Hah. I did find the use of Spanish slang in his books a bit much as I couldn't be bothered to translate after the first couple pages so I'm sure I missed out on some meaning. I could get the gist, but, still.
Gimli: "Yea, guys, I know we're fleeing from about a thousand trillion orcs, and the leader of our group just died, and if we don't find shelter by nightfall we're all dead ourselves, but I have to insist that I get to spend a half-hour so I can go over and take some selfies of myself by this lake to upload to Khazad-book. That's cool with everyone, right?"
Because comparing fantasy fiction to general fiction makes sense?
Heck, people are gobbling up A Song of Ice and Fire, which smartly doesn't play the language game on paper. Why? Other languages in an english language book is a turnoff.
There is no intelligent rationale for claiming a foreign language being present in a written work is an attack on a culture... You know what this issue is referring to, and the notion we should fear Dora the Explorer is not worth carrying water for.... much less creating red herrings regarding the fiction-ness of the fiction.
I don't know if anyone's arguing it's an attack on culture. It's not an argument I've heard as much as I have heard that it can "alienate" readers. Because it can. That's pretty obvious.
Or a challenge. Eco is a good case in point. Ever try to look up Aramaic? It's a good way to weed out the uninterested (and, by extension, uninteresting) readers.
And the OP has a point. Tolkein made his elvish language shit up (based on Welsh and Old English, of course) and people gobbled it. A few words of a commonly spoken language, though, is more threatening than orcs or a balrog just beyond the Morian doors.
The problem is the lack of a consideration for the audience you're trying to appeal to with this sort of attitude. Umberto Eco is Italian, writing for a more educated audience who enjoys the sort of literature he does, and he's been successful. Tolkien made up a language, yes, and he did so in part using his own studies and abilities, but also because it was genre-appropriate. It's sort of how creating the Klingon language is appropriate for Star Trek, but would be viewed as alienating if they did it on Law and Order.
What does it mean to say that an author isn't considering an audience that isn't receptive to the way that author writes? Isn't there a logical problem there? Why should an author consider the interests of those who aren't in his or her intended audience? Doesn't their non-responsiveness suggest that they're not really part of that author's audience? In which case, isn't your "problem" here really just a lazy backpedal on your initially ridiculous claim?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-12-12 04:29 pm (UTC)Gimli: "Yea, guys, I know we're fleeing from about a thousand trillion orcs, and the leader of our group just died, and if we don't find shelter by nightfall we're all dead ourselves, but I have to insist that I get to spend a half-hour so I can go over and take some selfies of myself by this lake to upload to Khazad-book. That's cool with everyone, right?"
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Date: 2013-12-12 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-12-12 05:37 pm (UTC)Heck, people are gobbling up A Song of Ice and Fire, which smartly doesn't play the language game on paper. Why? Other languages in an english language book is a turnoff.
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Date: 2013-12-12 06:03 pm (UTC)Then you have not paid attention to the media narrative regarding spanish language usage within American borders.
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Date: 2013-12-13 04:56 am (UTC)If you really think that, you're far less literate than I'd actually given you credit for.
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Date: 2013-12-13 05:40 am (UTC)And the OP has a point. Tolkein made his elvish language shit up (based on Welsh and Old English, of course) and people gobbled it. A few words of a commonly spoken language, though, is more threatening than orcs or a balrog just beyond the Morian doors.
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