Flight, 1644, 16/08/19
On my flight today I was very fortunate to watch a film about one of the greatest fiction writers of all time, Tolkein. Lord Of The Rings is one of the most popular fantasy series of all time, still remaining prevalent in today’s society. Some call the books timeless. I tend to agree with this notion.
Today, however, the film put a different spin on the works of Tolkein, and this made me very sad. To the point that as I am writing this post… I am crying. You see, Lord Of The Rings, to me… is whimsical. It is a story of how even in the most dire circumstances, in the most unlikely events, you can still succeed. Yes, you may get hurt along the way, you may lose possessions and people. But you will succeed.
But the way that the film portrays why Tolkein wrote LOTR is completely different. Although it is born from hope anew in writing for pleasure, which for a while he believed to be a folly of a task, it was written in pain. The ghouls of smoke are just re-imagined grenades. The black horsewraiths who wield swords on their steeds are just re-imagined bayonet fielders running between trenches. The journey to the mountain, another metaphor for running out into the battlefield, trying to find someone that has already been lost.
This juxtaposition brings me deep emotion because, I had hoped (now, I realise, foolishly) that a truly great work that has lasted the test of time, could just be written by chance and determination, rather than fuelled by pain. I am thinking upon other writers who I believe have created similar works to see perhaps if they have been influenced in a similar way. Did perhaps Pratchett and Rowling write because the world was not magical enough for them? Did Phillip K. Dick write because he too thought he would be singled out and hunted down, for trying to be normal and not standing out? Did William Gibson feel himself slowly lose all those around him and the ones that decided to stay became wounded? Did Shakespeare struggle with love in every way imaginable and just found that in the end, he just had to write what he wanted to feel?
And so now to introspect onto my own works, what are they saying about me? What emotion am I going to share so deeply with the world they may feel how I feel now?
I am writing a lot of monologues, in my current book. Characters speaking to themselves, I think it’s because i constantly talk to myself too. The last one that I have written is so personal to me, I had to take a break from writing it half way through just to emotionally disconnect from it. I suppose, as an artist, all I can hope is, that when a reader reads the part where I cried, they cry too, and know that they are not alone.
-Airfire.