Tolkien, Jordan, the Bible, and Homer
LotR
So more Tolkine and the Bible, though I plan to expand my scope for this post and look at The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, both for its similarities to The Lord of the Rings and differences.
We talked about the concept of Lacuna and Lacunae within the Bible. I made mention that The Lord of the Rings has a similar nature, that Tolkien does not bother to explain everything. He chooses instead to leave much open for the interpertation and understanding of his audience. This is how Peter Jackson was able to come in and create so much of the look of his film trilogy differently from any previous incarnation of the books while still mainting the spirit of the works.
In opposition to the Bible in this area Dr. Sexson mentioned the works of Homer. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are loaded with details not necessary to the working of the story. It would be easy to qualify those two works as being more fluff than plot, in the most basic sense.
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, could be called a modern day example of Homer's 'problem' (somebody else can debate whether detail or Lacuna is better). There are currently eleven books published in the series, the twelth and last is supposed to come out in the summer of 2007. The longest of the books is about 1,000 pages, the shortest around 600 (paperback). The final series will be around 10,000 pages long, or 2.5 million words. For comparrison, The Lord of the Rings comes in at a little over 500,000 words. The Lord of the Rings covers a time of about one year, for the main part (total time between first and last word is about five years) while The Wheel of Time contains three years worth. They both tell a story of man's battle against an ageless evil aiming to remake the world in his own image.
The most common complaint about Jordan's series is that he mentions anything and everything. He'll say that someone is wearing a blud dress, made from Andorian wool, which is normally sheared by older woman while they sing some song in which a Hero goes of to far, and how the hero's grandosn discovered a new way to smelt metal and steel was born and that steel was used to protect the palace guards from an insurrection which saved the life of a little boy who grew up to be king, then he returns to the narative. Obviously I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the idea.
And this is the reason the Wheel of Time will probably never be the same sort of success The Lord of the Rings is, because we, as an audience, don't always want to know every little detail. We want to be led through a story. This also is why almost everybody knows passages of the Bible (whether nothing more than "Our Father who are in Heaven") while almost no-one knows the origin of "Sing, goddess, of Achilles ruinous anger."
The Devil, they say, is in the details.
So more Tolkine and the Bible, though I plan to expand my scope for this post and look at The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, both for its similarities to The Lord of the Rings and differences.
We talked about the concept of Lacuna and Lacunae within the Bible. I made mention that The Lord of the Rings has a similar nature, that Tolkien does not bother to explain everything. He chooses instead to leave much open for the interpertation and understanding of his audience. This is how Peter Jackson was able to come in and create so much of the look of his film trilogy differently from any previous incarnation of the books while still mainting the spirit of the works.
In opposition to the Bible in this area Dr. Sexson mentioned the works of Homer. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are loaded with details not necessary to the working of the story. It would be easy to qualify those two works as being more fluff than plot, in the most basic sense.
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, could be called a modern day example of Homer's 'problem' (somebody else can debate whether detail or Lacuna is better). There are currently eleven books published in the series, the twelth and last is supposed to come out in the summer of 2007. The longest of the books is about 1,000 pages, the shortest around 600 (paperback). The final series will be around 10,000 pages long, or 2.5 million words. For comparrison, The Lord of the Rings comes in at a little over 500,000 words. The Lord of the Rings covers a time of about one year, for the main part (total time between first and last word is about five years) while The Wheel of Time contains three years worth. They both tell a story of man's battle against an ageless evil aiming to remake the world in his own image.
The most common complaint about Jordan's series is that he mentions anything and everything. He'll say that someone is wearing a blud dress, made from Andorian wool, which is normally sheared by older woman while they sing some song in which a Hero goes of to far, and how the hero's grandosn discovered a new way to smelt metal and steel was born and that steel was used to protect the palace guards from an insurrection which saved the life of a little boy who grew up to be king, then he returns to the narative. Obviously I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the idea.
And this is the reason the Wheel of Time will probably never be the same sort of success The Lord of the Rings is, because we, as an audience, don't always want to know every little detail. We want to be led through a story. This also is why almost everybody knows passages of the Bible (whether nothing more than "Our Father who are in Heaven") while almost no-one knows the origin of "Sing, goddess, of Achilles ruinous anger."
The Devil, they say, is in the details.
posted by J.M.R. Burgard @ 5:49 PM
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