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> In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to commen
by rdtsc 3y ago
> In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment
However, despite the "intensity", he avoided going into details. That's such a different attitude compared to people today, who would be giving interviews and posting on social media why they hate something at length, how wrong and bad that other thing is, and the person who created it is this and that, etc. I bet if Tolkien knew his private letters would be published for the whole world to see, he might not have even written that letter to start with.
- blargey 3y ago> That's such a different attitude compared to people today You don’t notice all the people-today who do hold that attitude because, well, that’s the point! Conversely, many people of Tolkien’s time went on unfair opinionated rants, but the mediums and opportunities available at the time were a bit more limited than today so you mostly just catch glimpses of it in snippets of old magazine reviews/interviews of now-famous books, filed under the Reception section of a Wikipedia article, notable solely for having aged so poorly.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoAgree, it's the Tolkien equivalents of today that will be remembered a century from now, all the millions of ranting writers will be entirely forgotten except for the occasional curious reader who stumble across an archived copy.
- arp242 3y agoTolkien himself was frequently derided by other authors and literary critics for his "childish" writings about hobbits and goblins and elves and such. This kind of thing is hardly new, it's just there are more channels to express this. This probably also influenced his decision to just not say anything.
- staticman2 3y ago>That's such a different attitude compared to people today, who would be giving interviews and posting on social media why they hate something at length, I don't think this is particularly true. A modern working writer in the Hollywood system would probably expect to be blackballed from a studio if they dissed a studio's movie. A working writer for a comic book company would likewise expect to be fired or lose career opportunities if they dissed a comic book company's output. Individual writers working in prose seem to have a bit more leeway in what they can get away with saying, but are likely to be labeled "jealous" if they write a bad review, in particular if it's of a more successful author. And media tie in authors probably have no independence, I believe Lawrence Miles was banned from writing Doctor Who books because he once wrote a bad review of a doctor who episode. I think the default today is forced positivity if anything.
- philwelch 3y agoThe Hollywood system is corporate slop and many of the writers who work in it are probably motivated more by career than any creative impulse. It’s come around full circle to the exact same thing that the auteur filmmakers of the 70’s were rebelling against. The thing is, those auteur filmmakers weren’t just criticizing the shit that Hollywood was producing; they actually put in the work and made better films. That’s what it takes. Criticism is cheap; doing a better job is what makes a difference.
- philwelch 3y agoI think this is the difference between critics and creators. Tolkien of all people would have understood and appreciated that, despite his distaste for Dune, there was a tremendous amount of work that went into it that nonetheless deserves some basic respect.