From: al@calsci.UUCP (Al Petterson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: BOOKS BY DAVID EDDINGS
Date: 24 Jul 92 00:53:26 GMT

<1992Jul21.130813.16021@walter.bellcore.com> <NICKH.92Jul21112621@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU>
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Reply-To: al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (Al Petterson)
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
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Organization: California Scientific Software


Please assume IMHOs in all below, including those deleted from the remarks
of others.  If I got any attributions wrong, I sincerely apologize and
encourage correction.  (I wouldn't want to be misquoted either!)

In article <1992Jul21.191351.25963@MorningStar.Com> chris@MorningStar.Com (Chris Miller) writes:
>In article <NICKH.92Jul21112621@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU> nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul21.130813.16021@walter.bellcore.com> tedk@jpl.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Ted Ko) writes:
>>>In article <10726446.78.711694821@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>, 10726446@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (LAU WAI KUEN) writes:
>>>> Do you want to comment on the crap he vomits up too?
>>>
>>>The Belgariad is one of the all time classics of fantasy.
>>
>>The Belgariad is ghastly. What would you say are the interesting, original,
>>or worthwhile points to the Belgariad?
>
>Strong character developlent.
>Strong appeal to the readers emotions (if any)
>Good development of universe. (geography, customs, etc.)
>Fast paced, attention grabbing storyline.
>VERY escapist... (this is, after all, a FANATASY series....)

Since we're all mouthing off about the Belgariad, I'll put in my comments,
since I haven't seen anything posted yet about this aspect of the series.

I found it light, fluffy, and generally enjoyable, but with an unpleasant
aftertaste for this reason: the nationalities were all incredibly
stereotyped.  Granted, the stereotypes were *interesting* at least met as
individuals, but I found it not only unbelievable ("Everyone from nation A
is sneaky but with a heart of gold!  Everyone from nation B is a witless
dupe of evil!  Everyone from culture C is an untrustworthy backstabber!" and
so on) but frankly racist.  Yes, sure it's escapist fantasy, but I look for
cleaner morals when I want to escape.

Now if the story is compelling *enough* I can accept a certain amount of
unpleasant moral assumption (Mote in God's Eye, Dune, Watchmen, and Starship
Troopers come to mind) but the Belgariad simply wasn't good enough to
warrant that kind of cavalier fascistic morality.  It didn't make a moral
statement, as far as I'm concerned, and there was no reason given for the
racist assumptions in the underlying structure.

By the latter I mean: in Mote, the reason and background for human society's
militaristic and sexist attitudes were well-established;  in Dune the
genetic superiority of the Fremen was a central concept in the epic.  in ST,
Heinlein based the whole story around a disagreeable morality and at least
made several points about it.  There is no such rationale given in the
Belgariad for *why* the Murgos (do I have the nation right?) were *all*
*evil*.  Maybe there was in the later stories but from all accounts they are
otherwise inferior works.

It put me in mind of a perfectly hilarious racist quote by Heinlein that he
made in some nonfiction something circa 1950 (I think it's buried in
Expanded Universe somewhere).  I'm misquoting, but the sense of the
statement was something like "A man may have a gruff exterior but a heart of
gold inside, like a Swede, or a perfectly polite manner and an underhanded
nature, like a Jap.  So *don't judge by appearances*." (*italics* mine)
Broke me up almost as much as "An armed society is a polite society" from
Beyond This Horizon.

The difference between the Belgariad and Heinlein's work (and that of the
rest of the good writers who experimented with differing and often
distateful sets of morality) was that Heinlein stories *encourage* one to
think about one's morality (even when it wasn't intended, as in the above
quotes), whereas the Belgariad, actually fairly deftly, wove its racist
assumptions into the story for no discernable literary reason and
*discouraged* the reader from challenging these assumptions.

Now I'm going to get flamed a million ways from Saturday by a million
different people on a million different parts of this post.  But I *bet*
this stimulates some discussion!

al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (Al Petterson)
---
"I'm the grandson of a working woman and the son of a single mother.  My
wife makes more money -- a lot more -- than I do.  And my daughter wants to
build colonies in space."
        -- (hopefully) the next President of the United States.