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Tolkien Vs. The Critics In 1954

Posted by michael on from the ents-go-to-war dept.

meganthom writes "The BBC is running a story about how the critics viewed The Fellowship of the Ring, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication... One critic's view: 'To have created so enthralling an epic-romance, with its own mythology, with such diversity of scene and character, such imaginative largess in invention and description, and such supernatural meaning underlying the wealth of incident is a most remarkable feat.' One of the most insightful of all the comments at the time was provided by the Spectator's Mr. Hughes, who said, 'I think we should be well advised to remember that what we have before us now is the first volume of a larger work... and be willing to suspend judgement... until we have seen the whole... The pleasure to be derived from this first volume is a pleasure not to be missed.'"

3 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. cs lewis and jrr tolkien by frankmu · · Score: 5, Informative

    just a reminder of a great article about how close these two great writers were:

    tolkien and lewis

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    Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
  2. Re:Blurred Lines by gowen · · Score: 5, Informative
    the other factor is obviously the lower level of intelligence of adults in our society
    Nice troll. In the UK, even in 1954, people regularly left school at 13 or 14, with few or no qualifications and barely incapable of basic literacy. These days, literacy rates are massively higher.
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    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  3. Re:I still remember reading LOTR for the first tim by mwood · · Score: 5, Informative

    Appendices, indeed. Check out the "mythology" too! The entire trilogy chronicles only the very ending of the Third Age. _The Silmarillion_ sets the stage with the creation of the world and a rich history of the First Age (mainly the Elves), explaining where a lot of this stuff comes from. (Not much is known about the Second Age, but that's in _The Silmarillion_ too -- mainly the history of Aragorn's people before they came to Middle Earth.)

    If you get really interested, there's lots more.

    _The Book of Lost Tales_
    _Unfinished Tales_
    Christopher Tolkien's _History of Middle Earth_ series which unearths early ideas either reshaped or abandoned during the crafting of all this stuff.