Authors refer to other authors. Stieg Larsson's Mikael Blomkvist reads Val McDermid and sees
The Lord Of The Rings for the first time. In the latter case, he reflects that orcs are simple creatures when compared to human beings. Of course, Tolkien's titles - and the films - are universally known so that every reader of Larsson immediately understands a reference to
The Lord Of the Rings - as also to Mr Spock and Miss Marple. By implication, Blomkvist also has access to all other fictional works that are known to us - except, of course, for three novels by Stieg Larsson! (
Addendum: And I should also have remembered to mention sequels by other authors but I don't read those.) Blomkvist
could read not only JRR Tolkien's but also Poul Anderson's Norse-based fantasies and, in the latter, he would find creatures more complicated than orcs. The elves from Pictland have:
"...blood of troll and goblin and still older folk in them, as well as Pictish women stolen in long-gone days.'"
Anderson imagines intricate details of his fictional world. And it suffices for Larsson's purposes to reference The Lord Of The Rings but not to mention any other fantasy writers that are known to us. They are all there but only implicitly.
4 comments:
We're all at the far-flung waves of time.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I was reminded of how reluctant Tolkien was about selling the movie rights to THE HOBBIT and LOTR, due to him rightly fearing film directors/producers would maul and mangle his stories. But the need to pay pressing tax demands forced him to do that.
Yes, those ghastly HOBBIT and LOTR movies crudely simplified the Orcs, but anyone who reads Tolkien should note Orcs are not so simplistic in his stories. Tolkien gave a good deal of thought to the problem posed by the Orcs in notes and essays pub. by his son Christopher in various volumes of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH. He never quite came to a final decision on how best to understand the Orcs, basically leaving it up to any would be readers to choose among the solutions he pondered.
Yes, the cultural use of Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium as a popular source of metaphorical/analogous references has become globally ubiquitous. Tolkien himself was astonished by the success of LOTR, which he had more modestly hoped would be a "mythology for England."
Mr. Stirling: I've seen quite a few Tolkienian references in your stories, and to those of Anderson. Both of which I appreciated.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: as I said, all art is in coversation with all previous art.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Even bad art. Ggggggrrrrrrr!!!
Ad astra! Sean
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