In response to the previous entry, "U. of Auckland Features Seminars on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Barbarians," CJ discusses Christian history and the influence of bibilical events on the work of these authors and others. 

The date of the Crucifixion has been a subject of speculation and debate among Christians for quite awhile, but not as long as you might think; this obsession with dates, and Biblical archaeology, is actually a Medieval phenomenon.  Jesus' contemporaries understood that the gospels, along with the books of the Hebrew Bible, were allegory--they weren't so much interested in the facts of the stories as in how, and to what extent, they legitimized Jesus' role as savior.  The authors of the gospels very consciously and purposefully call on Jewish theology and mythology, when discussing Jesus.  The most famous example of this is probably in John, chapter 6, which discusses the Eucharist.  John uses a writing technique called "bracketing" to place Jesus' actions within the context of not only the Jewish Passover feast, but also the contemporaneous Pagan harvest festival.  Many modern readers don't realize that this technique would have been obvious to most early Christians--just as the author of John intended it to be.

 

Edward James, Professor of Medieval History at Universty College, Dublin, is presenting two lectures at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The first of the lectures, and the most interesting for the Bard's purposes, is titled "J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: Friendship, Religion, and Fantasy."  Professor James plans to discuss the shared Christian values of Tolkien and Lewis and how those values found their way into their writing, as well as the marked differences between the authors' work.

James had some interesting things to say about the different, but equally Christian, themes of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia:

He says Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a more subtle expression of Christianity than Lewis' Narnia series, in which Christian allegory is clearly portrayed through the Christ-like Aslan the Lion.

"Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as a 'Catholic epic', but the author was more interested in representing Christian values than Christian allegory," says Professor James, who notes Tolkien was instrumental in converting Lewis to Christianity. "Of course, there are Christ-like figures in the trilogy-- most notably, Gandalf and Frodo. And it's no accident that the Ring is destroyed on 25 March, the traditional medieval date for the original crucifixion. But Tolkien and Lewis approached Christianity very differently in their fantasy works," he says.

I had never heard (or noticed, I should say) the bit about the March 25th date and its Christian significance before reading this article.  It's probably not news to CJ, who has a background in medieval history.

The Catholic/Christian symbolism is, superficially, fairly obvious: Frodo sacrifices (or intends to) his life (for all intents and purposes -- he's never the same afterward) on the same date medieval scholars associated with Christ's messianic crucifixion.

The fact that Frodo actually becomes consumed by the Ring's power and is only able to get the job done with Gollum's help makes the interpretation more interesting, of course.  The fact that Tolkien sometimes referred to Middle-Earth as a primeval age of our old world also portends a larger picture -- are such sacrificial events merely history repeating itself? 

Professor James's other lecture concerns the differences in perception of barbarians between the Roman Empire and modern society and is titled "How to Recognize a Barbarian."

I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we wish our own respective colleges had seminars like this.  Go Auckland!

Here's what's coming up on The Accidental Bard:

The Bard's Pile O' Shame
The best books you only love in private.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
Jim's review.

A Look Back at Narnia, and What Made It Great
In anticipation of the upcoming movie adaptation, 'Prince Caspian'

Stay tuned.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past four days, you've probably heard that Guillermo del Toro, long rumored to be helming the two-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic novel The Hobbit, has been officially announced as Director by New Line Cinema. 

TheOneRing.net, Moste Ancient and Magisterial of All LOTR News Sites, also posted an interview with Del Toro concerning his plans for the films.  Particularly interesting are Del Toro's comments regarding the second film, which is intended to cover the events that occur between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring:

Fans are all abuzz about 'The Second Film', can you tell some of your plans for it?

GDT: You know, I traveled to New Zealand just a little while ago, and one of the main reasons for going was to sit down and talk about the second film. 'The Hobbit', the book, is really one self-contained film, so for the second movie we sat down and worked it out. When we did this we got really excited because this second film is not a 'tag on', it's not 'filler', it's an integral part of telling the story of those 50 years of history lost in the narrative. There will be certain things that we will see from the first movie but from a different point of view, but it will feel like a volume, in the 5 volumes of the entire story. It will not feel like a bridge, I've been hearing it called 'a bridge film', it's not, it's an integral chapter of the story, and I think we're all on the same page.

Fantasy Book Critic posted a great interview with author Kate Elliott earlier this week.  As with most of their interviews, it's detailed and engaging, with enthusiastic answers from the author.  But most interesting about this interview in particular is what Ms. Elliott has to say about writing as a career and producing work in a reliably timely fashion:

Q: One of the things that most impresses me about you as a writer, is your ability to produce novels at a regular, almost yearly rate. What's your secret?

Kate: Desperation.

On a material level, in terms of earning a living, a person might write and produce because s/he needs the money. I am currently able to write full-time, but I also have a spouse whose work provides lower-cost health insurance for our family. Obviously if I had to work another job and write, I would not be able to write as much.

On a career level, perhaps one is driven to produce regularly in order to maintain the momentum of a building career, or at least not to lose too much momentum. Big gaps between books can hurt shelf life, can cause an author to fall out of the public eye, can hurt sales. In some cases, a big gap between books might throw the much awaited novel of a writer into high relief (e.g. George R. R. Martin's forthcoming fantasy), but it's just as likely to set back a writer's career.

When my children were little--and given that I was home all the time with them--I often wrote in order to get mental space for myself, in my own world where others did not, for five minutes or an hour or two, intrude. Writing at that time was a form of sanity.

In the larger sense, I have difficulty conceiving of existing without writing, so in that sense I write and continue to write because it's like breathing. It's not that I'm desperate to breathe; it's that I have to in order to be alive.

Also, I am aware that we cannot predict what will happen tomorrow: my career or my life could be over next week (although obviously I hope not!), or I could (as I devoutly hope) be churning along still writing and publishing in my 90s like the late Jack Williamson. I have a lot of stories I want to tell, and boy will they be pissed if they don't get their chance to be told. That's desperation.

Elliott is touching on a much larger question here -- the problem of being prolific.  Perhaps more than any other genre, fantasy authors differ greatly in their comparative quantities of work product.  Some authors produce more than two books a year; others take three years to publish a single volume.  Is this difference entirely coincidental and based on personal ability and talent, or is there a ratio between quantity and quality?  Presuming a certain base level of professional ability and talent, can we presume that those authors that publish less frequently generally produce deeper, better works? 

It's interesting that Elliott describes the huge gap between George Martin's last book and his as-yet-unpublished sequel as having a positive marketing effect, given that Martin himself has written at length about what a struggle it has been to complete his forthcoming novel, A Dance With Dragons.

The story begins in media res: we first meet Logen Ninefingers, the infamous Bloody-Nine, in the middle of a fight.  As Logen tumbles through wet Northern forest, a group of insistent, stinking Shanka on his tail, we get our first taste of Joe Abercrombie's signature, nail-biting ability to make combat a truly visceral experience for the reader.  Logen buries his axe in one brute's skull as he slides off the edge of a cliff, finds that he has a hanger-on, and then promptly throws himself, the Shanka with him, into a gorge.  Thus begins The Blade Itself, Book One of Joe Abercrombie's new fantasy trilogy The First Law.  Say this for Joe Abercrombie: say he doesn't pull any punches.

Abercrombie's name seems to be on everyone's lips these days.  The Blade Itself, the author's first novel, is probably the most reader-acclaimed epic fantasy debut since A Game of Thrones first hit the shelves.  The recent release of Before They Are Hanged, Book Two of the trilogy, has only sealed Abercrombie's fate as the current poet laureate of a new school of heroic fantasists -- a school that began, perhaps, with Martin, and has come to define the best of the genre as a whole.   And it really is the readers who have made Abercrombie's work the success that it is: with both volumes, published only as trade paperbacks (albeit with attractively dark, blood-spattered covers wrapped around good paper), the critical praise on the back covers and opening pages of each book is a veritable Who's Who of the fantasy/sci-fi blogging world.  You won't find any New York Times quotes here. 

The praise includes a lot of words like "bloodthirsty," "violent," "fast," and "fight scenes."  It also includes words like "action," "intrigue," "exhilarating," and "accomplished."  The necessarily selective nature of cover blurbs notwithstanding, the early reviewers generally have it right: The Blade Itself is a bold, ambitious first novel that manages to encompass both complex character study and vicious, bloody action.  More than anything else, however, the book shows a greater potential as yet unreached.

The Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Spectra Pulse Magazine features an article by Scott Lynch titled "Be Thou Familiar, But by No Means Vulgar: The Worst Cliches in Fantasy and Science Fiction." 

A brief look at a subject that could (and most likely has) filled entire doctoral theses, the article nonetheless contains a few worthy chestnuts:

And don't even get me started on Mysterious Mentors who possess the power to blast planets into atoms with a single fart, yet spend all their time wandering in the woods or being uselessly cryptic to the hero when they could just go deal with (Insert Dire Threat to All That is Bright and Wholesome Here) themselves and be back in time for a three-martini lunch. The desire to have it both ways with this sort of character, to withhold vital information or prevent obvious action for the transparent purpose of prolonging a flimsy plot, kills plausibility dead.

A quick, fun read, perfect while eating lunch at one's desk.

"Volume I" refers to the first three novels in P.N. Elrod's "The Vampire Files" series, and it's a great beach read.  Ironically, on the strength of subject matter alone, it probably only appeals to those of us who don't like the beach.  Existential angst isn't usually a big hit with the surf and sun crowd--they're too busy having fun.  The usual beach activities hold no appeal for me, however; I burn easily and I'm always uncomfortably aware of the sand in my shorts.  I try hard, but the beach and I just aren't a good fit.  Likewise, Elrod tries hard, but none of the different elements of The Vampire Files, Volume I are a good fit.  It alternately reads like a rip off of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series, an ode to the old Dick Tracy comic strip, a romance novel, a campy film noir script and a rerun of the Dr. Phil Show.

According to the Irish Independent, Dublin-based author Sarah Rees Brennan is on her way to filling the much-lamented vacuum left by the ending of the Harry Potter series:

Similar to the Harry Potter books, [Brennan's novel] The Demon's Lexicon tells the story of a teenage boy living with a magical secret.

Nick (16) is from London and he has been on the run from magicians for his whole life because his mother stole a powerful charm from them. The teen's father is dead and when his older brother's life comes under threat, things get more serious and a cat and mouse chase ensues.

Sarah's books are not for kids but are aimed at the young adults market. She hopes to tap into the growing appetite for fantasy books like the Lord of the Ring series, and Artemis Fowl.

The most identifiable aspect of the Harry Potter books was the fact that each book was a  bildungsroman in the most literal sense of the word: each book followed the moral and academic development of a young character, specifically through a fantastical version of a very English school.  Absent his distinctive schoolboy identity, Harry Potter would be a fairly lackluster fantasy character.  To truly be a successor to Potter, a novel has to have that scholastic, after-school aspect to it.  Not to mention v-neck sweaters, huge scarves, and repp ties ever-so-fashionably askew.  

Either way, we look forward to Ms. Brennan's debut.