This is not the right crowd and you know it

[sovay]

Okay, so my physical health has imploded along with my plans for the day and I am in a terrible mood, but I think I would still be disagreeing with David Eddings.

skygiants recently re-read The Belgariad. The comments section is appropriate-ironically epic. In the course of pursuing a theory proposed by pedanther—who seems to have been totally right—I found an interview with Eddings. I am not sure when exactly it was conducted; his remarks about prequels suggest sometime between 1991 and 1995, but honestly I don't feel that knowing the year would make much difference to how impressively I disagree with almost everything he says that is not a fact of his personal history and maybe even a couple of those (you cannot cite your intellectual differences with a female parakeet as reasonable scaffolding for your difficulties in writing human women, my dude, or at least you cannot do it without sounding like a dick). For whatever reason, though, this particular glaring ignorance is sticking with me:

"You can have a character say, 'Gee, they bounced one of my cheques' in a contemporary story and everybody will know what they're talking about. But in fantasy you have to invent the entire banking system. You have to invent the theology, sociology and everything else. And when you begin as I did, by dropping three or four aeons of western European culture into a blender—when you throw in peoples who are essentially ancient Romans, French and Spanish noblemen, Vikings and Muslims—when you put all that together and press the 'on' button you get a very strange mix of anachronisms. It gets you thinking about what sort of world it would be with Romans and Arabs living next to each other, for instance."

DUDE IT WOULD LOOK LIKE OUR ACTUAL HISTORY. SO WOULD THE INTERACTION OF VIKINGS AND MUSLIMS. ALSO PLEASE TELL ME THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAS NOT YOUR MODEL FOR THE ANGARAKS BECAUSE IF SO THE ORIENTALISM IN THESE BOOKS JUST WENT SO FAR PAST ELEVEN IT EXCEEDED ESCAPE VELOCITY AND BLASTED OFF INTO THE STARS AND THE STARS REALLY DID NOT DESERVE THAT.

I am sure someone yelled at Eddings in his lifetime about his conceptions of history and anachronism. I don't see how you could not. But I just found them and I am beginning to feel that Santayana should be revised: those who cannot remember the past are not only condemned to repeat it, they are condemned to reinvent it and believe they have created something totally unprecedented—strange enough for high fantasy—when in fact it was just people's lives. Even in high-gloss extruded fantasy product, that annoys me. The end, no moral. Just, seriously, don't do that.

Comments

[starlady]

I feel like if he'd majored in history some of this might have been avoided, but I'm probably being overly optimistic.

[sovay]

I feel like if he'd majored in history some of this might have been avoided, but I'm probably being overly optimistic.

At least he might not have thought he was mixing up cultures that actually coexisted!

[larryhammer]

In hopes that it helps, I'll just leave this here.

[sovay]

In hopes that it helps, I'll just leave this here.

That's wonderful. Thank you.

[thornsilver]

I liked his books more when the racism (and the rest of the "ism"s) in his writing went over my head.

[sovay]

I liked his books more when the racism (and the rest of the "ism"s) in his writing went over my head.

It gets hard to take.

[redbird]

Someone who uses "Muslims" that casually in parallel to "Vikings" and "ancient Romans" is probably beyond hope. "Ancient Rome" covers a lot of time and space, but is downright coherent compared to "Muslims," which covers Bali to the Mughal Empire to Morocco to Minnesota.

Though, you know, we'd have been entitled to throw up our hands and walk away at the parakeet.

[sovay]

"Ancient Rome" covers a lot of time and space, but is downright coherent compared to "Muslims," which covers Bali to the Mughal Empire to Morocco to Minnesota.

That is an extremely good point.

Though, you know, we'd have been entitled to throw up our hands and walk away at the parakeet.

The parakeet came right at the end! Just when you thought it was over. And then he said something about science fiction and fantasy as respective literatures of optimism and pessimism for reasons I think are also wrong, too, but at least not comprehensively insulting.

[pameladean]

I haven't even got to the parakeet. I am still hung up on, "Reed, a rather prestigious college in Oregon." I mean, it is, rather prestigious, I mean, and also in Oregon to the best of my knowledge, but you just don't put it like that. I just.

Also also his weird remarks about bachelor's degrees. I mean, it's true that many colleges do not require a thesis for graduation, but what is this about handing out blank diplomas and letting people just put in their names? What? What what what? ALSO ALSO ALSO holy crap, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, well THAT explains a lot.

These things in isolation don't sound so awful, but there's something about the ineffable smugness and naivete combined that makes me want to punch him, not an impulse I have often, and I still haven't reached the parakeet.

P.

[pameladean]

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT THE SOCIAL WORKER IN THE NOVEL THE LOSERS, SOME GIRL WHO MAJORED IN BOYFRIENDS AND HAD THE OBLIGATORY ABORTION WHAT WHAT WHAT

Okay, I will stop now. Never mind the parakeet. The social worker is enough for me.


P.

[starlady]

This will sound like hyperbole, but Reed definitely does its best to indoctrinate its students about how they worked so much harder than all other undergraduates and are therefore more worthy. (Which, they do work like dogs! They do the work of graduate students but without having done undergrad as a preparation.) But part of the reason Reed goes so hard on this ideology is so that people will believe all the trauma and pain was worth it.

[ethelmay]

From everything I have heard about it, Reed occupies pretty much exactly the same ecological niche as the college you and I went to, and I cannot type "a rather prestigious college in Minnesota" without laughing and slapping my nose back down where it belongs.

The bit that makes me blench is "Eddings admires Tolkien greatly, as evidenced by his affectionate use of the term "Poppa" in reference to him..." Okay, that's the interviewer's prose, not to mention spelling, but UGH.

[phi]

Oh my god I have not thought about the Belgariad in at least a decade, but I remembered every bit of it when you mentioned it. They were SO BAD but I read every single one of them when I was in high school. I even reocgnized the horrible sexism and orientalism for what it was (and was it just me or were the Snake People supposed to vaguely represent South Asia what with all the snakes and shit?) and still gobbled it up. And, despite recognizing the extreme racism in the depiction of the horse people and the snake people and the evil god's fake muslims, I still for the longest time believed the stereotypes about the fake saxons and fake norse were based in 100% true facts. *facepalm*

[sovay]

Oh my god I have not thought about the Belgariad in at least a decade, but I remembered every bit of it when you mentioned it.

I cannot explain the eidetic properties of David Eddings, but everyone—including me!—appears to recall his work in detail despite not reading it in decades and/or trying to repress the memories. It amazes me. I wish he'd been able to use it for good.

(and was it just me or were the Snake People supposed to vaguely represent South Asia what with all the snakes and shit?)

With all the steamy jungle swamps and drugs and sexual ambiguity? I don't think it's just you. They don't resemble any other set of national stereotypes enough to be anything else, which is an appalling thing to have to type.

And, despite recognizing the extreme racism in the depiction of the horse people and the snake people and the evil god's fake muslims, I still for the longest time believed the stereotypes about the fake saxons and fake norse were based in 100% true facts.

In your defense, Norse sagas really did have the concept of berserkers, while various Muslim empires did not have . . . any of that . . .

[julian]

Hum. He's trying for avuncular and occasionally succeeding. But he lets the malice out a little too obviously sometimes. (What got me, of course, as it would, was his extended digression about social workers. Thanks, dingus!)

[sovay]

He's trying for avuncular and occasionally succeeding. But he lets the malice out a little too obviously sometimes.

That's a useful way of putting it. It just scratches at you. And I am pretty sure he thinks he's just being funny, but. Those 6000 words of interview may have done more than ten 600-page doorstop fantasies to keep me from wanting to get back inside David Eddings' mind for a long time to come.

(What got me, of course, as it would, was his extended digression about social workers. Thanks, dingus!)

It's some pretty serious did-a-social-worker-eat-your-ice-cream-cone?, I will say that for it.

[redbird]

(you cannot cite your intellectual differences with a female parakeet as reasonable scaffolding for your difficulties in writing human women, my dude, or at least you cannot do it without sounding like a dick)

Permission to metaquotes?

[sovay]

Permission to metaquotes?

Sure! Thank you for asking.

[kaffy_r]

I never read any of David Edding's stuff past the first couple of chapters of one of the Belgariad books; for some reason, it all seemed so derivative that even in my hunger for fantasy, I left his stuff alone.

(I say this not to seem intelligently perceptive, but just to note how weirdly my mind works; at the same time I avoided his stuff, I read at least four of the Jordan "Wheel of Time" books, being fooled into thinking they were good because he'd latched on to some interesting concepts. Then I think I got tired of the uniformly unlikable characters all defined by one or maybe two external tics - I'll never use the phrase "tugged her braid" ever. Even if it were to save my very soul.)

After that digression, I have to report that sometime into the third or fourth paragraph of the interview, I decided that his self satisfaction was too fatuous to be even cruelly entertaining. I wasn't surprised by the parakeet comment.

Gah.

(And really - he thought the idea of Romans living next to Arabs was his own very original way of mixing up people who obviously would never be found together in the real world? Gah. Again.)

[sovay]

I never read any of David Edding's stuff past the first couple of chapters of one of the Belgariad books; for some reason, it all seemed so derivative that even in my hunger for fantasy, I left his stuff alone.

I had that reaction to Terry Brooks. I can't remember a thing about The Elf Queen of Shannara (1992) except I'm pretty sure I didn't get far. But I read Eddings. The brain of a developing reader is a fascinating place.

I say this not to seem intelligently perceptive, but just to note how weirdly my mind works; at the same time I avoided his stuff, I read at least four of the Jordan "Wheel of Time" books, being fooled into thinking they were good because he'd latched on to some interesting concepts.

Hey, see above. I also read an unnecessary amount of Piers Anthony.

(And really - he thought the idea of Romans living next to Arabs was his own very original way of mixing up people who obviously would never be found together in the real world? Gah. Again.)

Right? Of all the examples he could have picked!

[rosefox]

Thanks for the pointer. That was fun.

[sovay]

Thanks for the pointer. That was fun.

I've gathered I shouldn't try reading The Rivan Codex.

[vass]

(you cannot cite your intellectual differences with a female parakeet as reasonable scaffolding for your difficulties in writing human women, my dude, or at least you cannot do it without sounding like a dick).

What strikes me is his apparent confidence that the workings of a male parakeet's mind would be less of a mystery to him.

[sovay]

What strikes me is his apparent confidence that the workings of a male parakeet's mind would be less of a mystery to him.

It is rather revealing.

[thisbluespirit]

(you cannot cite your intellectual differences with a female parakeet as reasonable scaffolding for your difficulties in writing human women, my dude, or at least you cannot do it without sounding like a dick).

From my memories of reading the Belgariad, Mallorean & Elenium (I stopped there, although that was not as soon as I should have done), that explains so much about David Eddings and made me laugh so much. I expect it had an incomprehensible, wilful but amsusing (mostly) tiny little mind!

(I, btw, read both Terry Brooks and David Eddings in my hunt to read what fantasy my library had as a teen. Terry Brooks lasted longer than David Eddings, but gave me the awkward but immovable new fantasy rule: no elves if it's not Tolkien. Unless they're evil. I can live with evil elves a la Pratchett.)

As to the history, to be fair to him, those things come packaged in separate topic boxes! How could a fully grown man with access to a library (and a comprehensible man's mind) understand that possibly they existed simultaneously anyway?

(I'm not going over to read the interview - the snippets combined with my misspent youth - I also read Piers Anthony, do I get some sort of bad fantasy reading award here? - are sufficient to make me laugh a lot and think very fondly of The Tough Guide which lambasted so much of that kind of 80s and 90s fantasy. I suspect the full interview would be too much. But I saw this last night last thing and I'm still laughing at the mere mention of the female parakeet. The only thing I don't understand is what his wife actually had to do with any of it, given the incomprehensiblity of small female minds.)

[sovay]

(I, btw, read both Terry Brooks and David Eddings in my hunt to read what fantasy my library had as a teen. Terry Brooks lasted longer than David Eddings, but gave me the awkward but immovable new fantasy rule: no elves if it's not Tolkien. Unless they're evil. I can live with evil elves a la Pratchett.)

There are sort of elves in Jane Yolen's White Jenna (1989); they turned up suddenly in a universe otherwise established to contain humans and not even magic in the conventional sense. The author had to write an essay entitled "Oh God, Here Come the Elves!" in order to cope. I thought that was fair.

I also read Piers Anthony, do I get some sort of bad fantasy reading award here?

If you want? Piers Anthony is a common affliction! Every couple of years I think about re-reading Macroscope (1969) and then I decide I really don't want to know in which capacity the Suck Fairy has visited it.

But I saw this last night last thing and I'm still laughing at the mere mention of the female parakeet.

I'm glad! (And I think not actually reading the rest is a valid, even life-affirming decision.)

The only thing I don't understand is what his wife actually had to do with any of it, given the incomprehensiblity of small female minds.

After reading that interview, honestly I don't know. I knew he considered her a co-author long before she was credited as such; in fact he seems to have published nothing further after her death. But he comes across so strongly as incapable of considering anyone else's viewpoint that when he praises his wife for her support and her input without which he wouldn't be able to write female characters, I literally have no idea what that means.

[ashlyme]

Is "oh, for fuck's sake!" a reasonable response? I'm not sure I can summon up anything more intelligent.

[sovay]

Is "oh, for fuck's sake!" a reasonable response? I'm not sure I can summon up anything more intelligent.

It's completely reasonable!

[thanate]

Oh dear. I am suddenly experiencing a vague desire to reread these & see if the bits I remember were in fact as ridiculous as I remember them. (Even at 12 I was offended by the meticulously copied inkblot that contained an entire sentence.)

[sovay]

(Even at 12 I was offended by the meticulously copied inkblot that contained an entire sentence.)

I'D MANAGED TO BLOCK THAT OUT.

[sandrylene]

On a very meta level I always thought it was breathtakingly audacious to a point of nearly being clever that he put in that device of "the prophecy makes us re-tread events until we get it right" so that he could write an entire *second* set of five books with the exact same plot and world and half the same characters as the first set.

I mean... that' is hella unabashedly "well, these sold okay the first time and I could *use* some more money...."

But yeah... these all definitely only worked before my brain had much in the way of critical thought going for it.

[sovay]

On a very meta level I always thought it was breathtakingly audacious to a point of nearly being clever that he put in that device of "the prophecy makes us re-tread events until we get it right" so that he could write an entire *second* set of five books with the exact same plot and world and half the same characters as the first set.

It is a serious definition of chutzpah, yes.

But yeah... these all definitely only worked before my brain had much in the way of critical thought going for it.

I sometimes find it interesting to re-read books that I encountered first before the age of reason, or at least the age of discernment. Sometimes they are still really good! Sometimes they aren't good at all, but I can tell what I found important about them. I am not just sure it's worth the suffering to try it with these books, though.

[skygiants]

I had no idea so many people wanted to complain about The Belgariad! I'm delighted so many people want to complain about The Belgariad! However, if I had had an idea, I probably wouldn't have written up that post the night before disappearing from the internet for four days straight of houseguest + wedding travel + graduation travel, with only snatches of 30-second intervals to refresh my phone, laugh out loud at the first half of someone's incisive commentary, and then lose internet on account of being in in a tunnel/in rural Maine/on an airplane!

Anyway I'm still reeling from Eddings on a.) history and b.) social workers.

[sovay]

disappearing from the internet for four days straight of houseguest + wedding travel + graduation travel, with only snatches of 30-second intervals to refresh my phone, laugh out loud at the first half of someone's incisive commentary, and then lose internet on account of being in in a tunnel/in rural Maine/on an airplane!

I commend your ability to interact with your commentariat at all!

Anyway I'm still reeling from Eddings on a.) history and b.) social workers.

AND PARAKEETS.