Mieville, as you may remember, is the author whose Perdido Street Station traumatized the hell out of me with its fourteen-foot nearly-omnipotent nearly-omniscient spider with a sick sense of humor. Also, I hated the ending. But the book itself should be required reading for people interested in cities, as I have never seen a real, living, fantastical city done better in fiction; New Crobuzon is the city Gaiman's London Below should have been. Consequenty, despite having been horribly traumatized, I will probably read more Mieville.
As to this essay, I think Mieville is, in fact, letting his dislike of certain brands of Christianity run away with him, which would explain his somewhat inflammatory use of adjectives. However, he does have a point, and it is a point that is useful. I reread On Fairy Stories yesterday, so that is also fresh in my mind. Tolkien advocates the use of genuine narrative logic, mythic and realistic coherency, and all other things that make up a world in the writing of fantasy, because he believes in fantasy as 'sub-creation', the production from the human mind of a genuine secondary world. Lewis believed in that too. However, Tolkien does, in fact, state in his essay that these secondary worlds, while real and important to the human imagination, are primarily to be used imaginatively. They are to produce emotional and intellectual experiences, but they are not to produce genuine emotional and intellectual changes. This can be inferred from his description of the primary purposes of these secondary worlds as being means of reaffirming one's own likes and dislikes, one's own individuality, against the samenesses and automations of modern, mechanistic society. He does not see their purpose to be the changing and remolding of society itself. Mieville does; he is a self-professed urban revolutionary. Lewis did, which Mieville fails to notice, since Mieville mistook the vision of the world Lewis wanted to promulgate for the actual dominant views at Lewis's time. Mieville's books insist on action: either you want his secondary world to be a genuine possible emotional landscape of modernity (not any other kind of possibility-- our physical circumstances are irreconcilable with his world-- but the mindset and attitudes of the human beings in his work are certainly achievable by present-day, existing human beings) or you don't want it to be a possible landscape, in which case you need to go do something about it, right now.
Personally, I see neither difference nor quality distinction between the two kinds of fiction here delineated, as I have always followed the pagan rule of 'as within, so without'. Tolkien's work had such a great effect on my imagination, and on the imaginations of millions, that it has produced visible outward expressions of itself in my life and in many other lives (a situation Tolkien never imagined; he was both capable of having and happy with a fantastical inner life that showed not at all to the public; this was how Things Were Done at that time, and there is nothing wrong with that). Mieville's work caused me to reevaluate certain attitudes, but the changes didn't run so deeply, which means that, for me, Tolkien has been more successful on Mieville's terms than Mieville has. What matters it if the author means to say 'You must change your life' so long as the life is changed? Lil
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12/9/02 08:32 (UTC)As to this essay, I think Mieville is, in fact, letting his dislike of certain brands of Christianity run away with him, which would explain his somewhat inflammatory use of adjectives. However, he does have a point, and it is a point that is useful. I reread On Fairy Stories yesterday, so that is also fresh in my mind. Tolkien advocates the use of genuine narrative logic, mythic and realistic coherency, and all other things that make up a world in the writing of fantasy, because he believes in fantasy as 'sub-creation', the production from the human mind of a genuine secondary world. Lewis believed in that too. However, Tolkien does, in fact, state in his essay that these secondary worlds, while real and important to the human imagination, are primarily to be used imaginatively. They are to produce emotional and intellectual experiences, but they are not to produce genuine emotional and intellectual changes. This can be inferred from his description of the primary purposes of these secondary worlds as being means of reaffirming one's own likes and dislikes, one's own individuality, against the samenesses and automations of modern, mechanistic society. He does not see their purpose to be the changing and remolding of society itself. Mieville does; he is a self-professed urban revolutionary. Lewis did, which Mieville fails to notice, since Mieville mistook the vision of the world Lewis wanted to promulgate for the actual dominant views at Lewis's time. Mieville's books insist on action: either you want his secondary world to be a genuine possible emotional landscape of modernity (not any other kind of possibility-- our physical circumstances are irreconcilable with his world-- but the mindset and attitudes of the human beings in his work are certainly achievable by present-day, existing human beings) or you don't want it to be a possible landscape, in which case you need to go do something about it, right now.
Personally, I see neither difference nor quality distinction between the two kinds of fiction here delineated, as I have always followed the pagan rule of 'as within, so without'. Tolkien's work had such a great effect on my imagination, and on the imaginations of millions, that it has produced visible outward expressions of itself in my life and in many other lives (a situation Tolkien never imagined; he was both capable of having and happy with a fantastical inner life that showed not at all to the public; this was how Things Were Done at that time, and there is nothing wrong with that). Mieville's work caused me to reevaluate certain attitudes, but the changes didn't run so deeply, which means that, for me, Tolkien has been more successful on Mieville's terms than Mieville has. What matters it if the author means to say 'You must change your life' so long as the life is changed?
Lil