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Tolkien Vs. The Critics In 1954
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.'"
"This is not a work which many adults will read through more than once," said the anonymous reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement, while American critic Edmund Wilson, dismissed the entire trilogy in 1956 as "juvenile trash".
I understand that it may be difficult for us NOW to understand what the critics were saying in 1954 but you have to remember that writings were influenced by the conservative nature of the times.
There have been few books I have read more than once and LOTR is one of them, in fact, I found it completely uninteresting and only made it 3/4 of the way through. It's just not my type of book.
I wouldn't exactly say that he "triumphed" over anything. Times and tastes have changed and so have the reviews on his book.
Tolkien was actually a linguist, not a professional fiction writer. Some of the things he did broke unwritten "rules," e.g. a large number of characters and switching between multiple subplots that the reader needs to remember. Ultimately, he succeeded, but it's understandable that critics seeing his work for the first time would have been surprised.
American critic Edmund Wilson, dismissed the entire trilogy in 1956 as "juvenile trash".
I read the trilogy several times between the ages of 10 and 14. I tried reading it again ten years later before the first movie came out, but I became bored with it and was side tracked by other novels.
As a child I thought it was the most thrilling read ever. I suppose our imaginations are more suited to fantasy as children. Everyone knows how imaginative children can be.
It's not "juvenile trash", but I understand his sentiment.
I ran a benchmark on my quantum computer, now I can't find it anywhere!
The Appendecies are great. You should also get the books on tape...the performance is amazing. And you'll get Tom Bombadil's song stuck in your head, as the reader sings all the songs.
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Throughout history, there have been divergences between that which is popular and that which is good. The Lord of the Rings is one of those truly rare works that has bridged that gap. Historically it has had many critics. Most of those seem to be people that respond to it as part of a genre they don't understand or believe in, as opposed to legitimate literary criticism. It also gets criticism to the effect of "I can't get through it." I still remember my AP English teacher, years ago, telling the class he couldn't get through the Hobbit. Ouch. It's a shame, really, that such a world is not truly accessible to all. There are the movies, of course, but they're not the same thing. There's an inherent beauty to the language that Tolkien understood and crafted. It's the kind of thing that makes the NEA report on decreasing reading for pleasure among Americans such a concern. There are whole worlds that begin to dissappear.
However, I am an English graduate (BA and MA, actually) and you, sir, have found yourself in my crosshairs.
You can't assume that the average adult has a lower level of intelligence. That "obvious" fact of yours is merely an opinion unless you have stats to back up such a statement. Is the average adult ignorant of many things? Certainly. However, one cannot equate ignorance for lack of intelligence. Are you telling me that the coding geeks on /. are less intelligent than you because they choose to watch movies as opposed to reading the books said movies may be based on? Would they be correct in saying that, since I cannot code, I would be less intelligent than they are, even though I do read?
A case in point: My best friend (we've know each other for almost 30 years at this point) never read for leisure when we were growing up. I used to joke that he started Stephen King's The Stand in his freshman year of high school and might finish it by time he retires. He hasn't finished his BA (he's 32) and he's not a white-collar "professional." He runs a carpetry company, plays amateur hockey, enjoys going to sports bars with his main circle of friends and is looking to buy a big pickup truck. Your statements lead me to believe that this is the type of "dumber" person you are pointing your finger at. However, because of the LOTR movies he has read LOTR, The Hobbit and Unfinished Tales.
Why is that?
It's not lack of intelligence that cause people not to read. It's lack of engagement on the part of the publishers and on the part of the readers & fans of "difficult" books to expose the general public to them. In particular, it's people like you.
If we all went around with elitist attitudes like yours, of course the "average" person would be turned off. If reading "difficult" books made people into someone like you, why would they want to do that?
I've personally only read Dune, which I loved, and seen the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi channel miniseries. Both were quite lacking. But then for some reason, after reading your post, a lightbulb sort of went off in my head. I think that the reason most Dune "movies" have sucked so bad is because the world of Dune is open to SO MUCH interpretation. In the case of LOTR, while the books are extremely complex and do have a lot of subtext, the basic structure and story is pretty straightforward. As in the case of Dune, though, it seems that a lot contained in the books isn't completely spelled out, and while the story and world/planet of Arrakis itself is so interesting, a greater majority of the book deals with political intrigue and character development.
For example, I just read Dune for the second time a few months ago, and upon finishing it I realized I hated Paul Atriedes. I didn't see his character to be so much a hero as I saw it a vehicle for Herbert to elaborate his feelings on how seriously dangerous it is for someone to gain power based on social structures of family and religion. For me, I saw Paul grow from an uncertain, compassionate and intelligent young man to a completely self-righteous, arrogant and egotistical leader who exploited the religious beliefs of the Fremen in order to futher his own quest for power.
Again, that is just my personal interpretation of the book, and I'm not really sure if that's how the majority of Dune readers feel. Anyway, I think it is this complexity, and sort of gray area around the characters and events in Herberts' stories that haven't lended itself well to movie adaptations. I mean, don't get me wrong, the world is all there; Fremen, sand worms, harvesting, etc. for a very interesting visual experience, but I just don't think anyone in the movie industry has really been able to pin down the plot and character elements that would really tie it all together.
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Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
And, when you're done reading Auden's remarks about Tolkien, you should go on and read Auden's poems. Your view of the world will never be the same.
Ironic, also, is the acceptance of Tolkien among the atheist/agnostic crowd here on slashdot that bashes the beliefs of Lewis.
Constitutionally Correct
Well, for my part, I remember reading about how every Led Zeppelin album when it was released got uniformly miserable reviews, especially from Rolling Stone.
:-(
Compared to what passes for 'music' in the 21st Century so far, Led Zeppelin looks like art in musical form nowadays.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Whatever you think about LotR as a work of literature, there's little question it was the most influential book of the century. LotR virtually godfathered the entire fantasy genre as we know it today -- there's hardly a fantasy book or game in English that doesn't draw its influence from Tolkien's work.
Only on Slashdot could somebody arguing for the cliff notes version of literature be called interesting. Dumbing down great works of art for the masses, and legions of bored high school students is not any kind of solution.
This may be difficult for you to understand, but most people read great works of literature because they love them, not to impress the neighbor.
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I don't like Harry Potter. I read the first one, and no matter what anyone tells me, these are childrens books.
I think you're getting your singular and plural mixed up here. The first one (Sorceror's Stone / Philosopher's Stone) is a children's book. The second is more advanced, but still basically a children's book. Prisoner of Azkaban really isn't a children's book, anymore.
The reading level of the books advances with the age of the characters.
Reading the Silmarillion is the worst advice you can give to a LOTR fan, they are bound not to be a fan after it. It is as dull as dishwater, and not as useful for cleaning dishes with.
I'm not saying I agree with the philosophies of all of the following, but some names do come to mind. How about Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)? Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)? Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)? JD Salinger (Catcher in the Rye is best known, though IMHO not his best work)? George Orwell (1984)?
~Idarubicin
No offense, but this is the kind of crap most English teachers spout off. They have us read books about racial acceptance, women's mistreatment, and general social acceptance (of the poor, primarily). I hate to let you know this, but people generally ARE stupid. Most of them can't be helped beyond a point, there is no way someone who never bothered to learn proper English in high school will suddenly start reading Hamsun. These people are stupid enough that they can't even speak inany comprehensible manner (come to the South, I'll show you quite a few examples). It doesn't matter if these people are intelligent in some obscure, unnoticeable way; if they can't speak properly, they will come off sounding as idiots, always.
Its not that people aren't exposed to engaging novels, its that they don't want to read them. Many people simply hate reading, they prefer mindlessly plopping down in front of the television with whatever corporate news channel they happen to obsess over. I'm sorry but this is reality, at least here in the South..
(And I'm certain I have a few errors in this post somewhere, but I hope you can understand from my post that this is not the type of error or lack of English mastery I was referring to.)
You forget one simple fact--the orcs have crossbows! A lot of them! The piercing damage will rip your air units to pieces, and the rat/ring will drop right into their hands.
Mr Tolkien describes a tremendous conflict between good and evil... but his good people are consistently good, his evil figures immovably evil," wrote the Observer's Mr Muir.
I can understand (yet disagree with) most of the criticisms, but if someone pulled out this one today, I'd accuse them of not reading the books. A major - if not THE major - theme is the internal good vs evil conflicts of the characters. The whole point of the ring is that it corrupts even good people. It's something Frodo and even Gandolf struggle with. The reason it's given to a hobbit is because they have the greatest chance of getting rid of it before it corrupts them completely. Then you have Golumn who is completely corrupt, struggling to become good and can't quite do it.
The criticisms were just about the first book, though, so maybe I'd let the old chap Muir off...
Why shouldn't he take that as an insult? It was crafted like an insult, worded like an insult, and delivered like an insult. If you had not wanted to insult him, you probably could have found a way to phrase your criticism that wouldn't require an empty sounding disclaimer.
For example, which of these replies is the most constructive? Or:
If, however, "influential" is taken to mean influence on the evolution of literature, I think that writers such as James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and others would rank much higher.
It's fair to say that in terms of economic and marketing influence, Tolkien is probably number one. Lord of the Rings effectively spawned the modern market for heroic fantasy, which was previously a marginal genre. The revenue from the Jackson films alone (over $1 B now?) is amazing.
If it weren't for the Lord of the Rings, there may never have been the mega-audiences for works such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.
It's all fine that you like to read challenging works, I do too sometimes, but I think too many people mistake challenging for insightful. Many works have a few golden nuggets of ideas, but they are wrapped up metric tons of bullshit that are there to make the author look smarter (Philosophy books are especially bad in this regard). Remember, just because you don't really understand what the author is saying doesn't mean the book is just "too smart" for you, the author may just not have a coherent point or may be trying to be too clever with his wording.
Note that this doesn't apply to older works that are difficult because the language has evolved. Those works are always going to be difficult until you basically learn the old version of the language as a second language, although many old authors were as bad about obfuscating their work as modern authors.
Is it just me, or has this topic really brought out a lot of elitist assholes? "Books should be hard to read, you're just stupid!" Sheesh.
I read the internet for the articles.