Newsgroup: it.fan.scrittori.tolkien
Titolo: A portrait of Tolkien as fantasy writer (critica lunga)...

Copio e incollo da
http://www.panmacmillan.com/Features/China/debate.htm
China Mieville e' uno scrittore. A un certo punto scade un po' nel
volgare (anche se immagino che l'immagine evocata sia volutamente
provocatoria). ^_^
China says: 
"Two untrue things are commonly claimed about fantasy. The first is that
fantasy and science fiction are fundamentally different genres. The
second is that fantasy is crap. 
It's usually those who claim the first who also claim the second. The
idea is that where SF is radical, exploratory and intellectually
adventurous, fantasy is badly written, clichéd and obsessed with
backwards-looking dreams of the past - feudal daydreams of Good Kings
and Fair Maidens. 
It's easy enough to distinguish the writers at the far edges of the
spectrum - Asimov versus Eddings, for example. But the problem with the
'sharp divide' argument is the number of writers - often very brilliant
ones - who fall in the middle, who blur the lines. David Lindsay,
William Hope Hodgson, Jane Gaskell, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith,
Gene Wolfe: the list could go on. These are writers for whom the
'fantastic' is not ethereal and wispy but tough and real, where 'magic'
operates like science or science magic, and where the sense of
subversion, of alienation, of sheer strangeness that saturates their
work defies easy categorisation as SF or fantasy. 
That's the tradition that I'm interested in - I see myself as writing
Weird Fiction. And as soon as you see that as your foundations, then the
idea that fantasy is crap disappears. 
When people dis fantasy - mainstream readers and SF readers alike - they
are almost always talking about one sub-genre of fantastic literature.
They are talking about Tolkien, and Tolkien's innumerable heirs. Call it
'epic', or 'high', or 'genre' fantasy, this is what fantasy has come to
mean. Which is misleading as well as unfortunate. 
Tolkien is the wen on the arse of fantasy literature. His oeuvre is
massive and contagious - you can't ignore it, so don't even try. The
best you can do is consciously try to lance the boil. And there's a lot
to dislike - his cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his boys-own-adventure
glorying in war, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical
status-quos, his belief in absolute morality that blurs moral and
political complexity. Tolkien's clichés - elves 'n' dwarfs 'n' magic
rings - have spread like viruses. He wrote that the function of fantasy
was 'consolation', thereby making it an article of policy that a fantasy
writer should mollycoddle the reader. 
That is a revolting idea, and one, thankfully, that plenty of fantasists
have ignored. From the Surrealists through the pulps - via Mervyn Peake
and Mikhael Bulgakov and Stefan Grabinski and Bruno Schulz and Michael
Moorcock and M. John Harrison and I could go on - the best writers have
used the fantastic aesthetic precisely to challenge, to alienate, to
subvert and undermine expectations. 
Of course I'm not saying that any fan of Tolkien is no friend of mine -
that would cut my social circle considerably. Nor would I claim that
it's impossible to write a good fantasy book with elves and dwarfs in it
- Michael Swanwick's superb Iron Dragon's Daughter gives the lie to
that. But given that the pleasure of fantasy is supposed to be in its
limitless creativity, why not try to come up with some different themes,
as well as unconventional monsters? Why not use fantasy to challenge
social and aesthetic lies? 
Thankfully, the alternative tradition of fantasy has never died. And
it's getting stronger. Chris Wooding, Michael Swanwick, Mary Gentle,
Paul di Filippo, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others, are all producing
works based on fantasy's radicalism. Where traditional fantasy has been
rural and bucolic, this is often urban, and frequently brutal.
Characters are more than cardboard cutouts, and they're not defined by
race or sex. Things are gritty and tricky, just as in real life. This is
fantasy not as comfort-food, but as challenge. 
The critic Gabe Chouinard has said that we're entering a new period, a
renaissance in the creative radicalism of fantasy that hasn't been seen
since the New Wave of the sixties and seventies, and in echo of which he
has christened the Next Wave. I don't know if he's right, but I'm
excited. This is a radical literature. It's the literature we most
deserve" 
Fritz Tegularius
"Regine del sesso distese
come Paolina Borghese..."
www.fanbattiato.com/franciscafranca/index.html

 provocatoria). ^_^
[Cut]
Ciao Fritz!
Ti andrebbe di farne la traduzione? A prima vista mi pare interessante
- in chiave critica s'intende! -, ma dopo le prime righe mi sono perso e
il rischio a proseguire e' quello di stravolgerne il contenuto.
Sai, il mio inglese ...... :-(
Se non proprio tutto, magari un riassunto. ^___-
Moriagate, che ringrazia comunque.
--
"Vorrei che gli alberi potessero parlare a pro di tutte le cose
che hanno radici, e punire chi fa loro del male!"

 William Hope Hodgson, Jane Gaskell, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith,
gran bell'argomentazione:complimenti. Vogliamo vedere che gli dimostro che
giallo e romanzo storico sono lo stesso genere?
Poi cita moplti autori che non conosco, X cui non sono in grado di
ribattere.
Ma per quanto posso parlare, dissento completamente con l'autore (che mi e'
pure antipatico in quanto un tantino arrogante, direi).
--
salkaner il critico
--------------------------------
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http://www.panmacmillan.com/Features/China/debate.htm
A me questo sembra un articolo scritto non contro Tolkien, ma contro i suoi 
emulatori, solo che l'autore non se ne e` reso conto.
-- 
Soronel l'Araldo, Ordinario di Robotica (Pol.Imladris)
IFScT#49, STI#157, Scribano, FIFeDe
Quello che non ci uccide ci rende piu` forti.
E quello che ci uccide ci rende morti.
- Terry Pratchett

 writer should mollycoddle the reader.
Be', direi che io e l'autore abbiamo gusti in materia totalmente opposti,
per cui ho poco da aggiungere.
Mae aur!
--
Tarabas Hunnaur - [Togli NOSPAM e .invalid dall'indirizzo]
10° deI FeSTosi - Sindar del Doriath fondatore dell'Erthad Edhellen
Ordinario di Optoelettronica al Politecnico di Imladris
Meglio la morte, per chiunque di noi, che una vita di vergogna - Beowulf

 emulatori, solo che l'autore non se ne e` reso conto.
In effetti pare che piu' che altro se la prenda contro un Tolkien
fittizio ricostruito sulla base delle opere dei suoi emuli.
Che poi Tolkien possa essere (sia stato) ingombrante per il genere,
immagino sia vero - e cmq a me pare che oggi il genere si sia
completamente emancipato dal modello. Ma questa e' un'altra storia. ^__^
Fritz Tegularius
"Sento le voci di Giovanna d'Arco,
l'estasi di santa Teresa del Bernini..."
www.fanbattiato.com/franciscafranca/index.html

....
A parte il tono un po' saccente, l'autore sembra non rendersi conto
che il problema di fondo e' uno ed uno solo: non gli piace la "fantasy
classica"; preferisce una certa narrativa di "confine", piu'
sperimentale.
Fine. Il resto e' aria.
-- 
"...e aníra ennas suilannad mhellyn în phain."
     Harthael del Lago, # 234 deI FeSTosi
        ***** on line since 1993 *****