Meditations on Middle-Earth by Karen Haber Page A
Authors: Karen Haber
Tags: General, Fantasy fiction, english, Literary Criticism, European, Science Fiction & Fantasy, American, History and Criticism, Middle Earth (Imaginary place), Scottish, irish, Books & Reading, Fantasy Literature, Welsh
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(Though it might account for why so many of us went on to marry lawyers.)
I too wanted to date a real man, but wound up settling for a Yalie. He invited me to the prom; and while in lovely New Haven I discovered something that opened my eyes to a whole new world of primal, visceral, earth-shaking ecstacy: the Yale Co-op. When it comes to bookstores, size does matter.
It was here I bought the final nail in my coffin: Bored of the Rings . This was a parody of the trilogy produced by the Harvard Lampoon that was wonderful or sophomoric or both, according to the reader’s taste. Since I was a sophomore at the time, I found it to be wonderful. From reading Bored of the Rings I learned that it was possible to take the adored icons and sacrosanct quest-plot and stick big red squeaky clown noses on anything that didn’t get out of the way fast enough. (It’s been my opinion that a good book can take a good joke and survive. Tolkien’s work went the full ten rounds against Bored of the Rings and came back swinging. And even when they take a cream pie in the face, elves are still hot!)
I will draw a merciful veil over subsequent Tolkien-related incidents in my life, though some were educational. For example, when everything by Tolkien was flying off the shelves, publishers started trotting out anything by Tolkien, which might or might not have included his laundry lists. My apologies to Tolkien completists out there, but I never did appreciate The Silmarillion . Yet thus did I learn that if you become famous/profitable enough as a writer, every last word you ever penned in your lifetime will get trucked to market. (Note that “you ever penned in your lifetime” need not always apply, viz: V. C. Andrews.)
On the other hand, the Rankin-Bass animated production of The Hobbit and the Ralph Bakshi stab at Lord of the Rings were both . . . never mind. As with Bored of the Rings , we are in the realm of personal tastes, the ubiquitous YMMV of the Internet. Let’s sidestep the flamewar and just change the subject.
So you see that I am fully within my rights when I refuse to accept responsibility for having become a writer of (often deliberately) funny fantasy and science fiction. It is all Tolkien’s fault. His books were the gateway drug and yes, the first one was free. At his doorstep and no other must I abandon the following accusations:
1. Reading The Hobbit led me to read the three books of The Lord of the Rings. (And reading the books out of numerical order allowed me to understand that a good book is fully capable of standing alone even if it is one of a litter of three.)
2. Reading The Lord of the Rings led me to read other fantasy.
3. The Lord of the Rings—especially the Appendices—led me to realize that a good fantasy is one that springs from a fully realized world, and that constructing that world can be an awful lot of fun . When I wrote my first fantasy novel, if the characters did not all hail from one bland, uniform, all-encompassing Fairytale Culture, if they actually got a little frazzled and weary while on the road, if they remembered to pack a lunch—and other supplies—for the trip, and if they learned that even if you take down the Bad Guys, your world can never go back to being just the way it was before, all of the above was thanks to Tolkien.
I know he’s not the only one to have included those little details, but for me, he was the first.
4. The interesting characters in The Lord of the Rings (i.e. hottie elves) led me to watch Star Trek .
5. Star Trek led me to read science fiction as well as watch it.
6. Reading science fiction and fantasy led me into the James Fenimore Cooper trap. (J. F. C. was reading novels to his sick wife when he was reputed to have become fed up and exclaimed “Who wrote this muck? I could do better!” And he did, in his opinion, though definitely not in that of Mark Twain.) Yes, I became convinced that I could write no-pun-intended rings around some of the stuff that was
I too wanted to date a real man, but wound up settling for a Yalie. He invited me to the prom; and while in lovely New Haven I discovered something that opened my eyes to a whole new world of primal, visceral, earth-shaking ecstacy: the Yale Co-op. When it comes to bookstores, size does matter.
It was here I bought the final nail in my coffin: Bored of the Rings . This was a parody of the trilogy produced by the Harvard Lampoon that was wonderful or sophomoric or both, according to the reader’s taste. Since I was a sophomore at the time, I found it to be wonderful. From reading Bored of the Rings I learned that it was possible to take the adored icons and sacrosanct quest-plot and stick big red squeaky clown noses on anything that didn’t get out of the way fast enough. (It’s been my opinion that a good book can take a good joke and survive. Tolkien’s work went the full ten rounds against Bored of the Rings and came back swinging. And even when they take a cream pie in the face, elves are still hot!)
I will draw a merciful veil over subsequent Tolkien-related incidents in my life, though some were educational. For example, when everything by Tolkien was flying off the shelves, publishers started trotting out anything by Tolkien, which might or might not have included his laundry lists. My apologies to Tolkien completists out there, but I never did appreciate The Silmarillion . Yet thus did I learn that if you become famous/profitable enough as a writer, every last word you ever penned in your lifetime will get trucked to market. (Note that “you ever penned in your lifetime” need not always apply, viz: V. C. Andrews.)
On the other hand, the Rankin-Bass animated production of The Hobbit and the Ralph Bakshi stab at Lord of the Rings were both . . . never mind. As with Bored of the Rings , we are in the realm of personal tastes, the ubiquitous YMMV of the Internet. Let’s sidestep the flamewar and just change the subject.
So you see that I am fully within my rights when I refuse to accept responsibility for having become a writer of (often deliberately) funny fantasy and science fiction. It is all Tolkien’s fault. His books were the gateway drug and yes, the first one was free. At his doorstep and no other must I abandon the following accusations:
1. Reading The Hobbit led me to read the three books of The Lord of the Rings. (And reading the books out of numerical order allowed me to understand that a good book is fully capable of standing alone even if it is one of a litter of three.)
2. Reading The Lord of the Rings led me to read other fantasy.
3. The Lord of the Rings—especially the Appendices—led me to realize that a good fantasy is one that springs from a fully realized world, and that constructing that world can be an awful lot of fun . When I wrote my first fantasy novel, if the characters did not all hail from one bland, uniform, all-encompassing Fairytale Culture, if they actually got a little frazzled and weary while on the road, if they remembered to pack a lunch—and other supplies—for the trip, and if they learned that even if you take down the Bad Guys, your world can never go back to being just the way it was before, all of the above was thanks to Tolkien.
I know he’s not the only one to have included those little details, but for me, he was the first.
4. The interesting characters in The Lord of the Rings (i.e. hottie elves) led me to watch Star Trek .
5. Star Trek led me to read science fiction as well as watch it.
6. Reading science fiction and fantasy led me into the James Fenimore Cooper trap. (J. F. C. was reading novels to his sick wife when he was reputed to have become fed up and exclaimed “Who wrote this muck? I could do better!” And he did, in his opinion, though definitely not in that of Mark Twain.) Yes, I became convinced that I could write no-pun-intended rings around some of the stuff that was
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