Who is Like unto Tolkien?

I find I am reduced to merely repeating articles from Bruce Charlton’s blog on days when I find that gentleman’s thoughts more interesting than my own. And this topic interested me immensely:

Is there anything *like* Tolkien?

This was a burning question for me aged c. 14 years once I had read and re-read Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit) to the point of wanting to read something else.

What did I find?

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Having seen a reference to Spenser’s Fairie Queene on the LotR blurb, I picked this up to look-at in a second hand bookshop – I pretty quickly put it down again!  But I was never foolish enough to tackle Ariosto (to which C.S Lewis bizarrely compared LotR – what on earth did he think he was doing?!)

Then having done some background reading (for example, in Lin Carter’s A look behind the Lord of the Rings) I tried some older fantasy and also some more recent fantasy.

I read Lord Dunsany’s King of Elfland’s Daughter but it was hard work and made no impression – I failed to read E.R Eddison’s Worm Ourorboros. I actually enjoyed Evangeline Walton’s Island of the Mighty – which was a retelling of the ‘Mabinogion’ Welsh legends – but it was nothing like Tolkien.

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In sum – I found only a couple of books (or a couple of pairs of books) which were post-Tolkien and resembled him enough to satisfy re-readings.

The Minippins (aka The Gammage Cup) by Carol Kendall, and its sequel The Whisper of Glocken –  which are rather like The Hobbit.

And the Weirdstone of Brisingamen  and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner – which are somewhat like Tolkien’s world breaking into the modern world.

To this double-duo I would add the quintet of books by Lloyd Alexander that begins with The Book of Three – which are a somewhat Tolkien-like version of the Mabinogion (again).

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However, none of these are at all like Lord of the Rings in their flavour – except perhaps for the earlier more Hobbit-like chapters leading up to Rivendell. All are on a much lower level than Tolkien – but I retain a strong affection for Kendall and Alexander, and sometimes re-read them – I have later been put off Garner by his subsequent developments (post The Owl Service – which is absolutely brilliant, albeit already tending towards the constipated evil of his later work) but there are a couple of very fine passages to which I return.

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To return to the original question – there is, in my experience, nothing like Tolkien.

My comment:
I thought I was the only person on the established earth who had read THE GAMMAGE CUP by Kendall, and until this reading, I did not know it had another title and a sequel. This is a particular favorite of mine, mostly for the character of Walter the Earl, who is myself were I incarnated (or inliterated?) as a Minnipin.

For those of you not familiar with it, THE GAMMAGE CUP is a tale of the somewhat straightlaced and conformist Little Folk living comfortable and placid rural lives, all with doors and cloaks of drab green, adoring their cultural hero Fooley the Aeronaut (from whom their important squire families take their lineage) and having long ago lost all the arts of war and memory of ancient glories. When it is announced that there will be a contest between the various villages along the river for the honor of housing the Gammage Cup, a token of their founding days, the villagers over-react, harass and expel the nonconformists: an antiquarian, a poet, a painter, our goodhearted but dither-witted heroine Muggles, and (unexpectedly) the town treasurer, who is too grim and sober to accept the whims of the majority. These nonconformists are (meanwhile) discovering not only ancient lore, magic swords, and the truth about Fooley, but a very present threat from goblins called ‘The Mushroom People.’

I reread this as an adult to my own children, and was surprised at its depth and characterization. There are scenes in the wilderness where the exiles are learning cooperation and self discipline, and our heroine Muggles unexpectedly finds herself in a leadership role; there are dreadful scenes when one of the group is captured by the goblins and poisoned (and this one scene makes my children unwilling to hear the book again); there are scenes of battle as martial and valiant as anything in a book by Robert E Howard or Edgar Rice Burroughs; there is a romance so briefly mentioned yet so sweet that a child might miss the profundity of it.

I also read WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET by Eleanor Cameron to my kids, or tried to, since this was a book from my youth I liked as well. As it turned out, rereading it with adult eyes was a bit of a disappointment. It was like KRULL compared to STAR WARS. The characters are flat, the plot boring and unfocused, the stakes are low, and there is no moral to the story, no theme.

(I was also amused by the coincidence which made the Mushrooms the villains in the Kendall book the heroes in the Cameron book, and a favorite food of Hobbits in Tolkien.)

I have had more luck with Ariosto and Spencer than Bruce Charlton, and I enjoyed THE WORM OUROBOROS tremendously and reread it frequently, even to the point of naming my third born son after Lord Juss of Galing in Many-Mountained Demonland on the planet Mercury.

I have also read the first canto of Ariosto’s ORLANDO FURIOSO to my boys (the Sir John Harington translation of 1634, which I recommend).

But Ariosto is not only nothing like Tolkien, in most ways he is the opposite: I will mention in passing the tale of the two men who agree to share a wife, only to find that she is cuckolding them both, three males being insufficient for her robust sexual appetite, and I will gently point out that there is no tale of Luthien or Arwen or Galadriel that makes any parallel there.

KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER is nothing like Tolkien, nor is it Lord Dunsany’s best work (which is in his short stories — but only read a volume with the Sime illustrations).

ISLAND OF THE MIGHTY and BOOK OF THREE does indeed capture some of the flavor of Northern myth in which Tolkien reveled, but if you want really to taste the taste of Tolkien again, I recommend you re-read BEOWULF. If you read it in school, let me say it is wasted on schoolboys. Like the ILIAD, it was written for men. There is a particularly good recent translation by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney which I keep in my car, and, yes, I have introduced my boys to it on long car trips, and they seem to like it.

I am also reading the Prydain books to my boys, and we are on the first chapter of THE HIGH KING. They love the gargling voice I do for Gurgi and the scatterbrained voice I do for Eilonwy.

I am also pleased that someone beside myself and my lovely and talented wife has read WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN and its sequel MOON OF GOMRATH. The scene where the children are trapped underground seeking to evade the Svarts was too scary for my boys, so we have not read all through.

For my money, the authors who are the least like Tolkien are the ones usually mention as being like him, or being his epigones. I mean specifically LORD FOUL’S BANE and sequels by Stephen R. Donaldson, and SWORD OF SHANNARA and sequels by Terry Brooks. These works have the trappings and tropes of Tolkien, but the themes are different or inferior (Mr Donaldson is writing a psychological novel, Mr Brooks an adventure story) and the moral vision is different or even opposite.

The most derivative book I ever saw, the one trying the hardest to be like Tolkien, was URSHURAK, conceived by the Brothers Hildebrandt and written by Some Guy. I assume no one but me remembers this gorgeously illustrated piece of utter dreck. Some of the best illustrated, gorgeous, jaw-droppingly good plates and sketches married to perhaps the worst Tolkien ripoff jaw-droppingly bad prose of all time.

Does anyone remember this book? Go go, gadget Internet!

http://lookmanoagent.blogspot.com/2010/11/obscure-fantasy-urshurak.html

Good golly Miss Molly! Someone else does recall this oddity! And he is bolder than I, for having reread it! My opinion: URSHURAK is the ugliest pig with the prettiest lipstick of all time. Dare any man say me nay?

Allow me to quote the immortal prose of Mr Cotman:

Urshurak is the story of how the Vandorian archer High Oxhine is recruited by Elgan, the wizard of Mowdra, to aid the Dwarves Erbin and Evrawk, the elf maiden Gwynn, and the Gwarpy Oolu, in the quest to restore Ailwon, Sevena of the White Elves, wielder of the magical blade Elvgard and heir to the Crownhelm, to the throne of Cryslandon, and defeat Gorta, Witch of Zorak, and the Death Lord Torgon who reigns in the dark land of Golgorath. Yes, it’s that kind of book.

Well said, sir.

The one book not listed by Bruce Charlton as being like Tolkien, but which I would call in the class of Tolkien (albeit, again, only as much like Tolkien as OUT FROM THE SILENT PLANET) that I would add to his list is THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S Beagle, a particular favorite of mine as it is the second fantasy book I ever bought with my own money as a child (The first was DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH by Lovecraft).

Every single line is quotable.

Indeed, readers searching for Tolkienesque material could do worse than starting with Lin Carter’s justly famed Ballatine Adult Fantasy Series.

And I will recommend one other book, this by Padraic Colum (whom sharped eyed readers will notice wrote a blurb for KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER) called THE KING OF IRELAND’S SON. And even sharper eyed reader will note that the illustrations are by Willy Pogany, who is a famous illustrator from the period.

The most derivative book I ever saw, the one trying the hardest to be like Tolkien, was URSHURAK, by the illustrators the Brothers Hildebrandt. I assume no one but me remembers this gorgeously illustrated piece of <em>dreck</em>. Some of the best illustrated, gorgeous, jaw-droppingly good plates and sketches married to perhaps the worst Tolkien ripoff of all time.

Does anyone remember this book? Go go, gadget Internet!

http://lookmanoagent.blogspot.com/2010/11/obscure-fantasy-urshurak.html

Good golly Miss Molly! Someone else does recall this oddity! And he is bolder than I, for having reread it!  My opinion: URSHURAK is the ugliest pig with the prettiest lipstick of all time. Dare any man say me nay?

Allow me to quote the immortal prose of Mr Cotman:

<blockquote>Urshurak is the story of how the Vandorian archer High Oxhine is recruited by Elgan, the wizard of Mowdra, to aid the Dwarves Erbin and Evrawk, the elf maiden Gwynn, and the Gwarpy Oolu, in the quest to restore Ailwon, Sevena of the White Elves, wielder of the magical blade Elvgard and heir to the Crownhelm, to the throne of Cryslandon, and defeat Gorta, Witch of Zorak, and the Death Lord Torgon who reigns in the dark land of Golgorath. Yes, it’s that kind of book.</blockquote>

Well said, sir.