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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting and Informed Defense of Tolkien's Work,
By Neal Meyer (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity (Hardcover)
Patrick Curry has given Tolkien readers (both admirers and critics alike) something to celebrate and much to chew over in writing this book. The book, though short, is actually an outgrowth of a paper he wrote for a Centenary Conference on Tolkien in 1992. This tome is a fairly complex read and is rather ambitious in its scope. Curry aims to answer bedeviling questions such as why is Tolkien such a modern day success when his books have nothing to do with modern day preoccupations such as sex, murders, money,or lawyers? More to the point, in Curry's own words he asks us,"What are millions of readers from all over the world getting out of reading these books?" I have to hand it to you, Mr. Curry, this is a very interesting question to ask. Curry's book is divided into a lengthy introduction, four chapters,and a modest ending of roughly 15 pages. The focus of Curry's analysis on Tolkien's popularity centers on Lord of the Rings, since both LOTR and The Hobbit are the two stories that the world has responded to best. Early on in his introduction, Curry confronts academic / literary snobbery towards Tolkien head on. Most of this criticism is based on the attitude that Tolkien's work is irrelevant in our world because it is seen as nothing more than juvenile escapism that does not deal with any of the problems that plague (or have plagued) our modern day world. Meanwhile Curry tells readers that he intends to look for help in explaining Tolkien's popularity through post-modernist ideas which may in fact refute the very criticisms made by the intelligentsia. He also tackles other criticisms of Tolkien, such as alleged racism,class,oversimplification of good verses evil, etc. An incomplete laundry list of other topics that Curry covers in the book includes: reviewing Middle Earth (especially LOTR)as potentially great literature, exploring LOTR's Christian and Pagan aspects,its spirituality,nature and ecology,comparing magic verses enchantment in Middle Earth,social aspects of The Shire,the idea of wonder and how to invoke more of it in our world,and looking at Tolkien's hope to make a mythology for England. Since the part title of the book announces that Curry wants to deal with the subject of Tolkien and "Modernity", it would help to give potential readers who may not be familiar with the idea of Modernism a brief synopsis of what Modernism actually is. Actually Curry's definition, that Modernism is "a world - view that began in late seventeenth-century Europe,became self-conscious in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and was exported all over the world with supreme self-confidence, in the nineteenth (century).It (Modernism) culminated in the massive attempts at material and social engineering of our own day. Modernity is thus characterized by the combination of modern science, a global capitalist economy, and the political power of the nation-state." provides a sufficient explanation, although his idea neglects the notion that various interests in the world may not always be so neatly aligned. However, potential readers do need to understand this idea in order to judge whether they should bother reading this book. Making my own "world-view" judgment, I do not agree with Curry's pessimism regarding what Modernism has brought us or what it will bring us in the future. However,his use of modernist / post-modernist arguments in trying to explain Tolkien's popularity are both thoughtful and keen.Readers may argue on how solid Curry's arguments are, but I would recommend reading them anyway. Curry ends his work by speaking of Tolkien's offer of hope without guarantees. Curry invites that reader to think that this statement means that Modernity should be fought by those who are disillusioned with it. But Curry clearly states that Middle Earth offers a vision of peace between peoples, with nature, and with the unknown. Is this book a polemic on behalf of post - modernist leftism? Good question.But ah Mr. Curry, does not the Road ever go on?
3.0 out of 5 stars
"BLANK" AS "BLANK",
By
This review is from: Defending Middle-Earth (Paperback)
Curry's most original contribution to Tolkien Studies is a well-developed chapter on the component of religion, or spirituality, and Tolkien's focus on embedding ethics -- or, if you prefer, morality -- into his work without the obvious two-dimensionality of an overt and pedantic resort to doctrine. Most of Tolkien's critics tend to simply reinforce the Christian / Catholic subtexts -- oh! look! something happened on March 25! Curry does a good job of following the threads of the moral components to pre- and transitional Christian ethos of Northern Europe and even a multitude of pagan components. Others have made this point as well, but few have been willing to handle Catholicism as simply one more belief system among many, probably out of respect to Tolkien's faith. And while Curry goes on a rather long jag about the negative influences of science, to the point of treating it as another "ism" in apparent lock step with capitalism, consumerism, and ismism, Curry does not find a way to cast the same critical eye on spiritual practices which, as history demonstrates, have visited and continue to visit as much grief and horror on the human race as any and every other "ism".
This is perhaps the most "activist" critical work on Tolkien published to date, reminiscent in many ways with the tone and cadence of William Irwin Thompson's encyclopedic scope and vision. Curry even mentions Gregory Bateson, whose "Mind and Nature" one would assume to have been an influence on Curry's world view. Curry often goes on to aptly apply the struggles and conflicts within "The Lord of the Rings" to the present day ( in this case 1997, a year exhibiting an exhaustive list of problems that have only worsened in the past decade ). Especially important are those points at which such conflicts center on current environmental degradation, prompting the author to dwell convincingly on a theme of "Nature as Recovery". (As an aside, the writing relies a bit too heavily on the late sixties, early seventies formula of "This As That" definitions. Strangely, Curry sets aside Shippey's insight concerning both Tolkien and Vonnegut and the therapeutic nature of writing in the fantasy form as a method of dealing with the experience of war, never giving us a chapter on "Sub-creation As Therapy".) But finally, still in the defense mode that so many who support the value of Tolkien's work place themselves, Curry tackles the fantasy "issue" in a less than convincing way. As for those who find no value in Tolkien's work, it's safe to assume that there is more to such dismissal than their simply trying to be "grownups" as Curry puts it. The fact is that, as fantasy or Fäerie,"The Lord of the Rings", in keeping with its mythic forebears, is profoundly episodic in nature. Tolkien's own lovely song, "The road goes ever on..." is tacit and even joyful admission of this. In Jackson's film version, LotR becomes an overt "Road Picture", advancing on foot or horse from one episode to another, even repeatedly embracing the wholly inappropriate cliff-hangerism that Tolkien so scrupulously avoids. This ancient form, more than "fantasy", has justifiably or not become one of derision through familiarity, seen, after centuries, as broadly formulaic or cliché. My point would be simpler: an argument about "fantasy" and "form" hardly matter in support of this singular -- even outlier -- body of work. Instead, set aside the ambitions of conversion and the neediness of justification. Leave it as the singular accomplishment it already is. Just as Tolkien himself points out: "Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary "real" world." It seems clear to me that consciously defensive literary criticism will not be capable of winning converts to the truth (or error) of Tolkien's work -- while the usual form, as found in the excellent "Tolkien Studies" series and elsewhere in fact, can. The natural environment clearly does need defending, Tolkien's work does not.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Defending Middle-Earth,
By A Customer
This review is from: Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity (Hardcover)
An interesting book which is not a work of literary criticism but instead an essay on the author's own political and ethical viewpoint and how Middle-Earth fits into it.Curry is intent upon defending Tolkien's work, and in general does so ably. He makes cogent arguments for its relevance, and draws some interesting parallels between it and the thoughts of social, ecological and economic theorists. I particularly found his account of LOTR's resonance with people in the former Soviet Union interesting. Curry doesn't make as convincing a case for Tolkien's writing as literature, partly because he resists ascribing any flaws at all to the work. It's possible to believe, as I do, that LOTR and the Silmarillion (the latter not discussed by Curry) are great literature, and still see them as products of a specific time, place and culture, with attendant flaws. Nothing is perfect. In addition, Curry's apparent ignorance of modern speculative fiction weakens his arguments -- he quotes LeGuin, criticizes some early writers such as Peake, and mentions Pratchett, but beyond LeGuin doesn't seem aware of any other meaningful, literary speculative fiction. This means that his argument for Tolkien's uniqueness isn't very strong. His rather humorless approach also means that popular culture doesn't get addressed--he seems to have entirely missed the subversion in "The Simpsons". I agree with many of Curry's criticisms of "modernity" and his environmentalist viewpoint, and it does seem that LOTR resonates strongly with those views, though I tend to resist polemical writing even when I agree. Readers who do not share Curry's views or who were looking for a more traditional lit-critical work may find this book less than congenial.
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