All posts tagged essay

guest post: charlie anderson

Hi all,

Today I have a guest post for you from a new independent author. Charlie Anderson is the author of The Vision. She lives across the pond in the UK and is here to talk about three of my favourite things (and yours too, I hope): fantasy, Tolkien, and Norse mythology.

Over to you, Charlie:

Norse mythology, fantasy and Lord of the Rings (LOTR)

I want to thank Brondt for inviting me to guest-blog. It’s a great privilege, and Brondt, I appreciate your generosity.

In this post, I’ll discuss how J R R Tolkien’s background as a linguist might have helped him create a new branch of fantasy.

Tolkien’s mesmerising Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy (1955) was one of the first books I read, and I couldn’t get enough of humans; Elves; Orcs; Goblins; Trolls and Dwarves living alongside dragons; magic; magic swords; walled forts; magic finger-rings and a thrilling battle that decided the fate of the heroes and villains. Once I discovered that these were all elements of Norse (Northern European) myth, I started reading anything I could find on these myths in earnest.

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, the oldest and main sources of the Norse myths, describe humanoid beings with different cultures and languages / dialects called ‘Aesir’, ‘Vanir’, ‘Jotnar’, ‘Trolls’, ‘Elves’ and ‘Dwarves’ living alongside humans. Having learnt nine languages with varying degrees of success, for me the Poetic Edda poem Alvissmal is fascinating, because it gives glimpses into the dialects / languages of these beings. For example, the human himinn (‘sky’) is hlyrnir to the Aesir, vindofni to the Vanir, uppheim to the Jotnar, fagraræfr to the Elves and drjupansal to the Dwarves.

Tolkien was a Professor of Anglo-Saxon and then of English at the University of Oxford in England. He lived and breathed the sources of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic myth, which are related to Norse myth. As a professional linguist, Tolkien must have seen that some translations of Alvissmal, for example Bellows’ (1936), failed to show that the different dialects / languages might be unintelligible, and that the common language between the Aesir and the Dwarves was the language of humans. Imagine sports-shoe being a sneaker in the US, trainer in the UK, runner in Canada, and basket in France, and basket is translated as ‘container’ and sneaker as ‘someone who sneaks’!

Furthermore, the Eddas list different types of elves:
dokkalfr = dark elf
alfr = elf
ljosalfr = light elf
svartalfr = black elf

Brodeur, Bellows, Hollander and others translated alfr and ljosalfr as ‘Elf’, and dokkalfr, svartalfr and dvergr as ‘Dwarf’. Dwarves live in stones and in the ground, and Elves live in the sky (Gylfaginning chapters 14 and 17, Prose Edda). Thus, in Norse myth, Elves and Dwarves can be seen as one people (alfr, pl. alfar) with linguistic, cultural and physical differences, but Tolkien made them two peoples, and other writers followed him. What Tolkien did, very brilliantly, was reinvent Elves, Dwarves, Trolls and humans. He built on their cultures and physical appearances as described in the Norse myths, expanded the vocabulary for their dialects, and gave each dialect a script so that they became separate languages.

Other Norse mythology elements that are important in LOTR are:

the setting: LOTR’s human-habited ‘Middle Earth’ brings to mind the Old Norse ‘Midgard’ (‘Middle Enclosure’) in which the home of humans lies;
a hypnotically desirable gold finger-ring which brings trouble on the bearer: in LOTR this was Sauron’s One Ring, and in Norse myth it is Andvari’s ring;
a final war / battle: in LOTR, this was Aragorn against Sauron, and Frodo against Saruman. In Norse mythology, it’s Ragnarok;
an army of the dead: compare Aragorn’s with the Norse Einherjar;
dragons: in The Hobbit, the prequel to LOTR, there’s Smaug, who’s based on the gold-hoarding Fafnir of Norse myth;
the use of battle axes, swords and shields;
the wise, bearded, wandering wizard: compare LOTR’s Gandalf and Norse myth’s Odin;
warrior women: there’s LOTR’s Eowyn and Norse myth’s Valkyries and Freyja;
names: Frode, Gimle and Gandalf are Old Norse names.

These elements, as well as Elves, Trolls and Dwarves, are still seen in fantasy today, eg in the BBC TV series Merlin (2012).

In fantasy, the hero has a clear quest, reason or purpose, whereas Norse myth describes people getting on with whatever life throws at them. I also think Tolkien’s dogmatic Roman Catholic faith (I know first-hand as I am RC) with its emphasis on ‘sins’, plus his experiences in two World Wars, influenced him to add a ‘good / bad’ dichotomy to LOTR, which Norse myth lacks. LOTR’s Frodo and Sam are ‘good’ and Sauron is ‘bad’, and we know who to support, but in Norse myth, Odin, Loki and nearly everyone else is ambiguous like LOTR’s Gollum / Smeagol.

Click to buy from Amazon

My challenge when writingThe Vision (an Amazon ebook) was to use the surviving sources of Norse myth to create a story arc with many interlinked stories, like a soap opera novel, whilst trying to stay true to the sources. Unlike Tolkien, I couldn’t use a uniform, Norse saga-like descriptive and narrative voice because for a gobby person like me, that’s hard! And since I was using the soap opera format, I tried to use thoughts, speech and action to show place, culture and language.

Tolkien’s genius was to blend his moral framework, his knowledge of linguistics, the products of his imagination and Norse myth to create a new branch of fantasy. One only has to look at Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle (2011) and the BBC TV series Merlin (2012) to fully appreciate Tolkien’s legacy, and to realise that Norse mythology is still live and kicking.

Thanks again to Brondt for my guest post, and thank you for reading it!

If you want more information about Charlie and her work, visit her website.
For you Twitter fans, her handle is @CVAnderson2.
The Vision is available through Amazon and AmazonUK.

2 Comments

by Brondt on October 30, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Essay

Tagged charlie v anderson, essay, fantasy, guest post, j r r tolkien, literary discussion, the vision

Posted by Brondt on October 30, 2012

http://wbrondtkamffer.com/2012/10/30/guest-post-charlie-anderson/

sometimes the magic only strikes once

Rereading books is an odd thing. Sometimes, the book grows in depth and meaning for the reader. At other times, the reader fails to see why he wanted to reread the book in the first place.

This has been on my mind in recent weeks as I’ve been rereading two very different books by two very different authors. My admiration for Brandon Sanderson is, by now, well known to those who frequent this blog with anything approaching regularity. I recently read Elantris for the third time and declared it my new favourite fantasy novel, surpassing even Lord of the Rings. I’m going through Sanderson’s Mistborn series again now, and I find that it’s just as brilliant as ever. Better, even, than before.

I see things differently, of course. I first read Sanderson’s books while I was writing The Wars of Gods and Men, and since then I’ve written four novels myself. I’ve grown as a writer, and that in turn has led me to see different qualities in Mistborn and Elantris than I saw previously. I have a much greater appreciation for Sanderson’s characters than I did the first time I read the books. Having made it through a few books myself has left me in awe of the man’s skill. I feel humbled–inadequate even–when I dare to hold my own books in the same thought as Sanderson’s.

Oddly, I remember that I did not read through his novels with any great speed. I went through them quickly enough, finding and making time to do so, but I was not consumed by them. I did not lurk in hallways or beneath stairwells at the University, as I often do to find quiet space on campus to read. I simply read them at a quick but comfortable pace.

I’ve also been rereading Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule. I loved The Sword of Truth series when I first read it. In fact, I went through all eleven books, WFR to Confessor, in eight weeks! I read the thousand-page beast The Stone of Tears in two days. Admittedly, I was at home sick with the flu at the time, but that is still an inhuman speed at which to read so big a book. I loved the characters, Richard and Kahlan especially, but the entire cast throughout the series was fantastic.

But I’m not so sure anymore. I loaned the series to a friend after I’d finished the books, and he returned the whole box-full about two weeks back. That was great, I thought, as I’d had a desire in the past months to revisit at least the first volume of the saga. Problem is, I’m finding it near-torture to read this thing, and I can’t figure out why. I read the books about a year before I began The Wars of Gods and Men. At the time, I was about 3,000 lines into an ill-fated attempt at an epic poem. I don’t know if my return to novel writing changed my expectations from fiction, but I suspect it has.

To be fair, Goodkind’s story isn’t bad. And Richard and Kahlan remain as interesting as ever. But the writing is just not that inviting. I devoured these books before, so what has changed? The writing certainly hasn’t. I mean, it’s exactly the same physical copy I’m reading now as three years ago.

Here’s the thing: we, as readers, evolve over time. That much is blatantly obvious. But the ways in which we evolve and the reasons for that personal evolution differ. I’ve tried repeatedly to read both Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin, but I never get beyond the first hundred pages of either. Despite not liking Wizard’s First Rule on this read-through, I have still made it to page five hundred, and I plan to finish the book.

So, I’ve changed enough to no longer like Goodkind, but I haven’t changed enough to stop liking Sanderson or to start liking Jordan and Martin. Nobody says the magic lasts forever. Heck, I can barely stand to watch the Lord of the Rings films anymore. But in the case of the films, it took several viewings for them to loose their magic. Goodkind’s books have taken only one read to lose theirs.

And yet Sanderson’s magic has increased rather than decreased for me. And that is how I would define good books and good writers, and that is why “good” is so subjective in this particular field. You cannot even say objectively that Shakespeare is good. He may be good for you, but if I can’t enjoy his writing, then he obviously can’t be good for me. I’m not talking about technique, either. I don’t know that technique ultimately matters that much to the average reader.

C.S. Lewis in An Experiment on Criticism said that books should be judged on the way they are read, not on some quality that is hard to define. In other words, Shakespeare shouldn’t be considered a great writer because his iambic pentameter is phenomenal. How do we judge the quality of something so subtle as rhythm? For one person, the rhythm could be perfect; for another, jarring. Shakespeare is a great writer because many, many people not only read his plays, they reread his plays.

A good book, then, is a subjective thing. A good book is one you, the individual reader, want to read again. A good book is one that, when read again, makes you want to read it a third time. A good book is there to be enjoyed repeatedly. For poor books, the magic only strikes once–or not at all.

5 Comments

by Brondt on June 7, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Essay

Tagged brandon sanderson, essay, fantasy, literary discussion, reading, terry goodkind

Posted by Brondt on June 7, 2012

http://wbrondtkamffer.com/2012/06/07/sometimes-the-magic-only-strikes-once/

Proud and Impatient — Reading Chapter 2 of “The Wizard of Earthsea”

Chapter Two of the novel is called “The Shadow,” a title laden with irony and heavy with multiple meanings in the context of the chapter itself and in the novel at large. The primary focus here is Sparrowhawk/Ged’s brief time as the apprentice to Ogion, the great magician of Gont.

We have a progression on the characterization of our hero as laid out in Chapter One, though Le Guin complicates our feelings towards him in many ways. We realize that he is still young and, if our memory serves, we will also recall the sometimes traumatic childhood he suffered. The problem, however, is that these issues are never brought directly to our remembrance in Chapter Two. All we read about is Ged’s constant lack of patience.

“You haven’t found out what I am teaching”

Now, given what we know of Ged’s upbringing from the first chapter, we can perhaps begin to understand his desire to come into power as quickly as possible. He was not well treated and when finally given the chance to do something meaningful, he took it with both hands. Afterwards, he was showered with much praise and became something of a minor celebrity. The point, simply, is that Ged felt for the first time in life that he was valuable.

(more…)

Style, Character, and Plot — Reading Chapter 1 of “A Wizard of Earthsea”

With so much emphasis on world building in the first chapter, it is easy to forget that Ursula Le Guin breaks some other rules of fantasy as well, namely presenting a whole lot of characterization in a style that is somewhat archaic. In fact, the plot, the element for which genre fiction is so well known (and so oft derided) appears little more than a framework to reveal the world and the main character, Sparrowhawk, to us.

Le Guin’s Style

But let us begin with a brief look at the style of the writing, for it is at once so well executed that it often fades into the background, and yet so blatantly obvious that a single thought about it makes all the archaisms pop from the page.

Again, we must keep in mind the era in which this novel was written. The late sixties was in many ways a pioneering age for fantasy, a genre that began to grow in popularity on the back of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, of course, used a rather high, classic style, almost Victorian in its denseness at times. Le Guin’s offering is, to be honest, an Americanized, watered-down version of that same narrative voice, lacking the weight of centuries that underpins her British counterparts. Nevertheless, the choice of style has a very curious effect on the reader.

As mentioned, The Wizard of Earthsea is “a tale of the time before [Sparrowhawk’s] fame, before,” Le Guin says, “the songs were made.” Before the songs were made. What an odd statement, and yet how very telling. This sentence coming, as it does, at the bottom of the story’s first paragraph, immediately gives the reader a sense that the tale he is about to read is very old indeed. How do we know this? Well, the tale is from before Sparrowhawk’s fame, but, more important, it is a tale that preexists the songs—which we are presumably (and ostensibly–if we accept Le Guin’s premise) all familiar with.

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The World of Earthsea — Reading Chapter 1 of “A Wizard of Earthsea”

Chapter one of A Wizard of Earthsea breaks all sorts of rules that are now put forward to fantasy writers. While this may not be too surprising for a book first published in 1968, it is nevertheless a testament to Le Guin’s ability that the only comment I have to offer is that it is all so skillfully done. What am I talking about? Well, rule number one (or thereabouts) for fantasy writers is don’t do too much world building in the first fifty/hundred/random number of pages, as it slows the story down. But the first chapter of Wizard consists entirely of world building, though it is world building through story.

Ursula Le Guin introduces three primary facts about her world in the first chapter, only one of which can be discerned by studying the many maps included in the short novel. It is important to remember, too, that at only two hundred pages and ten chapters long, the first chapter represents roughly ten percent of the story, and she uses that ten percent to introduce us to Earthsea. The three facts around which the first chapter, “Warriors in the Mist,” are built are (1) the geography of the world, (2) the ethnicities of its people, and (3) the magic system in place. All three of those are vitally important to any fantasy novel, and yet all three of those are relayed to the reader with a skill and grace frequently lacking in tomes three times Wizard’s size—which perhaps accounts for the rule of avoiding heavy world building early on and proves that more is not always better.

The physical world

In many ways, Le Guin’s Earthsea does not differ too much from Tolkien’s Middle-earth. But that is as much as to say that Tolkien’s Middle-earth does not differ too much from our own world. Clearly, the differences are what are most important, and this is the case with Earthsea. Unlike the majority of fantasy realms, Earthsea is not a continental landmass but a vast island archipelago, seemingly the only inhabitable portion of the planet.

We are told in the very first line that we are on an island, the island of Gont, “a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea.” That is fine and well, but by sentence two we are already being told that this island is part of an Archipelago, and one that has some sort of unity, for there are “Lords of the Archipelago” involved, though we shall not meet any of these for some time. In all, some eight islands are named in the sixteen pages of the first chapter, an overload of information, one would think, coming in so short a space. And yet, a quick glance at the maps reveals that only a fraction of the islands in existence have been named for us here, which suddenly makes the weight of what we are introduced to seem all the lighter.

(more…)

Brondt Kamffer

All posts tagged essay

guest post: charlie anderson

Norse mythology, fantasy and Lord of the Rings (LOTR)

sometimes the magic only strikes once

Proud and Impatient — Reading Chapter 2 of “The Wizard of Earthsea”

Style, Character, and Plot — Reading Chapter 1 of “A Wizard of Earthsea”

The World of Earthsea — Reading Chapter 1 of “A Wizard of Earthsea”

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