Lord of the Geeks 186
An anonymous reader sent in links to two LOTR pieces in the Village Voice - a short bit about the LOTR excerpt shown at the Cannes film festival, and a longer piece about Tolkien and geekdom written by the guy who wrote A Rape in Cyberspace. I don't think I really agree with him, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.
No FP? (Score:1)
I'm afraid... (Score:1)
There is no doubt that he influenced many writers, but the stories that he wrote about the battle between good and evil were just original spins on rehashed ideas.
Tolkien is not a god, and his book is nothing special.
You've obviously not read much Tolkien (Score:1)
Furthermore, his son Christopher has spent most of his life editing his father's "Lost Tales." JRR Tolkien was famous for starting things but not finishing them, so there were innumerable fragments of writing left after his death.
Aside from being a fantastic imagination, Tolkien was a brilliant man and a scholar in his own right. He was one of the most respected people ever to have lectured at Oxford, and an authority on the English language, and linguistics generally. He was once, in a radio appearance, asked to "speak in elfish." Tolkien responded immediately with a flourish of unearthly-sounding poetry, then stopped, embarassed, and apologized for a grammatical error.
Tolkien was astoundingly deep. The Hobbit and LOTR are his lightest-weight work. Most people don't make it through The Silmarillion, never mind the rest of it. Give him another try from a different perspective.
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:1)
I think this is what I really meant to say. Not that I thought Tolkien was a bad writer or that the Rings series was a bad set, but the extent to which some people live and breathe the books is way beyond my capacity of understanding.
It kind of reminds me of Jason and his friend in the Foxtrot comic strip knowing every line to the LOTR trilogy and ready to recite it at a moment's notice.
Now if we're talking about the *real* Trilogy, there's a bunch of movies that warrant memorization.
Re:interesting but flawed (Score:1)
Perhaps his greatest friend was C.S. Lewis, a fellow lecturer. Lewis, when he came to know Tolkien, had distanced himself from Christianity. Over the course of many light-night discussions about theology and the like (involving many cigars and a few beers, so not *that* strait-laced), Lewis found his beliefs being challenged and ended up, after a struggle with his intellectualism, reclaiming his Christian roots.
Unfortunately for Tolkien, Lewis became an Anglican (Church of England, or Episcopal Church in America); Tolkien viewed Anglicans as very wishy-washy Christians whose sole redeeming virtue was their beautiful cathedrals (which had, of course, been perverted from the rightful Catholic use).
For a fascinating insight into his life, read Humprey Carpenter's biography. Trivia of the day: Tolkien was born in Blomfontein, Orange Free State, South Africa, moving to England upon the death of his father when he was four and his brother Hilary was two.
interesting but flawed (Score:5)
"he was a straitlaced, archconservative Catholic himself"
Bullshit - compared to who ? Tolkein was an Oxford don:
"How many Oxford dons does it take to change a lightbulb ?"
"CHANGE ?? !!"
Calling him a straightlaced conservative is disingenuous at best. My grandmother knew Tolkein, he was a regular visitor to her antiques shop in central Oxford (where I actually met him a couple of times, but can't pretend to remember the experience since I was being babysat at the time). My grandmother mentioned him as being charming, with a mischeivous air.
As for the critical disclaim from the likes of a young Germain Greer (she was a militant feminist back then, and most likely rankled by Tolkein's chivalrous attitude) or some pompous, self-satisfied Private Eye hack, it doesn't deserve repetition without ridicule.
But, the central point about Tolkein's significance to geeks is valid, and I've never heard computer games referred to as culture before, let alone as "culture's center of gravity". Hmmmm...
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
I'm currently at the end of Fellowship, and I've noticed Goblin and Orc being used interchangably, but mostly, Goblin is used when a Hobbit is speaking. Or when someone is speaking to a Hobbit. But when they're speaking to the group containing some Hobbits, it's been "Orc".
How about the Earthsea Trilogy? (Score:1)
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-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Lord of Light is brilliant, in my opinion. (Score:1)
There are times when I think Lord of Light might well be my favorite book of *any* genre...
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-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Greer was right.. (Score:1)
I mean.. Tolkein couldn't write his way out of a paper bag! Any work that requires maps and notetaking to get around in is way overwrought and overblown!
His buddy, C.S. Lewis, I think, was just being kind in complimenting his work. Lewis was by *far* the superior writer. Reading his stuff was a luxurious experience.
Tolkein, on the other hand, doesn't even qualify as the Mickey Spillane of fantasy. His prose is coarse. His sentiments callow and obvious...
BLECCCH!
And no, this is NOT a troll...
Re:What you said about linguist! (Score:2)
-l
Re:interesting but flawed (Score:2)
Out of the three main branches of Anglicanism, a) the wishy-washy liberal Prince Charles types, b) the moderates, and c) the Anglo-catholics (Catholicism minus the Pope, minus a few other details), Lewis was best taxonomized as an Anglo-catholic.
shrugs,
-l
Re:The best part (Score:2)
I would definitely refrain from calling LOTR "postmodern." At best, you could try hard to sandwich it into a Rorty-esque philosophy of literature, but that's only marginally less doomed to failure than to read Tolkien as Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, or some other pretentious fop.
My preferred view of the corpus is to enjoy the story for its own sake. If you don't like the way it's told... move on to something else. It's apolitical, which eliminates any european post[modern/structuralist] interpretation; it's an engrossing world meant to be for and about that world in a very human way... this is why it unfortunately lends itself to be [falsely] interpreted as allegory via authorial fiat, but also explains why it means so much to people; the reader can supply her own personal allegory.
By That is its not actually about anything. which is pretty true., I gather that you think that venerated books should be about something "real." While I am partly sympathetic to that position, I have a certain affinity for the premodern blending of the real and the imaginary without the need for any cheesy allegorical baggage. This is why I like Tolkien better than Animal Farm, and so far, better than Joyce, though I admit I am in the middle of the second part of Ulysses, which appears to me more an embodiment of the everyday psychological babble into a coherent literary form.
$0.02,
-l
Re:Typical anger (Score:2)
Genius is indicative of vast proficiency in a particular skillset. If a geek possessed the excellence in programming that Tolkien exhibits in wordsmithy, world construction, and storytelling, that geek would be a genius.
Look for excellence in a particular art. Don't go around expecting Animal Farm, for example, as the indication of literary genius when an author in question is operating under vastly different motives toward a wholly other purpose.
$0.02,
-l
Re:The best part (Score:2)
See, that's where I think we differ. I believe Tolkien's attention to detail aided the continuity of his storytelling even as detail after mind-numbing detail aided The Iliad in its telling. It is this combined ability of linguistics, world-creation, and storytelling all-together that solidifies Tolkien as a genius of his craft in my mind. What makes LOTR better than The Iliad is that LOTR was not design-by-committee.
The whole LOTR saga is woven with elegance in design, not unlike a carefully designed program. No, it's not perfect, even as design 1.0 is rarely perfect, but it's damn fine art which I would say is indicative of his genius.
<RANT>Some critics complain of his so-called "lack of characterization," but that's a complaint about a qualitative difference in the type of character Tolkien uses, not a substantial inconsistency. All of his characters have a place in the world, a purpose. None are out of joint with the world, like in a modern tale of alienation (e.g., Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead). They each have their relatively predictable role, but the predictability of a role in no way implies that it is base.
cheers,
-l
Re:What you said about linguist! (Score:1)
Narnia is hard to slog through because it was written, quite condescendingly, for children.
You could say that as well about The Hobbit, written to children, and somewhat condescending as well, but I'm reading it aloud to the family even now. Mutatis mutandibus, Lewis is just plain harder to read aloud.
Re:The only way to read The Silmarillion (Score:1)
I don't have to imagine it. I read that aloud also. More fun than anything on the toob, you betcha.
What you said about linguist! (Score:3)
C.S.Lewis was a linguist as well; in fact he and Tolkien associated frequently in such ventures as the Kolbitar club, which studied ancient Icelandic poetry. And Lewis is about as famous a writer as Tolkien. But when I tried to read the Narnia Chronicles aloud, it was like slogging through waist-high jello in comparison. (I couldn't finish.)
One thing that makes Tolkien's prose so refreshing is that he used his familiarity with Germanic languages cognate to English such as Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Icelandic to minimize the influence of late Latin on it. To native English speakers, Latin-derived words often sound distant and antiseptic, while Germanic ones sound earthy and vivid. I'm sure that Tolkien was aware of it; it's no accident that the language of the Rohirrim (rendered in the story as Anglo-Saxon) seemed to Meriadoc to be a richer, fuller version of his own Westron tongue (rendered as English).
Am I the only geek who doesn't like Tolkien? (Score:2)
I found it just a childrens story, full of elves and dwarves and other twee little fantasy creatures, and it bored my socks off.
So maybe it had some hidden meaning? Dwarves represent the heroic oppressed masses, and the ring evil corporate power? Naa.. it's just elves and dwarves.... page after page of twee little creatures on an adventure of sorts, written in a language and style that would have been considered old and dusty in the 19th century.
I couldn't bare to turn another page of that tome, so I have no idea how the story ends... not do I care.
Re:Content Distribution ( was Re:LOTR Trailers) (Score:2)
It's been a while since I've bothered, but I seem to recall that there are also various sorts of tricks they use to try to prevent you from being able to get at the actual file, making it so you can only stream the movie, not save it. Hence the four-line-long URL. It's still a silly goal, of course, since it can be defeated more or less easily. Even if they could make it really work, it's just a bad goal, for so many reasons... For one, having nothing to do with rights management and copying, the quality level you want to see does not necessarily correlate to your bandwidth -- streaming is a neat technology for letting you avoid needing to download the whole file first by compromising quality, but what if you want to see the highest available quality and prefer to wait for the download if that's what it takes? Why would they eliminate that option? Also, do they actually prefer to waste the bandwidth sending it to you ever and over again if you want to watch it more than once? (which of course also means you can only watch it when you're online) Plus, especially when the content in question is movie trailers, which they want to have seen by as many people as possible, what's the point of making it so difficult? If we download the files, show them to our friends, mirror them, etc., they get more exposure for less bandwidth -- since in this case, the content itself is the advertisement, they should pay us!
Anyway, the point of someone posting the URL here is to save others who want the file instead of the stream the trouble of having to hunt it down (which I guess requires hunting through page sources or something -- I seem to recall that, after some changes they made, even that didn't work, or maybe I just did something wrong that time and didn't want it badly enough to bother figuring it out). Defeating their distribution-balancing system (it that's true, which another reply denies) is more of an unfortunate side effect (and another reason they should just link to the saveable files -- we'll get them anyway; why not build that into the system and save their servers the slashdotting?).
David Gould
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
The term "orc" existed before Tolkien (Milton used it, for example), but it was used inconsistently for various types of aquatic and terrestial monsters. For some reason Tolkien decided to rename the creatures that he called "goblins" in _The Hobbit_ to "orcs", and since then, "orc" has meant a creature similar to the goblins of Middle Earth.
Ian McKellen as Gandalf? (Score:2)
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
But this is simply describing the Uruk-hai, which didn't exist in the time of _The Hobbit_. So either goblin is a synonym for orc in the eyes of Tolkien or _The Hobbit_ is simply not consistent with LOTR (also a possibility of course)
Re:This isn't a troll, and not that rare an opinio (Score:2)
Well, for starters "elfs" (Tolkien coined the plural "elves", btw) before Tolkien were the cute tots that made toys for Santa. The whole modern fantasy idea of elves as tall pointy eared forest people started with Tolkien. Germanic myth at least had dwarves (snow white, Siegfried legend, etc), but they too were not those of modern fantasy. Wizards, goblins and trolls I agree are pretty generic.
Re:This isn't a troll, and not that rare an opinio (Score:2)
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
his speech (Score:2)
You'll also note (if you've heard any recordings of Tolkein speaking) that McKellen adopts an accent and cadence rather like that of the Professor. This was apparently deliberate.
It seems strangely fitting somehow, to watch and hear him speak. It does seem very "Gandalf".
Ian McKellen would not have been my choice for Gandalf at all (I last saw him in X-Men, of all things), but he is a remarkable actor. Nearly everyone I've showed the trailer to (and who has also read the book) has remarked that Gandalf was just like they'd imagined.
Re:Why Tolkien wrote his books (Score:2)
He was very deliberate about this, and a great many other linguistic items throughout the book. Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but Tolkien would have wanted it that way
Re:Geek Rage (Rant disclaimer) (Score:1)
Umm, could you give a reference for that? Because I can't believe it, since Tolkien explicitly wrote in the foreword of LOTR that it is not to be read as an allegory.
Re:Geek Rage (Rant disclaimer) (Score:1)
Re:Dibbell is off base, as usual (Score:1)
Naturally, this guy's critique is crap. And if LOTR were adjusted to make this guy happy, it would be crap as well. Fortunately, that won't be a problem.
Re:Why Tolkien wrote his books (Score:2)
But, yes, his elves were always meant to be tall and mighty characters. The notion of Legolas portrayed as a short feminine guy in green tights really pissed him off.
Anti-geek angst (Score:4)
"But maybe you could indulge me and imagine, just for a moment, that the fact that we live in a world increasingly made by geeks actually makes their collective imagination worth understanding."
Ha ha ha...
This guy reminds me of the high school sports stars that are still living in my home town flipping burgers, saying "Those damn nerds are taking over the world. What a bunch of losers!"
Look who the losers are now, guys...
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
Elements of these have surely been present in faerie tales for many centuries (IIRC, the first reference to an "orc" occurs in the epic Song of Roland, in the late Middle Ages.) No one claims that Tolkien invented these things; indeed, his formiddable knowledge of Old English epics and mythology (and Celtic, Norse and Teutonic, to the extent that they influenced the former) shine through clearly, not only in the Ring trilogy, but also some of his other works (The Smith of Wotton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham). But I can think of no literary work that embodies these prior to Tolkien. Examples would be appreciated, if you have them.
There is no doubt that he influenced many writers, but the stories that he wrote about the battle between good and evil were just original spins on rehashed ideas.
Well, I think you could make that claim about *any* author in the past several centuries, if you were cynical enough. Face it, in the several thousand year old corpus of human literature, any tale you care to name is going to sound familiar, especially when broken down into its component themes. Campbell discusses this throughout much of his work.
Tolkien is not a god, and his book is nothing special.
De gustibus non disputandem, and all that. I will venture that it's better than anything you've written. Or that I've written, for that matter. I think a lot of folks take the work far too seriously (far more seriously than Tolkien himself), and that draws criticism like that in the Village Voice article. Tolkien gets caught in the vitriol intended for his over-zealous admirers :-)
Cheers, Michael
Re:Content Distribution ( was Re:LOTR Trailers) (Score:2)
D
Missing the point (Score:2)
Of course there were stories of dragons and rings etc. before Tolkien wrote -- he was certainly more familiar with them than you and I.
But if you doubt that Tolkien set the shape of modern 'Fantasy' literature, just try to find a writer today who doesn't end up rehashing Tolkien, badly. Even those who aren't writing Middle-Earth lookalikes almost seem to have to work at not being Tolkienesque.
Half right. Tolkien is just a man, who "just" happened to write a profoundly influential novel.
Re:Not 3 books... (Score:1)
LoTR was originally begun as a requested sequel to the Hobbit, which his publishers felt there was a significant market for. As he progressed, he read/shared completed chapters with his son Christopher and several friends, including CS Lewis. It wasn't until WWII and Christopher ended up in the RAF, stationed in South Africa, that he sent chapters to him by mail.
To address the issue of allegory and other literary terms: If the novel can be "used for so many different allegories", that actually proves that it *isn't* an allegory, and that there are a lot of people who really don't know what an allegory is. An allegory would have a stricter, one-to-one correspondence between all of the objects and actions of the novel and the things that it was an allegory of (e.g., Pilgrim's Progress is intended *only* to be read as an allegory of Christian conversion). Each metaphor and symbol, and every movement of the plot, would point primarily to the *one* overriding allegorical correspondence. Just because metaphor and symbolism are tools used in constructing an allegory does not mean that every work in which they are used is an allegory. Likewise, themes (power corrupts, elevation of the weak above the strong, death, etc.) do not make a narrative an allegory. Allegories are narrow in their symbolism and thematic application and depend almost entirely on authorial intention (Roland Barthes be damned). If you want an allegorical story by Tolkien, read "Leaf by Niggle" - it's the closest he comes to the form.
What you find in LoTR that is "readable in a modern context" is a group of thematic elements that many people can recognize as resonating with concerns in their own lives.
blah (Score:1)
I am sure many other "geeks" can relate to this. The internet did not create the phenomenon that is Tolkien it is simply fueling new generations of readers while allowing old fans to spew the influence Tolkien has had on their lives.
Letter to the Editor (Score:3)
Remember to be careful when feeding the trolls.
Here is my letter:
It seems that Mr. Dibbell has some sort of chip on his shoulder. Did some geek wipe out his bank account? Run off with his girl? Beat him in a game of StreetFighter?
I'm not certain what his article regarding Lord of the Rings is supposed to prove. An animus towards 'geeks' is the only common thread through his various ramblings. That and apparant jealousy that Mr. Tolkien (and Lucas) have achieved far more success than he ever will.
While many have referred to LOTR as literature, a great artistic work, and so forth, that is mostly in jest. Most people I know (and granted, the people with whom I have discussed LOTR are ensconsed neither in academia nor in the entertainment industry, thus invalidating their existence with respect to such as Mr. Dibbell) who have read the work accept it for what it is: an incredibly long series of children's stories set in a wholly imagined world.
So perhaps it is not high art. So what? Much of what we regard today as literature (Shakespeare, Chaucer, the greek tragedies, and so forth) are 'merely' entertainment. Or at least that is what they were originally.
The 'feature' fails in the most important respect: justifying its' own existence. It certainly adds nothing new to the discussion of the literary value (or lack thereof) of the LOTR series. It fails to properly cite any of the numerous references made to the original and intelligent criticisms made by others. There is a half-hearted attempt to denigrate modern society, the United States, and the internet. Even this fails, as the two points upon which these criticisms are based lack foundation. First that 'mere entertainment' is a bad thing. Second that there is anything other than anecdotal evidence to support the notion that a high percentage of those in technology, for instance, have read LOTR, view it as 'serious literature', and that this somehow indicates a flaw or at least a system to their thinking.
The lack of quality and direction of and in this feature leave me wanting to say much more. Unfortunately, there is so little of substance with which to argue.
There is a website called slashdot (from where I learned of this article) that contains areas for article discussion. When one writes commentary whose sole purpose is to incite argument, it is referred to as a 'troll'. In my estimation, Julian Dibbell has proven himself to be a troll. And one with much less to say than those who grace the pages of JRR Tolkien's works.
Much longer series on Salon this week (Score:3)
Part One [salon.com]
Part Two [salon.com]
Definitely worth reading, but set aside some time.
Re:This isn't a troll, and not that rare an opinio (Score:1)
To be honest I would be disappointed if LOTR was the best fantasy novel ever written, to say that in the 40 years since it was written nobody had managed to do better would be bad. Tolkein invented the fantasy novel, surely the genre cant have gone downhill ever since!
bil
WW1 (Score:2)
I think it shows in his battle scenes -- not the Vietnam nightmare of ambush and sniping, but the WW1 tableau of great streams of individual men poured into a cauldron of slaughter.
You can't account for the book without looking at WW1, in my opinion. Tolkien was discharged from the army as a shell shock case -- what we would now call post traumatic stress syndrome. This was the great common experience of his generation -- being transformed by the unremitting terror of trench warfare and coming back changed. Dividing your life into before and after. Victory earned at the cost of a generation of men killed, maimed or psychically damaged.
People read too much into Tolkien's famed aversion to allegory. They conflate allegory with meaning. In particular, the silly attempts to map elements of the book onto current figures or issues must to have been odious to him, a medievalist, to whom excessive focus on the contemporary was just a form of parochialism.
Dibbell is off base, as usual (Score:3)
As when he wrote about LambdaMOO, Dibbell has no idea whatsoever what he's talking about. Here are some examples.
Lots of people, even among Tolkien's most devoted fans, would dispute the claim that Tolkien invented the genre. World-building fantasy has existed as a continuous tradition for millenia, from some of the earliest known writings to contemporaries of Tolkien such as Fritz Lieber and Lloyd Alexander. Tolkien's work brought this genre back into the mainstream from a relative backwater, but nobody in their right mind would claim he invented it.
It's true that many of Tolkien's main characters are pretty "flat" and that even accounts for much of their appeal to younger readers. However, a closer reading will reveal more complexity than Dibbell gives credit for. Aragorn, Boromir, and Gandalf are not entirely unconflicted. The ambivalence of many elves and half-elves - Glorfindel, Elrond, Celeborn - is worthy of some thought. The corruption or degeneration of several characters - Theoden, Denethor, Saruman - is complex and interesting. Perhaps the most interesting character is Gollum; I used to spend many evenings wondering what must have been going on inside that slimy little head. If you go beyond LoTR and read the Silmarillion you find even more complex, conflicted characters. There's plenty of psychological complexity to Tolkien's work, if you're willing to read instead of skimming.
How absurd. You can't strip away the other elements, because it is those elements that make Middle Earth special. The peoples, the language, the history - all of those things considered rightly or wrongly to be the subject of allegory - are what makes Middle Earth more compelling and memorable than so many other laughable attempts at fantasy world-building.
Re:What Journalists (Score:2)
and i dont think that the people who run slashdot are "journalists". more like newgroup moderators. they dont write the stories, they dont find the news, and they make no pretense of being objective. the simply bring order to the mass chaos that is slashdot. nothing more, nothing less.
if you dont like slashdot, dont read it, but dont wast server space bitching about it. we dont really care
Re:Geek Rage (Rant disclaimer) (Score:1)
Personally I think Aragorn was a crank myself.
A friend's friend read LOTR while on a road-trip and read Aragorn's lines out loud from the back seat of the car. Try it some time.
If you want to drive your friend's batty.
mefus
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um, er... eh -- *click*
Typical anger (Score:3)
An article like that is just a response from someone who doesn't "get it" and feels obligated to defend himself for not being in the with-it crowd. Fine, he doesn't like the book, tastes differ. But it's funny to see the vitriol he pours on it's supposed geeky fans.
Sure, some of us are incredibly geeky, there's the whole D&D connection, etc. But you're just as likely to find tweedy academics or -- gosh -- just average plain John/Jane Doe folks who love the books as pale computer professionals.
Frankly I think he's just trying to get a rise out of the fandom. His ad hominem attacks don't even do a good job of masquerading as literary criticism.
Yawn.
Re:The Greatest Book of All Time? (Score:1)
Re:Letter to the Editor (Score:1)
I don't know how much the Village Voice pays its writers, but I rather suspect that Dibbell feels that some geeks have symbolically cast his bank account in a bad light.
/.
Tolkien's remark deeper than it looks ... (Score:4)
Just because Tolkien dispenses with allegory, does not mean he disavows metaphor. LOTR has strong, undeniable themes, which if they match real life, do so by accident. In fact, all great art is like this: themes are important for the most basic reasons, abstracting the metaphysics of man and his creations, having nothing to do with concretes directly. Tokien skillfully (and artfully) creates his own universe, but one we can relate to, then is off to the races as a storyteller.
The author, Julian Dibbell, must take a naturalistic view of art, where the world recreated must be a "slice of life" rather than an original creation. How stultifying, and sad. Tolkien eschews this arrested development to embrace fantasy Romanticism, and did an amazing job of it.
This is not to say, of course, that I like everything about Tolkien. His prose doesn't flow like and F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ralph Ellison, but that's but a quibble.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
Meh... (Score:2)
Tolkien's words on the "allegory" thing... (Score:2)
I think anyone who hasn't read a copy of Tolkien's Letters should be banned from commenting on this whole article. What a load of... anyhow.
Exactly. He himself wrote that people tend to confuse allegory with applicability. The second is the reader's freedom to interpret the story, while the first "lies in the purposed dominion of the author."
If Tolkien writes a story that seems to you to be applicable to a certain situation, hey, that's great. That doesn't mean that Tolkien set out to write a story for your situation.
The only way to read The Silmarillion (Score:2)
First off, it's not a trilogy! Tolkien himself pointed out this error many times. It's a single story, consisting of six books, originally published in three volumes for financial reasons.
Anyhow, yes, you are correct; much of his works were designed to be read aloud, in the sense of a bard telling a tale to villagers. People tend to not like the Silmarillion because we're so addicted to dialogue, so they sneer at a narrative style. Imagine the Sil stories being read aloud and you really get pulled into it.
Oh, absolutely. He mentions this a few times in his letters. Welsh and Gaelic played significant roles in the evolution of the Elvish languages (by their sounds, at least, not spellings).
Tolkien on the saddest moment in the whole story (Score:2)
In quite a few of his letters to friends, family, and random fans, Tolkien told of (in his opinion) the scene which always brought a tear to his eye.
Gollum/Smeagol is having one of those arguments with himself. He almost, almost convinces himself to repent -- and then Sam walks up and says something condescending and insulting. Gollum never considers repenting again.
Re:You can protect yourself (Score:2)
127.0.0.1 goatse.cx
Your mileage may vary.
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Racism and Tolkien's Dark and Slanty Hordes (Score:1)
Of course the movie will erase the racial stereotypes from the invading hordes -- it'd be commercial suicide to do otherwise. But it remains in the books, a terribly bad note in an otherwise fine story for children and young adults.
There is of course the latent paedophilia inherent in the use of "Halflings" as romantic and heroic protagonists. I'm down with Michael Moorcock with this one. Tolkien was probably even more unconscious of this, perhaps even moreso than Lewis Carroll.
All great books have flaws, recognizing them honestly and coming to terms with them is a sign of maturity. But wait, this is Slashdot. Flame those hoity-toity Village Voice liberals!
Some more LOTR links... (Score:2)
http://www.mckellen.com/epost/l010605.htm [mckellen.com]
- it's Sir Ian McKellen's homepage. (He plays Gandalf in the film). You can also see some stories on the film here (like how the opening was re-shot) -
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/index.html?k
Tolkien single-handedly invented fantasy fiction? (Score:1)
The most remarkable thing about LOR... (Score:1)
And as influential as Tolkien has been, this particular characteristic is the least frequently emulated/imitated.
I read the articles... (Score:2)
I was going to comment in more detail, but why bother? Julian Dibbell quite adroily summarized most of the anti-Tolkien vitriol spewed out over the decades by an outraged community of self-absorbed literary masturbators. He even did his best to sound as if some of the "thoughts" he expressed were his own. But all this has been dealt with (or, rather, sponged off) at length elsewhere, by better writers than me, and anyone who's interested has probably read it already.
Re:Tolkien's remark deeper than it looks ... (Score:3)
It's important though that Tolkien's work isn't a wholly original creation. The precedent of Arthurian legends and Beowulf certaintly lend some important weight to his work. The fertility myth (Arthur) is a very important classic genre, and in many ways LOTR can be seen as inheriting from that. The theme of retribution after desolation via sacrifice is critical and is prevalent in many modern works as well. Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" can be construed this way for instance. This is in contrast to many other modern works that does not have such endings, like Paul Auster's "City of Glass" and Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".
The thing about literary critics is they are just waiting to show off how smart they are. No one gets upset with James Joyce for making "Finnigan's Wake" completely impenetrable (anyone who says they understand that work is a liar), but they rail against Tolkien for making a work that is just as original and epic in scale and still accessible at the same time. It's this kind of attitude that turns people off to literature (it's the same attitude that critics have towards "Harry Potter" right now) and it's really very sad. There's nothing I like as much as a challenging piece of art, but everyone wants a good story now and then. "Lonesome Dove" can sit happily next to my copy of "Gravity's Rainbow", and it depreciates neither.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Or better yet... (Score:2)
Why Aren't Slashdot Comments GPL'ed? (Score:1)
Re:Why Aren't Slashdot Comments GPL'ed? (Score:2)
Geek Rage (Rant disclaimer) (Score:3)
The author of the longer article goes through the article seemingly heaping praise on Tolkien (obviously in some attempt to get us 'geeks' on side for when he demolishes it (and us) later. Of course he does this so well, you're inclined to listen to his arguments. But he bring up several absoutely blind points, like "the bad guys are evil, the good guys are not". This is patently untrue, as anyone who's even read the book once knows. What kind of a fool spends all this time researching the author and his critics and none of his time checking that his main line of argument (the book!) isn't actually right? Boromir is corrupted by the ring, Frodo goes from a nice chap to someone who can kill giant spiders in very nasty ways (and that scene was very dark, with the shadow of murder hanging over it totally). Merry and Pippin are tainted by the journey, Saruman is the good brought low, Strider (sic) is the mighty king basically reduced to a ruthless killer. Gollum was nothing but a mischevious child until the ring corrupted him. What does he see in these 'oh so pure' characters BUT evil? The evil of the ring corrupts all who come near it, and the quest to destroy evil leads people to questionable deeds. Ok, nothing like killing families in Vietnamese villages, but they still change utterly through the story. The end leaves you with an utter sense of loss, and none of the characters are ever the same. Even Hobbiton has been corrupted and scarred.
And at the risk of being a karma whore, for Christ's sake, he just took one of the world's most obviously intelligent groups, and said we'e all "children" for liking Tolkien! Perhaps we could point at those of such a literal mindset and say their lack of imagination renders them "childish" in their expectation that the world around them is the only one worth thinking about. Reporters don't discover quantum fluctuation, or super string theory, geeks do! I fail to see how broadly saying we're all emotional runts fails to take into account the overwhelming burden of evidence which is our contribution to the world, and his life.
Fuck the media and fuck this guy. Learn to read the book you're writing about, and learn that not everything is about politics or fucking lawyers. It's easy to read about doctors, because everyone's afraid of dying. Lack of imagination doesn't make you a better person.
Re:Wheel Of Time must be done in anime style! (Score:2)
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Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
Tolkien spent his professional life dealing with old and middle english epics like beowulf, gawain and others - he knew better than anyone else what the ur-themes were behind such epics were and how they appeal to us. So when he came to write his own epic he simply incorporated all the themes that made other 'real' myths and legends succeed in being passed down over generations. LOTR is compelling because it was designed that way
Anti-geek? (Score:3)
The article was aiming at its audience and identifying their common view of Tolkien, but was also disputing that view. The author identified one of the common views of geeks (that they/we are nothing but antisocial losers stuck in childhood), but then noted that even if you hold that view you had to admit that there was something to geekiness. He was trying to show the people who think geeks and J.R.R. Tolkien are just silly that his work really *does* have significance even if you aren't a geek. Also, as far as him talking about Tolkien appealing to people's (is that a word?) inner childishness... well of course it does!! Do you REALLY want to act completely "grown up"? I think most of the fun we manage to derive from our dreary jobs (well some of us) and boring lives (okay, well maybe just me ;-)) comes from moments of pure childishness. There is nothing wrong with being childish, indeed, if you take Tolkien's philosphy there is much to be said about preserving something precious that is fading from our lives
Now damn you all for stopping me from moderating up some really good posts just so I could post this silly reply to ungrounded rants.
Lucas created it; Lucas controls it. (Score:2)
Whether he realizes it or not, Dibbell is right to point out that Tokien, along with Lucas and a host of others who worked their way into the popular culture, has specified the architecture for the imagination-space of our culture
And if they don't allow us the benefit of generous fair use (including transformative use), then that means Tolkien's estate or Lucasfilm could pull the entire structure out from under us at any second. Just look at what Paramount has been doing to Trek fan pages [slashdot.org] with all the damage the monopolists have been doing to the concepts of "fair use" (DMCA) and "public domain" (copyright extensions [pineight.com] that keep even "Happy Birthday" under AOL Time Warner's exclusive control).
Content Distribution ( was Re:LOTR Trailers) (Score:2)
Posting links to content with an Akamai URL completely defeats that purpose. Perhaps posting a link to the web page from which you got the link to Akamai would be more useful in the future.
Then again, I dislike Akamai. To quote Aleister Crowley, "Do as you will."
--
Star Trek ur-geeks, unite! (Score:3)
"Or something even geekier, arguably: ur-geeks. Keepers of the geek flame. For if The Lord of the Rings is not the sine qua non of geek culture, it's hard to think what is."
The folks who spend their weekends dressed as Klingons will be mighty unimpressed with this.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be . . . an easy way to factor large prime numbers"
Re:"Invented fantasy"? I think not. (Score:2)
Seriously, if people would just sit online and let this happen, when the 4-letter word "quit" or the little 'x' in the corner of their window could get them out of this, then a virtual castration for the perpetrator could indeed be possible. You quickly code an item which prevents them from using certain commands (if you're in LPC, that takes no efford... LPC is one of the most beautiful programming languages I have ever been graced to use... MudOS being the best driver I've used), as a temporary fix to stop them from doing this while you prepare the public ceremony's code. A noquit object could be placed on the player. A setting could be prepared in the center of town. An elaborate script where the person is picked apart, bit by bit, could be done. The person's gender changed to neuter. Their stats slowly falling, with messages of the blood and pain. Eventually, a killing blow delt to them artfully, and the character is destroyed, their IP perminanently banned. If revenge is what was wanted.
In reality, though, if there were victims, that probably isn't what they'd want. They'd probably just want that person to be gone.
- Rei
The best part (Score:2)
Re:Creating a World vs. Literature (Score:2)
Why is this obvious? LOTR is filled with power that does not corrupt - the Elven Rings that were never touched by Sauron, Tom Bombadil, the Ents, Gandalf, and so on.
Some of my favorite scenes are characters coming into power of some sort - Gandalf's transformation to White, Aragorn's crowning, Samwise vs. Shelob, Merry vs. the captain of the Nazgul, the liberation of the Shire.
Frodo himself is given a task that is too much for anyone and he falls in the end, but his earlier good (vs. expedient) decision to let Smeagol live is rewarded with the destruction of the Ring.
About the only valid allegory I get out of LOTR is Sauron as Satan. Also, "Expediency is bad", but that is more an object lesson.
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Not 3 books... (Score:2)
When LOTR was published, publisher believed that the books did not have enough pages, and would not sell. So they bound the 5 books into 3 covers so the buyrer could get a fair deal.
Unlike today, where certain authors *coughKingcough* try to bilk the cunsumor by charging for 75-100 page piece of a story.
Now to the topic at hand:
Yes Tolkien said many times that the stories arn't allegories for anything. I believe that he had none in mind when he wrote the book, but that doesn't mean we wont find some.
Example, If I through a dozen coins on the ground, thats a reasonably random event. When you look at it your mind will look for, and find, a pattern.
Same thing with LOTR(or any book). The fact that in can be used for so many different allagories provews its strength. These stories made a fantasy world seem so possible, and were readable in a modern context.
Not bad considering it all started as a story tole in a series of letters to his son..
Oo, Those Awful Orcs! (Score:3)
Re:Geek Rage (Rant disclaimer) (Score:2)
Re:High test scores, but... (Score:4)
Let's not forget that after Dibbel wrote the Rape in Cyberspace article, he spent a large amount of time on LambdaMOO, eventually writing My Tiny Life... Anyone who thinks Dibbel is anti-geek should read that book. You'd realize that if he were anti-geek, he'd be self-destructive.
High test scores, but... (Score:2)
All these outraged reactions to Julian Dibbel crack me up. The guy is pretentious, too sure of himself, capable of overwriting anything. But just from the couple of samples of his writing that I've seen, he's also unarguably a Geek himself. He celebrates the culture via critique, because he's a full-fledged member of it himself. Dibbel is a geek.
Think of him in the same light that you all think of Jon Katz and you might have a better idea of what's going on. If you read Dibbel's work for comprehension, rather than skimming it in order to formulate quick Slashdot comments, you would see that he's probably using these terms the same way Slashdot does in its masthead. Stop being such defensive, um... nerds.
Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
Funny, I was just thinking while reading the article as to how LOTR was the first time I ever read full-length accounts of trolls, dwarves, elves, gollums, etc in a novel that put them all in one stroy together. In fact, I wanted to post and say that, although I had heard of the others, I had never heard of Orcs (did Tolkien invent that species?), and therefore had to make up in my mind the picture of what one looked like.
And ever since then I have been disappointed whenever I saw somebody else's embodiment of orc-ness. Kind of like the first time I heard Garfield's voice, ya know? It didn't match the image I had formed in my head.
But I would like to see what Tolkien might have ripped off or re-hashed. I think it's pretty damn original, much more so than a Lucas-variety - oh wait! Anything that comes out of consensus-driven Hollywood! - tale. Now Those are pure formula!
Creating a World vs. Literature (Score:2)
In my opinion, literature is overrated. In my English classes they are always asking about the "Symbolism" that really seems to be stretching it. I'm right with Tolkien that allegories are stupid.
I'm glad that the critics have mostly decided that Tolkien isn't literature; to me it is almost a stamp of poor writing. Not saying that all literature is bad writing, but symbolism-crap seems to be used to cover it up.
I subscribe to The Nation, but don't read the literary reviews in the back since they are always so bourgeois and full of that kind of crap.
However, obvious ones like Frodo's struggle with the ring meaning "power is corrupting" I'm OK with.
In fact, I like it when the Author makes me think about moral issues and such, but I don't like having to ask "what deep meaning did the author have in writing this."
Re:Why Tolkien wrote his books (Score:2)
I would recommend re-reading the books before seeing the movie. I read The Fellowship last summer for the same reason. My wife, who never has shown the slightest tinge of geekness, decided to give the book a try and read all three in two weeks. Now she's the one planning to camp out for movie tickets.
As for Tolkien, he was also an expert in medieval literature, which, although I do not claim to be an expert, I have studied. Tolkien borrowed heavily from the likes of Marie de France and Chretien de Troyes. His glory lies (IMHO), not in the originality of the ideas themselves, but in his ability to join these seemingly disjointed sources into one coherant, and fluid text.
His works also remind me of the Popul Vuh, where Quiche converts to Catholicism had to chose between retelling their folktales in "the light of Christiandom", or seeing their heritage lost forever. Tolkien did the same thing. He preserved the rich European folklore by repackaging it for the day in which he lived.
Attitudes towards Tolkien (Score:3)
Germaine Greer, who arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964, wrote "it has been my nightmare that Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream has materialized." Nor does the official stance seem to have softened any since.
which sort of sums up the official attitude towards Tolkien. The Literatti are appalled that something with so much mass appeal would become so meaningful to so many people.
that said, while Tolkien may not have been the most profound or the most skilled of the twentieth century writers, the canvas that he wrote own, the size of his unified work and its' integrity has ensured it a place in the history of the 20th century. people tend tyo romanticize it a bit. seaking symbolisms thatmight not be true to the author. As is said of one review:
It fails to take Tolkien's literary project as seriously as he took it himself. "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations," he famously wrote in one foreword to the trilogy, warning readers against the temptation of finding in it "any inner meaning or 'message.' " Nearly every thoughtful piece of Tolkien criticism makes some kind of nod to the letter of that admonition, but very few can resist violating its spirit.
So simply it is its own creation, intended to be separate from the traditions that are part of our culture. In a sense, it is intended to be a true history of a different world. even so:
Because of its extra-cinematic life [online, etc], it can't escape being a monument to its own built-in cult, which is roughly the size of humanity.
sounds about right to me.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Good take (Score:3)
You can protect yourself (Score:3)
Steps to ensure you don't get goatsexed:
- *Always* check the real link (displayed at the bottom of most browsers). Don't trust the link in the posting.
- Make sure the link is from a credible source. In other words, a site you've been to before.
- Never trust a redirected link (bigfoot, cjb, etc).
- It is possible to use tricks to redirect from a credible source like msn.com. If the link is too long, or contains something in the URL that you don't understand, don't click it.
- If you see goatse in the URL anywhere, definitely don't click it
:)
- Last but not least, use lynx. Generally if I don't trust the link then I don't even bother clicking it. But if it's something that you really need to check into, use lynx on it (or some no-image browser). I've caught quite a few goatse redirects through lynx.
Just a few extra steps go a long way. No person should have to go through the viewing of that image in their lifetime. And for those of us for which it is already too late: multiple viewings..Re:Typical anger (Score:4)
"Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."
Why Tolkien wrote his books (Score:5)
Hear, hear! (Score:2)
Man, I don't even need to post. Need I even mention my respect for the Village Voice is at an all time low now that I realize they keep self-assured prigs like this on staff? There is no more sure way for a critic to make an ass of himself than by "wittily" mocking something he doesn't GET.
Yeah, I'm sure all those 9 to 5 laborers, politicians, and nuclear engineers who love Tolkien are just "geeks". What a dumbfuck.
-Kasreyn
Read the last (few) paragraphs! (Score:2)
This discussion is fairly long already, and I'll confess I didn't read all the postings as attentively as I might have (if I didn't have work to do this morning), but I didn't see anybody replying to the last paragraph or two of the article, which I found redeemed the whole thing. Instead everyone's flaming around, defending or slagging Tolkein and his work --- unless they're doing microanalysis of the proper terms for orcs a.k.a. goblins or digging up JRRT's mythological roots in great detail...
What I (as quasi-geek and LOTR fan since over 25 years now) found fascinating were the twin assertions that:
- JRRT's work is about the world(s) he created, and nothing else --- not about WWII or the nature of evil or the human condition or anything else; and
- That exactly this activity --- the creation of worlds --- is what makes JRRT's work so incredibly relevant, influential, and enduringly interesting. Or, to quote slashdot, "stuff that matters".
I think it's worthwhile to quote the last sentences of the article at length on this point:Now, we could get into a long discussion about whether "literature... doesn't satisfy this urge" or whether "pychedlics [do the trick]", but that's not really the point. The point is that the fascination that Tolkein inspires has to do with the devotion he invested into inventing a world, and that he was, in so doing, a role model for many of us who have --- or who have tried to, or would like to find the time to try to --- do the same. This is the real fascination of Tolkein, and I've never seen it expressed so clearly before.
Ron Obvious
Re:Why Tolkien wrote his books (Score:2)
I remember clearly the day when I snuggled in bed some rainy afternoon and opened it for the first time - When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was muc h talk and excitement in Hobbiton. That word - "eleventy" was so incorrect, and yet so right, that for me it captured the essence of this realm right from the start.
This is not reality, nor it should be, but a world consistent and pure where imagination runs free and answers only to itself.
Still at times I roll this number on my tounge, daydreaming of a world where neither good nor evil are ashamed of what they are. But I guess this kind of clarity is reserved to mythic worlds that never were and never will be.
In lack of anyone to reply to... (Score:2)
Tolkien, in his works, did not strive to create anything new. His themes, creatures, symbols and narratives mostly derive from the vast mythological artwork of pre- and post-christian europe and mainly their revival in the national movements of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Wagner for one example among many.
Tolkien didn't try to preserve the middle-earth. All through the book the loss of its most cherished symbols - The purity of evil that is Sauron and which will surely be destroyed, The elves as the pure good that will leave lothlorien no matter what - all these are given. As is the loss of the Christian fate in its purest form of heaven and hell is abandoned in his lifetime.
Through the book, which is a lament for a time that never was, but that from now on won't even be wished for, he treats his (fallible, misguided, all-too-human) characters as young adults in need for education. It's a chase to defeat the purity of both sides because they are both possessed to the point of stagnation. But it's also a chase to perserve their heritage so that the mortal races who inherit the middle-earth will have a sense of smell which way leads too good and which to evil.
As such this is wholly a reactive work. Warning against the speed at which our modern-postmodern-pc values have swept over those who nourished us for thousands of years. But not so that we will fear the change and cringe back to the security of false metaphysics - So that we will march ahead, trusting our ability to "smell" the "right thing" and let it lead us, So that we can call the evil empire evil to its face without one solid moral claim to call our own.
I'm sorry if this babbling was too incoherent to follow. But it is very late at night here and I just had to try and articulate what is it about LOTR that captures the mind so intensively.
Another recent article about Tolkien (Score:2)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LOTR Trailers (Score:3)
Teaser Trailer:
http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b8
Teaser Trailer 2:
http://a1872.g.akamai.net/5/1872/51/4e446d3cbaf
Fellowship of the Rings trailer:
http://www.film.warka.pl/trailer/lotr3big.mpg
NOW, go and actually read the article for once.
Some questions about evil (Score:4)
What about Gollum? What about the concept, pervasive in the book, of good to be found in the innermost of even the most evil of creatures? What about the parallel concept of all the "good ones", being corruptable? And about that being true specially of the highest of them, being the lower ones (read the hobbits), less prone to corruption as they are not so worried about power and riches, because they enjoy thouroughly their lives? And about the many paths that corruption may take, masquerading itself at first as "neccesary steps against a bigger evil" (read censorship, martial laws...)?
Has he read the books? Has he understood them?
You do not need to look up the word "literary snob" in the dictionary now, you have been presented with a (presumably) living exemplar. A literary snob, after all is said and done is, sadly, really only a troll. I mean in the geek sense of the term, not the Tolkien sense. He will always seek the new slant about something, not caring if it's remotely consistent or interesting, but only that is provoking. He will never consider they own feelings about something, only how is that going to look from the outside. Nothing popular can be good. If Shakespeare were to prove now too popular, he would say that no book in which characters say things like "Out, you mad-headed ape!" (Henry IV) can be more than a lightweight work. Well, I've ranted enough. I must remember... not to feed the trolls.
Keepers of the geek flame.. (Score:3)
Reference: Webster online http://www.webster.com
Wheel Of Time must be done in anime style! (Score:2)
Nothing else could do it justice, anime is the only video style I've ever seen that could successfully bounce between absurd character-based humor, scenes of supernatural horror, and heroic moments like Robert Jordan's writing. Also, anime handles ridiculously long stories fairly well, in series form. The Hobbit boiled down to a 2-hour cartoon quite nicely, and I expect an anime series could get through maybe 2 books per season.
For a completely different reason, I'd like to see the entire Dune series of books done up the same way. The idea of a super-deformed God Emperor is way too funny to pass up. Not to mention the whole Super-Sexy Mind Control Whores From Space plot arc.
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Umm... (Score:2)
The "high-elf" concept seems to be a product of the Seelie Court / Tuatha de Danan confusion. The Tuatha de Danan were supposedly either just superior people or the original faeries; they set the tone of the Seelie Court. Trim the Seelie Court down to elves (the most human-like of the bunch), tweaking them a bit to give them enough TdD characteristics to preserve this tone, and you're pretty close to standard fantasy elves.
As for forest dwelling, most of the humanoids hid in the forest, since that was a spooky mysterious place medieval peasants were afraid of. Anyway, while standard fantasy elves admire trees, as they love nature, they are only slightly more likely to be found hidden in forests than living in their own fancy elf-castles.
Tolkien's concept of elves is a fairly typical mishmash of ideas from one story to another, and diverges from what you might call 'standard fantasy elves' significantly. I really don't think he exerted that much influence over them.
As for the spelling, I seriously doubt that Tolkien was the first one to pluralize 'elf' as 'elves', regardless of what the dictionary standard of the day was. 'elves' is much more euphonious, and people love to tweak the spelling of such uncommon words (how many ways have you seen 'magic' spelt?).
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Re:This isn't a troll, and not that rare an opinio (Score:2)
Did you consider that the obsessive following makes it worthy of analysis whether I like it or not?
I think it's popular because it was the first elf and wizard fantasy novel, feeding a great appetite for such works. Being first, it got a hold on minds of the early readers, who often recommend it as the first fantasy reading to others, who perpetuate this obsession in similar fashion.
Those of us who had read dozens of good fantasy novels, the polished gems to Tolkien's crude chippings, before ever looking to LOTR often don't have the same reverence for it. Nonetheless, members of the Cult of Tolkien will react with shock and disapproval at honest reactions to it, often loudly considering anyone who doesn't think LOTR is the best fantasy fiction ever written (or at least in the top 10) to be ignorant and uncultured.
A suggestion that new readers not even bother with Tolkien is generally considered irresponsible if not cruel.
Don't get me wrong, I may have come off a little harsher than I meant to. I think everybody who likes fantasy should read The Hobbit (which is small enough to work, IMHO), and anyone with an obsessive love for fantasy novels would find LOTR worth reading, but I wouldn't put the latter anywhere near my top 10.
Given the stilted dialog and otherwise awkward writing, I don't think most people would think it was that great without being told a hundred times that it was, or without being told that it was the first of its kind.
You wouldn't happen to be failed author by any chance, would you?
Failed? Only in the minds of mindless Tolkien-drones who can't bear to look at anything worth reading!! My inspiring tritritrilogy (27 books) on the life of an elflord who opposed custom to wed a she-troll is the greatest work of fiction ever created!
Just kidding.
I am a broken bootleg toy.
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Re:Umm... (Score:2)
Exactly. The sort of thing any English-speaking author would use rather than the unpronouncable foreign word.
When an English-speaker sees "elf" he knows how to say it, when he sees something like "sidhe" he scratches his head and makes a bad guess. So if he wants to write about a Celtic elf-like thing, he calls it an elf.
BTW, it's not like the Germanic and Celtic mythologies developed in isolation from one another, they grew up next to each other and resemble each other considerably.
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This isn't a troll, and not that rare an opinion. (Score:3)
However, I had not been told a hundred times before I read it that it was the Best Thing Ever, as I am reminded several times weekly on the internet. It's hard to develop or maintain an honest individual opinion about something presented as a major part of the basis of your adopted culture. Look at the above post, for example: moderated down as a troll just for wondering what the big deal is!
I wince every time I hear of anything containing wizards or goblins referred to as derived from Tolkien's work. Wizards and goblins were fairy-tale standards long before he came along, and they resonate deeply from the hundreds of years in which they were experimented with and tuned for maximum entertainment value.
I regard his work as merely a primitive early example of the western-european folklore-based fantasy novel, not the root from which all such works grow. The range of source materials used for novels was rapidly growing, and he just happened to be the first (or at least one of the first) to try cobbling together the monsters and heroes of medieval myth into a good long story to be printed up in cheap volumes for mass entertainment. In this way, he is more like the first man to cross the finish line in a race than an explorer who shows people a new place worth going to.
I believe strongly that if Tolkien had never lived, the main difference in fantasy literature would be no mentions of Tolkien in the reviews. There would still be stories about fireball-hurling wizards, sneaking goblins, vicious trolls, haughty elves, talking trees, and tough dwarves. Tales would still revolve around the world-threatening artifact and would still commonly feature the fish-out-of-water everyman-hero.
Why? Because the creatures are common in fairy tales (only recently driven from childhood bed-time reading by the incredible horde of modern authors), and the themes are common in ancient myths.
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Re:I'm afraid... (Score:2)
And unlike what another poster wrote, they weren't Uruk-Hai. Uruk-Hai were 'orcs version 2.0', created by Sauron to improve upon his former master's (Morgoth's) design of orcs. Uruk-hai were not crossbreeds but the careful result of millenia of breeding programs in Mordor. Like Saruman's half-orcs they were larger, stronger, smarter, and hardier than regular orcs, more capable of discipline and courage and unaffected by bright sunlight (like the Olog-Hai, or improved trolls that fought outside the Gates of Morannon in broad daylight - something ordinary trolls couldn't do).
And yes, I'm a Tolkien fan.
Max