So before proceeding with All Tomorow's Parties, I'm taking a break from more serious fiction.
Terry Brooks, The First King of Shannara.
I used to love Terry Brooks' stuff when I was younger. So I tried to pick this book up about 6 months ago. I stopped reading it because it felt silly.
Why did it feel silly?
The antagonist is set up very early on as an ancient Lord of Darkness. A sinister evil for evil's sake sort of villain. You know the type: Sauron... Valdemort... Microsoft...
The thing that makes it silly is that I don't really believe in that sort of Evil anymore. So it makes me take the story a little less seriously when such an Evil presents itself.
The Evil I believe in is more subtle than goat's heads and lurching zombies. I believe in an Evil that clenches in the pit of your stomach. I believe in an Evil that is easy and comfortable. An Evil that can win in debates by carefully manipulating the issues.
I really think that the vast majority of people who commit sordid deeds do so thinking themselves completely justified. Evil comes in a way that doesn't look evil to the committer of the act.
Even the terrorist thinks he's working for the higher good.
So when the Warlock Lord seeks only to expand his "Evil Influence," I kinda want to scoff.
Posted by n0sh at June 24, 2003 11:27 AMI loved Terry Brooks when I was younger too, and own "The First King of Shannara" but have never gotten to reading it. I enjoyed his original Shannara trilogy but have found it difficult to read the endless books he has since added to the continuation of that trilogy. They just drag on.
I've been distracted by reading "LoTR" for the first time, and Harry Potter of course, in which the idea of evil really doesn't bother me. Very interesting thoughts, though; you'll have to give a review if you ever do get through the prequel Shannara book, because I don't know if I'll ever get back to it without someone positively encouraging it.
Posted by: Debs on June 24, 2003 11:51 AMYes, and at the same time, I'm not really criticising the Harry Potter or LotR portrayal of villiany.
I would almost go so far as to say that Sauron isn't really a villian, so much as an Idea of Evil. Motivator and Reason, Sauron isn't really a character in LotR so much as an abstract.
I haven't really read any Harry Potter, but from the movies I get the impression that it works very similarly there...
My worldview means that I should believe in an Evil evil. And in practice, I do. But I've never actually seen or experienced an Evil that isn't subtle even if my worldview says there should be.
Posted by: n0sh on June 24, 2003 01:22 PMRead Harry Potter! lol. (I'm sure you've heard that, what, fifty times? twenty alone from Andrea? ;))
I agree about the evil abstractness of it all, though one never knows -- Voldemort of HP might show up in person, full glory, by the end of the series, with the way things are progressing. Still, I understand, he does remain a more abstract concept.
I don't know if Sauron ever does show up outside of his minions, since I'm still plodding through my first read of the series. I've always felt slightly guilty having seen the LoTR films but not read the books... and I call myself an English major, pfft.
Posted by: Debs on June 24, 2003 08:41 PMDon't feel too bad, I read LotR for the first time in the November before the first movie came out. So I just barely made it in.
Posted by: n0sh on June 25, 2003 01:18 PM