Moorcock on Tolkien

>Like Chesterton, and other orthodox Christian writers who substituted faith for artistic rigour he sees the petit bourgeoisie, the honest artisans and peasants, as the bulwark against Chaos. These people are always sentimentalized in such fiction because traditionally, they are always the last to complain about any deficiencies in the social status quo. They are a type familiar to anyone who ever watched an English film of the thirties and forties, particularly a war-film, where they represented solid good sense opposed to a perverted intellectualism. In many ways The Lord of the Rings
is, if not exactly anti-romantic, an anti-romance. Tolkien, and his fellow "Inklings" (the dons who met in Lewis's Oxford rooms to read their work in progress to one another), had extraordinarily ambiguous attitudes towards Romance (and just about everything else), which is doubtless why his trilogy has so many confused moments when the tension flags completely. But he could, at his best, produce prose much better than that of his Oxford contemporaries who perhaps lacked his respect for middle-English poetry. He claimed that his work was primarily linguistic in its original conception, that there were no symbols or allegories to be found in it, but his beliefs permeate the book as thoroughly as they do the books of Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis, who, consciously or unconsciously, promoted their orthodox Toryism in everything they wrote.

Is he right?

Ha I've heard this criticism before of C.S. Lewis, where it spoke about how absurb it is for an upperclass homebody like Lewis to talk about fighting the good fight against Satan's evil.

absolutely.
Hobbits = petit bourgeoisie is gold.
And his beliefs really do permeate the book.
as if the dwarves aren't the jews. please.

CS Lewis' best book is Boxen

Hairy, violent men (and women who look like men) who like to drink and live in mountains, och aye definitely the Jews.

"Since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, at least, people have been yearning for an ideal rural world they believe to have vanished - yearning for a mythical state of innocence (as Morris did) as heartily as the Israelites yearned for the Garden of Eden. This refusal to face or derive any pleasure from the realities of urban industrial life, this longing to possess, again, the infant's eye view of the countryside, is a fundamental theme in popular English literature. Novels set in the countryside probably always outsell novels set in the city, perhaps because most people now live in cities.
If I find this nostalgia for a "vanished" landscape a bit strange it is probably because as I write I can look from my window over twenty miles of superb countryside to the sea and a sparsely populated coast. This county, like many others, has seemingly limitless landscapes of great beauty and variety, unspoiled by excessive tourism or the uglier forms of industry. Elsewhere big cities have certainly destroyed the surrounding countryside but rapid transport now makes it possible for a Londoner to spend the time they would have needed to get to Box Hill forty years ago in getting to Northumberland. I think it is simple neophobia which makes people hate the modern world and its changing society; it is xenophobia which makes them unable to imagine what rural beauty might lie beyond the boundaries of their particular Shire. They would rather read Miss Read and The Horse Whisperer and share a miserable complaint or two on the commuter train while planning to take their holidays in Bournemouth, as usual, because they can't afford to go to Spain this year. They don't want rural beauty anyway; they want a sunny day, a pretty view."

Also, hobbits are hobbits holy fuck dude must we shoehorn Marxism into everything this is why people hate us.

Tolkien deserves some bashing after all this time 2bh

Because Moorcuck cannot bare the fact that guys who 'substitute artistic rigour for faith' were better artists than his sorry ass, who spent his life writing stories about an edgy magic casting king who goes around and fucks women.

Morecuck

Screwtape letters are his best.

go back to r/books

Write something equivalent.
If you can't, I'll be round to bash ya

you don't need that at all to criticize someone, dismissing criticism because of someone's lack of credentials in your eyes is an ad hominem. Everybody's game for scrutiny.

Give valid criticism of Tolkien, and for the love of literature do something beyond Overrated.
Critics who use that word should be shot.

His proze is meh
t. Nobel prize committee

Well yes, obviously.

The books revolves around Hobbits, who are almost a parody of the rural English middle classes. Bilbo is a rebel who ends up turning into exactly what he rebelled against, with no real sense of contradiction.

Frodo is a younger and less comical version of Bilbo who represents the rural middle classes when they actually feel threatened instead of self-satisfied, so he's very much a post WW1 character type, while Bilbo is purely Edwardian whimsy.

Ultimately, Tolkien only wants to leave the Shire on brief holidays. That's unromantic, where romance is a straining for the holy grail, not a desire to take a selfie next to the holy grail and promptly go home.

The Nobel prize committee have made a lot of really retarded choices and omissions.
But Tolkien isn't really famed for his prose, his world-building, deep mythological knowledge and linguistic appreciation is where the LOTR riches lie.

It is valid criticism though
also I think Moorcock is on point in calling him a tory, but frankly not sure if that is a negative in and of itself, outside of debunking that the book is detached from allegories or real world commentary, it's there, intentional or not. It is also revealing of Tolkien's personal beliefs.

>books reveal the beliefs of their authors
Incredible insight.

And tolkien insisted that his books were detached from those

Fuck hell, is that retard really trying to apply modern day politics and pin them on past authors?
For starters, Tolkien explicitly stated that his book is not allegories for anything like his present time, you can deny it and read into it anyway if you wish, but it is not the authors intention. The orcs are neither Nazi's nor Communists, Sauron is not Hitler nor Stalin. You can read Lewis if you want allegories.

Secondly, and this is most important, you cannot look at modern politics and then say "Oh Tolkien would be a Tory!" Or "Orwell would be Labour!" It's retarded. Politics has shifted and changed so much that their positions that were considered well within the overton window would have shifted.

Tolkien and Lewis would look at the abortion and divorce rate and assume these must be the end times. Orwell would look at government overreach and the Labour love of the EU and assume the worst. Huxley would take one look at a television and take two steps off a cliff.

We've disappointed them all.

He insisted it wasn't an allegory. Which it really wasn't.

>For starters, Tolkien explicitly stated that his book is not allegories for anything like his present time
that's the point
that's the point
at least, it's moorcock's point, whether tolkien bases the themes more on the sagas and general epics than his own beliefs and life is moot, but tolkien himself would have been highly opinionated on it.

Good post.

Brainlet detected

He doesn't mean a modern day Conservative when he says "Tory" he's talking - strangely - about Toryism you retard. The traditional "High Tory" view which praises rural life, the Anglo-Catholic High Church and wanted, to an extent, a revolt against modernity. What the poster you're replying to is saying isn't that Tolkien supportsTheresa May, but is rather placing Tolkien in an artistic, aesthetic, and political continuity to which he very likely belonged.

I would say that Tolkien is very rmeiniscent of the "Young England" movement in the 19th century, and would agree with some of Moorcock's conclusions about him (though not in so disparaging a manner).

None of this has anything to do with placing Tolkien on the modern political spectrum.

What's the point of his point? It's a banal tautology. No author can somehow cleanse himself of his views, especially not when writing fiction.

See

Tolkien tries to distance himself from it, and insists otherwise, but it is too suspect, especially if you know his background.
That's all it is, nothing more. What you can deduce from his themes is sympathy for the old Tory cause from way back, who espoused protectionist agrarianism.

Is that a good or bad thing in your view?
What would Moorcock prefer?

I don't honestly see how that's relevant to my point. The user I replied to was belittling someone for saying Tolkien was a "Tory" because they clearly had no idea what they were talking about. I was simply refuting that.

All it does is point at one thing: tolkien is stubborn and didn't like people intruding into his work to look for personal views so he insisted that there's nothing there.

Good. It's cringeworthy when people make Harry Potter into politics. Leave LOTR out of it.

>if the author says his stories are politically neutral, it's true
Lol, how naive can you get.

>it's bad because it reminds me of imaginary people whose politics I don't like
>I don't like their politics because I am a very smart free-thinking rebel who wholeheartedly supports the dominant social ideology of my time
>now it's time for me to share some unfalsifiable psychological judgements. Hope I don't shatter your world with my irrefutable insights into what you REALLY meant, kid

>anarchist
>supports the dominant social ideology
Go back to your containment board

He's an egalitarian progressive, meaning he wants to destroy or deny biological and cultural distinctions between different groups. His worldview is identical to that of a CNN talking head or the Pope or the CEO of McDonald's. There's nothing unique or individual about his beliefs in any respect whatsoever; he is mentally incapable of questioning or even acknowledging the dominant political narrative of the Western World

Nope.
Moorcock's problem, like all commie retards, is he tries to cram all of art, literature, history, etc. into the narrow confines of dialectic materialism. Or - he has one hammer so everything in the world must not just be a nail, but a particular type of nail.
Further, his complaints about JRRT, Lewis, etc. always sound like the man with a poor education who hate anyone who is erudite.
Lastly, he is that sort of anarchist/socialist/communist - you know, the one that flies in first class from one of this three home to meet with his agent and a documentarian over wine at a michelin-starred lunch then goes to his old neighborhood where he complains bitterly that it used to be filled with "authentic people" (i.e., the poor) but it is now gotten gentrified. After expressing his horror at a poor neighborhood not being poor any longer he writes a quick dismissal of someone else as a 'crypto-fascist', sends it to his press agent, then gets back into a first class seat for another of his homes.
If the "anarchist" Moorcock had the education and patience he would see that the theme of LotR is that the Common Man is the bedrock of all societies: kings may be good or bad; clerics may be holy or venal; war may threaten; but the Common Man decides the wealth and health of any nation. Moorcock rants about JRRT being a 'crypto-fascist' forgetting that the climax of the books is not Aragorn becoming king of all men but rather the King of All Men announcing that Hobbits (the Common Man) are beyond his rule and are in charge of themselves.
tl;dr: Moorcock is a bitter man fueled by jealousy and Marxism (but I repeat myself)

>I think Moorcock is on point in calling him a tory, but frankly not sure if that is a negative in and of itself
Are you retarded?

There's something wholesome and beautiful about JRRT. Why do the intellectuals hate him? I feel that within the academy there's a hatred of the beautiful and also an urge to destroy it, but after they destroy it, they can never offer up a worthy replacement. I don't know how to explain it. They want to make the world as worthless as themselves. They remind me of Bradbury's autumn people.
Beware the autumn people.

If I didn't know that Moorcock had written before the films were made (decades before in fact) I might suspect he had only watched them. What little "message" they may have does seem to glorify war, and certainly misses out the important aspects which showcase the virtue of the common man - I was going to say "civic virtue", but it occurs to one that the world Tolkien presents is far too agrarian and feudal for that term.

dats p. insightful n deep comentary.

I'm a socialist myself but I have to agree with a lot of this desu.

I disagree - the horrors of war (destruction, death, madness) are pretty stark and he even works to show that the effects can destroy places far from the war (the Scouring of the Shire).
And an agrarian, feudal life is where the term 'civic virtue' was spawned. JRRT is pretty blunt about how the virtues of the Hobbits is what are important.

That's just not true - civic virtue stems from the republican City States in Antiquity. Jeffersonian Civic Virtue may be agararian, but it's origins are not.

Why in the world would a Catholic like Tolkien have anything to do with Jefferson?

Don't confuse 'the writers lived in a polis' with ;the common man they were writing about lived in rural areas'. The Spartans had their ideals of civic virtue as much as did Athenians and the writings of the great Romans idealized the bucolic living of the shepherds as a nursery for virtue.
More to the point, JRRT was well versed in the Middle English which also pointed to the rural man as a place where virtue flourishes or dies and the Catholic Church, which emphasizes the edifying nature of honest work would have had a tremendous influence.
Indeed

Clearly he was using that as an example of agrarian civic virtue, which no one else has supplied. Beggars cannot be choosers. Jefferson's Virginia gentry prided themselves on the traditional English gentry. Tolkein seems to be talking more of Yeomanry, but it's an inarguably small leap between the two.

literally who?

Literally who? And what does "substituting faith for artistic rigor" even mean? Shoehorning a class reading into a book about elves and hobbits makes me think this guy is a Marxist who is attempting to paint his ideological critique of Tolkien as an artistic critique.

>that there were no symbols or allegories to be found in it

I hate when people say this because almost always fail to differentiate the sort of author enforced allegory and symbolism which is what Tolkien was talking about the allegory and symbolism that the reader finds on his own. The freedom of the reader is what Tolkien is advocating for and he was speaking in response to guys like CS Lewis who would put direct allegories like Aslan being Jesus with no other possible way for the reader to interpret the work. Merely quoting "I hate allegory in all its form" is a form of proof-texting because you're removing the context of what Tolkien is talking about.

>le literally who xD

That you haven't heard of one of the most prominent scifi writers isn't an argument, just shows your ignorance.

He's not. He's a pulp writer who influenced Warhammer and rpgs. Not exactly the best representative of the genre.

Moorcock is so underrated tho. The soul-stealing Black Sword is just as interesting a concept as the One Ring. If Moorcock had been able to tell the story of it in a single unified tale instead of a time-altering multiverse he might be more popular here.

Tolkien was a Catholic and Moorcock wasn't. Everything else follows from that.

no u, Reddit is a Tolkien sanctuary.

>believing a sword is as interesting as a ring

I unironically love Tolkien's prose.

Fite me irl

you must be a tard if you don't see them as the epitome of english country folk

>believing that if you put the eye of sauron into a sword and making an intelligent cursed weapon in the process isn't going to be interesting af

he has his own prejudices, yes we get it. now are you willing to accept that Tolkien has ones of his own? or would applying the same critical eye to him be "marxism" and therefore invalid?

>believing that i can into grammar
>w/ev

seriously tho. if you combine gollum with aragorn you get elric, halfway between the gutter and the stars. he just doesn't have the same epic flair as tolkien but elric is slept on. a world of cursed artifacts and people struggling with them - that's technology today

Magic swords are overdone and a ring has richer symbolism.

>he prefers symbol of being to symbol of becoming

>he prefers benis to bagina

>Clearly he was using that as an example of agrarian civic virtue, which no one else has supplied.
Well, except for, oh, Virgil. And about 200 others ince him.

>That you haven't heard of one of the most prominent scifi writers
The only works of his that sold were are the Melnibone one - and they're fantasy, not SF. As far as 'prominent'? I wouldn't say so, not as a writer. He won a Nebula for a novella, the rest tend to be those 'lifetime achievement' awards that mean 'none of your stuff was particularly good, but you stuck around for 30 years'.The only book he wrote that approached decent was written 50 years ago

>bagina

...

Too bad Moorcock never really wrote much about Elric v. Stormbringer. It killed the woman he loved and otherwise was Deus Ex Machina, the cutlery.
Here's what really happened
1) Moorcock is a barely-educated kid who loves the pulps but is edgy and reads Marx, so he wants to be an anarchist
2) LotR is popular and growing in popularity but he hates everything the book is about (family, honor, duty, loyalty, tradition, physical courage)
3) He decides to do a reverse LotR: the leader isn't a farmer, he;s an emperor! he doesn't have high moral fibre, he's heartless! he doesn't try to avoid the evil artifact, he chases after it! He doesn't quest for the land of the evil emperor, he lives there! He doesn't save his own homeland, he destroys it! He isn't surrounded by brave, virtuous companions, he has a thief that hangs around! etc.
4) It sells fairly well in that New Wave 'it mentions drugs so I'll buy it' kinda' way and people want more, but he's only got One Simple Trick, so he keep using it over and over and over....
there you have it

OP asked if Moorcock's criticisms are valid.
I don't think they are.
Start your own thread

>(me)

...

Moorcuck did a great job at writing pulp about a tragic antihero, but if you expect anything more than high tier schlock, you will be disappointed.

...

sorry, forgot pic

old tory*

...

more cuck amirite fellas

hahaha

I think the point of the OP is that while Tolkein and others may not have INTENDED to represent those beliefs/backgrounds, it implicitly becomes the backdrop for the narrative because the author has only his own background to draw from.

>But Tolkien isn't really famed for his prose(((;))) his world-building, deep mythological knowledge and linguistic appreciation is where the LOTR riches lie.
I would put a semicolon here.

Couldn't you make the move, though, that while Moorcock's identification of LOTR's underlying themes are valid, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're bad?

I mean, that's just, like, your opinion, Michael. Some of us might just have a fondness for "Orthodox Toryism."

>tfw laughed at by dirty old stoner
>tfw be chronically addicted to drugs in order to live

the feels

...I thought that is what *I* said...

the 'not sure if that is a negative' is the prompt

I would counter that the only reason Moorcock and such perceive this background as negative is because of their own explicit, overt biases.

you didn't actually engage with the criticisms though, you just explained why moorcock might feel the way he does and you didn't touch the argument.

agrarianism could be viewed as dumb

...

read to the end, kid. I presented a counter

...if you're retarded. Thus, the post

yeah you actually proved his point under the pretense of arguing against him

Go take a train ride and die of pneumonia Tolstoy

Which is it, kid?
Either
>[I] didn;t engage the criticisms
or
>my argument against him proved his point
It is one or the other.
Once we clear that up, we can actually address my points.
If I made any

...

Moorcock
>substitut[ing] faith for artistic rigour he sees the petit bourgeoisie, the honest artisans and peasants, as the bulwark against Chaos. These people are always sentimentalized in such fiction because traditionally, they are always the last to complain about any deficiencies in the social status quo.
and then
>the theme of LotR is that the Common Man is the bedrock of all societies
>the climax of the books is not Aragorn becoming king of all men but rather the King of All Men announcing that Hobbits (the Common Man) are beyond his rule and are in charge of themselves
You say that if Moorcock had education and patience, he would see the book for... exactly what he quoted it as?

>kid
>>>/reddit/

Moorcock seems like one of those Marxists who think that if you're NOT a Marxist you're either ignorant or stupid. Like Sartre.

Oooooh! I see!
You haven't read the rest of what Moorcock wrote!
That excerpt is from a longer work that goes on to argue that JRRT is wrong, that the petit bourgeoisie are just the most compliant and easily controlled. He views LotR as inherently misanthropic because JRRT's ultimate answer was to have distant aristocratic rulers just control everything.
In replying to the *entire essay* I counter that JRRT's view of the Common Man was much more nuanced than Moorcock's 'petit bourgeoisie' slur and that rather than a "hitlerian" ending where "...White men in grey clothing have a handle on what is best for us..." and are 'beyond question' that JRRT's *actual* ending was much more egalitarian and was about the Common Man ruling *himself*.
I was responding to the whole thing, not just this excerpt

other guy but well I'll just say that agrarianism is dumb

Why?
The core concept of agrarianism is very simple - a land-owning farmer is more independent than a paid worker and is thus more free to follow their conscience. What is dumb about that?