Play Matt: Elric, Ranked

Shellhead wrote: Moorcock has notoriously said a lot about Tolkien, in his critical piece Epic Pooh:

warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentst..._m.1978epic_pooh.pdf

Count me as a member of Team Moorcock.

This actually really put me off Moorcock as a person and a writer, because it sticks the boot in quite viciously while failing to understand what it was Tolkein was seeking to achieve with his writing.

It's all very well to criticise a conservative for reflecting their views in their writing. But Tolkien was never about fantasy as a disruptive force: he saw it as a unifying force. A shared mythology that bound cultures together. He sought to re-create Englands lost mythology by scavenging bits from other north European legends. No writer before or since has attempted such a colossal undertaking, let alone succeeded in the degree Tolkien did.

To criticise him for conservatism, or even for the quality of his narratives, is a bit like critiquing Picasso for failing to follow accepted artistic conventions. It rather misses the point.

Matt Thrower wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Moorcock has notoriously said a lot about Tolkien, in his critical piece Epic Pooh:

warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentst..._m.1978epic_pooh.pdf

Count me as a member of Team Moorcock.

This actually really put me off Moorcock as a person and a writer, because it sticks the boot in quite viciously while failing to understand what it was Tolkein was seeking to achieve with his writing.

I agree. He comes off as uninformed — much like a teenager who thinks they know everything. With a tinge of bitterness underlying it all.

This is my favorite response to that nonsense:

gwydionmadawc.com/57-about-tolkien/defen...ation/#_Toc421951847