Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
so? why would I care about the opinion of some colleague? especially one who can't for a decent response so just swears, blasphemes and repeats herself?
Slashdot is a technology site, but LOTR (the book) is not a technology topic. Quite the opposite in fact - what put me off the books when I tried them years ago was the obvious Luddism. Saruman and his factories were the "dark satanic mills" of England, and Treebeard and the ents were the forces of a more natural order. I didn't believe in that anti-technology religion then and I don't now.
The movies, OTOH, are clearly a technology topic. They are masterpieces of CGI, and they have raised the bar for all future CGI movies.
The irony of an extreme Luddite text being brought to a wider audience by the highest of high-tech seems to have been lost on the Tolkien fans.