy. How many people fought hordes of orcs on a Saturday afternoon, hoping for a roll of 20 against the tough orc captain? The name has been used in several games.

Even if the talk about Tolkien's influence died down a bit prior to the Jackson movies, it doesn't mean that the influence wasn't still there.

 

[Werthead]

I don't need it to be a sociological treatise at all. I'm not saying that every book ought to have a quota of sex, race and religion. I'm saying that it ought to be believable, and quite frankly the world that Tolkien paints is not all that believable. So no, I'm not asking for equality, I am asking for a world where an equal number of women exist and you better believe there would be ones who have their hands ion the heroic pie. These men wouldn't exist without mothers.

I pretty much agree. Middle-earth is a medieval society and the story of LotR is that of a massive war. Just as in medieval society very few female names rise above those of the masses - Joan of Arc, the Empress Maude and Eleanor of Aquitaine are probably the most prominent - so Tolkien had a few females that similarly rose to the occasion, Eowyn most notably but also Galadriel.

Interestingly there are many more women of note in The Silmarillion, such as Morwen, Nienor, Luthien, Idril and so forth.

Would we be without the movies? I'm sure there would still be debate but not as much. Talk of Tolkiens influrence was fading away imo before the movies. They revived the debate along with his sales. Would be interesting to see his sales figures up untill the movies were announced and those after it.

Incorrect. The Lord of the Rings won the 1997 national Channel 4/Waterstones competition to find the UK's favourite book, attracting around fifty thousand votes (1984 came second). It then won an additional poll by the Folio Society in 1998 to find their favourite book of all time. IIRC, The Times ran a similar poll - apparently inspired by 'the need' to knock Tolkien off his perch by the self-appointed literati - in 1999 which, comically, Tolkien then won again.

There is no denying that the book went on to sell many more copies after the movies started coming out - 50 million additional copies have been sold since 2001 - but the popularity of the novel before the films came out was still very high. I vaguely recall something about Lord of the Rings being HarperCollins' biggest-selling fantasy novel every single year for the last fifteen years (impressive, given that they also publish Hobb, Feist, GRRM, Eddings and Wurts).

 

[columbob]

There is no denying that the book went on to sell many more copies after the movies started coming out - 50 million additional copies have been sold since 2001 - .

This number may be slightly misleading. Did they sell 50 million copies of the combined trilogy? 50 million copies of each (Fellowship, TTT, TRotK), or 50 total?

I'm sure many people bought Fellowship, only to put it down after a few hundred pages or so and never bought the rest of the trilogy, much less read them. Fellowship is probably the most-sold of the three books.

 

[KatG]

Both Eowyn and Galadriel remain two of the most feminist characters we see in fantasy fiction, certainly a lot more than the average barbarian warrioress. Eowyn in particular made a deep impression on me, all the more so because she was written in the 1950's by a middle-aged male Oxford don. She served as a template for numerous female characters in category fantasy for a couple decades.

Be that as it may, Tolkein came from the time when women were not soldiers, or at least not overtly, and what he was concentrating on were battles. He mentions women quite frequently, but he doesn't feature them as main characters in LOTR, because he was concentrating on the experience of young men in battle. And, as it turned out in Eowyn, a young woman facing it too.

Personally, I think Tolkien's work transcends genre

This is my least favorite phrase in the world, not the least because it misuses the word genre. Tolkien's work may be transcendant, but it does not transcend anything because no type of fiction has to be transcended in order to be literature, as if types of fiction were inherently deficient. (But welcome to the forums, Richard, and you raise some interesting points.)

 

[Astra_]

Dear me. Okay, here goes with a more long winded explanation of what I meant by lack of female characters.

So, If this story was a small story about a band of male characters that took place in relatively confined area......then yeah, it makes sense, but this is a world tromping, supposedly diverse set of cities and towns and locations stretching from one side of middle earth to the other. So, in the grand scheme of how human beings are born, there ought to be an half-decent ratio of women to men. There isn't though, or actually....they aren't represented as such.

I don't need it to be a sociological treatise at all. I'm not saying that every book ought to have a quota of sex, race and religion. I'm saying that it ought to be believable, and quite frankly the world that Tolkien paints is not all that believable. So no, I'm not asking for equality, I am asking for a world where an equal number of women exist and you better believe there would be ones who have their hands ion the heroic pie. These men wouldn't exist without mothers.

You really confuse me.

It is like complaining that he didn't have dogs in the story.
The story was about Frodo, Sam and a few other guys. He tells a story about them. If they didn't come across any females during their long and arduous journey, why should he bring them in? They came across goblins, he told about them if they didn't come across any ladies, so be it.
I mean if the story was about pub crawling, going to movies ....even then, if an author wanted to tell about Mr. A's traveling who likes landscapes and tells about them, then I would not expect him to bring in females or dogs. The story is not about them.

Just another example:
I believe if you read a story about WWII, there are not many female characters in SS or Gestapo when they interrogate their victim unless the victim is female.

Yet, another one:
A romatic story about to women, lesbos, no males in it. What a tragedy? Why? Maybe because the story is not about a few passing males they see in their everyday life? The story is concentrating on something else?

The same applies the Lord of the Rings.

 

[Richard H. Fay]

This is my least favorite phrase in the world, not the least because it misuses the word genre. Tolkien's work may be transcendant, but it does not transcend anything because no type of fiction has to be transcended in order to be literature, as if types of fiction were inherently deficient. (But welcome to the forums, Richard, and you raise some interesting points.)

Eh, perhaps I was a bit over the top with that statement. However, based on what I've observed on various speculative fiction forums, there may be a bit of a division between "literature" and "genre" fiction, at least in the minds of certain literary types. My point is that Tolkien is beyond "mere genre" and enters the realm of "literature", but I'm certainly not trying to cast any particular genre in a bad light. I write genre poetry, and I certainly feel that genre works can be as literary as what's commonly called "literary fiction".

Personally, I see The Lord of the Rings as being in the same literary league as classics such as Ivanhoe and others of the same ilk.

By the way, I always scratch my head when people say that Tolkien's works lack strong female characters because of obviously strong and important characters like Eowyn and Galadriel. Eowyn seems to be a bit of a Valkyrie. Also, keep in mind that much of the medieval literature that influenced Tolkien often lacked strong female protagonists. Many times the females were either princesses needing to be rescued, or temptresses and sorceresses.

A final note - keep in mind that Tolkien set out to tell the story of a quest in the same vein as traditional lore. He wasn't trying to write a progressive social commentary.

 

[Mithfânion]

Columbob

This number may be slightly misleading. Did they sell 50 million copies of the combined trilogy? 50 million copies of each (Fellowship, TTT, TRotK),

What does it matter?

Seriously, what is your point? If Tolkien sold only 50 million copies for the trilogy as a whole since 2001 that makes him extremely popular and possibly very influential. So if he sold 50 million copies since 2001 per volume, that makes him, shall we say, hyper popular. It makes no difference when the numbers are that overwhelming, wouldn't you say?

I'm sure many people bought Fellowship, only to put it down after a few hundred pages or so and never bought the rest of the trilogy, much less read them.

Did you research that?

What I am sure if that there is no book on Earth that hasn't rubbed readers the wrong way or that has readers unable to finish it. I'm sure this happens with the LoTR, but similarly so for any other Fantasy book you'd care to name.

You might consider that even of the many people who have seen both book and film, many come away thinking that the film was nice, but they prefer the book.

Chris

Would we be without the movies? I'm sure there would still be debate but not as much. Talk of Tolkiens influrence was fading away imo before the movies.

You're asking if Tolkien would still be popular and debated without the movies. Sales figures say yes. Internet forums ( more than any other genre authors by a huge margin) say yes, since many date back before the movies started. Popularity contests held before the movies say yes overwhelmingly. In short, any bit of research would answer your question.

It's also hard for anyone to judge about how debate about Tolkien was fading anyway before the movies, given the fact that in the pre-movie years the internet was only just starting up and getting bigger. Ergo there's no fair scale of comparison.

I think the thing to remember here is that when non-Fantasy fans think Fantasy they think of JRR Tolkien. Or maybe Harry Potter. Or maybe some are reminded of D&D campaigns which are themselves obviously inspired by JRRT's Middle-Earth. And that group is a heck of a lot bigger than the group of fan'tasy fans whose presence you see on the internet.

QT

Tolkien's era was a man's world still, and so that's why I don't like the fact that next to no women are mentioned.

So your problem is not with Tolkien, but with the world he lived in.

 

[ChrisW]

Incorrect. The Lord of the Rings won the 1997 national Channel 4/Waterstones competition to find the UK's favourite book, attracting around fifty thousand votes (1984 came second). It then won an additional poll by the Folio Society in 1998 to find their favourite book of all time. IIRC, The Times ran a similar poll - apparently inspired by 'the need' to knock Tolkien off his perch by the self-appointed literati - in 1999 which, comically, Tolkien then won again.

I didn't say he wasn't still popular, I said his presence and therefore influence on the genre imo from what I observed was fading. I don't deny he has had a big influence on the authors who write fantasy just that it's no longer what it once was. Going forward say 20-100 years I think it will be more of a indirect influence. ie The authors that they sight as influences were influrenced by Tolkien. IMO Tolkien will not have the longeivity of say Dickens. No fantasy author will unless they make it compulsory reading in school.

 

[QuickTidal]

QT



So your problem is not with Tolkien, but with the world he lived in.

Ah, but you see.....if my problem is with the world in which Tolkien lived, then by association and beliefs, my problem is with Tolkien as well...as he lived in said world, and it would seem subscribed to that male dominated society (though I haven't researched that....as you will almost certainly want to point out). I suppose then it is a nature VS nurture style argument, and no one answer is correct.

ah well.