On Shakepeare, New Criticism, Deconstruction, Culture Studies and Harry Potter -- read all the gory, hoary details .

I like this quote:



Just to make this more relevant to the forum as named:



For the kids:



For the adults:



Bloom's essay on Harry Potter.

Heh. My reactions to the Potter essay range from "Hey, don't be dissin' on my man Tolkien, yo." to wicked delight as he gives some very good reasons to read just about any other fantasy novel instead.

Considering how many terrific all-ages appropriate fantasy novels there are out there by writers such as Philip Pullman, Lloyd Alexander, and Terry Pratchett... I don't really understand "Why Harry Potter?" either. Especially when Philip Pullman's grim alternate universes where magic works are a lot more interesting than a kid's version of Unseen University from the Discworld series and Lloyd Alexander does such a great job of subverting Welsh legends to his purposes.

And I definitely agree that they mostly seem to appeal to people who don't usually read much.

But then, I could say the same thing for Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan. Rowling, Goodkind and Jordan all seem to benefit from being the writers of the first kind of story like that the reader came across.

Goodkind's books are, well, poorly written and filled with all kinds of gratuitous and extreme torture scenes and sorceresses who look like Xena supporting characters... but a lot of people who probably wouldn't be caught dead reading Tolkien or any of the authors who clearly influenced Goodkind's vaguely medieval European fantasy adventures think he's the bee's knees.

So, maybe I'm just a genre snob.

Any way, I have mixed feelings about Bloom, but yeah... I have to agree with what he said about being a critic.

That's what caused such a big uproar? It's not really that scathing an indictment. Hell, as a critique, it's barely coherent, much less insightful. He does little other than vaguely recap the plot and complain of a dull, cliche prose style.



Jordan wasn't the first writer of that kind of story I read. His was just by far the most entertaining, engrossing, and memorable to me as a teen. I barely remember anything about the Shannara (sp?) books, David Eddings, Melanie Rawn, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Charles De Lint, even Tolkien's The Hobbit, -- not because I disliked them as a kid, but only tiny bits of them stuck with me on the whole. On the other hand I remember countless things I adored about The Wheel of Time. I don't know why Jordan made a bigger impression on me -- I'd never try to argue he's a major literary talent -- but his vision, the detail in which he renders it, and the overarching, doomed atmosphere of the narrative, somehow hit home with Little Madget.

Then again, so did the original Dragonlance Chronicles. I won't try to claim I wasn't an incredible dork, but the Raistlin and Caramon soap opera particularly wowed me.

: )

K

I was with you until you mentioned Charles de Lint.

But then... "Dreams Underfoot" blew me away because at the point when I first read it, the only thing I had really seen like the short stories in that collection was Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered.

Of course, I'm less impressed by de Lint now than I was about eight years ago, and I've found more "urban fantasy," so I have a better sense of what the genre's all about.

It doesn't help that de Lint recently adopted a more "realistic" style that's less entertaining to me, but anyway...

Yeah, Melanie Rawn sometimes has good ideas, but I don't really get her popularity. And Terry Brooks is definitely a writer of "gateway drug" fantasy. He writes books you can give to a kid who is only vaguely familiar with Tolkien and try to get them hooked with his simple prose and wholesome Dungeons and Dragons-esque characters.

The Sword of Shannara seemed pretty cool to me when I was eight. I probably wouldn't like it much now because the blatant swiping from Tolkien would annoy me more. I definitely don't like his new stuff now except for some of the Magic Kingdom books... because the better ones are really fun.

Anyway, very few hardcore fantasy fans respect Brooks. I could go either way.

Bradley was considered a giant in the genre, but I never really got into her either.

Anyway, for complex fantasy worlds and a profound sense of doom, I prefer Poul Anderson and Roger Zelazny. Zelazny was doing the stuff Robert Jordan likes to do back in the Seventies, and he was great at creating a strong sense of a fully realized setting in a relatively short, self-contained book.

He wrote a book called (I think) Lord of Light that starts out seeming like a fantasy novel based on Buddhism and Hinduism, and then it turns out there are "scientific" explanations for the Hindu gods, reincarnation, etc. That book might have a slightly "Wheel of Time" feel for you. Zelazny drew on religion and mythology in a similar way while getting to the apocalyptic battle a lot faster. You might also enjoy Zelazny's Amber novels (five in the original series, then there's another four or so about the protagonist's son... but the later books are really only for completists).

The royal family of Amber supposedly inspired a lot of legends here on Earth, so he sneaks in Arthurian themes, Greek mythology, the Wild Hunt and lots of other Indo-European myth staples without being too heavy-handed about it. It wouldn't surprise me to find out Jordan is a Zelazny fan.

Rawn was very much a "female" fantasy writer -- her books were very focused on domestic inter-family politics, arranged marriages, etc. That whole "sun-runner" system was kind of interesting, I suppose. I was always particularly interested in the authors' handling of magical abilities in their fantasy worlds. Jordan's dark gender divide in that area always fascinated me.

Donaldson was somewhat interesting, with his Thomas Convenant Chronicles and "Gap" series. I found it sort of interesting that there were significant themes of impotence and rape in both, made more interesting by his own guilt about his rather prominent inclusion of these elements, in one of his introductions. A lot of guilt in his work in general.

I've actually wanted to reread some of these books, just to see how seriously I can or can't take them at this point, so many years later, and to see if I find anything interesting in them based on how I think today. I've perused them in bookstores and the prose is definitely functional at best, in most cases, and the dialogue cliche.

Ah, Charles goes and tries to start a thread about Shakespeare and Deconstructionism and Harold Bloom, and all we can do is wax nostalgic about the cheap pulp fantasy we grew up with. Sorry, Charles.

; )


K

A very enjoyable interview and a very lovely man. Would that more 'reactionaries' were as intelligent and reasonable as he. Of course the only reason he's embraced by political conservatives is as a means of snubbing feminists and civil rights advocates.

The Harry Potter series is important because it's pulled a massive audience back into the habit of reading, just as Star Wars pulled a massive audience back into theaters. But if what they're reading is no more uplifting than what they'd otherwise be viewing on television, what difference does it make?

I've still not seen Throne of Blood. I just recently watched The Hidden Fortress, a must for anyone who enjoys Star Wars.

Kurosawa is much funnier than Shakespeare.

The Thomas Covenant books were highly acclaimed by critics, and I found the two installments I tried to read incredibly boring.

Shakespeare was the cheap pulp fiction of his day, so there you go.

Not that there will be a Royal Canadian Charles de Lint Theater two hundred years from now, or anything like that... but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the fantasy genre.

I dismiss the fantasy genre.

Was that quick enough?

tralala.