I've been wondering what it would take to craft an American mythology, much like how Tolkien created a mythology for England in Lord of the Rings. What do you think would have to be done or what approach would have to be taken? Would they have to look somewhere apart from saxon, Scots irish, etc. Culture and mythology? What would it take to make distinctly American fantasy?
The thing is you guys already had distinctly American Fantasy in the 80s and 90s.
But a proper Mythology would probably work better by combining the local state with the larger US you know? So you’d have to combine your traditional roots and those of your state such as the Saxon, Scots, Irish, with the local landscape, the local ideas of the state and with the larger values of the US over-all and her history as Richard commented.
I would point out too, we had distinctly American fantasy in the form of the Wizard of Oz at the turn of the 20th century, but it was more modern and served more as fairytales rather than the mythology. That's about a close as we got until Howard gave us his mythology of sorts, but as y'all pointed out, it is still very grounded in Scots/Irish heritage. One question would be, if someone crafted a mythology, would it be an antediluvian prehistory like the hyborean age? If so, how someone tackled that would be very different than simply utilizing American Indian cultural/mythological elements.
America is such a new nation that for us to think mythologically is difficult. Plus, we have what Joe says above, Europeanism hangs over us so heavily. I'd say we'd have to dig into the American spirit of exploration and pioneering, self-sufficiency, our quest for freedom, heroism, expansion, and our spotty record of treating native Americans and blacks. Most of all, I think we'd have to invest the stories with the sense of leaving everything behind and making a new life in a strange land.
True, the strange thing is I think Canada/Quebec’s better rooted in that in a strange way, as there was no revolution here. That said, the sense of that loneliness could work quite well, and what Canada lacks in deserts for example America has in spades which is quite interesting.
There’s plenty that can be done, though I think also highlighting the individual states could help refine America still further in a lot of ways.
But heroism, expansion, freedom and all the rest are interesting virtues to explore.
A lot of the issues mentioned here tie into the formulation problem discussed in the video I sent you last week; the "Why We Never Got Another Lord of the Rings" one. Tolkien ended up taking a lot of flak from other writers in the 70's and 80's, Moorcock being among the most vocal, for a routine formula that he was never responsible for developing. This is a big reason why these ruts have formed; rather than reading far back and digging deep into myth, legend, history, and culture, a great many fantasy writers have been sticking to the same small handful of alternating formulas that were made the popular norm following the success of The Lord of the Rings in the United States.
Sometimes these formulas resulted in good stories, even great ones. More often, mediocrity; a churn of the disposable and forgettable, fantasy as product, because that's how the publishers who developed and popularized these formulas viewed it. Not the creation or continuation of human myth. Not something impactful to the culture. Certainly not transcendental. Temporary by design. Easy to read, enjoyed in the moment, then forgotten just in time for the next book following the formula to catch the attention of buyers. Poorly fashioned clones born of an equally poor interpretation of Tolkien's work that reduces the myth down to the generic hero saving the generic maiden and defeating the generic dark lord.
Repeat ad nauseum.
Flood the market.
Most of all, stick to the shadows so people don't realize you're actually the one at fault for it, leading to frustrated authors like Moorcock erroneously leveling the blame at Tolkien.
Their response? Do the opposite! Take the formula, and turn it on its head! In some rare cases, they'd break the mold in the process. But I stress, those cases are very rare. Thus we see the back and forth trend that led us here, with epics that keep telling the exact same kinds of loosely LotR inspired stories, and dark fantasy that takes the same and turns it all nihilistic and depraved. Little deeper thought, minimal creativity, all of it neatly packaged within predetermined and heavily formulated rulesets spewing out scads of pastiche and imitations. Fantasy as label and aesthetic; easy, cheap, marketable. A far cry from its true purpose.
Indeed, it is interesting that Moorcroft had more to do with cementing the strange formulas than Tolkien himself did.
We really need to burst forth from the present forms, ruts and the like and go back to tradition and ‘uniquefying’ so to speak each of our stories and mythoses.
I’ve also been thinking about this in relation to something Alexandru Constantin said in his podcast with Josh Tatter; how American fantasy writers haven’t really developed anything that could be considered a distinctly American fantasy. REH was considered a possible exception, but a little too easy to argue against given how heavily he leans into his Irish heritage, and that the concept of fantasy fiction was nonexistent at that time. It’s also arguable that his fiction having that distinctly Texan feel, while capturing an aspect of Americana, still isn’t distinctly American.
After learning about how Del Rey Books formularized the model for publishing fantasy fiction, I personally think this is a big reason why distinctly American fantasy stories never came to pass. The formula was forcibly drawn from Lord of the Rings; made the trappings and tropes Tolkien used as just part of his much larger mythmaking process, into the core elements. Thus, American fantasy authors end up looking across the sea to Europe constantly for their inspiration, while eschewing much of our home grown myths and legends.
Funnily, we did end up with a genre that is distinctly our own in the Western. Yet in a great many ways, the Western fell into the same kind of trap as the fantasy genre where imitation and pastiche are concerned. In both cases, I think there’s a wealth of history, myth, and tradition that’s both waiting and needing to be tapped for a true and proper revival of both genres to take place.
Maybe, I think that the 80s is when the US really took the upper hand with people like Gygax and Moorcroft and others, but that the problem is that they fell into formula as you pointed out.
I think part of this is that Europe is where we originate from, you can't escape from it. American culture is an outgrowth of Europe, and that what's needed is to accept this dig deep into the roots and blossom them.
I think it also requires Americans to eschew the liberalism and Enlightenment ideas that are at the heart of America. You shed those and go back to before that and you'll find some means by which you might create a mythology for your home-state.
I've been thinking that part of the reason Howard was able to channel his Irish energy was because of that, and melding it with Texas was easy for him because he focused on just one state. If you Americans were to focus on just creating for your home-state or region and call back to your roots you'd be able to break the mould and break free and create something that isn't entirely 'European' yet is. You know what I mean?
My own works aren't entirely special as they are purely Celtic in a lot of ways, as I am delving deep into my roots as a Scot and as a Franc, there's certainly elements of Canada/Quebec in there but the primary idea are my European roots. I also have my Japanese influence I've put in there but that's a spice of sorts.
The key is to fully embrace one's roots, whilst combining it with your local area. So me, I've plenty of fields, islands and rivers and mountains, all things Canada, Scotland and France and Japan have a-plenty.
In this regard a Virginian could delve deep into the 'trad culture' of Virginia as a state, her values, those of his say Anglo ancestors combine them together, melding it with the myths he loves and the ideals and landscape of Virginia to create something truly unique.
Hahahaha, sure. If you want we could include Dan in it? I’d love to get his thoughts on this and get him weighing in.
I hope my thoughts aren’t too odd. I might market it on twitter later to some European friends of mine and some Americans I know. It’d be interesting to start a dialogue contrasting the American with the European, also the Canadian with the American experiences. Might do a follow-up with Delinquent Academic and an Aussie friend of mine, to do a full round up of Commonwealth Bros to fully explore the Genre.
This would be interesting to see how each people might think, ponder and explore the Genre. Thoughts?
Sounds like a pretty awesome idea to me. Heck, if we can find the time, we could potentially go nice and big with it and grab multiple people to join in. All details which we can figure out over time, but it seems like a fun and interesting idea to me.
I've been wondering what it would take to craft an American mythology, much like how Tolkien created a mythology for England in Lord of the Rings. What do you think would have to be done or what approach would have to be taken? Would they have to look somewhere apart from saxon, Scots irish, etc. Culture and mythology? What would it take to make distinctly American fantasy?
The thing is you guys already had distinctly American Fantasy in the 80s and 90s.
But a proper Mythology would probably work better by combining the local state with the larger US you know? So you’d have to combine your traditional roots and those of your state such as the Saxon, Scots, Irish, with the local landscape, the local ideas of the state and with the larger values of the US over-all and her history as Richard commented.
Drawing these elements together.
I would point out too, we had distinctly American fantasy in the form of the Wizard of Oz at the turn of the 20th century, but it was more modern and served more as fairytales rather than the mythology. That's about a close as we got until Howard gave us his mythology of sorts, but as y'all pointed out, it is still very grounded in Scots/Irish heritage. One question would be, if someone crafted a mythology, would it be an antediluvian prehistory like the hyborean age? If so, how someone tackled that would be very different than simply utilizing American Indian cultural/mythological elements.
All fair points, Oz is a good folklore universe, I think though that a mythology would have to be antediluvian.
America is such a new nation that for us to think mythologically is difficult. Plus, we have what Joe says above, Europeanism hangs over us so heavily. I'd say we'd have to dig into the American spirit of exploration and pioneering, self-sufficiency, our quest for freedom, heroism, expansion, and our spotty record of treating native Americans and blacks. Most of all, I think we'd have to invest the stories with the sense of leaving everything behind and making a new life in a strange land.
True, the strange thing is I think Canada/Quebec’s better rooted in that in a strange way, as there was no revolution here. That said, the sense of that loneliness could work quite well, and what Canada lacks in deserts for example America has in spades which is quite interesting.
There’s plenty that can be done, though I think also highlighting the individual states could help refine America still further in a lot of ways.
But heroism, expansion, freedom and all the rest are interesting virtues to explore.
A lot of the issues mentioned here tie into the formulation problem discussed in the video I sent you last week; the "Why We Never Got Another Lord of the Rings" one. Tolkien ended up taking a lot of flak from other writers in the 70's and 80's, Moorcock being among the most vocal, for a routine formula that he was never responsible for developing. This is a big reason why these ruts have formed; rather than reading far back and digging deep into myth, legend, history, and culture, a great many fantasy writers have been sticking to the same small handful of alternating formulas that were made the popular norm following the success of The Lord of the Rings in the United States.
Sometimes these formulas resulted in good stories, even great ones. More often, mediocrity; a churn of the disposable and forgettable, fantasy as product, because that's how the publishers who developed and popularized these formulas viewed it. Not the creation or continuation of human myth. Not something impactful to the culture. Certainly not transcendental. Temporary by design. Easy to read, enjoyed in the moment, then forgotten just in time for the next book following the formula to catch the attention of buyers. Poorly fashioned clones born of an equally poor interpretation of Tolkien's work that reduces the myth down to the generic hero saving the generic maiden and defeating the generic dark lord.
Repeat ad nauseum.
Flood the market.
Most of all, stick to the shadows so people don't realize you're actually the one at fault for it, leading to frustrated authors like Moorcock erroneously leveling the blame at Tolkien.
Their response? Do the opposite! Take the formula, and turn it on its head! In some rare cases, they'd break the mold in the process. But I stress, those cases are very rare. Thus we see the back and forth trend that led us here, with epics that keep telling the exact same kinds of loosely LotR inspired stories, and dark fantasy that takes the same and turns it all nihilistic and depraved. Little deeper thought, minimal creativity, all of it neatly packaged within predetermined and heavily formulated rulesets spewing out scads of pastiche and imitations. Fantasy as label and aesthetic; easy, cheap, marketable. A far cry from its true purpose.
Indeed, it is interesting that Moorcroft had more to do with cementing the strange formulas than Tolkien himself did.
We really need to burst forth from the present forms, ruts and the like and go back to tradition and ‘uniquefying’ so to speak each of our stories and mythoses.
I’ve also been thinking about this in relation to something Alexandru Constantin said in his podcast with Josh Tatter; how American fantasy writers haven’t really developed anything that could be considered a distinctly American fantasy. REH was considered a possible exception, but a little too easy to argue against given how heavily he leans into his Irish heritage, and that the concept of fantasy fiction was nonexistent at that time. It’s also arguable that his fiction having that distinctly Texan feel, while capturing an aspect of Americana, still isn’t distinctly American.
After learning about how Del Rey Books formularized the model for publishing fantasy fiction, I personally think this is a big reason why distinctly American fantasy stories never came to pass. The formula was forcibly drawn from Lord of the Rings; made the trappings and tropes Tolkien used as just part of his much larger mythmaking process, into the core elements. Thus, American fantasy authors end up looking across the sea to Europe constantly for their inspiration, while eschewing much of our home grown myths and legends.
Funnily, we did end up with a genre that is distinctly our own in the Western. Yet in a great many ways, the Western fell into the same kind of trap as the fantasy genre where imitation and pastiche are concerned. In both cases, I think there’s a wealth of history, myth, and tradition that’s both waiting and needing to be tapped for a true and proper revival of both genres to take place.
Maybe, I think that the 80s is when the US really took the upper hand with people like Gygax and Moorcroft and others, but that the problem is that they fell into formula as you pointed out.
I think part of this is that Europe is where we originate from, you can't escape from it. American culture is an outgrowth of Europe, and that what's needed is to accept this dig deep into the roots and blossom them.
I think it also requires Americans to eschew the liberalism and Enlightenment ideas that are at the heart of America. You shed those and go back to before that and you'll find some means by which you might create a mythology for your home-state.
I've been thinking that part of the reason Howard was able to channel his Irish energy was because of that, and melding it with Texas was easy for him because he focused on just one state. If you Americans were to focus on just creating for your home-state or region and call back to your roots you'd be able to break the mould and break free and create something that isn't entirely 'European' yet is. You know what I mean?
My own works aren't entirely special as they are purely Celtic in a lot of ways, as I am delving deep into my roots as a Scot and as a Franc, there's certainly elements of Canada/Quebec in there but the primary idea are my European roots. I also have my Japanese influence I've put in there but that's a spice of sorts.
The key is to fully embrace one's roots, whilst combining it with your local area. So me, I've plenty of fields, islands and rivers and mountains, all things Canada, Scotland and France and Japan have a-plenty.
In this regard a Virginian could delve deep into the 'trad culture' of Virginia as a state, her values, those of his say Anglo ancestors combine them together, melding it with the myths he loves and the ideals and landscape of Virginia to create something truly unique.
I hope I'm making sense?
You are, yes. And all of this has me thinking we probably have our next podcast topic now, too 😉
Hahahaha, sure. If you want we could include Dan in it? I’d love to get his thoughts on this and get him weighing in.
I hope my thoughts aren’t too odd. I might market it on twitter later to some European friends of mine and some Americans I know. It’d be interesting to start a dialogue contrasting the American with the European, also the Canadian with the American experiences. Might do a follow-up with Delinquent Academic and an Aussie friend of mine, to do a full round up of Commonwealth Bros to fully explore the Genre.
This would be interesting to see how each people might think, ponder and explore the Genre. Thoughts?
Sounds like a pretty awesome idea to me. Heck, if we can find the time, we could potentially go nice and big with it and grab multiple people to join in. All details which we can figure out over time, but it seems like a fun and interesting idea to me.