When authors have complete power over the world they create, as is the case in fantasy and science fiction, their beliefs and opinions shape their work in a more or less obvious way.
This has been clear to me for some time, but I was reminded again when reading the ‘Sword of Truth’ saga of Terry Goodkind. I decided to have a look around in my collection, and try and extract who thinks what.
Some are just minding their character’s business, or try to use their imagination without imprinting their own vision in any obvious way, so it’s sometimes subtle. This is a Good Thing – I don’t really appreciate being bludgeoned with misc propaganda while I’m trying to enjoy a story.
- Starting with the freshest: Terry Goodkind. Not difficult: cold war stuff. The bad guys are evil communists, with a dollop of religion on top. He sings the praise of individual enterprise and freedom all through most of the last 5 books (yawn).
- Another sadly obvious one: Lukyanenko (The Night Watch). Russian patriot – the rest of the world is tired, old and decadent. Russia is sharp and young, rejection of foreign concepts and imports, and glorification of russian traditions (like drinking vodka and eating salami or pickled onion, which happens a lot).
- Orson Scott Card: I had to read about it to realize it, but the guy is a convinced mormon. This was mostly clear from the way his characters never have biblical knowledge of eachother before marriage, and then proceed to have as many children as possible. Also pretty right wing, but again, this was harder to parse in his books.
- Philip Pullman. Again, trying to make a point by telling a story. The point was made in bright shining neon letters
- I suspect Terry Pratchet from being rather left wing, he has lots of sympathy for common folks, and kings, dukes and whatnot don’t exactly get preferential treatment.
- Tolkien: Kings and queens, princes, and elves. Based on saga, so he has a solid excuse, although that hasn’t kept some from accusing him of being rather sharply on the right. And hobbits save the day.
- J.K. Rowling: also more on the left side of the spectrum. The rich and powerful are rather unpleasant all through Harry Potter.
- Katherine Kerr: right-wing, I think, like most romantic visions are, really. Nibelungen and all that, you know the drill.
- Robin Hobb: in the same category as Katherine Kerr
- Robert R.R. Martin: more of the same. That doesn’t keep me from really liking his books, if he would only finally go and finish the Song of Ice and FIre.
- China Mieville: left wing, I think, with his fantastic vision of a revolutionary messiah going down in flames.
Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Robert Charles Darwin, Iain Banks are all more difficult to make out, with people being people in all walks of life. So basically, the best authors are less obvious …
Of course, this is all my perception. I’d be curious to know what you think ? Do you have other obvious examples ? (I probably forgot a few)
IIRC (a quick look at Wikipedia seems to confirm this), Tolkien was anti-fascist and anti-racist. (According to some people, LOTR can be seen as an allegory of WW2, with the forces of Mordor as Germany.)
I believe you – The criticisms were a bit silly, and related to the non political correctness of the elves (pale blonde and all that).
I’m none too fond of these types of comparisons. LOTR, for instance, has been used by anything from pro-green to pro-nuke supporters. Authors are obviously biased (being human and all) and are likely to write things that they themselves can relate to. Whether you see nazis in Orcs depends on how you view nazis than how you view Orcs, I think. Your views colour your reality.
I suppose what bothers me most about these things is that they ruin the story. If I want to read about commies getting killed by excellent american football players, I’m sure I can find a book about that, but I’d much rather read about Richard Rahl creaming an army of magic-hating twats.
That being said, Banks and Stephenson seem very leftist to me, what with The Culture being the ultimate communist paradise (nevermind the robots) and Stephenson’s habit of lowly men (Fraa Erasmas of his puny concent, Bobby Shaftoe lowly marine, …) doing things that their respective governments aren’t able to do..
If LOTR was an allegory on a world war, then it was probably WWI, not WWII. Tolkien fought in the trenches in France and saw a lot of his friends die.
C. S. Lewis is pretty obvious: conservative, religious.
I would position Neil Gaiman at the left of center (for those of you who still believe in the outdated lef/right divisions). His characters are usually anti-authoritarian to some degree.
I’m a huge Tolkien fan, but also can’t help to notice that his epic stories are pretty conservative: men rule the world without women, good races (elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, …) are white and bad races (orcs, …) are coloured, there’s absolutely no sexuality in his main stories, etc…
I also agree with your ideas bout Terry Goodkind, by the way.
@Bram I think we agree that it’s a bad thing to have obvious politics in our stories
).
What you say about Banks and Stepenson could be right … although it could be interpreted as libertarianism, which is not necessarily the same as leftism.
@Bart indeed, those are the critiques Tolkien gets. A possible excuse is that his stuff is based on nordic saga, which is a very male-dominated culture with exclusively pale people, obviously (and Galadriel rules the roost
@Elise: I concur
. This is stuff we should discuss over beer, by the way!
As for exclusively pale people, I’m always entertained when people think that authors must be racist/white supremacist/nazi scum based on the absence of good black guys in stories. Tsk.
Reminds me of that very entertaining bit of Tintin fuss we had last year, when some schmuck or another went on a major Herge and Belgium-bashing expedition. All because a bit of “Petit nègre” isn’t politically correct in this day and age.
As much fun as it would be to bash every old and politically incorrect book — especially the religious ones — I assume that it’d be just a tad pointless.