Tuesday, November 1, 2005

From: melcher@nets.com Subject: Winter is Coming Date: November 1, 2005 8:27:26 PM MST I look forward this fall to the release of a new book by George R. R. Martin, A Feast for Crows, fourth in his cycle of medieval modern fantasy epics collectively titled, A Song of Ice and Fire.(1) Martin, perhaps immodestly, displays the same middle initials as J.R.R.Tolkien, while departing radically from Tolkien in his construction of a world based as much on history as on myth (England's "War of the Roses" provided inspiration for a tale of two battling royal families). Where Tolkien weaves an apocalyptic tale of a Manichaen clash between ultimate good and evil in which most of his characters appear more like classical archetypes than as familiar people, Martin's narrative proceeds through revealing the evolving perceptions of a cast of very recognizable human characters. In Tolkien's world every character's move is the culmination of larger forces with origins deep in the mythical history to which he dedicated his creative life. As massive and ambitious as this popular masterpiece The Lord of the Rings was for Tolkein, it was only a small piece in a much larger and more ambitious tapestry tracing the prehistory of humanity all the way back to a time of creation. George Martin's intentions are modest in comparison; to tell a good yarn with engaging characters. As different as these works appear, they each represent significant milestones in the evolution of a literary genre, as well as the underlying foundations of the culture out of which they emerge. William Irwin Thompson in his many explorations into cultural ecology, presents a critique of literature as cultural artifacts, in which there are three stages of unfolding. The kinds of text that define a particular stage of consciousness are the formative, dominant and climactic. "The formative work enters into a new ecological niche of consciousness through the work of solitary and shamanistic pioneers; the dominant work stabalizes the mentality through the work of an institutional elite; and the climactic work consummates and finishes the mentality for all time through the work of an individualistic genius." (2) Although Thompson sites James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake as most clearly epitomizing the climactic work of the (last) age, I would argue that Tolkien's epic more clearly and definitively fills that niche for a number of reasons, not least of which is it's spectacular success as a genuine artifact of mass culture. Tolkien lived and wrote his myth while witnessing the titanic struggles of a century defined by the rising power of technology and industrialization. In opposition to the dominance of the machine he identified with an attempt to maintain some vestiges of tradition and memory and culture. The author is clearly conscious of the scope of the intent to summarize his age. He states in a quote sited by David Day; "I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country (England): it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandanavian, and Finnish; but nothing English, save impoverished chapbook stuff...I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story...which I would dedicate simply to England; to my country."(3) David Day goes on to compare Tolkien's undertaking as the equivalent of Homer first inventing Greek mythology single handedly before embarking on the "Illiad" and "Odyssey". What is England if not the fount and seed carrier for so much that reflects the transition from the medieval European world of moral absolutism to a transatlantic culture that worshiped progress and modernity? "The Lord of the RIngs" is a text that depicts in markedly Christian terms the final battle between good and evil, in which an agrarian civilization faces down the rising power of the machine. After heroic struggles humanity emerges forever transformed, while the ancient powers and principalities of an older time are either defeated or simply fade away. Tolkien both sums up the moral landscape of a pre-modern civilization while proclaiming its ultimate replacement by a new world order in which the heroic tribal quest ultimately leads to a new bourgeois world of trade and acquisition governed by new rules and individual initiative. At the end of the tale, the heroes disappear in the west while Merry and Sam and Pippin take up the settled life of the Shire. What better characterization of the twentieth century, where ancient tribal mythologies mingled with the ascending powers of technocracy fueled the rise of new empires? Ultimately the nation state was subdued by a new order of globalized commerce and transnational communication where the centers of power were continually challenged and then overtaken by explosive evolutionary forces generated at the boundaries of the known. At the end of the century a reaction set in as people sought retreat in the familiar rules and texts of a world that is passing away. Tolkien's fantasy wistfully recounts the passing of a time when the simple desire for comfort, family and the hearth, represented by the hobbits of the shire, was sufficient. The War of the Ring is nothing less than the passage into a new age and a new order where values must be forged anew without the assistance of the guardians of the past. Tolkien's work portrays in many ways the rise and final conflagration put forth in the Judeo-Christian paradigm of creation and apocalypse. His work inventing cultures, races and language echoes the birth and rise of nation states. As in the Christian mythos all things proceed toward a final apocalypse resulting in the ascension of the savior-king as ruler of a new order of at least temporary peace governed by principals of honor, charity and love. If, as Thompson proposes, the solitary and shamanistic explorations of Shakespeare's King Lear and The Tempest, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and Descartes's Discourse on Method,(4) created the formative texts of the new mentality that replaced the medieval Mediterranean with the modern Atlantic cultural ecologies, then Tolkien's Lord of the Rings surely fills the bill for "the work of an individualistic genius" which characterizes a climactic work that "consummates and finishes the mentality for all time." Interesting as well is the fact that Tolkien's tale truly came into its' own as a work of mass popularity when it was turned into a movie; and not just any movie, but one that marked the transition from film as primarily an optical/mechanical artifact at the pinnacle of the industrial process, to the fully realized digital creation of total worlds out of the imagination. George Martin's novels can be seen in this light as a preliminary shamanic exploration into a new level of culture. Its' structure owes more to television than to the classic film or novel. Film has tended toward an epic format, in which the background, or mise-en-scene is as much a character as the actors within the frame. Television, due to the most common size and shape of the screen, as well as its' role as a "virtual presence" within the modern household, has evolved around the close-up, or talking head. Television narratives are generally driven by a succession of character portraits which emphasize individual points-of-view, and which change rapidly from one to another in a sequence of abrupt edits. Martin unfolds his tale in a sequence of character sketches. Every chapter is named for a single character, and as the narrative proceeds our feeling for each character deepens as their name comes around again. The book could be read as a score of separate tales, each about a single character, all woven together through a tapestry of time. In a sense, the story begins where Tolkien leaves off, in an age of men, where evil and virtue are no longer carried by external forces, but in the heart and mind of every individual. One could say that The Song of Ice and Fire is a postmodern fantasy, where the battle between good and evil is played out in the choices each person makes in a moment of crisis based on their own unique perception of right and wrong. Yet, underlying the human drama and giving it ultimate shape is a much larger unfolding, determined not by good and evil, darkness and light, but by the immense and irrevocable powers of the natural world. The fortunes of men are less a factor of their moral virtue than a result of an awareness of the ultimate relationship between society and the complex and inevitable cycles of summer and winter. In this realm the timing of the seasons is unpredictable, every summer lasting more than a decade followed by an equally long cold winter. In a sense the summer fosters the powers of the day while winter brings forth the demons of the night. These cycles are long enough that generations can forget the fact that all that is will change. The lesson to be learned is that the castles and kingdoms built by men are only as strong as their memories. Although the timing is unpredictable there are plenty of signs and warnings for those who remember. It's on this stage of the inevitable cycles of nature that the dramas and struggles of human society are waged, and we are made conscious that the quest for temporal power will meet final judgment in the face of what is to come. If there is ultimate virtue it's in the value people place on wisdom and long term vision over short term ambition and greed. Two families epitomize the poles of this very human struggle. In the north are the Starks of Winterfell, whose family motto is "Winter is Coming." Their demeanor is conservative, their colors white and grey, their values shaped by necessity and tradition. In the south, near the colorful fountains of trade and culture and civilization is the throne of kings. There dwell the Lannisters, hungry for power and jealous of all those who would rule over the lands of men. The common order of heroic fantasy is followed faithfully, as it's the outsiders in both families who emerge as heroic figures as the story unfolds. When the seasons begin to change, awakening long forgotten dangers out of the northern wastes, and as another force driven by fire and signaled by the rebirth of dragons rises in the south, one gets a sense that the synthesis of seemingly implacable powers can only be found by those less invested in things as they are. As I look on at the absurd struggles that rage across our lands in a time when a future filled with looming crisis; pandemics, climate change, water shortage, overpopulation and the rest, I find the Stark motto, Winter Is Coming, the most succinct characterization of the realities we collectively face as a species and a civilization. Many of us are outsiders, with little at stake in the petty power struggles of politicians and our so-called leadership. We find ourselc=ves in a shamanic role, as observers on the periphery of social events, living in a reality that appears to challenge the powers-that-be to transcend the narrow limits of an obsolete world-view. Tolkien's magnificent epic leaves us with a challenge, to face the future as moral and responsible human beings, without the crutch of certainty provided by ancient texts and ancient prophecy. We are in a new world after all. George R. R. Martin offers a rather dire tale of the consequences of short sightedness while giving us hope that we may find a way, as we always have, through new leadership and pragmatic vision. Our constant temptation is to dwell on what we lack, and so to be trapped in a struggle that keeps us bound to a world that is passing away. Our salvation lies not in belief but in clarity, and our faith must be found not in the past but in the future. ___________ 1. Martin, George R. R. Martin's cycle: A Song of Ice and Fire, includes: A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1999), A Storm of Swords (2000) and A Feast for Crows (2005). 2. Thompson, William Irwin, Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness, St. Martin's Press, 1996 (p. 233). 3. Day, David, Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, Simon & Schuster, 1993. 4. Thompson, William Irwin, Coming Into Being. St. Martin's Press, 1996 (p. 143). # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # You can't stop the signal. http://internet.cybermesa.com/~melcher/ 8:39:19 PM    comment []