Which is the greater cultural contributor?

Over the past century or so, there have been two Anglo-American-centric entities, epic fantasies and professional wrestling, that have become very popular cultural entities globally, at least among certain segments of the world's population.  Some are fans of both; others detest them.  Yet can the case be made that one or both of these are worth discussing on their global cultural contributions?

What do you think about both epic fantasies and professional wrestling and their possible value to current global culture?

And no, the above is not an acceptable answer, no matter what you think! ;)

Borges and Bioy Casares on the Epic form

I have been reading the edited version of the diary of the late Argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges, where his entries on his friend and fellow writer Jorge Luis Borges are collected into a mammoth 1663 page one-volume work. The entry for Monday, June 1, 1959 contains an interesting bit on the epic form that struck me. Here is a rough translation that I have done of part of that recorded conversation (if any want the Spanish original, let me know and I’ll transcribe it in an edit to this post):

Borges: “Ortega y Gasset says that the epic is the genre that is about other times and which is completely distant from our lives. To its own, one will want to say. What a lack of imagination. How does he not see that the epic is there continually in life; how he doesn’t describe it in the Spanish Civil War. He says that of Achilles and Ulysses we do not know if they were men or gods. Why does he say this? Because he doesn’t reflect over that which he is going to write and think about? Like Valéry, he doesn’t document himself. A critic called Dallas characterizes so the genres: “The lyric corresponds to the first person and to the future; drama to the second person and to the present; the epic to the third person and to the past.” Very neat, but without feeling.”

Bioy: “All these people sees in the epic the theme of the origins of villages and not the impulse and the magnamity of courage.”

Considering that every now and then that there is some argument somewhere on the blogosphere about what constitutes "epic" or "heroic" fantasy, I found their brief talk about this to be interesting, since I never really considered how traditionally the narrative voice and temporal tense can play such an important role in separating the Epic form from other narrative stories. Anyone want to add their 2¢ on this?

Edit: Hal Duncan has written a post riffing on this translation of mine that I think raises some very important issues for us to consider. I'll comment over there later, but for the most part, I agree with what he is saying.

Interesting poll results, viewership patterns

The results of the China Miéville/PSS poll question asked both here and at wotmania were quite illuminating. First the results of the poll here, with 95 people voting over the past week:

What is your opinion of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station?

Loved it - seminal work of the New Weird	46 (48%)
Liked it - good book	16 (16%)
OK - decent, but could have been better	4 (4%)
Meh - not the worst, but far from great	10 (10%)
Blech - I'd rather read you-know-who	1 (1%)
Haven't read it yet, but might	12 (12%)
Absolutely refuse to read it	1 (1%)
Hadn't heard of it before now	5 (5%)

Of the people who had read it (83% of those responding), those who loved PSS were a distinct majority (46 out of 77), with few who haven't read it yet and (thankfully) very few who have been living under a rock the past 8 years. Now for the results from wotmania's poll asking the same question, with a sample size of 185 votes:

Loved it - seminal work of the New Weird (20.00%)
Liked it - good book (11.89%)
OK - decent, but could have been better (2.70%)
Meh - not the worst, but far from great (2.16%)
Blech - I'd rather read you-know-who (1.62%)
Haven't read it yet, but might (23.78%)
Absolutely refuse to read it (3.78%)
Hadn't heard of it before now (34.05%)

We see at this site created originally as a fansite for a bestselling epic fantasy author, Robert Jordan, that the readership is nowhere near as aware of Miéville's first Bas-Lag novel. While there is still a majority of those who've read the work who loved the book, the number of those who haven't even heard of the book before the poll question is disconcerting. But even more interesting was the realization (again, this is from another wotmania Quickpoll question for its Other Fantasy section) that even though I and Jake are the two main mods there and are the two main posters here at the OF Blog, the readership there overlaps very little with the readership here:

How often do you check the OF Blog (http://ofblog.blogspot.com)? (184 Votes)
Asked from 2/4/2008 to 2/16/2008

Almost daily (4.35%)
A couple of times a week (5.43%)
A few times a month (8.70%)
Maybe once in a blue moon (21.20%)
I just read it for the first time now (3.80%)
Never/haven't heard of it (29.35%)
You're such a shameless pimp (27.17%)

So it shall be quite interesting to see what differences, if any, shall arise from the question I'll now pose in the Blog Poll. Another mod (who incidentally has his own blog here) wrote this excellent question based on a discussion elsewhere and I'm curious to see what the answers will be:

What do you think of maps included in epic fantasy books?

I'll post the comparisons next week sometime.