Wolfe on Tolkien

[Ohio Joe]

This seems to be rather old but I've just run across it. One of my favorite authors discussing the importance of another of my favorite authors.

http://www.thenightland.co.uk/MYWEB/wolfemountains.html

[CJCRANE]

1. Interesting...

in the last paragraph Wolfe comes across as an old school conservative, so old school that he harks back to a time before the word conservative even existed. He probably carries around a copy of the Magna Carta, on parchment.

ETA: Some my favorite fantasy and science writers are fairly conservative in real life, maybe that's what makes them so good at creating fantasy worlds...

[white_wolf]

2. I just finished a course on Tolkien this last semester...

and my professor described Tolkien's political views as very conservative bordering on him being a Monarchist. As for science fiction writers wasn't Heinlein especially well known for his rather extreme conservative views?

[CJCRANE]

3. That's the impression I get of Wolfe too

from his admiration of Tolkien's works. Wolfe pines for a simpler time with simple rules, when everyone knew their place and the codes of honor and loyalty they had to live up to; a time of strong leaders and la noblesse oblige.

Heinlein, on the other hand seems to have been a more modern kind of conservative, if not a fascist. The Starship Troopers movie makes fun of this and uses this as parody but AFAIK Heinlein was serious about his ideas.

[lazarus]

4. which ideas, though?

Heinlein proposed lots of different political systems in his various books, from pure communism to libertarianism to rational anarchy to benevolent dictatorship.

He worked on the CARE campaigns in California, but also was greatly influenced by his wife to become a Goldwater Republican, just like Hillary Clinton used to be.

As for Starship Troopers, RAH himself said that that book, just like Stranger in a Strange Land, contained no answers, only questions for the reader to answer himself.

[Bruce Wayne]

5. At the risk of sounding ethnocentric...

I only find it a problem when Americans are monarchists. We have a tradition of Republicanism; Brits have... well... something else.

[Vogon_Glory]

6. June 2018 This link is dead