joanneeve
Posts: 55
Joined: 7/26/2010
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Greetings Mr. Arturas,
Although the work of Master Luthar is very well written, it is however not how Mr. John Norman sees his work. He clearly states in a number of interviews that he sees the works of his fellow author Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs and himself as being different.
[19] Your books are sometimes compared to other works like Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter Warlord of Mars novels. What is your take on all of this?
I think Edgar Rice Burroughs is a wonderful writer, and certainly the possessor of one of the great imaginations of all time. His position in the history of science fiction is unique, secure, and well-deserved. That being the case, it is obviously flattering, if dubious, to have my work compared to his, or his to mine. Certainly we both have in common a love for adventure fantasy, a love for human beings, and a willingness to feel deeply, and celebrate simple, important things, such as courage, wonder, and determination. The world is often disappointing, hostile, dark, mean, shallow, pointless, and boring, and into such a world fantasy sometimes bears its redemptive, joyful torch, lighting a way to better things and deeper understandings. It can remind us of what we are, and can become, and that there exist such things as meaning and nobility. It is not apart from the real world, removed from it, but, like the imagination itself, a part of the real world. It makes the world better. Edgar Rice Burroughs bore that torch well. I, and millions of others, thank him, and celebrate him.
This much said, I think that my work and that of the great Mr. Burroughs, whom I greatly esteem, are quite different. The easiest way to see the difference is to read both.
*Quote taken from the interview doe with Polygraff and found at the following link: http://gorchronicles.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=83 *
And the next quote is taken from another interview and here he goes into further depth and detail as to who influenced his writing.
How were you influenced by authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard? And how did you feel like your works were able to expand on these influences? What inspired you, in particular, about these types of heroic narratives?
I think, pretty clearly, the three major influences on my work are Homer, Freud, and Nietzsche. Interestingly, however obvious this influence might be, few, if any, critics, commentators, or such, have called attention to it. Perhaps it is so obvious that it is simply taken for granted. In Homer you have the primitive, hardy, aristocratic warrior ethos; in Nietzsche you have the rank, distance, and hierarchy, concern with the etiology of belief, the trenchant culture criticism, and such; and, in Freud, of course, you have the depth psychology, and a sense of the radical centrality of sex to the human condition.
As a boy, as I recall, I read some of the Tarzan books. If I was influenced by them, I shall hope it was benignly. Certainly I have an affection for Edgar Rice Burroughs, and his work. I think he was a wonderful man, and had one of the great imaginations with which our species has been blessed. As mentioned, too, I was not familiar with his other work, or at least I think not, until I was an adult, fully employed, teaching, in a college, and such. I think I was doing research at Berkeley, on a fellowship, or such, when the Burroughs "explosion" took place, and a number of his works, the copyrights supposedly having expired, struck the paperback market. I think, as it turned out, the copyrights had actually been renewed on the original magazine publications of some of the work, which presented, as I recall, some touchy legal concerns. As I recall, I was particularly impressed with several of his series, and, doubtless, in particular, with the Martian series. Given my earlier reading in Planet Stories, and such, you can see how that might be. As before, if I have been influenced by Burroughs, I shall hope that the influence has been benign, and has redounded to the benefit of a wonderful genre of literature.
Two remarks are probably in order now. First, Burroughs, I would suppose, had his own influences, which is natural and to be expected, and, certainly, did not invent the genre in which he reveled, and which he did so much to distinguish, nor, obviously, does he own it. Adventure fantasy does not belong to any particular human being, unless perhaps to the author, or authors, of the Gilgamesh epic, and his, or their, copyright would presumably have expired by now. Second, one may simply read Burroughs, and read my work. It seems very clear to me, and to most people, that the two corpuses, for better or for worse, are considerably different. The test is simple. Go, read. I have read some Robert E. Howard, as I recall. And, once again, if there is any influence there, I would hope it would turn out to be benign. Writing springs out of a human life, and a vision of the world, and there are thousands of influences, over the years, which contribute to the nature of any given individual, whether a writer or not. All in all, it would be very difficult for a writer to comment illuminatingly on this sort of thing.
There is at least one thing here I would like to credit to Mr. Burroughs, and that has little to do with what he did, but more with how he did it. He, in an era of snobbery, style, pomposity, arrogant sophistication, and such, had the courage to deal honestly and directly, boldly, movingly, straightforwardly, with simple, primitive feelings and emotions. To put it disparagingly, he had the "courage to be corny," or to put it less disparagingly, and as I would rather put it, he had the "courage to write with spirit and heart, without apology, letting the chips fall where they might." Did he not touch the hero and the heroine, the warrior and the princess, the scribe and the poet, in us all? He seems to have occasionally felt diffident about the quality of his own work. He is entitled to his views, of course, but I find that a bit sad. He will be read generation after generation, after generation, while one crop after another of the witty and disdainful, the shallow and clever, the polished and sophisticated, the celebrated winners of prizes, and such, comes and goes. People feel, life feels. He felt. We are grateful, and feel, too.
Here is the link to the full iterview: http://io9.com/5783833/john-norman-the-philosopher-who-created-the-barbaric-world-of-gor
I mean no disrespect to Master Luthar, but he himself has also said, his works are based on his views of the Gorean philosophies and that he does not speak for Mr. John Norman.
I wish you well,
joanneeve{C}
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