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Feb. 3rd, 2004 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksAh, flu season. How I loathe thee. Hopefully this will blow over fast.
But having to spend the day in bed has given me a chance to go through some of the stuff I found lying about, so I have located and decided to post excerpts from various essays I've done at various points in time. At some point in the near future this should include some of my journals from Japan. At the moment, thoughts on epic.
This was written in May 2003 in the lobby of an extremely expensive hotel in Nagoya, while I was waiting for my father to get back from his job so he could check me into the hotel. It still applies almost entirely, so I thought I'd post it. Original in ordinary text, any comments I'm making now in italics.
So this has nothing to do with Japan, in which I am sitting and waiting for my father, but I have been reading V. Woolf (and can't for the life of me figure out which book of essays,) and have come across something I feel worth pursuing: "There is no reason to think that the form of the epic or of the poetic play suits a woman any more than the sentence suits her. But all the older forms of literature were hardened and set by the time she became a writer. The novel alone was young enough to be soft in her hands-- another reason, perhaps, why she wrote novels." At which point it occurred to me that though I have spent years thinking of high fantasy as a branch of the epic, discussing Tolkien as an epic poet and not a novelist and urging that literary criticism judge him on that basis, admiring Eddison's blend of the novel and the epic, reading all the epics I can get my hands on and learning new languages partly in order to be able to read epic better-- in short, though I have spent a great percentage of my literary life in loving epic poetry-- it had never, not once, not even fleetingly, not in any way or shape or form ever had it ever crossed my mind that I might write an epic myself. Not in poetry or prose. It seemed extraordinary to me that I had never thought of this (and still does-- I mean, really), and it seems even more extraordinary that the immediate sequel to the thought that I might do so was the thought that, frankly, I am not capable of it and do not want to do so. Now why should that be, I wonder? (The question that made me write this essay in the first place.) For I do not generally restrict myself in matters of literary form. I have written poetry, criticism, academic essay and short fiction quite indiscriminately and think of myself as a novelist though I have not yet finished a novel; I have never written a play, but I had noticed that years ago (over a decade ago, actually) and concluded that I certainly would if something came to me that needed to be expressed in that manner. But I shall never write an epic. And I have no idea of why. It is something to ponder, whether or not it has anything to do with my gender, which it may. I shall have to look into it.
At this point, Dad turned up, and I continued the essay after checking in and getting into my bedroom and unpacking and having Adventures in Japanese Plumbing. The page heading says 'much later same day'.
Because epic is about war. And war is a subject on which I have nothing whatever to say in epic format that has not been said already. I mean, in a war, either both sides are evil, and then you don't have an epic, you have a didactic lesson, a la 1984, or you have something nobody wants to read about because all the people are so awful (as in the Thomas Covenant books; epic is about the heroic virtues in some way, after all). Or one side is Good, and one Evil, and everyone knows it, and if the Evil is supernatural, at best (and a lovely best) you have Tolkien, and if the Evil is human (and nothing more than simply Evil) you have bad art because people are more complex than that. Or both sides are human beings, real people, and you have the Iliad, in which Good and Evil in the epic sense (which is a very specific sense) are balanced between the sides; or both Good and Evil are present in both sides but one side is better and one worse and you have Eddison. (And both these last may contain the complexities of the novel and may rise to tragedy-- and they do-- but they are still about war.)
Of course if both sides are Good they cannot wind up fighting one another for long except for reasons of Tragic Misunderstanding, which isn't enough to base a whole long epic on unless you assume Good is also Dumb. Bad art again.
Now look here, the critic will say at this point. (Funny how I assume an audience in my journals for rhetorical purposes.) What about the Odyssey? Or Beowulf? Well, I say, those are about war (and the aftermath of it). It is only that one of the sides is an army of one. War is about power, and power is about control, and Odysseus could have stayed any number of places in perfect happiness had he wished (well, not perfect happiness; there are always regrets; but aren't there regrets at Ithaca too?), but he wanted back his old power, the control over things he was accustomed to, his mastery. (Yes, I realize the Odyssey is more complex than this. But this is there.) Likewise Beowulf, except there the epic struggle is to gain mastery in the first place (in the ancient trope of coming-of-age as a battle; Portrait of the Hero as a Young Patriarchal Archetype). So these are war, and, while I am quite glad of it-- if Odysseus had stayed with Circe the world would be a poorer place (though not necessarily for the reasons he has for leaving-- the ideal of family loyalty is in my opinion unusually strong and noble in the Odyssey), and the more I think about The Worm Ouroboros the more I admire it-- I have never had any desire for power; I have not that heroic virtue. (Possibly the first thing they will do in Utopia is give all the heroes a preserve to go off and have struggles and wars in, and I can stay home or travel or dream or make things or sing as I choose.) (It's astonishing how thoroughly LeGuin has worked her way into my mindset, isn't it?)
Deep Roots (my novel-in-progress), now that I think on it, is almost a sort of anti-epic. Libros (my protagonist) is in a struggle that ought to be an epic battle, except that she is seeking power over no-one, not even herself, but release from all power; the force she is fighting is not Good, is not Evil, but is incomprehensible and does not even know that she is fighting it; the ideal she serves is not honor, country, or household but vengeance and the chance of change. Infanticide is her heroic virtue (if you aren't one of the people I've been discussing the plot with, you probably don't want to know). I cannot help but see the desire for power as ineluctably male, though I know it is found in some women. (My experience with seeing it has always been in men.) And I cannot help but see the desire for freedom, especially the freedom to be let alone, as intrinsically female in nature, though I suppose it possible that men do have it (although not in my experience. For years the highest aspiration of my life was to have *no obligations to anybody*. It's still pretty high on the list, though I have given up).
After this I go into sufficient detail about the plot of my novel that I don't actually want to post it. Suffice it to say that I have been writing the book ever since as a conscious subversion of epic.
But having to spend the day in bed has given me a chance to go through some of the stuff I found lying about, so I have located and decided to post excerpts from various essays I've done at various points in time. At some point in the near future this should include some of my journals from Japan. At the moment, thoughts on epic.
This was written in May 2003 in the lobby of an extremely expensive hotel in Nagoya, while I was waiting for my father to get back from his job so he could check me into the hotel. It still applies almost entirely, so I thought I'd post it. Original in ordinary text, any comments I'm making now in italics.
So this has nothing to do with Japan, in which I am sitting and waiting for my father, but I have been reading V. Woolf (and can't for the life of me figure out which book of essays,) and have come across something I feel worth pursuing: "There is no reason to think that the form of the epic or of the poetic play suits a woman any more than the sentence suits her. But all the older forms of literature were hardened and set by the time she became a writer. The novel alone was young enough to be soft in her hands-- another reason, perhaps, why she wrote novels." At which point it occurred to me that though I have spent years thinking of high fantasy as a branch of the epic, discussing Tolkien as an epic poet and not a novelist and urging that literary criticism judge him on that basis, admiring Eddison's blend of the novel and the epic, reading all the epics I can get my hands on and learning new languages partly in order to be able to read epic better-- in short, though I have spent a great percentage of my literary life in loving epic poetry-- it had never, not once, not even fleetingly, not in any way or shape or form ever had it ever crossed my mind that I might write an epic myself. Not in poetry or prose. It seemed extraordinary to me that I had never thought of this (and still does-- I mean, really), and it seems even more extraordinary that the immediate sequel to the thought that I might do so was the thought that, frankly, I am not capable of it and do not want to do so. Now why should that be, I wonder? (The question that made me write this essay in the first place.) For I do not generally restrict myself in matters of literary form. I have written poetry, criticism, academic essay and short fiction quite indiscriminately and think of myself as a novelist though I have not yet finished a novel; I have never written a play, but I had noticed that years ago (over a decade ago, actually) and concluded that I certainly would if something came to me that needed to be expressed in that manner. But I shall never write an epic. And I have no idea of why. It is something to ponder, whether or not it has anything to do with my gender, which it may. I shall have to look into it.
At this point, Dad turned up, and I continued the essay after checking in and getting into my bedroom and unpacking and having Adventures in Japanese Plumbing. The page heading says 'much later same day'.
Because epic is about war. And war is a subject on which I have nothing whatever to say in epic format that has not been said already. I mean, in a war, either both sides are evil, and then you don't have an epic, you have a didactic lesson, a la 1984, or you have something nobody wants to read about because all the people are so awful (as in the Thomas Covenant books; epic is about the heroic virtues in some way, after all). Or one side is Good, and one Evil, and everyone knows it, and if the Evil is supernatural, at best (and a lovely best) you have Tolkien, and if the Evil is human (and nothing more than simply Evil) you have bad art because people are more complex than that. Or both sides are human beings, real people, and you have the Iliad, in which Good and Evil in the epic sense (which is a very specific sense) are balanced between the sides; or both Good and Evil are present in both sides but one side is better and one worse and you have Eddison. (And both these last may contain the complexities of the novel and may rise to tragedy-- and they do-- but they are still about war.)
Of course if both sides are Good they cannot wind up fighting one another for long except for reasons of Tragic Misunderstanding, which isn't enough to base a whole long epic on unless you assume Good is also Dumb. Bad art again.
Now look here, the critic will say at this point. (Funny how I assume an audience in my journals for rhetorical purposes.) What about the Odyssey? Or Beowulf? Well, I say, those are about war (and the aftermath of it). It is only that one of the sides is an army of one. War is about power, and power is about control, and Odysseus could have stayed any number of places in perfect happiness had he wished (well, not perfect happiness; there are always regrets; but aren't there regrets at Ithaca too?), but he wanted back his old power, the control over things he was accustomed to, his mastery. (Yes, I realize the Odyssey is more complex than this. But this is there.) Likewise Beowulf, except there the epic struggle is to gain mastery in the first place (in the ancient trope of coming-of-age as a battle; Portrait of the Hero as a Young Patriarchal Archetype). So these are war, and, while I am quite glad of it-- if Odysseus had stayed with Circe the world would be a poorer place (though not necessarily for the reasons he has for leaving-- the ideal of family loyalty is in my opinion unusually strong and noble in the Odyssey), and the more I think about The Worm Ouroboros the more I admire it-- I have never had any desire for power; I have not that heroic virtue. (Possibly the first thing they will do in Utopia is give all the heroes a preserve to go off and have struggles and wars in, and I can stay home or travel or dream or make things or sing as I choose.) (It's astonishing how thoroughly LeGuin has worked her way into my mindset, isn't it?)
Deep Roots (my novel-in-progress), now that I think on it, is almost a sort of anti-epic. Libros (my protagonist) is in a struggle that ought to be an epic battle, except that she is seeking power over no-one, not even herself, but release from all power; the force she is fighting is not Good, is not Evil, but is incomprehensible and does not even know that she is fighting it; the ideal she serves is not honor, country, or household but vengeance and the chance of change. Infanticide is her heroic virtue (if you aren't one of the people I've been discussing the plot with, you probably don't want to know). I cannot help but see the desire for power as ineluctably male, though I know it is found in some women. (My experience with seeing it has always been in men.) And I cannot help but see the desire for freedom, especially the freedom to be let alone, as intrinsically female in nature, though I suppose it possible that men do have it (although not in my experience. For years the highest aspiration of my life was to have *no obligations to anybody*. It's still pretty high on the list, though I have given up).
After this I go into sufficient detail about the plot of my novel that I don't actually want to post it. Suffice it to say that I have been writing the book ever since as a conscious subversion of epic.
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Date: 2004-02-03 06:09 pm (UTC)Mrr?
Love,
Ruth.
Epics, conflict, and freedom
Date: 2004-02-03 07:01 pm (UTC)Stories are about conflict. This is something they taught us in eighth grade English or so, but nevertheless I think it's true -- you can't have a story without some kind of conflict. Now, we move on to epics. What makes an epic story epic? Answer: an epic conflict. And to be epic, a conflict has to be big, big enough to affect the world in some significant way, instead of just a few characters. And thus the vast majority of epic conflicts are wars, because they're the only things big enough. I was going to say all epic conflicts are wars, but thinking about it, I think that it is possible to have an epic conflict with only two individuals, and I don't feel quite comfortable calling such a thing a war. I actually think that Beowulf is an example of this type, although it's actually one man (Beowulf) against a succession of individual foes (Grendel, Grendel's mother, the dragon). In this case, the conflict in question bears so much resemblance to a war with very few participants that it makes little difference except in terminology. This all confirms everything you've said, I think.
I definitely have a desire for freedom, incidentally, including, sometimes, the freedom to be let alone. I'm kind of curious about your not having found this to be the case in men, since I don't even think of it as a particularly feminine aspect of my personality. There's even an aspect of the desire for freedom which I think of as stereotypically male, namely the desire for independence, or freedom from dependence on others. But you may be thinking of freedom differently; care to explain a bit more?