Tuesday 15 February 2011

Bankrupt Nihilism - But Where Are All the Women?

Okay, so currently this article on Bankrupt Nihilism is doing the rounds, and a few people have written responses to it, including Joe Abercrombie. I'm going to be boring and write another response, but the line I want to pick out is this one:

Nor do they impress me in the least when placed into the hands of writers clearly bored with the classic mythic undertones of the genre, and who try to shake things up with what can best be described as postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage.

This Leo Grin chap bemoans the depressing low-fantasy of Joe Abercrombie and Steven Erikson, amongst others. I have words to say about seeing these two authors lumped in together, actually... Erikson's fantasy is anything BUT low - there are mages throwing magic at each other, Elder races, dragons, shapeshifters, gods bestriding the earth. Just because he takes many of the events down to the perspective of the ordinary grunt does not mean that these books are low fantasy. They are also not depressing - never have I felt so hopeful, or punched my fist in the air with glee as much as when I read Erikson's books.

But, anyway, my main point concerns the fact that Leo is writing out of his ass because... where are the women fantasists? Where are the women who I know damn well are writing fine mythic fantasy with beautiful prose and uplifting characters?

Let's kick off with Jacqueline Carey. She is a brilliant fantasist, who takes a faux European setting (much like Tolkien), inhabits it with various races of human and not-so-human (much like Tolkien), has her characters go on quests, fight adversity, explore concepts such as compassion, courage and doing the right thing (much like Tolkien). Oh, and in my opinion, her prose is just stunning.

I'm also going to throw in the name Ursula Le Guin, for fun - you know, the big old grandma of fantasy fiction. Le Guin's novels tackle themes such as ecological concerns, racial acceptance/diversity and politics. She couches these themes in both fantasy and science fiction works that aim to send a message without bludgeoning the reader. She is critically and commercially acclaimed, and yet finds no place in Leo's article. Maybe because she didn't fit the rather random point he was trying to make...

How about Susanna Clarke? Yes, she only really has one novel to base this on, but if you want mythic undertones - taking ancient fairytales from British culture (and others) and using it to generate a fantasy tale - then she's your gal! Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell even "felt" a little like Tolkien as I read it - the delicate prose, the slow unwinding of a tale that had multiple layers and meanings.

Now we'll look at an author who writes mostly for younger readers - Diana Wynne Jones. This is a lady who wrote Howl's Moving Castle, a piece of great importance in the tapestry of children's fantasy fiction. Much like The Hobbit is. More importantly, Diana Wynne Jones also wrote A Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which poked gentle fun and parodied much of the fantasy fiction being written by those trying to ape J R R Tolkien. Interestingly Diana Wynne Jones also lived through the war, during which time she was mostly neglected after being evacuated, and later studied under both C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Surely this female author should have had a mention, considering her most recent novel was published in 2010?

For me, the article is a lot of stuff and nonsense. To so blatantly ignore the female fantasists in order to make a point against gritty fantasy seems madness to me. It renders his whole argument obsolete, in my opinion. Instead of reading his tripe, get thyself down to a bookstore and pick up novels by any of these women above - and experience the beauty and myth of fantasy which is still being explored today.

26 comments:

  1. Did you read the comments? You can see their thoughts on women pretty clearly there, such as where they praise the Gor novels and blame womens' "desire for debasement" as the reason for this "nihilism."

    It amazes me that there's so much talk about this. Does no one in the fantasy community recognize a troll?

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  2. Hear, hear! Whoop! Whoop!

    And that's pretty much all I can think of to say. I'm ashamed to say that even as I'm reading a DWJ right now, and having ticked off four of her characters that I fancy the pants off yesterday (including Tom, the embodiment of Tam Lyn), I probably wouldn't have even thought of the simple not-even-thinking-of that's going with these fantastic, well-read, famous women writers.

    THANK YOU.

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  3. You forgot Robin Hobb. Her cycle of books: The Farseer trilogy, The Liveship Traders trilogy, The Tawny Man trilogy and the Dragon Keeper/Dragon Haven. Are great fantasy books. And I might add my favourite fantasy series. (The books are a continuing series, despite having different characters, if read in published order.)

    And after reading the article there was one thing that pissed me off more: I seriously doubt Leo Grin has read any Robert E. Howard. From his description of Howard I would think he has only seen the movies, and maybe read the Marvel comics.

    So this guy has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, and I wouldn't take him seriously.

    And Mr. Sykes is right, he is a troll, and we should ignore him.

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  4. Well, let's not be hasty. It's a troll, to be sure, and something amazingly misogynist and racist beyond its core, but this post was necessary.

    Because of everything that's being said about it so far, no one is mentioning the female fantasists in a contributive sense. This blog post was definitely needed, if only to bring to light things that we actually NEED to talk about (as opposed to Leo's "new things scare me" rant, which we do not).

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  5. Very well put Amanda. Unfortunately I suspect that the fool who wrote that article has only the vaguest understanding of what a woman is (don't they cook dinner for me? Select which pants I wear?) let alone that some of them sometimes write books.

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  6. I saw that... the only word is screed, really isn't it?

    It displayed what, for me, is the single biggest marker for idiots everywhere: the inability to see something different, without perceiving it as a threat.

    Dude's a conserva-tit. But the flaming he's getting right now from people like us will be meat and drink to him.

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  7. I am highly dubious of anyone that uses the phrase teenybopper in an article written after 1954. Alarm bells immediately start to ring and my bull***t-o-meter goes off the scale. Teenybopper? really...

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  8. What about Weis and Hickman. The first fantasy series I read more than once, and still read over twenty years later. I stopped caring about his opinion when he put poetry and theme above story, which I just can't understand.

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  9. @Weirdmage I heart Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm, but I wouldn't have classed her as tapping into myths in the way that seems to be being talked about. On the other hand, I should have remembered Megan Londholm's Cloven Hooves, which is a book to read if you want to be challenged and emotionally punched in a relentlessly even-handed way, and deeply rooted in the Pan myth.

    @Tom it may be fanning the flames and tickling his sad little heart, but I actually really enjoyed this post in its own right - being reminded of some really cool women authors and the cool things they're doing quite apart from representing their gender in the genre.

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  10. @serenitywomble All the Hobb books I've mentioned has dragons as a background. First as myth (in the Farseer trilogy), and later as reality. So I'd say that is a mythical theme.

    -And if we get the full story of the Fool, I see opportunities there for Hobb to delve into some myths.

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  11. Not that I want to defend the dude, because something about his argument leaves a bad taste in his mouth. But I think want he might actually be trying to say beneath all the pomposity, condescension, and snobbery is simply: "I don't like this "darker and edgier" thing fantasy is so obsessed with lately."

    Or, you know, I could be projecting. It just seems like he sidelines himself from talking about mythology and poetry, etc. etc. and goes into a complaint about all this "gritty, realistic, cynical" fantasy. Which I have a problem with too but uh, not because I'm a literary snob.

    It's kinda hard to have sympathy though. Would it kill him to read something written by a woman?

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  12. Well said Amanda. It seemed to me that the Bankrupt Nihilism was off the mark in so many ways that it did seem trollish. But, to name a couple:
    1) He obviously hadn't read most of what he was criticizing.
    2) He is using the classic, I don't like X, therefore all X must be bad argument form.
    3) He tries to present it as an either/or. As Joe Abercrombie mentions, the existence of books with different premises does not mean the other books cease to exist.
    Leo Grin has actually had the opposite effect for me. I hadn't read any of Joe Abercrombie's books. I liked his reply, so I think I'll pick some up.

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  13. Abercombie's brilliant rebuke of this idiots post is the funniest thing I've read all day man. Abercrombie's wit is awesome and he basically puts this guy in his place without raising a fist or even his voice. Awesome.

    I agree with previous comments that this guy doesn't even seem to know about the books he is decrying, Howard especially. It's funny when conservative folk get up on their high horses and start spouting rhetoric, cause it always shows all the cracks in conservative armor.

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  14. Interesting that two of the most imaginative, acclaimed and forward thinking female Fantasy writers of the last decade are strongly associated with New Weird - KJ Bishop and Steph Swainston - whereas I can't bring to mind any female authors currently writing in the current vogue which is fairly traditional stuff with a bit of swearing and blood and guts. In contrast to what Leo thinks, I can't help but feel that the genre may in fact be going backward to Conan and the pulp era, toward sword-swinging, swashbuckling adventures for boys. Replace hero with anti-hero, make the combat a little more graphic and realistic, take away some of the sexism and add more sex and you're left with ultimately the same old swords and sorcery.

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  15. @Weirdmage:
    Having not read any Conan books I couldn't possibly say whether or not Leo Grin actually understands them, but apparently he actually edited a journal on the subject The Cimmerian (http://www.thecimmerian.com/) which is of course a bit disturbing (you're not the first person to say he must never have read a Conan book)

    That's not to say I agree with the point he's making, possibly the only reasonable thing he has to say is that you can find fantasy books where the author thinks that being edgy means having lots of bloody and sex. But his dismissal of books and simply not mentioning huge numbers of other, modern books that meet his standards is weird and absurd. In the comments someone actually mentioned Tamora Pierce but got lost in the scramble to heap praise upon the article, but there you have a series of books where good and evil fight, good triumphs and there's an underpinning of all that epic mythos he seems to love. But I suppose the main character being a girl is a Bad Thing.
    Also doesn't anyone think he could just find everything he wants in the D&D section? Not knocking, I read a whole bunch myself until recently (yay for garage sales!) but he does mention that he liked playing D&D so there's always that.

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  16. The original article's intent isn't to offend the author's original audience at Big Hollywood. That website is run by Andrew Breitbart, an American conservative activist most famous for publicizing doctored videos purporting to show misdeeds by liberals. Big Hollywood is his site for criticism of liberal bias (real and imagined) in the entertainment industry.

    Basically, this article is designed to use the trend toward graphic, gritty fantasy to bolster the BH audience's preconceived belief that liberals are ruining every aspect of American society. In that sense, the author of the article isn't a troll at all. The piece offends lots of other people, but not his target audience.

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  17. @K.R. Smith:That's good info. I didn't stay at the site any longer than to read the article. That puts it in the proper context.

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  18. I'm glad you made this point, Amanda -- I haven't read the original unfiltered by the various bloggers who've vivisected it, but amid all the guffawing and cold shuddering I did while reading Joe Abercrombie's post, the glaring absence of either Good Female High Fantasists of the Olden Days or Bad Female Debased Fantasists now made me sad. Aww, crazy man, you can't even be bothered to denounce writers like me. But I can be evil and debased too! I can hate Christmas scenes and ktitens JUST LIKE A BOY! I even have actual literal mechanised crucifixes in my books with unfortunate people on them and I bet I'm disrespecting them in some way. What have I got to do to get a little hate around here?


    By the way, anyone who wants to denounce my books to the nearest conservative Christian nutcase (meaning no offence to sweet, sane and clever Christians) will have my unending gratitude.

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  19. Hobb's books are tied up in looking at the Fool's Journey from two perspectives. So, yes, she is using myth to underlie those books. It is one of the reasons I love them so much.

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  20. And after reading the article there was one thing that pissed me off more: I seriously doubt Leo Grin has read any Robert E. Howard. From his description of Howard I would think he has only seen the movies, and maybe read the Marvel comics.

    Leo Grin is one of the most respected Robert E. Howard scholars out there, and many other Howard scholars speak highly of him, even though he hasn't taken an active role in the past few years. The Cimmerian's been nominated for a World Fantasy Award twice, and it's one of the most renowned Howard scholarly journals of the past decade, if not all time. To say that he's never read Howard is like saying Tom Shippey's never read Tolkien, or "maybe only watched the movies."

    I am highly dubious of anyone that uses the phrase teenybopper in an article written after 1954

    Leo uses archaic terms like that all the time. It's part of his schtick.

    Would it kill him to read something written by a woman?

    Why do you assume he hasn't?

    In contrast to what Leo thinks, I can't help but feel that the genre may in fact be going backward to Conan and the pulp era, toward sword-swinging, swashbuckling adventures for boys. Replace hero with anti-hero, make the combat a little more graphic and realistic, take away some of the sexism and add more sex and you're left with ultimately the same old swords and sorcery.

    Except, as Leo states, Conan and Howard aren't just "sword-swinging, swashbuckling adventures for boys": it's the suffusion of mythic elements and big ideas which makes them stand out from the boy's own ripping yarns of Howard's contemporaries and imitators. The blood, sex and violence of Conan is what makes Howard's work *the same* as other Sword-and-Sorcery heroes, not what makes him special, or different, or great.

    In any case, Leo is certainly not saying that ALL fantasy is grim-n-gritty nihilism, he's just targeting that fantasy which IS. He's targeting Abercrombie, Erikson and Martin, not the entirety of the modern fantasy genre! Leo knows better than anyone that such sweeping generalizations get people nowhere.

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  21. @Taranaich

    "Leo Grin is one of the most respected Robert E. Howard scholars out there, and many other Howard scholars speak highly of him, even though he hasn't taken an active role in the past few years. The Cimmerian's been nominated for a World Fantasy Award twice, and it's one of the most renowned Howard scholarly journals of the past decade, if not all time. To say that he's never read Howard is like saying Tom Shippey's never read Tolkien, or "maybe only watched the movies.""

    I've never heard of either Leo Grin or the Cimmerian before reading the article. And can judge only from that. And I stand by my comment that I seriously doubt he has read any Howard based on the article, and I'm not the only one who came away with that impression.

    I'm not a Howard scholar. But I have read enough of his work to know that what Leo Grin says about him in the article is a gross misrepresentation of Howard's work.

    But as K.R. Smith says above:
    "The original article's intent isn't to offend the author's original audience at Big Hollywood. That website is run by Andrew Breitbart, an American conservative activist most famous for publicizing doctored videos purporting to show misdeeds by liberals. Big Hollywood is his site for criticism of liberal bias (real and imagined) in the entertainment industry."

    So maybe Leo Grin just wrote what fit in with the sites Tebagging standards. It doesn't really matter, what is said of Howard in the article is so clearly bullshit that no real scholar with any respect for himself would write it.
    But then again, I'm Norwegian and put facts before political bias. Something Leo Grin, if he in fact is a Howard scholar, seem to care nothing for.

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  22. Let's not forget Janny Wurts and Katherine Kerr! Like any form of literature, I would have expected sff to have evolved over the years too. Old school is cool, but sometimes you need something new and different to challenge you.

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  23. Another female author who borrows heavily from myths and folk tales is Juliet Marllier. Her Sevenwaters series starts out as a fairy tale retelling, but moves on quickly to a more mythical basis.

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  24. @Taranaich

    I'm just stunned you are defending this Leo Grin character, who like weirdmage I have also never heard of, nor have I heard of his (and I hazard the word) "publication".

    Also, the Big Hollywood site being run by that conservative jackwad doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

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  25. scott: hey, joe's pretty badass when it comes to those things. like watching someone who's mastered the martial arts.

    magemanda: If you find this annoying than I apologize in advance but...

    please, please, please, please, PLEASE someone forward the article to steven erikson (that is, if it didn't happen already). if anything, it would be great to see one of the masters of modern fantasy light a FIRE under leo's ass for that trash.

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  26. Magemanda, exactly. Along your lines of thought:

    A Plague on Both Your Houses
    http://www.apexbookcompany.com/2011/02/a-plague-on-both-your-houses/

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