Great post! Honestly I don't get the need to set Tolkien and Pratchett at odds, but then I'm the guy with "The Turtle Moves" in tattooed in Sindarin on my forearm. What I find genuinely confusing about his general argument is that he seems to miss just how profoundly the broligarchs and tradcaths misread Tolkien. He seems to want to instrumentalize Tolkien such that reading him conditions certain mindsets, when in reality the Thiels, Vances, and (especially) Curtis Yarvins of the world are performing readings of Tolkien that don't rise to the level of a first-year student. They're not connecting dots, they're often projecting stuff on Tolkien that frankly just ain't there.
Thank you--I've never gotten it either (or some of the other, if you love X you must hate Y stuff going on). And I did not know about your tattoo! Next time we're f2f (online or whatever, I want to see it (one of my two tattoos is my fandom pseud, Ithiliana, in the Beleriand dialect of Sindarin Elvish!).
Definitely agree on the instrumentalization (even, dare I say, weaponization) of Tolkien, but heck they've been doing it with the Bible all along. And yes, I think that as Verlyn says, we find ourselves in Tolkien. It's just that the stuff they're projecting is as dangerous as hell to lots of other people!
This is an amazing post I am sure I need to reread a few times - but one thing I can tell you is that I could not finish Rao. I will need to do that as I am a bit of a Pratchettian myself and hearing that he basically ignores the Witches + Tiffany as independent/ coexisting series in the Discworld universe means he is truly missing out on some of the essentials. Like, THE ESSENTIALS [my apologies for all-caps; not to mention the 'embuggerance' we recently had more research on.]
I had to swallow hard right at the beginning when he came up with his premise this needs to be read as an allegory - and by Vetinari, that is underselling Pratchett on a level that almost breaks my heart. Discworld isn't a one-to-one allegory, it is way beyond that... But that would probably need a 10,000 word post to take apart...
I sometimes believe that these days people need to be at loggerheards for clickbait, even in 'proper' academic discussion, even with two authors that at first sight have next to nothing in common (inspiration is certainly a point but Pterry very quickly left that behind, and even then it was more for satire and slapstick, not serious engagement - that only happened in later novels).
But given that I have some serious personal involvement in this I am probably not the best to judge a rant like Rao's.... [I should probably start publishing my "reading Pratchett as a Tolkienist" series...]
I'm not sure I could ever go back and read Rao again -- because, well, I got the rant out, and I'm not too interested in further dialogue!
I'm a fan of the occasional SHOUTY caps (sometimes the emphasis is needed) -- and yes, the ESSENTIALS!
You and Christopher Lockett should get together -- he's doing a reread/write up of Pratchett. And I would *love* to read your "reading Pratchett as a Tolkienist" series -- that would be seriously AWESOME!
And, well, if I don't have a serious personal involvement in something, I'm not likely to bother reading it, let alone responding to it, so I guess I see that not as a hindrance but the human condition!
Great post! Honestly I don't get the need to set Tolkien and Pratchett at odds, but then I'm the guy with "The Turtle Moves" in tattooed in Sindarin on my forearm. What I find genuinely confusing about his general argument is that he seems to miss just how profoundly the broligarchs and tradcaths misread Tolkien. He seems to want to instrumentalize Tolkien such that reading him conditions certain mindsets, when in reality the Thiels, Vances, and (especially) Curtis Yarvins of the world are performing readings of Tolkien that don't rise to the level of a first-year student. They're not connecting dots, they're often projecting stuff on Tolkien that frankly just ain't there.
(PS, thanks for the shout-out).
Thank you--I've never gotten it either (or some of the other, if you love X you must hate Y stuff going on). And I did not know about your tattoo! Next time we're f2f (online or whatever, I want to see it (one of my two tattoos is my fandom pseud, Ithiliana, in the Beleriand dialect of Sindarin Elvish!).
Definitely agree on the instrumentalization (even, dare I say, weaponization) of Tolkien, but heck they've been doing it with the Bible all along. And yes, I think that as Verlyn says, we find ourselves in Tolkien. It's just that the stuff they're projecting is as dangerous as hell to lots of other people!
This is an amazing post I am sure I need to reread a few times - but one thing I can tell you is that I could not finish Rao. I will need to do that as I am a bit of a Pratchettian myself and hearing that he basically ignores the Witches + Tiffany as independent/ coexisting series in the Discworld universe means he is truly missing out on some of the essentials. Like, THE ESSENTIALS [my apologies for all-caps; not to mention the 'embuggerance' we recently had more research on.]
I had to swallow hard right at the beginning when he came up with his premise this needs to be read as an allegory - and by Vetinari, that is underselling Pratchett on a level that almost breaks my heart. Discworld isn't a one-to-one allegory, it is way beyond that... But that would probably need a 10,000 word post to take apart...
I sometimes believe that these days people need to be at loggerheards for clickbait, even in 'proper' academic discussion, even with two authors that at first sight have next to nothing in common (inspiration is certainly a point but Pterry very quickly left that behind, and even then it was more for satire and slapstick, not serious engagement - that only happened in later novels).
But given that I have some serious personal involvement in this I am probably not the best to judge a rant like Rao's.... [I should probably start publishing my "reading Pratchett as a Tolkienist" series...]
https://thetolkienist.com/2020/05/26/tolkien-pratchett-a-tale-of-two-great-authors/
Thank you!
I'm not sure I could ever go back and read Rao again -- because, well, I got the rant out, and I'm not too interested in further dialogue!
I'm a fan of the occasional SHOUTY caps (sometimes the emphasis is needed) -- and yes, the ESSENTIALS!
You and Christopher Lockett should get together -- he's doing a reread/write up of Pratchett. And I would *love* to read your "reading Pratchett as a Tolkienist" series -- that would be seriously AWESOME!
And, well, if I don't have a serious personal involvement in something, I'm not likely to bother reading it, let alone responding to it, so I guess I see that not as a hindrance but the human condition!