Lin Carter: Explorations in Fantasy Part 2," Tolkien: A Look Behind the 'Lord of the Rings"

I began this series on Lin Carter a long time back and am now just getting back to it. The reason for the long delay is I just wasn't sure what I was trying to prove. I believe that Lin Carter, while looked down upon too often by the establishment and fans of Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery, he is not given enough credit for the positive influence he has had upon the genre. Lin Carter was one of the first critical writers to take fantasy and its related genres seriously and to attempt to make the public at large view it as Literature (capital L intended). So after a long delay, here is my second love letter to the memory of Lin Carter.

This post is more of a retrospective then a review. I don't feel it is fare to review this work, as Carter was attempting to pioneer the idea that the Fantasy genre is not to be viewed as childish and non-academic. Mr. Carter was well read in the field and beyond. He shows it here. I would like you as the reader to keep in mind that when Carter was writing this, The Lord of the Rings (hereafter LotR) was more of a cult favorite and was not universally as well known as such pop-culture icons such as Batman or Superman. It isn't too far fetched to suggest that Carter, with the publication of this book helped bring pop-culture status to Tolkien's work.

First published in paper back form in March 1969 by Ballantine Books. There were numerous printings of this book, the latest in 2003. To the best of my knowledge, it is currently out of print. The edition I own is a fourteenth printing dated 1978.

Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings, is an insightful guide to the man who created Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf and the gang. The first chapter, "The Lives and Times of Professor Tolkien" is a short biography, and is interesting, but as to information gained from reading it, if you've read any works about Tolkien before, you won't learn anything further. The same can be said of Chapter 2 which discusses Tolkien's involvement with the Inklings. This is tried and true Tolkienism that many an armchair Tolkien scholar has read numerous times before. What makes it different and special, is Carter is perhaps one of the first few to take The Lord of the Rings seriously, not as an entertainment, but as a serious work of Literature worthy of study.

Chapter 3 stands out with interest. Titled "Tolkien Today", it is a look at the good professor's other works such as his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The bulk of the chapter is Carter's discussion of "Tolkien's upcoming new LotR book The Silmarillion". I found it interesting, for it was written while Tolkien was still writing the book. As any fan of Tolkien knows, that work was published posthumously in 1977 by his son Christopher Tolkien. When Carter wrote this chapter, the professor's fan base was still slathering at the mouth in anticipation of The Silmarillion being published. There was much excitement for no one truly knew what the book would be about, and many were hoping for a sequel to LotR. Here, Carter discusses what he believes the book will be about. Being that I was very young when LotR first saw print and was thus a Johnny-Come-Lately, it made for a nice bit of history for me. Later editions of Carter's book included an editor's note dated January 1975 noting the death of J.R.R. Tolkien in 1973 and the fact that he was still in the midst of completing The Silmarillion at the time of his death.

Chapters 4 through 7 are nothing more then synopsis of The Hobbit and all three books of The Lord of the Rings. For anyone who is familiar with the books, there is nothing gained from the reading of these four chapters.

The interesting stuff begins in Chapter 8 where Carter discusses if LotR can fairly be read as satire, allegory or something else. Chapter 9 explores Tolkien's famous Andrew Lang lecture Tree and Leaf and how Tolkien's admiration of the fairy story factored into his writing. Carter uses this chapter as well to further define the genre of fantasy and to ponder what kind of fantasy LotR is (from the book):

Does it belong to the whimsy of James Stephen's The Crock of Gold or to the supernatural horror of H.P. Lovecraft's Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth? To the swashbuckling heroics of Robert E. Howard's "Conan" stories or the ironic symbolism of James Branch Cabell's Jurgen? To the high adventure of H. Rider Haggard's She or to the subtle legendry of Lord Dunsany's Idle Days on the Yann?...

Many more examples are given with no conclusion yet drawn.

Chapter 10 explores Tolkien's connection to the Epic. In true Carter fashion, he begins with a short history of the Epic and what an Epic entails. In this chapter, the author calls upon Homer and Gilgamesh, plus a few other works, show casing his wide range of literature read. Also discussed is if the epic can be classified as fantasy. This chapter, along with the following chapters of the book serve as a preview of sorts of his next book Imaginary Worlds.

The next chapter serves as a continuation of the history of the Epic. Carter begins with a discussion of the Argonautica then traces the art to the formation of the French epics "chansons de geste ("songs of deeds") which includes Song of Roland. The songs of deeds detail the heroics of Charlemagne. Carter spends a good deal of time examining Roland. He ends the chapter with an introduction to the topic of Chapter 12, the Romances of the late Middle Age.

Here Carter discusses how Romances made the addition of magicians and magic in general to the literature that is building towards Tolkien's work. He turns to a discussion of Amadis of Gaul, and his admiration for it. As he explains, the popularity of Amadis sprung a wealth of new romances, mostly imitators. Most of those works which followed the Amadis became so convoluted with the idea of topping the last, that they became dreary and nearly unintelligible. Carter is not afraid to tell his reader when he thinks something is crap; for instance, the end of this chapter includes his opinion of Edmund Spenser, author of The Fairie Queen. His opinion of Spenser is not good, as he attributes to him the death blow (of the literature of romance). More opinion of Spenser and The Fairie Queen is given in Carter's Imaginary Worlds.

Chapter 13 shows Carter's tastes in literature that can, without a doubt, be confined to the genre of Fantasy. He writes mostly of three men whom he gives credit to for creating fantasy. First up is William Morris, who Carter labels The Reformer; next is Lord Dunsany, The Aristocrat; last of his "big three" is Eric Rucker Eddison who Carter calls The Romancer. The major works of all three are discussed. In this chapter Carter also pays homage to: L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt. H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance and Mervyn Peak. He gives some attention to Peak's "Gormenghast trilogy".

In chapter 14, Carter puts forth what he considers to be the primary sources for Tolkien's ring trilogy. He gives much time to the Elder Edda and includes a list of names from the Edda. Amongst those names are many of the dwarven names used by Tolkien. Interestingly enough, the list includes a dwarf named Gandalf. Carter also looks in depth at the Siegfried Legend. Sometimes remembered as the legend of the dragon-slayer, the Siegfried tales includes magical rings amongst other similarities. His discussion of this ends with an examination of Richard Wagner's operas and their likeness to Tolkien's writings.

Chapter 15 "On the Naming of Names", explores the probable sources for many of Professor Tolkien's character names. Carter begins the chapter with a quick anecdote that fans of H.P. Lovecraft would find interesting. Carter relates a tongue-cheek-joke of Lovecraft naming one of his characters "the Comte d'Erlette", which he proposes is a play on the name August Derleth (this is based on the similarity of the sound of d'Erlette and Derleth, plus August Derleth was a correspondent of Lovecraft and Lovecraft knew that Derleth was descended from French nobility, but as an American citizen, Derleth could not retain a title of nobility). (On a side note, it is anecdotes such as this that add strength to Lin Carter's explorations). The meat of the chapter involves Carter tracing character names in Tolkien's LotR to their respective sources: mostly by "immersion in Welsh, Norse, Gaelic, Scandinavian and Germanic folklore" (the quote is from an article called "The Fantastic World of Professor Tolkien" by Michael Straight, originally published in The New Republic, January 16, 1956). Carter shows that often there is more then one source for each name. For instance, the name Gandalf was first found in the Edda's dwarf catalogue; however, a character named Gandalf also plays a part in the fourteenth century Norse saga Thattr Nornagest Saga; we see the name Gandalf also appearing in the William Morris' novel The Well at the World's End. From here, Carter leads into the final chapter of the book.

Chapter 15, Some People, Places and Things explores the setting of Tolkien's fantasy work. Carter begins with "Places" and establishes the history of a fantasy world in the the Morris-Dunsany-Eddison-Tolkien tradition. By this is meant that the idea of a fantasy world, as understood by the modern reader, began with William Morris, and was used (and perhaps built upon and or expanded) by Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison and then J.R.R. Tolkien in that order. He also gives another what I call a Lin Carter PR moment when in a foot note he expands upon the term Sword & Sorcery, in which he is speaking of the similarities between epic fantasy worlds and those of the common sword and sorcery world. Here he explains that Robert E. Howard is the father of the sword and sorcery genre, but it was later expanded upon by such authors as Henry Kuttner (with his Elak Stories), L. Sprague de Camp (who at the time Carter was writing this book shared a strong friendship with him), Fritz Lieber (who actually coined the term Sword & Sorcery) and oh-yeah, Lin Carter (for his Thongor stories). The "People" section of this chapter is the strongest. Here Carter points out the character tropes used for Tolkien's characters. He suggests that Aragon is the perfect Patrician Hero and that Frodo is perhaps in the words of William Shakespeare "one who has greatness thrust upon them". He ends the chapter with an interesting tracing of the origins of "...the White Tree which once bloomed in Minas Arnor in the great days of Gondor" and its relation to the tree mythology laid out in volume III of Teutonic Mythology by Viktor Rydberg.

Lin Carter ends the book with a post-script titled, After Tolkien, which is a laundry list of works that are influenced by Tolkien. For instance, Carol Kendall's Gammage Cup, published in 1959, tells a story of a hobbit like race of little people. He also compares Alan Garner's novels The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960), The Moon of Gomrath (1963) and Elidor (1965) all seem influenced by LotR. He ends with stating that the finest books to follow the Tolkien tradition to date are the works of Llyod Alexander; The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), Taran Wanderer (1967) and The High King (1968).

He includes two appendix, "A Checklist of Critical Literature on The Lord of the Rings" and "A Selected Bibliography". Both are outdated to the modern reader, but are not without merit.

I end this retrospective with Lin Carter's first sentence to the first paragraph of his "Postscript: After Tolkien"

If L. Sprague de Camp is correct in his opinion that Lord Dunsany was the most influential fantasy writer of the first half of this century, then I feel certain that J.R.R. Tolkien will prove the greatest influence over writers in the last half.

In my humble opinion, I would say Lin Carter was unarguably correct in his assumption. To deny the fingerprint left by J.R.R. Tolkien upon the Fantasy Genre, popular culture and Literature in general would be a hard argument to make.

Part three of this series will look at Lin Carter's magnum opus, Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy.

Appendix N from The DMG

Listed is the Appendix N from the 1st edition Dungeon Master Guide by Gary Gygax. Note some titles are in italics while others are in bold type while some are in both. These are added by me and are explained below. Dates are added by myself and are for my own reference.

Poul Anderson: "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (1961), "The High Crusade" (1960), "The Broken Sword" (1954)

John Bellairs: "The Face in the Frost" (1969)

Leigh Brackett (as early as 1943 to as late as 1971, but I believe most of her works were written prior to LOTR, but I will have to check my facts on that).

Fredric Brown (~ 1941 to 1963)

Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Pellucidar" Series (1922 -1941), Mars Series (1917 -1941), Venus Series (1934 - 1946)

Lin Carter: "World's End" Series (1969 - 1978)

L. Sprague de Camp: "Lest Darkness Fall" (1941), "Fallible Fiiend" (1973), et al. (many pre- 1966 works).

de Camp & Pratt: "Harold Shea" Series (1941 - 1953), "Carnelian Cube" (1948)

August Derleth (~1934 to 1961)

Lord Dunsany (~1915 - 1957)

P.J. Farmer: "The World of the Tiers" Series (begun in 1965, so I'll let it stand), et al. (many pre-1966 works)

Gardner Fox: "Kothar" Series (begun 1969), "Kyrik" Series (begun 1975), et al. (five works written prior to 1966)

R.E. Howard: "Conan" Series (Howard killed himself in 1936).

Sterling Lanier: "Hiero's Journey" (begun 1973).

Fritz Leiber: "Fafhrd & Grey Mouser" Series, et al. (F.L. published his first Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story in 1939 and continued publishing those and many other stories until his death in 1992; I've read enough of his literature to say without a doubt he didn't become a Tolkien imitator after the publication of any of Tolkien's works).

H.P. Lovecraft (died in 1937).

A. Merritt: "Creep, Shadow, Creep", "Moon Pool", "Dwellers in the Mirage", et al. (He died in 1943).

Michael Moorcock: "Stormbringer", "Stealer of Souls", "Hawkmoon" Series (esp. the first three books). M.M. will take further thought and investigation. He published his first Elric tale in 1961. I've read enough of his literature to say that despite the fact he no doubt has read Tolkien, I don't believe it influenced him, but I will leave his name un-bolded for now.

Andre Norton (A.N. published as early as 1934 and was with us until 2005. While I have read some A.N., I have not read enough to make an informed opinion. For now, she is off the list).

Andrew J. Offutt, editor: "Swords Against Darkness III" (1978)

Fletcher Pratt: "Blue Star", et al. (Died 1956).

Fred Saberhagen: "Changeling Earth" (1973), et al. (some pre - 1966 work, but not much).

Margaret St. Clair: "The Shadow People" (1969), "Sign of the Labrys" (1963). Note, most of her major works were prior to 1966.

J.R.R. Tolkien: "The Hobbit", "Ring Trilogy"

Jack Vance: "The Eyes of the Overworld" (1966, however part of a series started in 1950), "The Dying Earth" (begun 1950), et al. Luckily, Mr. Vance is still with us as of the writing of this list. He began publishing in 1950.

Stanley Weinbaum (died 1935).

Manly Wade Wellman (began publishing in 1927).

Jack Williamson (began publishing in 1928).

Roger Zelazny: "Jack of Shadows", "Amber" Series, et al. (most of his work was published from 1970 onwards, but I have to say there is a definite lack of Tolkien influence in his works).

The appendix notes that de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, A. Merritt had particularly significant input to the game.

The italics are added by myself and denote those authors/works I have read to date. While I'm sure I have read more then listed here, I have not seriously read fantasy for a number of years, so in some cases (such as de Camp and Burroughs) I left them listed as unread. What I find embarrassing is my essential geek reading is lacking. In a previous post, I stated that I was going to put together my own Appendix N, but before doing so, I wanted to read G.G.'s list, with particular preference given to de Camp, Pratt, REH, Leiber, Vance, HPL and A. Merritt, for Gygax noted that those authors in particular had helped shape the face of Dungeons and Dragons. Now of the big "seven", I have read three, in the case of Howard and Lovecraft, I have read extensively.

I still intend to finish the original Appendix N, but do to my growing interest in all literature "pre-Tolkien" I am giving particular attention to all literature written prior to 1966. Just about any Tolkienite can guess why I chose 1966. While JRRT published The Hobbit in 1937 (Britain - it was released in America in 1938), it was The Lord of the Rings which made him famous. While LOTR was first published in hardback in 1954-55 (again in Britain, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were published in 1954, The Return of the King was released in 1955. Rights for publication in America were sold in 1957), it was not until Ace came out with their pirated paper backs in the states in 1965, and Ballantine released the "official" paperbacks in 1966 that the trilogy set fire to the fantasy reading community.

Now Gygax did not name JRRT as one of the big seven; however, do to public opinion, Dungeons & Dragons and JRRT are linked in the minds eye. This is not my larger reason for concentrating on fantasy literature pre-1966, my main reason is the publication of the Ballantine paperbacks in 1966 forever changed the face of fantasy literature. In my opinion, not for the better.

Thus, the bold authors/titles are those works that were published prior to 1966, and are at the top of my Appendix N. It is not always easy to make the call as to who is on the list, versus who is off. Not to mention, Gygax made no attempt to separate science fiction from fantasy. If he liked it and it influenced him, then it made his list. Sometimes on my part, authors/works are included due to my ignorance of their work. Hopefully I can revise this after becoming better well read.

No doubt, many would disagree with the decisions I've made. After a bit more research, I plan on revising this into my own Appendix N. Right now I am still sampling and unable to make an informed decision.

My Absence, Lin Carter and my Appendix N.

Not that I have lots of followers, but to those few who do stop by here every now and then, and to those who have never been here until now, I want you to know I'm still here.

Sadly, there has not been much gaming in my life as of late. Summer is always difficult for me. I travel all year long, but summer is my busiest season, with often no rhyme nor reason as to when I will return home. Over the past five years, this has led to often several weeks, and sometimes months without gaming, which in turn often fuels my gamer ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and too frequently leads to the premature death of a campaign before its due time. It is often too hard to return to a game where that initial spark of energy is gone.

I don't think that will happen with my Darkling Ways campaign. The spark is still there for me; however, this summer bleeding too soon into fall (and I don't want to think about the looming Alaskan Winter just around the corner) it is not just my schedule which is hectic. One of my long time gaming buddies has returned to school, and can not make our regularly scheduled night (Tuesdays) for the foreseeable future. Another player is bogged down in school work as well, and working his ass off to graduate sooner versus later.

We've looked at changing the night in the past, but for some reason, Tuesday always pops up as the best night, so I'm not sure if we will investigate that proposal further. I would love to game on a Friday or Saturday night, but those are reserved as date nights for my wife and I (and as much as I love gaming, I love kindling our relationship even more); Sunday afternoons would be keen, but we always seem to have family stuff going on that day, as does everyone else. So Tuesday it will most likely remain. This means Osamu the Cleric of Solomon will be handed into my not-so-tender hands as an NPC (I've had a bad track record with NPCs and/or henchmen in this campaign, not intentionally, I have adopted a strict policy of "let the dice fall where they may"--this has also led to two character deaths). Osamu will, hopefully, be there for when his controlling player can join us again.

I'm still plugging away at world creation, but have not had the time nor inclination to post anything lately. More will come.

I have been busy reading. Initially, I was reading Appendix N from the DMG; however, by pure chance this has led more into an interest in literature "pre-Tolkien" and not necessarily Appendix N (although the two often collide). My sole inspiration for this has been Lin Carter. I picked up a copy of his "Imaginary Worlds" a non-fiction speculation of his written about fantasy and part of the famous "Ballentine Adult Fantasy" series of which he edited (1969 - 1974).

Carter is an author that I had always marginalized as a simple hack; and not unfairly. As an author, he rarely rose above the average author of fan fiction, and as a Robert Howard enthusiast, his name along side L. Sprague de Camp, lives in infamy for me. Carter had another side: he was amazingly well read, and had a love for the genre of fantasy that is inspiring and admirable.

This has led me into a side project. I'm exploring what fantasy was before Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings forever changed it. It is a not a slam against JRRT. I love LOTR and have a particularly soft spot in my heart for The Hobbit. It is undeniable that the genre of fantasy changed after the immense popularity of LOTR took the world by storm, and has degenerated (in my opinion) into the realm of Tolkien impersonation.

In effect, I'm building my own Appendix N. There is more to come on this in future posts.

As to gaming, the gang is getting together Labor Day for a board game. Talisman I believe and I hope to have a session of Darkling Ways as well.