C.S. Lewis anticipates Le Guin's "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie"

[calimac]

"Aren't all these economic problems and religious differences too like the politics of our own world? Why go to faerie for what we already have? Surely the wars of faerie should be high, reckless, heroical, romantic wars - concerned with the possession of a beautiful queen or an enchanted treasure? Surely the diplomatic phase of them should be represented not by conferences (which, on your own showing, are as dull as ours) but by ringing words of gay taunt, stern defiance, or Quixotic generosity, interchanged by great warriors with sword in hand before the battle joins?"

- Letter to Jane Gaskell, author of Strange Evil, 2 Sept 1957

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I will grant the point in general, but on the other hand, the Council of Elrond is a great scene of a committee meeting, completely with digressions and misunderstandings, as Shippey points out.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Ah, but what words are spoken at that conference? In Le Guin's three examples of noble Elfland dialogue, the one by Tolkien is from the Council of Elrond:

"Who can tell?" said Aragorn. "But we will put it to the test one day."
"May the day not be too long delayed," said Boromir. "For though I do not ask for aid, we need it. It would comfort us to know that others fought also with all the means that they have."
"Then be comforted," said Elrond.

And here's what she says about it:

In the third passage, the speakers are quieter, and use a less extraordinary English, or rather an English extraordinary for its simple timelessness. Such language is rare on Capitol Hill, but it has occurred there. It has sobriety, wit and force. It is the language of men of character.
Speech expresses character. It does so whether the speaker or the author knows it or not. ... The Lords of Elfland are true lords, the only true lords, the kind that do not exist on this earth: their lordship is the outward sign or symbol of real inward greatness. And greatness of soul shows when a man speaks. ... In fantasy, which, instead of imitating the perceived confusion and complexity of existence, tries to hint at an order and clarity underlying existence - in fantasy, we need not compromise. Every word spoken is meaningful, though the meaning may be subtle.

And that is why the Council of Elrond is not just a conference or a committee meeting. (Shippey is quite wrong when he calls it badly chaired and meandering. It is in fact a symposium: the witnesses submit their evidence and experiences, the body considers the accumulated data, presents alternative courses of action and reaches a decision.) It is the vast stylistic difference of the Council of Elrond (or, even more, the Last Debate in Book 5) from the typical hack fantasy strategy session that shows how far from the ideal spirit of fantasy they are.

[jane-dennis.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd never thought of the C of Elrond as a Symposium, but yep, I see it now. But no drinks? Bilbo would certainly have been happier with a dram of cordia! (Yes, I know...)

Not sure what you think of when you mention "typical hack fantasy strategy session." Probably I haven't read it, but I'm curious.

I must ask: Lewis. Did you read him because of Tolkien? (I did, the planetary trilogy first, and Screwtape, and some other things long before I read Narnia, some of which I can't help but like.) I am not bothered by his Christian slant, but his supposedly serious "it was better in the Middle Ages" attitude does bother me a bit.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Actually, at one point Bilbo calls for an adjournment for lunch, but I don't think he gets it.

I don't keep a lot of hack fantasy around to point fingers at, and it's been decades since I devoted any time to reading hackwork, but the one that Le Guin cites as her typical bad example (it's from Katherine Kurtz's Deryni Rising) will do.

Yes, it was reading Tolkien that led me to Lewis, but I appreciate Lewis for his own merits, though he exasperates me in ways Tolkien does not. I most like his blazingly clear work on literary aesthetics, and I'm most annoyed by his breezy dismissal of any theological position he doesn't take. He does not say that everything was better in the Middle Ages; what he does say is that the advent of modernism has caused the loss of some things that were valuable (and by "things" he means aesthetics and manners of thinking, not the absence of indoor plumbing). Tolkien takes a similar attitude: that the destruction of the Ring is altogether a Good Thing doesn't mean we can't regret the valuable part of what is thereby lost.

[jane-dennis.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of Bilbo's call for a lunch break. (And no, he doesn't get it then.)

Sorry if my question seemed like prurient interest. The fantasy books I put down after a few pages include Kurtz's. But I'd got started thinking about the few new(ish) books I do like, and how some of Charles Williams's books might be called precursors, or early examples of urban fantasy.

I didn't mean indoor plumbing either. I do tend to see Lewis's attitude as more a yearning for a lost society that only ever existed for a small % of the population. And Pope's paradigm has never really turned me on.

Tolkien explicitly states more than once that the Elves' problem (or at least the Eldar's esp. with the Rings) was attempting to hold back entropy in a world in which entropy rules. So of course we can regret with the Elves what is lost.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't dispute Le Guin's point, and indeed, I've long thought Kurtz's failure to grasp it at the Mythcon panel "Elfland versus Poughkeepsie" (she thought and may well still think that Le Guin was faulting her for not using archaic forms, against the plain evidence of Le Guin's text) was symptomatic of her literary limitations.

On the other hand, Tolkien's speakers are not uttering "ringing words of gay taunt, stern defiance, or Quixotic generosity, interchanged by great warriors with sword in hand." They are assembling evidence and critically assessing it, with the aim of establishing the truth of their situation, in order to choose the best, or at any rate the necessary course of action for addressing it. The emotional attitudes are less important than the rational and prudent judgment of the speakers. And the same is true at the final debate that leads to Aragorn's desperate challenge to Mordor.

Your comparison to a symposium is perfectly valid—though I might also compare it to a discussion among intelligence analysts. But the qualities Lewis discusses don't sound much like those of a symposium. And I can't help feeling that the habits of mind Tolkien portrays have their own nobility, at least equal to the flashier nobility of "great warriors with sword in hand." Indeed, Tolkien himself more or less says as much, through Faramir's contrast of high men such as the best Numenoreans with middle men such as the Rohirrim—or, though Faramir would never say such a thing, of Faramir himself with Eomer. Lewis's words are a lot easier to apply to Eomer, and that's why I find them incomplete.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Well, they're not talking with their enemies. That limits the opportunities for taunting and defiance. Though Aragorn's "But we will put it to the test one day" qualifies. (Remember what he is responding to.) It is, however, what Le Guin said, the language of sobriety, force, and character. When they are talking to their enemies ... well, Dernhelm to the Witch-King is one of the great moments of all literature, and a better mixture of Lewis's gay taunt and stern defiance could hardly be imagined.