I got to thinking the other day that Tolkien is considered by many to be a revolutionary in the field of fantacy writing. A wondrous Linguist his manipulation of the english language verges on genius.
What I would like to know is how much of a pedestal do readers put his work on? Where do you see him in relation to people like Robert Jordan or say George Lucas or Arther C. Clarke? Would you put him in a completely different league? Why or why not?
Eh. I tried reading Lord of the Rings and found it boring. I think much of the stuff he wrote about first is now so ingrained in fantastic fiction that his work, to someone years later reading it for the first time, may look like just a pack of boring cliches.
I certainly understand that the trilogy is considered a ground-breaking classic to many fantasy fans. Luckily I can acknowledge that without having to like the darned thing.
I enjoyed reading Lord of the Rings, but I don’t consider Tolkein our best fantasist. That would be Tim Powers. John Crowley and Roger Zelazny are also better than Tolkein.
The way I take it is Tolkien is like the Monty Python of fantasy literature. A lot of people really like his stuff and some consider him the best fantasist ever, but regardless of how you feel about his work, you can’t deny that he’s been hugely influential in his field.
Tolkien’s influence on the field can’t be overrated – he created the fantasy genre as a marketing category, and most fantasy published these days is written along the lines he pioneered (medievel society; fight againt EVIL, etc.).
As far as the authors mentioned, Tolkien’s influence on Clarke was nil. Clarke was already an established author when Tolkien put out LOTR (“The Hobbit” may have predated Clarke, but it’s not likely to influence; I can’t think of two authors more different than the two).
Jordan, of course, owes everything to Tolkien, and Lucas owes a lot.
In the SF field, Tolkien is one of many important writers, including Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Ellison, Delany, Le Guin, and many more.
Tolkein was early, probably even first, with the idea of multiple humanoid races (elves, dwarves, etc.) all inhabiting the same fantasy world. His work was hugely influential on those who followed him, but he isn’t really a “great” author IMO. In a sense, he is similar to H.P. Lovecraft who also had some really original ideas that others did a better job developing than he ever did.
I’m with RealityChuck on this one.
Professor T. made the ‘fantasy’ section in your book store possible. He helped fantasy get a college education.
This is not to say vital and important fantasy did not exist before him. Fritz Leiber’s work is as important or moreso than Tolkien.
Jordan? feh. He should made to apologize publicly. And vow never to write again. Same goes for that Brooks guy.
Hi all,
Please note the if in the title post…
You can also take the opposite view and believe that Tolkien’s influence destroyed contemporary fantasy. There was a thriving, if small, fantasy genre that had little or nothing to do with elves and dwarfs before Tolkien’s popularity skewed the field in the 60s.
Today the shelves are filled with pastoral fantasy a la Tolkien, but contemporary fantasy is a niche genre that contains much rich and powerful writing that gets little recognition.
Speaking as a writer and a critic, BTW, the statement “his manipulation of the english language verges on genius” is sheer nonsense. A more defensible proposition, therefore, is: what if Tolkien was the anti-Christ?
Exapno - Will you be so kind as to give a cite for earlier fantacy writers before Tolkien? Not that I am skeptical, I am actually quite curious to see what characters made up pre-Tolkien times.
On the other hand, saying:
As a writer and Instructor, I’d ask why you think Tolkien did not have the proper acumen of the English language. To my knowledge he was a professor of linguistics, a veritable master of the english language…
That is SO COOL!
Except I’ve never even noticed any of Tolkien’s SF titles on the shelves at the bookstore. Are they all out of print, or can you point me at some of them?
I think that RealityChuck meant that Tolikien had a huge impact on science fiction, through influence on other writers, not that he wrote any himself. I think that the highest level of technology he’s ever had in his stories is a blunderbuss (not counting the semi-magical Lost Arts of the Noldorim, Numenorians, and Dwarves).
He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon and English literature at Oxford.
http://www.jrrtolkien.org.uk/tolkien_timeline.htm
I’d say that qualifies.
Phlosphr, are you actually saying that anyone who is a professor of linguistics is a master of the written English language? Or that Tolkien was because he knew Anglo-Saxon? What do the two things have to do with one another? As a writer of modern English, Tolkien was not a genius. No serious critic disputes this.
Fantasy has an enormous history, much larger than sf, though it had a smaller presence in the pulp world that sf grew out of. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is a crucial reference book. I don’t have time to go through its 1000 pages to do an adequate response to pre-Tolkien fantasy.
Some major names mentioned in the intro, however, start with Poe and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and go through George Macdonald, William Morris, Lewis Carroll, Abraham Merritt, E. R. Eddison, C. S. Lewis, Sheridan Le Fanu, H. P. Lovecraft, M. R. James, and Robert E. Howard.
Genre magazines include The Thrill Book, Weird Tales, Unknown, Fantastic Adventures, and of course, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the heart of literary fantasy throughout the fifties.
And that’s not even mentioning figures like Kafka. Which is my point. At one time fantasy was considered part of literature. Post-Tolkien it no longer is. That’s the effect he had, whether he intended it or not.
If Tolkien is the Messiah, then i am an athiest!
Eh… I really, really liked LOTR and The Hobbit even more so. But I never got why Tolkien is supposed to be such a genius. His material is very good but not genius. And don’t get me started on the movies.
I’ve got to side Exapno on this one. He wrote well but he was no master of the English language.
Tolkien is only ahead of everybody else when we consider his popularity. His influence resulted in more harm than good if you ask me and it was not so big as to be unique.
Tolkien is the master. He most certainly was a genius.
I can’t agree with the idea that JRRT’s influence did more harm than good. The man certainly didn’t create fantasy as a genre, but he solidified it and brought it into much needed light along side the more established pure SF genre. I expect that more good fantasy authors found publishers as a result of that than were overlooked and relegated to genre specific magazines.
JRRT isn’t my favorite fantasy author by a long shot, but I can’t ignore the number of writers who I love and who tip their hats to him as a key inspiration in their own writing.
and I agree… Robert Jordan needs to apologize to us all for what he’s done with his series. How tragic that a series could start so strong and then fail so grandly?
Mmmm, Fingolfin, I like the way you think. 
That’s not from the opening chapter of the Silmarillion, though, is it? It’s very close to the Ainulindale but not exactly. Is it from one of the History of Middle-Earth books?
As far as the OP, if Tolkien is the Messiah, then, of course, other SF and fantasy writers are prophets or angels or something. 
Even if you think Tolkien is amazing (as I do, for example), that doesn’t mean that you can’t appreciate what others write, or even believe that some of them do certain things better than he did.
Personally, I do find some of his writing boring–some of his descriptions go on for pages, and others are kind of repetitive (HOW many of his characters are said to be tall, dark haired, and have eyes of grey?). He also doesn’t always give insight into the inner workings of the characters as much as I might like. But I still love his stuff, because…I don’t know, because he does some other things so very, very well. Some of his passages and the words he gives his characters to say are so poetic and powerful that they practically make me cry. Some lines–like some of the text following what Fingolfin quoted above–send shivers up and down my spine.
Long and short of it–I really do like his stuff, but that doesn’t mean you have to. And it doesn’t mean that I think he’s perfect and never wrote a word out of place. And I’m not going to diss other writers just because they’re not him, though if their stuff sucks in its own right, sure I’ll say I don’t like it. But really, I’m more likely to have a fit over someone whose idea of being a fan of Tolkien is to write a fan fic piece in which they fall into Middle Earth for the purpose of shagging Legolas, and in the process destroy most of what Tolkien actually did write about Middle Earth, than to say nobody but Tolkien ever wrote anything good.
Fingolfin! Preach it, Brother!!!
JRRT revitalized and injected back into our popular culture many of the archetypal myths that had been threaded thru our historical tapestry, and gave them a sense of both relevancy and urgency. In doing so, he also achieved one of the most complete subcreations ever done up until that time, or since.
Do I read JRRT for his skills with the english language? No! I read him for his mythic skills.
Gotta run, dinner. so you’re spared more verbosity