Nihilists at the Gates

[washa_way]

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It's been a while since I've had anything substantial to say, but even the large, flaccid, and inert critters of nature can be provoked to roar and take action, as anyone who's witnessed a hippo attack will agree. And if I am the hippo in this tale, so be it: I will bellow and overturn canoes and send swimmers panicking for the shore as necessary.

Comments

[womzilla]

Actually, linking Tolkien and Howard is much like noticing that Kirby and Ditko *both* created the Marvel Style, even though they were Amazingly dissimilar in most particulars.

More later, just had to dash that out.

[washa_way]

I suppose I can see that comparison, but it still strikes me as an initial misstep for what Grin's trying to argue. It's certainly possible for two dissimilar individuals to have a hand in creating a single thing--Hamilton and Madison working on the US Constitution, say. But Grin is not only arguing that Tolkien and Howard created modern fantasy, but also that between them they created a unified standard which recent practitioners have been violating. Even if we accept their status as co-creators, it's hard to accept the idea of a violated standard when the recent practitioners are duplicating some of the things that at least one of the originators did.

But I suppose I should wait a while to continue the discussion.

[womzilla]

I've still only skimmed the Grin, because reading it makes my eyes want to flee my body, but the more I read it, the more insane his yoking of Tolkien and Howard is. That is, I think that he's *right* that Tolkien and Howard are the main pillars of modern genre fantasy (especially American genre fantasy) but he seems unaware that they were doing ferociously different things.

And you're absolutely right that Howard--both the real stuff and his imitators--bears a tremendous similarity to the works Grin is attacking.

[washa_way]

I can't dispute the idea that Tolkien and Howard are the main pillars of the genre, but as best I can tell, that status is the only significant thing they share. Of course, for purposes of this article, the main thing they seem to share is that Grin *likes* them both, which makes them Good.

Naturally, those writers he dislikes (even if they do the things Tolkien and/or Howard did) are Bad. And if they're Bad, then obviously they must be postmodern college-educated liberal nihilist blasphemers, because everything that is Bad is post-modern, college-educated, liberal, nihilist, and/or blasphemous.

It's just simple logic.

[spuffyduds]

This is quite fascinating. I never really thought about it, but you make "X genre HAS to have these things in it" sound about as convincing as "this work TRANSCENDS that icky genre thing because it's GOOD." Which is to say, not.

[washa_way]

When it comes to "X genre HAS to have these things in it," I just always remember the wise words of Roger Zelazny:

"If I ever discover a definition of science fiction, I shall immediately attempt to violate it."

[likeadeuce]

My favorite passage in the Grin article?

Alas, I haven’t read it

WELL OF COURSE NOT! THAT WOULD BE SILLY!

(Granted, it's possibly more excusable to not have read everything one is writing about in a genre where 22-volume series seem to be the norm, but it wouldn't HURT to confine one's doomsaying of the genre to things one had actually read?)

In any case, well said! (I meant to get to this when you first posted it but was just reminded to come look by another link to the Grin article.)

[washa_way]

If this thing is still on, I should note that I am now in fact more than halfway done with Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" Trilogy, and I still think Grin is peddling bojemoi.