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The Fantastic World of Professor Tolkien (1956)
- rubidium 10y agoSince it's the best source on Tolkien's view of his stories, let me recommend his "On Fairy Stories" for those who have not read it: http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/tolkien/fairy_stories.pdf http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/tolkien/fairy_stories.pdf
- everyone 10y ago"trilogy" Eh,, Maybe I'm being a pedant but LOTR is 6 books is it not?
- everyone 10y agoI looked it up.. whomp "Tolkien regarded it as a single work and divided it into a prologue, six books, and five appendices. Because of post-World War II paper shortages, it was originally published in three volumes." :p Tolkien is quite clear about that in his letters http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/47419/is-lord-of-the-rings-a-trilogy-of-books-in-tolkiens-opinion http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/47419/is-lord-of-th...
- evincarofautumn 10y agoReminds me of the, uh, “mistrilogiation” that happened with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: > The novels are described as “a trilogy in five parts” […] The US edition of the fifth book was originally released with the legend “The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy” on the cover. […] the blurb on the fifth book describes it as “the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘trilogy’”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...
- stephancoral 10y agoMost overrated author of all time whose shortcomings and excesses (simplistic morals, obvious dichotomy between good and evil, wafer thin characterizations) continue to haunt the genre
- rwmj 10y ago"Most overrated author of all time"?
- na85 10y agoSurely that's Dan Brown.
- flukus 10y agoDan Brown wrote a thriller people couldn't put down. Tolkien simulated the hobbits arduous journey with his writing style. Funnily enough, before the Da Vinci code, the last book I read that I couldn't put down was The Hobbit.
- ptaipale 10y agoDa Vinci code starts like something where you think "I won't be able to put it down" and halfway through it's turning into "What absolute piece of rubbish."
- flukus 10y agoNot for me, I was hooked until the end. I only read it because I watched my father do the same.
- na85 10y agoDan Brown wrote the same novel 4-5 times.
- noonespecial 10y agoI'd say he invented the genre and so had to include some simple and readily grasped tropes in order to give it mass appeal... Or perhaps it gained that mass appeal precielsely by incorporating what you criticize. Don't sweat it, when you write your world changing, genre defining masterwork, you can make it as deep and morally ambiguous as you please.
- triplesec 10y ago'(1956)' should be appended to the title [1] thank you for fixing
- forgottenacc56 10y agoMuch of the article is retelling of the storylines.
- backtoyoujim 10y ago"For evil is matched and overcome not by superior power, but by the determination and the goodness of ordinary beings, ennobles by the assumption of burdens beyond their capacity to bear." Lovely bit of prose for a book review.
- veddox 10y agoI do love the style of that review - you don't find reviews like that nowadays. Pity about all the spelling mistakes in the digital edition though.
- SoylentOrange 10y agoThis review is scarily wrong in its understanding of Tolkien's works. First, LotR does not refer to the One Ring, but to the master of the ring. Second, Balrogs are not "dreadful spirit of the underworld" but are Maia, basically corrupted angels. Third, Orcs are not "a new kind of goblin", but are tortured and enslaved elves. And they're not new; they've been around since the First Age. Fourth "Aragorn returns from the battle and by healing earns his place as King". No. That is not why he is the King, it just fulfills the prophecy. He is King because he was descended from Isildur, not because he has magic healing powers. If you're going to review something, at least get the facts right.
- 6502nerdface 10y ago> but are Maia maiar is the plural of maia (in Quenya, anyway, but conventionally in English, too). At least get the facts right.
- ryandrake 10y agoI love it when someone out-nit-picks a nit-picker over trivia. The essence of HN.
- rodgerd 10y ago> He is King because he was descended from Isildur Perhaps before critiquing someone else's understanding you should make sure yours stacks up. Aragorn is careful to avoid being proclaimed king because he wishes to demonstrate he is worthy of the title. Breaking the siege of Gondor and demonstrating that "the hands of a king are the hands of a healer" is how he does that.
- SnakePlissken 10y agoSatan isn't a dreadful spirit of the underworld, he's basically a corrupted angel! I get where you're coming from, but this kind of pedantic hair-splitting with a condescending tone doesn't advance the conversation. There's nothing "scarily wrong" about a reviewer from 1956 not being intimately familiar with the breadth and depth of Tolkien's canon.
- pastProlog 10y agoThe author, Michael Straight, later said he was a KGB operative at the time he wrote this.
- guard-of-terra 10y ago...and Tolkien wasn't really translated or available to Russian up until late 80s, but when the Professor finally arived he sparked spectacular amount of activity in Russian-speaking fandom.
- eternauta3k 10y agoIf you're into Tolkien, I highly recommend listening to the Silmarillion Seminar: http://tolkienprofessor.com/lectures/courses/silmarillion-seminar/ http://tolkienprofessor.com/lectures/courses/silmarillion-se... and also to the Tolkien Professor's other series. They've greatly increased my understanding and enjoyment of Tolkien.
- macintux 10y agoShippey's "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century" is a very good read. https://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Century-Tom-Shippey/dp/061812764X https://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Century-Tom-Shippey/dp/...
- pault 10y agoThe Lord of the Rings is the book that turned me into an avid reader when I was 13 or so. I remember sitting in the school library studying the maps and translating the runes with a reference book I found. I was so excited when I discovered that the runes on the maps in the Hobbit turned out to be the riddle for opening the way to the lonely mountain. I still read it every few years, and was just listening to the audiobook while browsing HN and saw this article! I do get tired of all the singing though. :)
- aisofteng 10y agoTangentially related, in the sense of inspiring imagination - this summer I was in Switzerland and looked up Wiki articles on where I was visiting, and came across this Tolkien-related tidbit: >J. R. R. Tolkien hiked from Interlaken to the Lauterbrunnen Valley while on a trip to the Continent in 1911. The landscape of the valley later provided the concept and pictorial model for his sketches and watercolours of the fictitious valley of Rivendell, the dwelling place of Elrond Half-elven and his people. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauterbrunnen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauterbrunnen Having accidentally recreated this trek, I can attest to its natural beauty, and I can see how it inspired his imagination. I highly recommend doing the same if you're lucky enough to be able to. A photo of Lauterbrunnen: http://gotravelaz.com/wp-content/uploads/images/Lauterbrunnen_16610.jpg http://gotravelaz.com/wp-content/uploads/images/Lauterbrunne...
- hanoz 10y ago> I highly recommend doing the same if you're lucky enough to be able to. Thank you, it looks wonderful. I want to see mountains again.
- fnayr 10y agoI did that exact hike in 2014 and didn't know that. That's incredible! It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen with my eyes for sure. I highly agree with your recommendation.
- irrational 10y agoWow! I have never seen that before. What an incredible location!
- edpichler 10y ago"The Lord of The Rings" is the most incredible book and the most well done I ever read. I read it recently, I knew it first time because the movie. I read it in English, and it improved my language skills a lot (even the listening, to my surprise).
- macintux 10y agoWish they'd put a bit more time into editing this OCR scan. So many typos, it gets quite distracting.
- oska 10y ago> “I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.” > “Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of Justice ... even the wise cannot see all ends.” Remains a very good, concise argument against capital punishment.
- GarrisonPrime 10y agoAn alternative to capital punishment: exile. Fence off a large part of the American southwest. Surround it with guard towers and automatic motion-activated machine guns to destroy anything that comes within 100 ft of the fence. Then drop the exiles off with a backpack of basic equipment and wish them well.
- DougWebb 10y agoI think I saw that movie a few times. Never seems to work out well.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoThat's not "exile." That's just prison, only even more sadistic and poorly run.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- okwhatthe2 10y ago> only even more sadistic Remember Florence ADX.
- GarrisonPrime 10y agoIt's not sadistic; it's neutral. Nature is the only guard. It's not poorly run; it's not run at all. This is nearly the very definition of exile, so I'm not sure where your confusion comes from. Perhaps you feel throwing them into a desert is inhumane? Fine, then fence off part of a jungle or plains with a river or something else more comfortable. Build some basic infrastructure if necessary.
- pessimist 10y agoLOTR is a fine but flawed book. Reading it as a dark skinned Asian boy the characterization of all dark races as evil definitely stung and still hurts. The evil side is one dimensional and has no redeeming qualities at all. The female characters also tend to be quite weak and uninteresting. Still the vision and the universe was inspiring. I still prefer it to most other fantasy.
- reedlaw 10y agoThat Sauron was evil with no redeeming qualities was the whole point. Otherwise the quest would not have been so heroic. Some of the dark races were described as deceived more than evil. As far as female characters go, I would say Galadriel, Eowyn, and Arwen were all quite powerful and interesting.
- DavidWanjiru 10y ago>Some of the dark races were described as deceived more than evil. I would argue the larger point still stands if the light skinned races aren't depicted as falling for similar deception, because a tendency to fall for deception is equally unedifying. I haven't read the books, so I wouldn't know how other races are portrayed.
- reedlaw 10y agoIn Tolkien's legendarium many light-skinned races, including elves, fell for Sauron's deception.
- stinkytaco 10y agoJust to address these individually: 1. Plenty of heroic art has ambiguous villains, but this is certainly a modern preference. I'm sure our view of Hector in the Iliad being sympathetic is quite different than the ancient Greek's take on him. 2. The racism issue is quite real, in my opinion. This problem is somewhat exacerbated by the movies, where all the orcs have dreadlocks. But to say the dark races are "mislead" just substitutes stupidity for malice. All the heroes, without fail, are white. The elves, clearly the highest race in Tolkien's world, are white, blonde, tall and beautiful. 3. 3 women, all of whom have bit parts, at best, isn't really that great. Though they are all shown to have great redeeming qualities, two of their characters mostly revolve around their relationships with men (both of whom are in love with Aragorn, a great virtue, it seems). Galadriel is the only one who seems to have an identity and power that does not rely on her relationship to a man. Though even she appears to be secondary to Celeborn when she again appears. This is not to dismiss LotR as not good or important literature. All these criticisms could be made of the vast majority of western literature up to the late 20th Century. The Iliad has no female or low class characters at all (the Odyssey's introduction of Penelope, Eumaeus and Dido is really a watershed in western literature, and their characters are far weaker than anything in LotR), but is still studied. Because of this, I don't understand Tolkien apologism.
- macintux 10y agoOne more random thought: I can barely remember anything of the animated LotR film, but the "Where there's a whip, there's a way" marching song has stuck with me for decades. "We don't want to go to war today, but the Dark Lord says, nay nay nay".
- macintux 10y agoFound it: https://youtu.be/YdXQJS3Yv0Y https://youtu.be/YdXQJS3Yv0Y Was a bit off ("lord of the lash", not "Dark Lord"), but not bad for something I haven't heard for ~35 years.
- IndividualOne 10y agoJust like with Star Wars, revisiting one's preferred childhood media can lead to disappointment. I recently re-read Tolkien's material and have to admit that whilst it is indeed genre-defining and carefully planned on the conceptual level LotR is indeed a heavily flawed book. I do not understand the reviewer's POV as we had excellent "high" literature all through the 20th century. I totally accept that the more nerdy HN community mostly see literature as having three genres (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror) but there is a weird egghead world of people reading "art" books. Those who attended school might had the questionable experience of studying Hemingway or Joyce or Fitzgerald. These authors are different to Tolkien. You can indeed compare Beethoven to Elvis. Or Michelin gourmet places to street food. I am just not sure it makes sense. And no, one is not "better" than the other. Outside of the minds of console warmongers and GOP nominees there are more shades of grey than any shady SM e-book fanboi would ever fathom.
- vlunkr 10y agoYes shame on us for enjoying Tolkien and Star Wars. How dare we consume media that is fun, and not the pinnacle of artistic achievement in the decade it was created in.
- blowski 10y agoWho's comparing? It is a great book. It both influences and is influenced by other great books. I agree that it's pointless to ask whether "Lord of the Rings" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the best, but I don't think anyone here is doing that.
- cousin_it 10y agoLOTR is really cool. For example, Aragorn is a supersoldier and long lost true heir who's engaged to an immortal princess, but the world ends up being saved by Sam who doesn't have any of those gifts. Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers.
- spdionis 10y ago>Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers. Which by the way I prefer. The cliche of the powerless humble guy who in the end saves the world has become boring and predictable.
- guard-of-terra 10y agoIt's only boring when done wrong. But so is any plot.
- notahacker 10y agoIt's not exactly any less boring and predictable than the poor stupid proles needing the brave, noble righteous heir to come and dig them out of the mire
- Ntrails 10y agoI think claiming that any single member of the troop saves the world misses the point. All of them had a part to play. At best you could argue Gandalf was the one who moved the pieces into place and made it happen. I accept the premise that the gambit was won not through great warriors, but by folk of spirit, loyalty and fortitude disproportionate to their stature. One thing that really struck home as a youngster reading was of course Eowyn and the witch king.
- david-given 10y agoOf course, Sam and Frodo fail in the end... at the last moment, Frodo succumbs to the ring, claims it for his own, and turns away from the quest. The only thing which actually saves them and destroys the ring is blind chance. Or, maybe, providence? "Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker," says Gandalf. Once you start looking, that theme permeates the entire book. But then, so does free will: providence, if it exists in Tolkien's universe, cannot act except through people. Frodo's choice to let Gollum live allows Gollum to unwittingly destroy the ring later. And that theme permeates the book too. It's painfully dated in a lot of ways, but still fascinating, and a lot more complex than the simple adventure story it first appears to be.
- oconnor0 10y agoI wish that copyright law was different than it is largely because Tolkien's works would then have entered the public domain. And the opportunity to create, play, and profit in Middle-earth sounds amazing.