In message <news:8v0rs1d6311cnotj1ir6lp5cvs84aku6u5@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
William Marnoch <william@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> enriched us with:
>
> I stumbled across something on-topic on the Interweb, so I though
> I may as well post it here, since we have been a bit starved of
> on-topic conversation in recent years.
That's a bit of an understatement ;-)
> It does seem slightly incongruous to see them rate his work
> as 'dangerous'.
I was a bit confused about that -- for all the Eriondia books (except
that PoA an tRC aren't rated because of being too bad) the rating is
"Christian Morality: Harmless/Dangerous". What could they mean by
that? It can't be both, surely, and the explanation elsewhere doesn't
give a hint.
tRoA, however, is given an unqualified "Dangerous" (I was also, as
one of the defenders of that book, thrilled to see it score 4/5 in
literary quality to opposee the 3/5 for the Eriondia books <G>).
> Reading the review,
[...]
> they're not too irrational, although I completely fail to see why
> the lack of a monotheistic religion in Eriondia is worth noting
> even if you are the sort of person who does believe in such
> things.
It sounds as if the reviewer was surprised, and scared, of her own
identification with the books: "[...] subconsciously the reader
attempts to reconcile the two theologies." She had found herself
trying to justify her literary acceptance of a polytheistic setting
by parallels to Christian theology, and got a fright (I suppose I'm
reading far too much into it as usual <G>).
And then of course Tolkien and Lewis set the standard for such
people, showing (particularly Tolkien) how a sub-created setting
could be made compliant with Roman Catholic theology.
> They do, however, have some more arguable points:
>
> "These books are subversive - but only after really extended
> contact with them. You are called upon to root for a thief, a
> drunkard, and a slew of happy-go-lucky warriors who enjoy killing
> their enemies. Little quips of morality are thrown in,
> anti-serfdom, for example - but much of that morality is near
> obsolete from daily Western life, and therefore is as helpful as
> rock candy."
>
> It is certainly true that some of our heros are not particularly
> nice people - Silk and Belgaraths are murderers, for example, and
> several characters are career criminals (Platime, Talen and to
> some extent Belgarath and Silk as well, although it was more of a
> hobby than a career for them).
That whole line of arguing, while obviously true, also fails to grasp
some of the fundamental points in the books -- the points that show
that the struggle is never between Good and Evil.
One of them is expressed by Belgarath:
'She complicates this whole business, and I don't like
complications. I like nice, simple situations and nice,
easy solutions.'
'Good and Evil?' Durnik suggested.
'That's a difficult one, Durnik. I prefer 'them and us.'
That clears away all the excess baggage and allows you to
get right down to cases.' "
- Belgarath, /King of the Murgos/ (David Eddings)
(I use that for one of my .sigs, so I had it handy <G>).
There is no doubt that the books does introduce precisely this nice,
easy solution: our protagonists are charming, witty and generally
likeable, while our antagonists are about as unpleasant as they can
be (it's a bit more complex than that, I admit, and of course Zakath
manages a turn-about in the Malloreon, but as a general rule the
above is nevertheless true of the core persons on both sides).
The other point I'm referring to is the natures of the two prophecies
-- they are not Good and Evil either, but rather represent change vs.
stasis. There's a nice passage (IDHTBIFOM) in the Seeress of Kell as
they're entering the cave where Belgarion says something along the
lines of 'It will change' to Zandramas/the Dark Prophecy[*] where we
get an exposition of this philosophy.
[*] This light/dark issue is really one of the vestiges of a
good/evil characterisation in the books, the other being that Torak
is so obviously Evil, whereas Eriond is equally obviously Good (in
the Christian sense, even).
> I'm not sure I agree that DE was intending to be subversive,
I'm not sure they think he was -- the subversiveness, for what I can
see, could easily well, from the reviewer's point of view, be
unintentional (but no less real).
I do think one has to agree that the books, at one level, are
subversive, though I choose to believe that most readers are capable
of distingui****ng between the fantastic world and the real (or, to
put it on the religious terms, between sub-creation and Creation).
> I think the reviewers are forgetting that the books are set in
> the (pseudo-) Middle Ages. Those were often pretty nasty times
> where the rule of law was only intermittently enforced.
The rule of law, as I've understood the term, is a recent invention
by comparison. Something that didn't emerge until the age of
enlightenment was well under way. But that's a side-track ;-)
> Setting a series in such a world where some of the characters
> were nobles, politicians, military leaders and so on and not
> have a high pro****tion of them acting in ways we might consider
> reprehensible would be unrealistic and trying to apply too much
> modern morality to condemn all their actions would be absurd.
I guess both yes an no. That argument could also be used to defend
the Arendish custom of Serfdom (though possibly not the abuse of
one's sefs). Though more clearly present in PtS, it is clear that the
serf-institution is presented through the eyes of modern morality as
is much of the gender-equality issues.
The whole series is permeated by modern moralities on many levels, so
that seems to me a bad basis for rejecting the criticism of the
positive light in which drunkenness and thieving is presented (Barak
at least has moral qualms about his more extreme carnages).
Ultimately I think there are several ways to do such a setting
realistically. One can do the morality 'historically correct'
(advocating what was, in the historical equivalent, considered
acceptable or 'correct' behaviour), or 'completely modern' (that
doesn't preclude a historically correct presentation of actions, but
does require that modern moralities are applied to these actions), or
apply some other kind of consistent morality. The main problem here
is that in many aspects Eddings has chosen the modern morality, but
with his own special twist: drinking, whoring, thieving and moderate
brain-ba****ng is OK as long as you have strong women condemning it
afterwards . . .
For me the main problem with this, and all similar reviews, is the
underlying assumption that readers are fools -- that the readers are
not capable of distingui****ng between the real world and the
fantastic world, and that just because the reader find him- or
herself rooting for a thief in the literary context, the reader must
necessarily become more accepting of thievery in the real world. I
find that to be a gross underestimation of normal people.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the
world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
- Aragorn, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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