At 04:16 PM 12/1/00, you wrote:
>I "made it through" LoTR, and enjoyed it, but found it much too long. The
>same story could have been told better in half the words. I read a story to
>enjoy the *story*. Tolkein told a good story, but he also felt the need to
>(with great pride, I felt) describe in intimate detail the world in which the
>story took place. Some love these sort of "word pictures". Some don't. It's
>a matter of taste.
Tom Shippey argues that Tolkien was (among several of his conceits)
attempting to reconstruct an Anglo-Saxon mythology (which should not be
wholly identified with the long-abandoned "mythology for England", although
the two concepts are seriously intertwined). LOTR provided him with an
opportunity to engage in some of that reconstructive speculation.
The Woses, for example, are (in Shippey's view) an attempt to put something
to the Anglo-Saxon word "wudu-wasa" (woodwose, which became
Woodhouse). Hobbits themselves represent a sort of fairy-folk which would
be peculiar to the English countryside (hence, the Shire is very similar to
rural England). Even the traditions about the sea might be inspired by the
fact that the Anglo-Saxons were seafarers, although Tolkien drew heavily on
the Atlantis myth for that aspect of his mythology.
I haven't read much of Howard's western stories, but could it not be said
he was, in a way, helping to create a mythology for Texas -- not for the
same reason as Tolkien (who wanted to revive a lost literature) but simply
as part of the process of defining the pulp western genre (or the pulp
action/adventure genre)?
Howard, like Tolkien, took mythical concepts and used them to redefine
storytelling in what might be deemed an absurd evolution. That is, neither
Howard nor Tolkien were contemporary with the myth-originators, but they
sought the essence of those stories and recast them for a modern audience.
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