OT: Super OT: Re: CHAT: JRRT

Eek!   I started a (somewhat) OT discussion.   Sorry.   :(

Responding the Shakespeare comments of everyone:

I've read most of Shakespeare's plays (admittedly, not even four of his 
sonnets).   And while I'd rather read something like the Decameron (whence most of 
his ideas came) for entertainment, I must admit that after hating Shakespeare 
for a time (it was high school), I came to appreciate what he was doing with 
his plays (I took a class on late Shakespeare in college: Hamlet through my 
favorite The Tempest).   Would I call him the greatest writer of all time?   
Certainly not.   And I still dislike that a Shakespeare class is a requirement at, 
for example, UC Berkeley (and I'm sure the same is true of many other 
institutions), but that he's the only *writer* that's a requirement.   (Of course, I 
still think the idea of an *English* major, as opposed to a Literature major, 
is generally flawed, as the English courses at Berkeley specifically avoid 
including anything written in a language other than English.)

That's the really OT part.   Now back to Tolkien:

I wrote, and then and wrote, and then Joerg wrote:

<<David P:
> > Further, I remain to be convinced that Tolkien was actually a
> > *good* language creator, rather than just a prolific, or highly
> > public, one.
>Andreas:
> I would like to try to convince you, then, but first I need to
> know what you think are the criterial properties of being a
> good conlanger.
Joerg:
A good question, and not an easy one.>>

Yeah, I think I was assuming too much when I said this.   I think I was 
assuming that Tolkien meant for his languages to be realistic, but now that I'm 
thinking about it, I have no idea.   Further, Joerg brought up the comparison to 
abstract art.   I would compare it not to abstract art, but to some earlier 
form of art.   I'm not too good with visual arts, but let's say in comparison to 
Shakespeare, since he's been discussed.   Were Shakespeare's plays realistic 
in the way that a realistic twentieth century novel is realistic, even 
considering the difference in time period?   No.   Can you judge Shakespeare's plays 
based on their realism from a twentieth century perspective of what realism is 
or should be?   Certainly not.   This may be the case with Tolkien, i.e., how 
can you judge a language based on its realistic properties if the very idea 
of realism/naturalism wasn't around?   If it was the case that this was a 
foreign concept, then I admit that even my judgment of what's good and what's not 
(since I base it on realism, unless the language is *overtly* striving for 
something completely different [I assume realism/naturalism to be the default 
(which is not an uncontroversial assumption, I realizse)]) is irrelevant, just 
like it would be irrelevant to read the Iliad, for example, and say, "There is no 
god of war!   I've never heard of Athena; this is totally fake!"   So I take 
that back, and I await further information.

Still Joerg:
<<...it is an engelang...>>

Come November, I'll be a four-year list member, but I seem to have missed out 
on this term.   What's an Engelang?

Andreas wrote:
<<> Slavish conformity is the enemy of creativity, but mindless
> heterodoxy is not a virtue in itself. For example, the glorious
> pluralism of American culture is scarcely enhanced (except as
> black comedy) by, say, white supremacists or New Age astrologers.
Then Joerg:
I wholeheartedly agree.  New Age astrologers are a harmless and
sometimes amusing nuisance.  The world would be neither better
nor worse if they weren't there.  White supremacists are a disgrace;
the world would be better without them.  But that's enough said
here on that matter; let's not get deep into politics.>>

I think Chomsky would disagree, as evidenced by his forward to that one book. 
;)   But divorcing from the politics, I want to say here that this is not 
"mindless heterodoxy".   I realize you can say that, logically, this wasn't meant 
to apply to me specifically, but pragmatically, it did.   I've never been a 
Tolkien fan, though I did give him a chance.   Quite frankly, I was surprised 
to learn that anyone really held him in any kind of esteem.   Maybe that just 
shows how removed I am from the sci-fi/fantasy community.

Andreas wrote:
<<I guess our disagreement begins about here. I remain unconvinced that there 
is
something like objectively good or bad prose, unless the definition is purely
utilitarian, which I strongly suspect isn't what this McWhorter is 
complaining
about.>>

The statement that this is a reply to is a very dualistic one, which I won't 
get into.   Suffice it to say: John McWhorter actually believes that people 
were smarter back in the 1920's, and that "hip-hop culture", as he calls it, is 
ruining the English language.   This coming from a linguist, you say?   Yes, I 
reply, sadly. (He even said to someone else, in my presence, that "college 
kids today are just idiots".   After this, though, he said, "Well, I don't mean 
you.   I've read you're writing; you're a good writer.   You know what you're 
doing.")   I still contend that the sentence I wrote was of poor quality, and 
I'll get to my position later, when it becomes more relevant.

Still Andreas:
<<I must confess my identification with the conlanging community is very 
weak.>>

Man, you *are* the conlang community.   We *all* are, whether we like it or 
not.   We can't identify with the community more or less, since we define it.   
We can identify with the average of the community, in a mathematical sense.   
The best way to think of it is that there is a prototypical conlanger (gay, 
bearded, male, left-handed, Lithuanian linguist?), and, regardless of how one 
feels one fits in, one's status (well, kind of) depends on how we match up with 
the prototype.   Now, the prototype is probably what the outside world 
responds to.   Therefore, the more general the prototype becomes, the less one can 
stereotype.   For example, what's a prototypical human?   A prototypical living 
entity on earth?   The description is so vague that it's not useful at all, 
and so you have to dig deeper.

Andreas:
<<but the sort of
person who'd dismiss conlanging because all conlangers he/she knew liked
Tolkien is not the kind of person I want aboard, nor the one whose opinion of
the hobby I'm interested in.>>

Excuse the glibness of this, but this sounds like the mother telling her 
child with respect to the bully, "Anyone who calls you names is not your friend."  
 The response is, "Well, duh, Mom."   You still have to deal with them, 
though, unless you move for total isolationism.   Some people think this is the way 
to go.   I never did.   Perhaps this can be seen as a crucial difference 
between people; something that can't be changed.   If so, there's not much that 
can be done.

Now this is just about writing:
<<The phrases "genre fiction" and "genre writing" are used as pejoratives in
English language literary criticism. It can hardly include the concept
of "genre" in the sense I was taught back in literature class - a body of
writings held together by a common style, purpose and/or subject matter -
because then practically all writings would be "genre writing" (incl every
posting to CONLANG by David!). So, I'd like to have the concept of "genre
writing" explained, and why it is seen as inherently bad. I'd also like to
know what separates "true" writing from "false", and what the heck are
the "Cold Mountain phenomenon" and "genrefication of society".>>

The sense of "genre" you were taught in literature class is still taught in 
literature class.   I'd argue that "genre" can no longer be defined that way, 
though.   For example, take a genre like "stream of conciousness".   This is a 
genre attributed to authors like Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Faulkner based 
purely on the style of their *writing*.   The same goes for the various other 
genres from way back when the term was introduced.   Now, though, I'd argue that 
the term "genre", as defined by the *publishing industry* (and this is crucial 
here), refers *only* to content/subject matter.  Now there are tons of 
genres--no longer just "mystery" or "sci-fi" or "fantasy", but the various types of 
genres that have been introduced into popular writing--the most popular of 
which is what I call the "opposite perspective" genre.   There are a bunch of 
books coming out now where the whole point is to go to a certain time period and 
show the point of view of someone whose point of view was not generally taken 
into account.   This even happens with literature, not just time periods (I'm 
think of Lo's Diary), and something like fairy tales (the basis of Frank (?) 
Maguire's career).   There's also the quirky format genre.   These are the 
novels that get published where, say, the entire novel is a series of e-mails.   Or 
maybe there are pictures included, and newspaper cutouts, etc.   Even David 
Eggers has done a bit of this.   Another type is the general historical novel, 
where any old story is taken and put into a particular time period, and that's 
its trick (this would be Cold Mountain, Snow Falling on White Cedars, etc.).  
 This is what I mean by "genrefication": Nothing can be published that's not 
in a specific content-based genre.

Now, is disregarding my last statement, is this bad?   Certainly not.   There 
are some good ideas here.   The problem comes when the publishing industry 
steps in and realizes a popular trend and suddenly publishes nothing but the 
genre fiction.  Why?   Because the goal of a serious writer is to get published.  
 How do you get published?   You have to write publishable material.   What 
is publishable material?   Something that can be sold to a particular audience 
(and if you doubt this, just pick up the current Writer's Market.   Everyone's 
advice is: Remember your audience; think of the type of reader you want 
reading what you write; etc.).   The danger in this is that writers, in order to 
get published, will focus more on "what's important", i.e., what will get them 
published.   This is not (and has not been for a long time) the quality of the 
writing.   All that matters is an interesting story that falls within a 
specific genre and can be sold to a specific demographic, and a quirky character or 
two.   The result is that writers no longer even *think* about the writing 
itself.   The writing is purely utilitarian: Get my idea from the paper to my 
reader.

This is what I object to.   Why?   Because what I enjoy, what entertains *me* 
when I read, is excellent writing.   When I tell someone about some of my 
favorite books, and they ask me, "What's it about?", I end up saying, "Well, 
nothing much", and their reaction is, "Oh, it must be boring."   Take Gogol's Dead 
Souls, for example.   It's about a guy who goes around the Russian country 
side asking to buy the contracts to the dead servants that still appear on the 
census.   That's it.   The writing is phenomenal, though.   *That's* what I 
enjoy, and that's what I'm not getting from what I call "genre fiction", and I 
think it's because the point is the genre and not the writing.

In fact, there was an interesting upshot of all this.   Last year, I think it 
was, there was a collection of short stories released (and I think it was 
edited by the guy who wrote that novel about the comic characters--Something and 
Klay?), where the express point was that, "Short stories have gotten dull, 
because nothing happens in them.   These short stories are devoted to action."   
In other words, they were saying that short stories where there isn't a lot of 
overt, in-your-face plot, are of lesser quality than those that focus on, 
say, the writing, or the characterization.   It can hardly get more blatant than 
that.

Now, how does this relate to Tolkien?   Not directly.   First of all, Tolkien 
wasn't writing in this era.   Tolkien was writing when you could pretty much 
write whatever you wanted, and the publishing industry had a completely 
different criteria for judging what was publishable and what wasn't.   However, what 
Tolkien gave rise to (and some people have commented on this) is a whole host 
of followers that aren't trying to write, but they're trying to write 
something that can be thought of as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (plus the 
Silmarillion and the Hobbit).   So, whenever I think of Tolkien, there's 
immediately this negative association (i.e., "He's the one that started it all...").   
Of course, this isn't fair: He didn't intentionally do anything.   He was 
just writing.   Yet, this isn't the whole story.

The rest of the story is his actual writing.   His writing does not do 
anything for me at all.   It just seems like writing from the era and place.   Like 
Lord Dunsany (well, different era, but the same kind of thing).   I place no 
personal value at all on his writing.   And, I've already said that plot isn't 
going to do it for me (plus, I'm at turns bored by the content of, for 
example, the Lord of the Rings, or embarrassed by it, or offended by it).   Plus, 
since I can get all the content in a visual format now, with the movies (which 
many have said were as accurate as they could be [and I heard that the many 
scenes that didn't appear were actually filmed and reserved for the DVD's...?]), 
why would I bother reading the books?   It literally is, to me, a waste of 
time, and not at all worth reading, by any stretch of the imagination.   Does this 
mean they're of no value to anyone else?   No.   They're of value to anyone 
who deems them to have value.   Does this mean I'll recommend the books to 
someone else?   Maybe as a punishment.   Or to someone who I think would actually 
get something out of them.   But, in general, no.   Because when someone asks 
you what you recommend, they're asking for your opinion.   And *hopefully*, 
when you give your opinion, it'll be understood to *be* and opinion, and not a 
statement of fact.

<<(c) because
his work is fantasy. <<snip>> Disdain on grounds (c) is more painful, because
it arises from a smallness of soul rather than from a smallness
of intelligence: it is dismissive of imagination, of subcreation
(in the tolkienian sense), and of course of conlanging.>>

I very strongly object to this.   First of all, it underlies an assumption 
that fantasy is different from "real" literature.   This interpretation is kind 
of forced onto us now, but *ideally* there would be no distinction between 
literature and fantasy, but a difference between careful (or thoughtful) writing 
and careless (or utilitarian) writing.   For example, what this assumes is 
that: (a) imagination can only exist in fantasy, and that therefore (b) 
everything else is somehow lacking, or suffering from the "smallness of soul".   First 
of all, if you take Nabokov's Pale Fire, I think it fulfills all three of the 
criteria above (including conlanging), but it most definitely is *not* of the 
fantasy genre.   There are many reasons for this which I won't go into now.   
But what I've found, in general, is that for fantasy, the best place to go is 
to the best writers of the past (before there was a fantasy genre).   This was 
because the writing was judged solely based on its merits, and not based on 
its content.   Therefore, it didn't matter what the content was, and fantasy 
was fair game.   Consider Kafka (whom, I know, some people dislike, for various 
reasons), whose stories were completely beyond realistic.   Not even close to 
realistic.   They were very close to fantasy, and contained fantasy-like 
elements, but the goal was still the writing, or the characters.   And what bout 
Lewis Carroll?   I'm not going to try to argue that he was the best writer, but 
can you imagine a literary critic classifying Alice and Wonderland as fantasy 
rather than literature?   (Maybe children's.)   And forget all that, just 
literature in general: The whole point is creation.   Not just story creation, but 
linguistic creation (consider Beckett).   Just because something lacks 
dragons or elves doesn't mean it's lacking in imagination.   Further, just because 
something *has* dragons and elves doesn't mean that it's particularly 
imaginative.   To assume either is basically a form of elitism, though, admittedly, 
it's reverse-elitism, since this point of view is hardly the mainstream.

All right, I'm done.   All the previous has been a defense or explanation of 
my *opinion*, not an attack, or an assertion of truth.   After all, all I can 
assert is my opinion.

-David

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