Killing Monsters
Steve Himmer spoke yesterday of his childhood dreams of epic. The tone of his post is half-wistful, half self-deprecating. What a silly child I was to believe in the beauty of the past, he hints. What a brain-fried dope I have to be to read fantasy these days, When I Know Better.
An excellent lead-in to a book I read a bit ago and have been meaning to blog since: Gerard Jones’s Killing Monsters. Jones works hard to inject a little Valium into the kids-and-media hysteria.
The central message of the book is remarkably simple: before condemning what the kids are up to, find out why they’re up to it. Sounds like a real “duh” thing, but Jones makes a pretty impressive case that the research into media and kids so far has resoundingly failed to do that. (His comments about research design are right on.)
I must say he changed some of my thoughts about violent media and kids. Not many of my thoughts, though. I remember quite well, reading the Odyssey as a youngster, how much I got into the moment when Odysseus draws that big bow of his and lets the first arrogant suitor have it in the neck. Oh, yeah. Nice bit. Blood everywhere. I can’t have been older than eight.
I have two quarrels with the book, though. Jones is utterly laissez-faire with regard to what kids watch and read and play. Though I agree with him that forbidding certain types of entertainment often does more harm than good, I cannot help wishing he had spilled a little ink on the question of how to attract kids to material we might prefer that they get into. Is it possible to distract ordinary kids (not weirdos like me) from Power Rangers (bleagh!) long enough to give them Homer, or at least Bulfinch? How do you extract JK Rowling from their sticky little hands long enough to interest them in the far superior Philip Pullman?
More seriously, one rhetorical habit of Jones’s really grated on my nerves. Again and again, he reminds us that what he’s talking about is just kid stuff. They’ll grow out of it, and go on to Important Adult Things. They won’t play games any more, or read fantasy or science fiction, or watch cartoons.
Excuse me, Dr. Jones? Why the heck not? And where’s the bloody harm if they do?
I don’t have to write this rant. Ursula K. LeGuin did it for me. The essay “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” is collected in The Language of the Night. Get out of here and go read the essay. Please. Go on, scram.
The real kicker in Jones’s case is that many of the useful functions he claims violent fantasy play serves for children—behavior modeling and testing, development of an individual sense of ethics, working out of toxic emotions—are equally necessary for adults. Fantasy literature and imaginative play can serve those needs just as well in adulthood as in childhood. (I make no claim that fantasy is the only way to serve those needs, mind you; just that it is one way.)
Even more irksome, though, is the thick black line drawn between Childhood and Adulthood. Those be Childish Things, and any Adult who Playeth therewith is to be Carefully Watched. Especially, mind you, if that adult has no children; clear sign that said adult just never grew up, never became the deadly grim humorless reality-drenched drone that is the Adult par excellence.
I haven’t words for the disgust and scorn I feel at the notion that I ought to have left play and imagination behind twelve years ago. Not to mention pity for anyone who actually buys this crap. Yes, Steve, that includes you. Go and read your Tolkien, joyfully and proudly. Why hide it? Why feel guilty about it?
I’ll put my adulthood cred up against anyone’s. Own my own home, pay taxes regularly (and prepare my own returns), vote, hold down job, pay husband’s tuition (no student loans, hear me?), manage my own money, even find time to write my congresscritters now and again.
Exactly how does any of this change because I spend some of my time playing? Well, duh. It doesn’t.
Oh, and AKMA? Yeah, “nazgul” is plural. It is also singular, apparently; go figure. The word is Black Speech; the element “nazg-” means “ring” (think the Ring Verse: “ash nazg durbatulûk…”). Black Speech is quite sparsely attested in Tolkien’s published writings; the Ring Verse, some curses, and a bunch of Orc names are about all we’ve got.
The best resource anywhere, print or not, on Tolkien’s languages is Ardalambion, by the way. Shame about the site colors, but oh well. (Disclosure: Site proprietor Helge Fauskanger is a friend of ours.)
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