(urth) Bringin' it back to Wolfe by the long road

[don doggett]

First things first.

from The Letters of JRR Tolkien, 1981 hardcover, p.
144, letter 131 to Milton Waldman:

     'But an equally basic passion of mine "ab initio"
was for myth (not allegory!) and for fairy-story, and
above all for heroic legend on the brink of fairy-tale
and history, of which there is far too little in the
world (accessible to me) for my appetite. . . Also -
and here I hope I shall not sound absurd - I was from
early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved
country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with
its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I
sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of
other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance,
Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly
affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished
chap-book stuff. . .But once upon a time (my crest has
long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more
or less connected legend, ranging from the large and
cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the
larger founded on the lesser in contact with the
earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast
backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to England;
to my country.'

Of course, he didn't manage this in his lifetime, and
had actually despaired of it by this letter, but I
believe my point is made. The Silmarillion and The
Children of Hurin are the results of his son's effort
to bring this ambition to fruit. This letter is huge,
but it's the most interesting one of the bunch, in my
opinion.

Now to Wolfe, sort of. In the middle of this lengthy
quote there is a passage on Arthur:

     'Of course there was and is all the Arthurian
world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly
naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but
not with English; and does not replace what I felt to
be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish,
and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For
another and more important thing: it is involved in,
and explicitly contains the Christian religion.'

I find this paragraph interesting in that Tolkien
views Christianity as a liability here. And he's right
regarding his own work, the lack of overt Christianity
is a definite strength. But what does everyone think
regarding Wolfe's big novels? I'm thinking especially
of Wizard Knight, which involves both Arthur and the
most overt references to Christianity I have
encountered from Wolfe. I found it a weakness myself;
having Odin (the Vallfather) bow down to Michael was a
little close to proselytising for me, and it seemed
unnecessary to the overall intentions of the story.
Opinions?

Also, one other minor thing. Tolkien writes, in a
footnote to this letter (Yes, virginia, he seems to
have written footnotes. Anyone know if this is common
in letters?) that he is a huge fan of Mary Renault,
that he loves the two books on Theseus, The King Must
Die and Bull from the Sea, and that her letter to him
was one of his favorite bits of fan mail. I read
somewhere around this list that Wolfe found Mary
Renault unreadable but that he thought Robert Graves'
Hercules My Shipmate was great (it is). Graves, of
course, took a fairly nasty snipe at Tolkien's work.
In this one I have to side with Tolkien. The King Must
Die is pretty damn great.

yours in wordage

Don

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