Mysterious Glow

The other day a friend and I were discussing –perhaps arguing, I’m often contentious– about Michael Moorcock’s essay and critique of J.R.R. Tolkein, Epic Pooh. It’s a famous and influential essay, well worth the read, where Moorcock compares Tolkein’s prose to that of A.A. Milne’s Winne-The-Pooh. In other words, it is fiction designed to comfort, not to challenge the reader

Moorcock also skewers the other grand patriarch of genre fiction, Robert Heinlein, with his essay, Starship Stormtroopers, where he argues that Heinlein’s books creepily fetishize the military and are intrinsically fascistic in nature. I still love Star Trek but I think Moorcock’s premise is right. Just why does most SF take place on military vessels full of good guys who never abuse their destructive power ? The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica deconstructed these themes.

Moorcock’s own Elric of Melinoboné books were the His Dark Materials / The Golden Compass of their day. They were intentionally opposite of what Moorcock perceived as the old-fashioned Tory values of Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. As a kid I never knew that any of the Elric books had a reactionary, anarchist agenda. I loved them, as much as I loved Tolkein, and would draw pictures of Elric and his Black Sword, a weapon far worse than the One True Ring.

But re-reading those essays, which are a little dated, I think they still contain valuable things to consider. Fantasy /SF and especially Star Wars fans should ponder the behavior of their cherished heroes.

From Starship Stormtroopers:

An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A ‘rebel’, certainly, he or she does not assume ‘rebellious charm’ in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do). There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious ‘Force’ which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian ’samurai’ again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people’s ideas) in its implicit structure — quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.

I was reminded of Michael Moorcock’s work after reading this interview with Richard K. Morgan, author of The Steel Remains

From the interview at io9.com

Why does fantasy lend itself to noir themes?
Well, I imagine there are many – not least among the core fantasy readership – who’d say it doesn’t; but then again those are the same people who can apparently read stories of noble warrior kings and peasants without ever thinking about the social implications of a world in which power is either hereditary or derived from brute force and steel. For me, any fiction of nobles and swords necessarily HAS to be a story of corruption, injustice and savagely violent conflict – because any other treatment is going to have all the heft and realistic honesty of a bedtime fairy tale for five year olds. Noir is above all an ADULT form. It’s a narrative technique which deals in the ubiquitous nature of humanity’s failings under pressure – and there are few places you’d see those failings so luridly played out as in the pre-modern societies so beloved of most epic fantasy. Forget Chandler’s nineteen thirties LA mean streets – what do you think the mean streets of your average feudal city state would have looked like? And what would you have to go through to extract some modicum of justice from that reeking mess?

I wouldn’t be surprised if we are witnessing a literary movement taking off. A fantasy movement that is cynical of any kind of noble quests. I’m excited about this direction.