XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien, alt.fan.harry-potter
From: giles@poetic.com
On 10/17/2010 3:34 PM, Troels Forchhammer wrote:
> In message
> Weland spoke these staves:
>>
>> On 10/10/2010 9:49 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>>
>
>
>
>>> One of the reasons Sayers is sometimes described as an "honorary
>>> Inkling" is that she was a fairly close friend of some of the
>>> Inklings, though she never attended any of their gatherings. That
>>> would not, of course, apply to Rowling.
>
> I think we should look at the 'in the tradition of the Inklings' part
> rather than waste too much effort on the 'honourary Inkling'
> statement -- the latter is, as you point out, attributed to Sayers
> because of some very specific historical circumstances and it is
> nonsensical to attribute it to Rowling or any other author who didn't
> belong to these particular historical circumstances.
>
> Dirk said that
> ||| I guess to answer this question one would first have to agree
> ||| what this "tradition" is in the first place.
> which I think is a very relevant question -- what, if anything, is
> the 'tradition of the Inklings'? As I said, I am (in the present
> company) particularly unknowledgeable about other Inklings than
> Tolkien, but as Steve has pointed out, the Inklings' literary
> production spans very widely (with some of them, as I understand it,
> publishing nothing and others only non-fiction).
>
>
>
>> I would say that one of the traditions Rowling is following is
>> Lewis and Tolkien, rather than the Inklings. And it should be no
>> surprise: she's educated in the British system,
> [...]
>> There's no question she's influenced by the same texts as Lewis
>> and Tolkien, and in addition by those authors as well as by T. H.
>> White among other things. So sure, following at least in part
>> the tradition of the "Inklings", but hardly an honorary Inkling.
>
> But, as you put it here, you seem to imply that this tradition is
> merely the tradition of any reasonably well-educated British fantasy
> author? I'm sure much of the same could be said, for instance, of
> Philip Pullman . . .
Finally getting to this, your estimable post, Troels. I haven't read
Pullman, so I can't judge. But no, I think the influence goes beyond
mere general, well-educated British authors and goes rather more
specifically to various types of Medieval literature, the Romance in
particular and the influences of that genre. Someone reading more
modern literature would not have those influences.
> Is there anything that distinguishes the Inklings from the broader
> background of British twentieth-century (sub-creative?) literature?
Well, to be honest, I'm thinking more of Lewis and Tolkien than the
Inklings in general. And in that sense, yes, both Lewis and Tolkien are
reinventing and drawing on medieval and Renaissance materials without
overly modernizing them as part of their subcreative process. Both are
also drawing on language in ways that Rowling at least tries to imitate
that other British fantasy writers don't. (Though Gaiman, at least in
what I've read of him, certainly does.)
> I'm fishing here, I know, but though there has been a lot of writing
> about the Inklings, I don't think I have seen it suggested that their
> work belongs to a common 'tradition' -- if anything the 'tradition'
> was one of communality, of testing ideas on each other and openly
> discussing each others' work, but this would, as I understand it, be
> particularly inappropriate for Rowling who appears to have worked
> very much alone.
>
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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