Caro.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (11/01/83)
For "Mary" Re: your message in V8 #104 Yes, there is no denying the POWER of Tolkien's work, which is why I am AFRAID to read it again. The first reading had such an impression on me that I could not imagine an elf without it being a Tolkien Elf, I could not imagine wizards without them being Gandalf, I could not imagince evil races without them being orcs and goblins, etc. Allow me to quote from Ursula K. LeGuin's collection of essays "Language of the Night" where she talks of her experience with Tolkien and the danger to a neophyte author that Tolkien represents: "...But when it [Lord of the Rings trilogy] appeared in the library, I shied away from it. I was afraid of it. It looks dull, I thought ... It's probably affected. It's probably allegorical.... The language looked a bit stilted ... [She get's it anyway and loves it] "... I reread a great deal, but have lost count only with Dickens, Tolstoy, and Tolkien. "Yet I believe that my hesitation, my instinctive distrust of those three volumes in the university library, was well founded. To put it in the book's own terms: Something of great inherent power, even if wholly good in itself, may work destruction if used in ignorance, or at the wrong time. One must be ready; one must be strong enough. "...But very few children (fortunately) are going to grow up to write fantastic novels; ... I count it lucky that I, personally, did not, and could not have, read Tolkien before I was twenty-five. Because I really wonder if I could have handled it. [She speaks of how her goals for writing had already been formed by the time she read Tolkien and goes on ...] "... I was old enough, and had worked long and hard enough at my craft, to be set in my ways; to know my own way. Even the sweep and force of that incredible imagination could not dislodge me from my own little rut and carry me, like Gollum, scuttling and whimpering along behind. So far as \writing/ is concerned, I mean. When it comes to \reading/, there's a different matter. I open the book, the great wind blows, the Quest begins, I follow ..." All this becomes relevant when I point out the following facts: a) I have had a strong desire to write "fantastic novels" since I was eight. b) I read Tolkien when I was 14. c) I read the essay quoted above just a year ago. Now you know why I "shy away" from re-reading Tolkien. Indeed, I wish I had never read it in the first place!!!! The battle against emulating Tolkien has been an uphill one for me, one that I am, eight years later, still fighting. Still, still, can I remember Galadriel as she sang farewell to the Fellowship ... "Ai! Laurie lante lassi surinen ..." Perry