I think we are reading too much into these works in politically correct hindsight. There is no getting away from the fact that Sanders of the River (and Major Hamilton, and Lt. Bones), Biggles, Bulldog Drummond - for that matter, even Billy Bunter - were racist somewhere deep below, but this was an irritant that one just brushed aside and got on with reading the breathtaking stuff. It was racist times, and the only good native was the brave, upright native chief, sometimes one with an endearing rascally streak in him, all the more to separate him out from the prim WOGs whom it was meet and proper to despise - even for prim WOGs reading the tales. There was simply no alternative narrative, not unless one dived into Bankimchandra, or a delightful series about a teenager in Maratha times called Sadashiv-er Hoi Hoi Kando. Stirring stuff, both sets, and so orthogonal to Anglo-Indian narrative that the contradictions didn't come up. Not until Kim, anyway. The babu in Kim was a real person, btw, who led an unbelievable life beggaring anything that Sandy Arbuthnot might have dreamt of. Kipling was nothing if not ambiguous.
Sent from my iPad On Aug 8, 2012, at 1:16 PM, Landon Hurley <[email protected]> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA512 > > On 08/08/2012 03:17 AM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram wrote: >> On 8 August 2012 12:24, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Udhay (first encountered LotR and Rand in high school, disliked both on >>> sight) >> >> I read them both in high school as well. I found Rand hard to read, as >> you could see the point some 2000 words before she got there, but >> slogged through all her fiction because they came highly recommended. >> >> Tolkien was a tedious read too, but the Peter Jackson movies made them >> watchable, unlike the Rand movies. I read the books again with my son, >> and realised that I had missed the racism completely the first time. >> >> Ram >> > Perhaps because of my own misfortune in being raised catholic, I always > interpreted the colour symbolism to be more demons vs angels than any > ethnic biases. Now one could make the strong argument that these colour > choices are directly drawn from ethnic divisions, but I don't think of > that as racist, just inheriting the dichotomy and symbolism of previous > generations. That certainly hasn't changed even today, and tbh, > introducing novel symbolism to address this seems beyond the scope of > his writing, as well as tedious, because it makes the writing less > accessible. > > If I recall correctly, there also wasn't a discrete equation between > good and evil, black and white. Gandalf was grey originally, which is, > as I interpret it, a cross between his pursuit of magic, an unearthly > power (thus white), and his constant involvement in ordinary affairs, > that of mortals. So his purpose is mixed. Furthermore, there is Saurumon > the White, who, if I recall correctly, was almost exclusively involved > in the ethereal, but was ultimately completely evil. LOTR certainly was > an epic, but I never felt that there was anything ridiculously deep > about the symbolism. Then again, I haven't read it since elementary school. > > //landon > > - -- > Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJQIhlBAAoJEDeph/0fVJWswfgP/j3gOWtw/bxV5DAHufPMvK/y > T5L1IWYLxvQAts4DJJ41M8DhFIbyIgfs0x3tTrNpkXqV/uvUYmA1iJmpDxEqhgPV > oLxHZdPYLUQFqtTFVrUPYCaXvQBCmwTb8didBNSvystChhC2mvu9kMLyh8g5NeAN > 7yIfD5Enq6zNPPwN4MlT5jh1DiFsYKl5F2cV+etXimJ0rXTWaDDTZsuL50KPaj0Q > f5dVH+Cg3kAhfeDW3xdGJIAsZ0YGJ8sSQe3U+kZngZ+I60M9uPAQKl4i6hsCy6St > 4c/juvC+hmGt86xa++KFFUbRvCnyKTs1jogJf9atXOvzGDt5mOSlV7kvvWllHuer > 6PK2Erohp/H3xmL8b68hK+kj+8iTOfNVLRJ6R1DkO+aj/kqlXD/ra1M2YMbXJRVl > Za5JwcinzeFB5L2yzKzMInX13Izf+SBNqkPAPXFYedt4JHXxFX3nLwSmcsnCHXdG > XdQcpCuTJS9cjUYiYIhRYiTH5RMrHPD5tsCIyLgxfTPkeoQmPrY1L8ALIG5GzZsb > DlTd0Og7BsRoLqZvORaQsaiVkLuWuTkCrWgLZiFNwUiVUvyzNerUfLesSAY9lkrR > W1Djn4w7vEw3lr7e4fnAOw6PTWT3YoimF+TVoJfuIHyilV9QJd5CukIKl27XlHhA > 35UJOU8Q3C8JjK2JxPa5 > =Rk07 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >
