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"Endlessly derivative" aligns pretty well with Tolkien's idea of the "Cauldron of Story": > Speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories
by ttctciyf 6y ago
"Endlessly derivative" aligns pretty well with Tolkien's idea of the "Cauldron of Story":
> Speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty.
> For this reason, to take a casual example, the fact that a story resembling the one known as The Goosegirl (Die Gänsemagd in Grimm) is told in the thirteenth century of Bertha Broadfoot, mother of Charlemagne, really proves nothing either way: neither that the story was (in the
thirteenth century) descending from Olympus or Asgard by way of an already legendary king of old, on its way to become a Hausmärchen; nor that it was on its way up. The story is found to be widespread, unattached to the mother of Charlemagne or to any historical character.
[...]
> The historian would be likely to say that [...] “the Goosegirl Märchen became attached to Bertha.” [But] I think it would be nearer the truth to say that the Archbishop became attached to the banana skin, or that Bertha was turned into the Goosegirl. Better still: I would say that Charlemagne's mother and the Archbishop were put into the Pot, in fact got into the Soup. They were just new bits
added to the stock. A considerable honour, for in that soup were many things older, more potent, more beautiful, comic, or terrible than they were in themselves (considered simply as figures of history).
- from Tolien's essay/credo "On Fairy Stories" ( https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-stories1.pdf https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-sto... )
- macleginn 6y agoYes, so I hope it was okay with him when Lloyd Alexander took LOTR, watered it down, combined it with everything he could profitably extract from Mabinogion, and published the end result as the Chronicles of Prydain. On a more serious note, I would suggest that Tolkien with his unabashed traditionalism was actually a major figure in the 20th c. postmodernist tradition. The "Cauldron of Story" is not very far removed from "Death of the Author" or "Primacy of Language". Tolkien was just peculiar in his choice of source material. He also managed to make his texts not look like romanticised folkloristic pseudomedieval fare of the early fantasy writers by adopting the technique of realist writers of the 19th century.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoSo out of all the lousy ripoffs of Tolkien in the world you decide to beat up Lloyd Alexander?! on edit: obviously I ask because I find him miles better than some of the better known ones.
- macleginn 6y agoThe Chronicles started appearing less than 10 years after the Return of the King, so Tolkien could have actually read them. Perhaps there were other notable ripoffs in the 60s, but I am not aware of them; this is just what came to mind.
- zipwitch 6y agoWhen you say "ripoff of Tolkien" my mind immediately goes to The Sword of Shannara which even when I first read (and enjoyed) it in grade school had me constantly thinking how much it copied Lord of the Rings.
- ttctciyf 6y agoInteresting take on The Cauldron! I find it surprisingly Jungian, personally.
- varjag 6y ago“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.” ― Paolo Coelho
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]