In the last days of my second tour in Iraq, I found myself with a sudden excess of time on my hands. I was done; all that remained was shipping myself home, giving a few last 'lessons learned' lectures on the way. Where there had been fifteen to eighteen hour days, though, I suddenly had a few hours each day to myself.
At the MWR, looking for anything at all to read, I saw a little yellow book called The Knight, by an author named Gene Wolfe. I normally cannot abide fantasy novels written after the death of Fritz Leiber; but it turns out that Gene Wolfe is of an age to still be writing good old fashioned ones.
That is to say, they are books that have the courage to believe in what they are telling you.
I see why, having run across this piece today. He speaks of Tolkien's ability to use art to convey an ethical vision of beauty:
As a child I had been taught a code of conduct: I was to be courteous and considerate, and most courteous and most considerate of those less strong than I -- of girls and women, and of old people especially. Less educated men might hold inferior positions, but that did not mean that they themselves were inferior; they might be (and often would be) wiser, braver, and more honest than I was. They were entitled to respect, and were to be thanked when they befriended me, even in minor matters. Legitimate authority was to be obeyed without shirking and without question. Mere strength (the corrupt coercion Washington calls power and Chicago clout) was to be defied. It might be better to be a slave than to die, but it was better to die than to be a slave who acquiesced in his own slavery. Above all, I was to be honest with everyone. Debts were to be paid, and my word was to be as good as I could make it.A story that conveys that artistically is indeed a thing of beauty. This is what the old sort of writing was about. The dragon might be legendary, but the virtues were as real as stone.
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