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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: Kill the wabbit
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Probably people outside of Canada don't read anything by Greyowl (who was actually Englishman Archie Belaney). But you should. He wrote from the perspective of people and animals both in the 1930s. Sajo And Her Beaver People is profound. Beavers orphaned and sent to a zoo. Sajo canoes a very long way to get them back.
Greyowl lived last in Prince Albert National Park in a cabin with a beaver lodge in half of it on Ajawaan Lake, Saskatchewan. His wife lived in another cabin.
Another recommendation is the original book Bambi by Felix Salten, which is not anything Disney. It is for adults. Translated from German. Why must we fall?, an extract about two leaves discussing ageing and dying in the autumn; I read it at my mother's funeral.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
Sounds like you had a fairly tedious, one-dimensional English class full of "worthy" books. There are plenty of questions one can ask about books apart from "what is the book trying to tell us".
And not very good at teaching even theme apparently as I can think of quite a few themes of Tolkien, and a few in Adams. (Only read Adams once many years ago, so weaker on that one.)
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Indeed, there is plenty in all but the most trashy of novels to write essays on for English Literature. LOTR has very strong themes of friendship, of power corrupting, of the apparently weak overcoming the strong. Watership Down also picks up the themes of courage, community, explores political power etc. I can easily see how both could easily be incorporated into an English Literature course - although LOTR maybe too long (though, I know some Russians and Ukrainians and War and Peace was required reading, so perhaps "too long" is no reason to reject it).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about answering 'what is the book trying to tell us?' for Austen or Dickens. You could say that Bleak House is trying to tell us that the legal system of Dickens' day is more concerned with giving lawyers a living than with justice, but that doesn't explain why we're still reading Bleak House a century and a half later.
Besides I can think of things LotR and Watership Down are telling us.
LotR: that conservatives have to accept that the things they love will pass away. That military glory is ultimately only a sideshow to the things that really determine the course of events. That pagan pessimism is profound but not as profound as Christian hope.
Watership Down: that an authoritarian system run with benevolent intentions is still authoritarian.
That one manifestation of political evil is the belief that questions of authority are settled by physical force.
That the qualities a society values in its art should be the qualities it values in its life, and where they aren't, there's something wrong with the society.
You could argue about whether those are true, but they're things that the books are trying to tell us.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Or you could just soak up the stories, and not vivisect them. My preference, FWIW.
[ 30. March 2016, 09:47: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Or you could just soak up the stories, and not vivisect them.
I saw what you did there.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I just added a sentence.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
If you're reading for enjoyment, of course. If you're reading to satisfy the requirements of a literature course then disecting them is what's required. Getting an interesting essay question from some books will be easier than others. I'm glad I never had to study Austin. On the other hand, discussing attitudes to mental illness displayed by different characters in Of Mice and Men would be a very worthy subject.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
For the English literature class in secondary school, I dissected Frank Herbert's Dune.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
LeRoc--
Down to every grain of sand? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Yes, LOTR works very well as a comparison, and I'm happy to retract the fairy-tale categorization, in favour of something like "epic quest story".
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
Pfft. The book is trying to tell us " Park your ass in a chair and enjoy the incredibly complex world the author constructed entirely in his brain." Fantasy doesn't have to be profound, it just has to be fantastic.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Golden Key: Down to every grain of sand?
Yes but I compacted the sand together with the liquid from my gyrocompass (or something like that? I don't quite remember) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Acid from the gyrocompass power cell, some spice and a bit of precious water to form a foam.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Alan Cresswell: Acid from the gyrocompass power cell, some spice and a bit of precious water to form a foam.
Thank you, you saved me the trouble of looking it up this evening
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Or you could just soak up the stories, and not vivisect them.
I hate this idea that engaging with and thinking about what you're reading is vivisecting it. It's an utter condemnation of the that literature is taught in schools that it gives people this idea.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Yes, LOTR works very well as a comparison, and I'm happy to retract the fairy-tale categorization, in favour of something like "epic quest story". ...
You are talking about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, right? Because the version that I read was far, far more than a fairy tale or epic story. For starters, here's a huge list of people who apparently got more out of it than you did:
Books about J.R.R. Tolkien
Some titles from that list:
- The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-earth
- The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power
- Tolkien and the Peril of War.
And your English teacher was an idiot:
quote:
I've mentioned this before, but my English 20 class was taught by an amiable old priest, who promised us on the first day that the film of MacBeth that we'd be watching was "quite gory", and that the boys would like it, but the girls might have to close their eyes for some scenes.
Boys like Macbeth, who starts falling apart at the first sight of Duncan's blood?
quote:
He also apparently saw nothing amiss in casually mentioning the name of the director, long after that man had become known for certain off-screen legal problems.
Not all that surprising, really, in light of how churches have dealt with their "off-screen legal problems".
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Soror Magna: Boys like Macbeth, who starts falling apart at the first sight of Duncan's blood?
Don't worry, he'll be revived as a ghola.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
And your English teacher was an idiot:
quote:
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I've mentioned this before, but my English 20 class was taught by an amiable old priest, who promised us on the first day that the film of MacBeth that we'd be watching was "quite gory", and that the boys would like it, but the girls might have to close their eyes for some scenes.
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Boys like Macbeth, who starts falling apart at the first sight of Duncan's blood?
His predicition about the girls closing their eyes was meant in a joking way. He wasan't actually instructing them to close their eyes, and I'm sure didn't care if they watched the scenes. When we actually watched the film, months later, he didn't advise anyone to look away from the gory stuff.
But, yes, there was a mild sexism inherent in the quip, of the "sugar and spice" variety. Not a joke I'd personally make myself.
quote:
quote:
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He also apparently saw nothing amiss in casually mentioning the name of the director, long after that man had become known for certain off-screen legal problems.
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Not all that surprising, really, in light of how churches have dealt with their "off-screen legal problems".
I don't know how much connection you can draw between one priest being lackidaisical about mentioning Roman Polanski, and the broader church's criminal mishandling of sex-abuse cases. My point was that people in general were probably more relaxed about that sort of thing in the 1980s, than they are now.
That same priest also mentioned once having given an after-dinner speech at a local Freemasons' dinner. You can draw whatever connections you want between that and the P2 banking scandal over in Italy.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Yes, LOTR works very well as a comparison, and I'm happy to retract the fairy-tale categorization, in favour of something like "epic quest story".
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
Pfft. The book is trying to tell us " Park your ass in a chair and enjoy the incredibly complex world the author constructed entirely in his brain." Fantasy doesn't have to be profound, it just has to be fantastic.
Hey, I love escapist reading as much as the next working slob. But, if that's how you're going to defend LOTR, it calls into question the whole purpose of teaching the book in school. Because if Tolkein is presenting nothing more than a ripping good yarn, what is the point of any classroom discussion?
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Creswell wrote:
quote:
LOTR has very strong themes of friendship, of power corrupting, of the apparently weak overcoming the strong.
Sure. And here's another book that deals with friendship. By a writer who was a far better stylist than Tolkien, imho.
Not sure how far you'd get in discussing those ideas in a classroom setting, though.
"Okay, everybody. Friendship. For or against?"
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Stetson: Not sure how far you'd get in discussing those ideas in a classroom setting, though.
"Okay, everybody. Friendship. For or against?"
I'd need a bit of preparation, but I'd be very much able to discuss LotR in a class room.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Yes, LOTR works very well as a comparison, and I'm happy to retract the fairy-tale categorization, in favour of something like "epic quest story".
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
Pfft. The book is trying to tell us " Park your ass in a chair and enjoy the incredibly complex world the author constructed entirely in his brain." Fantasy doesn't have to be profound, it just has to be fantastic.
Hey, I love escapist reading as much as the next working slob. But, if that's how you're going to defend LOTR, it calls into question the whole purpose of teaching the book in school. Because if Tolkein is presenting nothing more than a ripping good yarn, what is the point of any classroom discussion?
Ok, what is you definition of " profound", then? Because now I see you discussing a book you just said was hard to discuss, because it wasn't profound enough.
What I thought you meant was that the themes were pretty straightforward, and didn't require a bunch of speculation.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Yes, LOTR works very well as a comparison, and I'm happy to retract the fairy-tale categorization, in favour of something like "epic quest story".
That said, I don't really think there is a lot that is very profound about LOTR either. I'm not sure how you'd go about answering the question, for either Tolkein or Adams, "What is the book trying to tell us?" Which seems to me the sine qua non for any English-Class discussion.
Pfft. The book is trying to tell us " Park your ass in a chair and enjoy the incredibly complex world the author constructed entirely in his brain." Fantasy doesn't have to be profound, it just has to be fantastic.
Hey, I love escapist reading as much as the next working slob. But, if that's how you're going to defend LOTR, it calls into question the whole purpose of teaching the book in school. Because if Tolkein is presenting nothing more than a ripping good yarn, what is the point of any classroom discussion?
Ok, what is you definition of " profound", then? Because now I see you discussing a book you just said was hard to discuss, because it wasn't profound enough.
What I thought you meant was that the themes were pretty straightforward, and didn't require a bunch of speculation.
I don't mean that LOTR is hard to discuss in the sense that it's too difficult to understand. I just mean that it's hard to have a meaningful conversation about it, becuas it's themes are borderline truisms.
So, yes, I can "discuss" the book, in terms of pointing out its truistic nature. But I can't think of much to say about whatever themes that the book was actually trying to get across.
If we're gonna say that Lord Of The Rings merits classroom discussion, we might as well just say that an Alan Dean Foster novelization of Star Wars merits classroom discussion. The stories are practically identical, in terms of theme and characterizations.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
And just to answer the question directly:
quote:
Ok, what is you definition of " profound", then?
I guess it might show my own particular bias, but I kind of assume that a book is worth discussing if it has points about which there can be disagreement, either in terms of what we think the author is trying to say, or, assuming we agree about that, what we think ABOUT what the author is trying to say.
Eg...
"Does The Waste Land predict the rejuvenation of western civilization, or its collapse?"
Or...
"Do T.S. Eliot's motifs in The Waste Land reveal a hostility toward women?"
[ 30. March 2016, 16:39: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Oh, ok. But in that case my point still works. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 30. March 2016, 16:56: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
And I dunno, I can see a pretty basic " English teacher with a hard on" discussion about the genre of epic quests, what tropes and themes are common in them, and hell, let's compare and contrast LOTR, WD, and Gilgamesh!
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Stetson: If we're gonna say that Lord Of The Rings merits classroom discussion, we might as well just say that an Alan Dean Foster novelization of Star Wars merits classroom discussion. The stories are practically identical, in terms of theme and characterizations.
One difference between these books would be their influence on present day culture. Which would be an interesting topic for discussion by itself.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And I dunno, I can see a pretty basic " English teacher with a hard on" discussion about the genre of epic quests, what tropes and themes are common in them, and hell, let's compare and contrast LOTR, WD, and Gilgamesh!
You rang?
Seriously, LOTR is dead easy to do in a classroom, and I suspect the Star Wars book could be done too, though with less material. Themes aren't all you talk about. There's characterization, development, plot progression, foreshadowing, symbolism, and how it is (or isn't) handled artistically. That's the stuff I get into--this is an awesome book (or not) and how did the writer produce his/her effects so we enjoy it? And (with fear and trembling) might possibly learn to do the same, if we have a bent that way?
It was Lewis in Experiment in Criticism who said basically that no book can be wholly bad that is dearly loved and delighted in by at least one reader (who is actually engaging the text--we're not talking psycho-fetish stuff). There has to be something there, no matter how slight--and that is worth looking at. Even if it is a novelization of a popular movie.
As for themes, Stetson, I'm sorry, but you live in a very unusual world if you find the LOTR themes to be truisms. "Truism" to me means "you can't get a debate up about this, because everybody basically agrees with it"--that's the definition you're working with, yes? Because (to take just one example) I have worked with a number of people who have no comprehension of personal honor at all (which is, of course, a major theme of LOTR), nor of the need to keep promises and commitments. They run their lives on purely pragmatic and hedonistic grounds. And they gaze at you in incomprehension if you do something like keeping a promise to your own hurt, or even something as whimsical as stopping for a red light at 3 a.m. when the street is entirely deserted.
I know others who do not comprehend friendship, and see everything in terms of exploitation (social Darwinism, anyone?) or sex. If you point out that there is no sex involved, they tell you it's invisible because it's repressed. Freud has a lot to answer for.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
I know others who do not comprehend friendship, and see everything in terms of exploitation (social Darwinism, anyone?)
Would these people actually defend their ethical choices with direct appeals to Social Darwinism, or is that just the category you're slating their actions into?
Almost all the people I know who engage in unethical behaviour would, if asked, come up with some sort of rationale as to why their actions are justified. A rationale which, in terms of its surface appearances, would be about the same as what everyone else comes up with.
In other words, if you were to tell them that Frodo and Gandalf were the good guys in LOTR, and Sauron the bad guy, they'd quite readily, and quite sincerely, agree with you. Because the characterizations are presented in such a way as to remove any ambiguity in who it is we're supposed to identify with.
On the other hand, even the most ETHICAL person is gonna stumble over Heart Of Darkness. On the surface, you might say that Kurtz is the bad guy, 'cuz he's down in the Congo killing people for fun and profit, but the story gives us some hints that he wasn't always like that. How did he get to be that way?
And what about Marlowe? He can clearly see the wrongness of what's going on, but that doesn't stop him from profiting off of it anyway.
Not to mention Conrad himself. Is he really so far removed from the colonialist attitudes he purports to condemn? Even the title of the book is arguably setting up blackness as the standard imagery for evil.
And on and on you could go. Can you see having these kinds of debates about Frodo and Sauron?
Lots of other interesting comments warranting a reply here, but I'm off to bed. Later.
[ 30. March 2016, 18:52: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I really feel that you don't have a clue about how education works.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
And on and on you could go. Can you see having these kinds of debates about Frodo and Sauron?
[/QB]
Um..yes (though to be fair to have that debate you are struggling for Frodo/Aragorn as they almost pass that test and Sauron/Melkor you need context. But you only said that kind, anyway...).
But definitely for Boromir, Golumn, Sarumen, Lobelia, Denethor,
pretty much explicitly Elves/Men/Dwarves have serious problems (even more so with the backstory
again explicitly 'bad' Orcs/Men have excuses, homes and family.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
And here's another book that deals with friendship. By a writer who was a far better stylist than Tolkien, imho.
Oh come on. Tolkien is not one of the great stylists of English letters: he has many moments when he drifts off into vague pseudo-profundities. But Gibran is almost entirely vague pseudo-profundity.
What excuse is there for a sentence like:
quote:
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
For starters: the unnecessary poetical inversion in 'the mountain to the climber'.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
In order to discuss a book with pupils, it doesn't necessarily need to be the bestestest book ever.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Can you see having these kinds of debates about Frodo and Sauron?
Is Michael Moorcock right to think that Lord of the Rings is a conservative, even reactionary, piece of romantic nostalgia? Is he right to say that whereas US sf and fantasy is written about robots by robots for robots, English sf and fantasy is written about rabbits by rabbits for rabbits?
Is there more to Lord of the Rings than that? Is Moorcock's criticism even true as far as it goes?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
So, for future reference, folks, it is a really dumb idea to tell people on a discussion board that it is difficult to discuss ANYTHING.
ESPECIALLY the Ship of Fools discussion board.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Because if Tolkein is presenting nothing more than a ripping good yarn, what is the point of any classroom discussion?
Well, I think there's much more to be found in Tolkien than a "ripping good yarn", but suppose there weren't?
Take a "ripping good yarn". What makes it "ripping good"? What tools does the author use? How does the author develop and maintain interest? How does the author develop the characters? How do they change over time, and is that important?
There's plenty of sensible classroom discussion that can be had about a "ripping good yarn".
And when you've done that, we can come back and discuss whether you think the fact that Tolkien read Boethius in Anglo-Saxon had an effect on his writing.
[ 30. March 2016, 19:45: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
I know others who do not comprehend friendship, and see everything in terms of exploitation (social Darwinism, anyone?)
Would these people actually defend their ethical choices with direct appeals to Social Darwinism, or is that just the category you're slating their actions into?
Almost all the people I know who engage in unethical behaviour would, if asked, come up with some sort of rationale as to why their actions are justified. A rationale which, in terms of its surface appearances, would be about the same as what everyone else comes up with.
In other words, if you were to tell them that Frodo and Gandalf were the good guys in LOTR, and Sauron the bad guy, they'd quite readily, and quite sincerely, agree with you. Because the characterizations are presented in such a way as to remove any ambiguity in who it is we're supposed to identify with.
On the other hand, even the most ETHICAL person is gonna stumble over Heart Of Darkness. On the surface, you might say that Kurtz is the bad guy, 'cuz he's down in the Congo killing people for fun and profit, but the story gives us some hints that he wasn't always like that. How did he get to be that way?
And what about Marlowe? He can clearly see the wrongness of what's going on, but that doesn't stop him from profiting off of it anyway.
Not to mention Conrad himself. Is he really so far removed from the colonialist attitudes he purports to condemn? Even the title of the book is arguably setting up blackness as the standard imagery for evil.
And on and on you could go. Can you see having these kinds of debates about Frodo and Sauron?
Lots of other interesting comments warranting a reply here, but I'm off to bed. Later.
Dude! Did you, like, miss out on the whole deconstructionism era? It was and is still I believe the done thing to totally destroy, oops, subvert, a text by deliberately reading the characters and their actions against authorial intent. Which we're not supposed to believe in, either. Or so I was taught.
Seriously, the trendy thing when I was doing my degree would have been to take LOTR and show why Frodo and Samwise were actually villainous representatives of Western patriarchy and Sauron was the embodiment of chthonic forces arising from the oppressed of the world, reaching out to create it anew in their yet-to-be-determined image. Or some such piffle.
And yes, the exploitative types I knew would likely have cited social Darwinism or its key tenets as justification for their shit. Most likely they'd paraphrase--I'm not sure their education was up to actually naming the philosophy most of the time.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
You could certainly argue it mirrors the patriarchy.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I certainly think there's mileage in arguments about the relationship between Frodo and Sam reflecting that between officer class and NCOs in the army of WWI, and how that might possibly hide the potential of people like Sam away from the relationship of servant.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Seriously, the trendy thing when I was doing my degree would have been to take LOTR and show why Frodo and Samwise were actually villainous representatives of Western patriarchy and Sauron was the embodiment of chthonic forces arising from the oppressed of the world, reaching out to create it anew in their yet-to-be-determined image. Or some such piffle.
Although there is a difference between literature classes at school and university. For a start there is an age difference; maybe only a few years between 12-15 year olds and 18-20 year olds, but that is a period of rapid emotional and intellectual development. And, of course at school you have pupils who are all sitting a compulsory course (at least in the UK it is) and at university you have a class who have chosen to study literature (and, yes, I know that US universities do have people studying literature even if not what they're majoring in).
Since we started off with whether or not a large proportion of parents would have come across Watership Down, and hence know of it's reputation as a very dark and scary movie, I thought we were talking about school. In that context, the film or book appearing in university classes to be experienced by less than 1% of the UK population is irrelevant.
My experience of English Literature at school was that it was largely just comprehension. You didn't write essays on the Scottish Play to explore deep and profound issues, you wrote them to demonstrate that you could comprehend what Shakespeare was trying to say. Once you get beyond the first few years of literature studies (say into something equivalent to Highers or A level) then the comprehension style questions become inappropriate, and you're moving along the spectrum to more profound discussion. At the other end of the spectrum you can just use books as a launching point for an examination of a contemporary moral/ethical issue - an example might be "In LOTR is is asserted that the Ring is the 'weapon of the enemy' and cannot be used. This ultimate weapon is too powerful, too infused with evil to be used by good people without corrupting them. Are nuclear weapons, our 'ultimate weapon' too powerful to be used under any circumstances?". But, by then you've probably moved out of the field of literature altogether.
At the school level, not far beyond simple comprehension questions, I think there should be several criteria for what books to set. One would be readability - let the never ending sentences of James Joyce or archaic English of Chaucer be for those who choose to continue further into the Higher or University level. But, pushing the ability of the pupils to read more complex works than they have been. I would say that a "ripping good yarn" that pupils enjoy reading is also good - it's hard to get kids interested in a book if they find it tedious. I would also add, most of the books should be something they would not read otherwise - so, LOTR or Harry Potter are excluded because they're widely read, and the films very popular. Use the opportunity to introduce children to something other than the best sellers.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
...
If we're gonna say that Lord Of The Rings merits classroom discussion, we might as well just say that an Alan Dean Foster novelization of Star Wars merits classroom discussion. The stories are practically identical, in terms of theme and characterizations.
And so is Gilgamesh and every other hero quest story. Harlequin romances all have the same plot and characters. Star Wars has midichlorians (whatever the fuck they are) and The Force (aka duct tape). Tolkien created two languages, Quenya and Sindarin, as well as a creation story, a fall, mythology, history and literature. Tolkien has the Valar and the Maiar, elves, dwarves and humans, orcs and ents. Star Wars aliens are various different ethnic stereotypes. If you really think that Luke's story is the same as Frodo's story, you should probably stick to murder mysteries and Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Somebody's never read Joseph Campbell.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I think there should be several criteria for what books to set. One would be readability - let the never ending sentences of James Joyce or archaic English of Chaucer be for those who choose to continue further into the Higher or University level.
We read Chaucer for GCSE. And Shakespeare, and Dickens, and Camus (in translation), and Lord of the Flies, Educating Rita and Peter Shaffer's Equus - the chief attraction of which, for a class of teenage boys, was spending an English lesson watching Jenny Agutter get naked. And some of the war poets - Sassoon and Owen certainly, and probably Brooke - and some other mostly forgettable verse from an anthology that was probably called "Tedious poetry for English lessons" or something.
There may have been one or two others. We read one of Steinbeck's dreary outpourings - probably Grapes of Wrath, but that must have been before GCSE, and I remember being pleased that we managed to avoid Jane Austen (the class with the opposite timetable had Emma).
We did read The Hobbit in school aged about ten, but at that point I think the chief purpose of English lessons was to get us to read anything at all.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I'm a bit too old for GCSE, but at O Level we had Spakespeare (the Scottish Play), Wilde (Importance of Being Earnest), Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men), Greene (Our Man in Havana), an anthology of "Modern English Short Stories" (with a definition of 'modern' which seemed to be anything not 18th century or earlier), an anthology of poetry (possibly the same entirely forgettable stuff as you)and a few others I can't immediately remember (possibly some Austen). No Chaucer or Dickens. Nothing that was originally written in another language and translated (does that even count as English Literature? If it was originally French or Russian surely it's still French or Russian Literature even in translation?). The vast majority of which were very enjoyable reads (some of the poetry and short stories were tedious) and memorable. To the extent that some of them I have subsequently re-read for personal entertainment.
We did read some dreck in the years before that. The war poets came in very early, some of course are very good and moving but sometimes "being gassed shortly after writing this" does not make the poem any better. Also, I remember a substitute teacher set us The Bridge Over San Luis Rey (or something like that, I remember the title enough to make sure I don't accidentally pick it up to read in the future) which some people seem to rave about but was unreadably tedious.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Nothing that was originally written in another language and translated (does that even count as English Literature? If it was originally French or Russian surely it's still French or Russian Literature even in translation?).
The translation of l'Etranger into English as "The Outsider" is a literary work, in English (I rather think it was Gilbert's translation that we read). For sure, the story takes place within a very French context, but if that makes it French literature, then we must always call Steinbeck American, and never English.
ETA: It is, of course, possible that a literary work is a masterpiece in the original, and has a translation which is awful, and in that case the translation wouldn't be worth studying (except perhaps as an example of what not to do on a translation course).
I remember our English teacher being so tickled to discover that The Cure's "Killing an Arab" was based on the story that we spent a lesson listening to the entire Boys don't cry album in case there were any more Camusian influences. (There weren't.)
[ 31. March 2016, 05:30: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Yeah, but what a great class that must have been. Would have been for me, anyway.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Yeah, but what a great class that must have been. Would have been for me, anyway.
We all sat in silence convinced at the end of each track that the teacher was going to say "that's enough of that" and go back to a real lesson. I think we were the most attentive class he'd ever had...
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Somebody's never read Joseph Campbell.
He was a big influence on George Lucas, who set out to create "a myth for our times". They were buddies, IIRC.
I think Lucas did a good job on the myth, if you focus on episodes IV-VII. (And maybe bits of III.) IMHO, the stereotypes are mostly in I-III.
Star Wars and LOTR are both good, in different ways. LOTR is complex, sometimes overwhelmingly so for me. Too many things going on at once. SW has the clean, simple lines of a myth. In that way, SW probably has more in common with "The Silmarillion" (the myths and legends of the LOTR world) than LOTR proper.
(No offense to LOTR devotees!)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Somebody's never read Joseph Campbell.
Good for them.
When I am benevolent dictator of the world, I will pass a law banning anyone who has read Joseph Campbell, or any other book claiming that there is really only one plot, from writing Hollywood films. The masses will thank me really.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Somebody's never read Joseph Campbell.
He was a big influence on George Lucas, who set out to create "a myth for our times". They were buddies, IIRC.
I believe the order of events was that Lucas wrote Star Wars, read Joseph Campbell, and then rationalised what he'd already written as being a Joseph Campbell style myth.
Whereas if you've just watched a tedious Hollywood blockbuster with a plot you've seen many times before, chances are that they read Joseph Campbell first.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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