Is it me or is it Tolkien?

[paranoid marvin]

Personally , I doubt LOTR would be published today. I would imagine that most publishers would want some input into the way that the novel was written , and I don't think J.R. would stand for any intrusions at all

As for Faramir in the movies , I too was unhappy with his potrayl. The thing is , there was no real need to alter the story in this way , as changing the path that Faramir took with regards to Frodo and the Ring served no real purpose

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by paranoid marvin

Personally , I doubt LOTR would be published today. I would imagine that most publishers would want some input into the way that the novel was written , and I don't think J.R. would stand for any intrusions at all

That's putting it mildly. According to C. S. Lewis: "No one ever influenced Tolkien -- you might just as well try to influence a bandersnatch."

Actually, this isn't entirely true. Tolkien's publishers did have some input on the book, but it was fairly minimal. This was one of those books which insisted on writing itself a fair amount of the time; as Tolkien himself noted, he was as surprised as anyone about several things which happened in the original writing (though in subsequent revision, rethinking, etc., it was a different story). But then, the most enduring books frequently are written that way, from some inner impulse (or what older writers would have called "the afflatus"), and the conscious mind of the writer is quite often a spectator during various stages of the process. (Which can be a very unsettling experience at times, especially when one of your characters turns to you and tells you off in no uncertain terms because you're not handling the current scene right....)

As for Faramir in the movies , I too was unhappy with his potrayl. The thing is , there was no real need to alter the story in this way , as changing the path that Faramir took with regards to Frodo and the Ring served no real purpose

While I wasn't entirely dissatisfied with the presentation of Faramir, that particular incident had me all but jumping up and down in the theatre, screaming "You idiots! Do you realize how badly you've screwed up here????" I mean, if nothing else, the chronology of the thing was entirely fouled up, to the point that Sauron would most definitely have got his hands (so to speak) on the Ring because of the delay from that little side-trip....

[Marky Lazer]

A lot of people also seem to forget that Tolkien didn't write for anyone but himself. If the LOTR never had seen the light of day, Tolkien still had enjoyed himself and that was his main goal: enjoying the process of creating (and maybe entertaining his son(s)).

Tolkien maybe didn't get easily influenced by people, he, however, was hugely influenced by other work: Beowolf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Norwegian mythology, etc.

[paranoid marvin]

And regardless of what he might say to the contrary , the 2 world wars , in particular WWII must have had some influence on his writing

[pyan]

How do you mean, PM? If you're thinking allegory, he was absolutely clear about that:

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

"The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied.

[paranoid marvin]

Originally Posted by pyan

How do you mean, PM? If you're thinking allegory, he was absolutely clear about that:

Which is why I said regardless of what he said to the contrary!
How could such a cataclysmic event NOT have any influence on any creative writers of the period?

[pyan]

I think that you may be overstating the effect of the war on JRRT's writing.
When you look at the timing of the writing, the Ring was actually started in 1938, and a lot of the first volume was written before the war started.

As C.S.Lewis, who knew him as well as anyone,said:

These things were not devised to reflect any particular situation of the real world. It was the other way round; real events began, horribly, to conform to the pattern he had freely invented.’

(my emphasis)

JRR Tolkien-A Biography – The New Hobbit. Carpenter, H. 1977

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I agree with you that it's sad REH is seen almost exclusively for that, when he wrote a rather large variety of things; and even with his heroic fantasy, he's often judged by those who haven't read much of his work on the worst aspects of it, rather than the best (which, as Fritz Leiber pointed out, were often very good; he compared "The People of the Black Circle" favorably, for instance, to some of the lesser Elizabethans).

I do agree that REH deserves a better reputation than he has, but he may be on the verge of that, with the newer editions of his work, the scholarly tomes coming out on him, and in general a renewed interest in him as both a fantaisiste and a regionalist (and sometimes a combination of both).

Glad to hear you're finding HPL a little easier going. And yes, he is a very dense writer, in many ways; and his style is also in several ways a reflection of his 18th-century favorites -- something that is even more notable in his verse, where he was almost wedded to the heroic couplet for a great deal of his writing life. (When he did break away from this form -- and not all of his pieces in this vein are bad; some of his satires and even some of his pastorals vary between rather good to very good -- his verse could be quite powerful, as with his Pindaric ode "On a Battlefield in Picardy" or his fantastic poetry, especially the Fungi from Yuggoth sonnets and the like.)

Tolkien, of course, simply may not be to your taste; and there are times when his prose can be a bit pedestrian, but that is seldom really the case. Most often, he casts his prose in the form very well suited for his purposes, and it can vary from the almost childish tone of the earlier parts of LotR (reminiscent of The Hobbit for some very good reasons, reasons connected to the development of the tale and the characters' growth), to the really quite poetic "high" tone of many later parts of the book (especially those concerning Gondor and, in a somewhat different poetic vein, those concerning Rohan), to the very poignant (some of the things involving Lothlorien; several bits in Ithilien; the moments when we see the "lost hobbit" in Gollum, etc.). But Tolkien sometimes requires careful reading to truly appreciate the subtleties of his prose, whereas Howard wrote much more simply, to be read more quickly, and with the knowledge that he was writing for a wider range of audience, from young boys to octagenarians, and often paid much less attention to the stylistic subtleties and niceties that can make prose itself a richer experience.

Again, this is not always the case. Sometimes the innate poet in Howard came through -- I think particularly of some of the passages of "Beyond the Black River", for instance; where the use of language and imagery, especially the hints of the supernal, numinous, and mystically menacing are so suggestive and contain hints of such vistas that it can take your breath away. But (again), in general, that constraint to write fast action-oriented prose (and the fact he died so young) kept him from developing that to the level of which he was capable.

As you say at the end sometimes the innate poet in Howard came through. Sometimes i feel awed by what i just read. That doesnt happen often. Yeah i sometimes get moody after a great short story of his and think for the 100th if he didnt die so young he would have become so much better that its hard to even imagine. Specially when i read he was getting out pulp mags and into books market.

I wasnt comparing their writing different styles and type of stories. Its like comparing apples to orange

My eldritch taste in fantasy and other genres has made me read authors i had to focus more more, had more troubles getting use to than Tolkien. A couple of years ago i would have cried out hell no after the first 10 pages of the first book of LOTR

I know Tolkien isnt for everyone but i have yet to read an old fantasy classic i gave up on and i like the world and characters of LOTR enough to know after the forest craze i will be fine.



Speaking about thinking its a shame REH dont have bigger rep because i read earlier today Joe R. Lansdale's passionate introduction of Kuttner in my Elak bok. I felt spoiled compared to seeing his love and him thinking Kuttner being so good and not nearly known enough.

[j. d. worthington]

Pyan: I'd agree that WWII had much less to do with the story, but WWI is another matter. While not specifically allegorical, it did reflect his experiences in many ways; or, perhaps a better way to phrase it is that those experiences informed much of the writing. He himself brought this out in his prefatory material to LotR, with such things as losing all but one of his friends to the war, seeing the devastation the war brought, etc.

Marky: I suppose it depends on what you mean by not writing for anyone but himself. After all, as he made clear more than once, he had no intent to write a "sequel" to The Hobbit, and rather resisted the idea for quite some time, being more interested in his work on the Elder Days. It was only at the insistence of his publishers and readers that he finally turned to dealing with the further events concerning Hobbits and the Third Age, and even then he frequently fought the way it was going. This is made very clear in various writings.

However, once he was into the writing of it, he certainly wrote to satisfy himself as to quality, hence the frequent false starts, revisions, and recastings he did.

On his being influenced by other writings -- yes, that's true; but that's also true with all writers (whether they're willing to admit it or not), and Tolkien was certainly no exception. But it was not a case of "active influence", if you will -- that meaning, more or less, direct feedback and alteration -- but "passive influence", or the reading and assimilating of various works of literature over a lifetime of study, with all one learns about storytelling, prose writing, construction, etc., from that.

[paranoid marvin]

So we have an enemy which has lain dormant for a generation rising again in order to conquer or subjugate the rest of the world

mmm... sounds pretty much like the period 1914-1945

As for starting writing in 1938 , well we weren't at war , but it was certainly on the cards

The fact that we had 2 main enemies , and the way they interact seems rather similar to the relationship between Stalin and Hitler - and the numberless followers of Sauron , ready to throw themselves onto the swords of their enemies through a mixture of fear and devotion are not a million miles away from those who were led by Hitler.

I'm not saying that the book is necessarily a fantasised (is that even a word?!) version of the real life events , but there are too many coincidences to consider that it had no influence on the storyline

Also , I wonder if at any stage Tolkein considered letting Sauron defeat the Fellowship and regain the Ring ?

[j. d. worthington]

The problem is, much of the events that take place in the novel were mapped out well in advance of the Second World War; no few of them date back to the 1911-1920 period. As noted, the First World War did indeed have some influence, but the influence of the Second, from the evidence available, is very dubious. Nearly all the motivation, the power structure, the division of the sides, etc., date back to long before the war was looming on the horizon, so I'm afraid that rather shoots down that aspect of it.

As for the "enemy who has lain dormant", etc.... this is a part of Tolkien's worldview from the earliest writings, and has more to do with his religious beliefs than contemporary history. After all, he had much the same scenario with Melkor/Morgoth in the writings intended for the Silmarillion, and much of that (in its original form, at least) dates back to the earliest period of his career.

Tolkien's Foreword answers these things quite well, actually, and what he says there is backed up by the evidence of his papers and various other documents. It's a very dangerous thing to claim as an influence or "meaning" or allegory, etc., something that the writer him- or herself directly refutes, unless one has some very solid factual evidence to base such a claim on. After all, the writer was there, it is their experience, and they have the documents with which to back up their side of the story. In this case, much of that material has now been published, and it does indeed back Tolkien up.

As for the general issue... I think he also answered that best when he said: "I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author". The same may be said for finding "influences" on a writer's work; as literary history has proven time and again, that which seems the obvious influence is quite often not an influence at all, or is so in much more minor ways than one would think; while odd, obscure, and completely unexpected things turn out to have been the genuine driving cause and/or influence for an author's tale. As I said above, without some direct (rather than inferred) evidence to the contrary, the best bet with such things is to figure that the writer tends to know what he or she is talking about....

[The Procrastinator]

(Aside: Grim, I knew what you meant really, but I couldn't hold back the rant! The whole Faramir thing sets me off...its my red hair. )

Marvin, the last line of your last comment fits so well with a character who is monumentally depressed...trust you to come up with that idea.

[paranoid marvin]

Originally Posted by The Procrastinator

(Aside: Grim, I knew what you meant really, but I couldn't hold back the rant! The whole Faramir thing sets me off...its my red hair. )

Marvin, the last line of your last comment fits so well with a character who is monumentally depressed...trust you to come up with that idea.

Tbh it was more morbid curiosity , and went along with my musings as to the relevance of the two World Wars on Tolkein's state of mind when writing LOTR. As the very idea of victory for Nazi Germany was unthinkable , would Tolkein have had a similar intolerance to the notion of Sauron regaining his grip of Middle Earth?

It would be interesting to know whether his work would have been as popular today if it had ended with Frodo and Sam being thrown into Mt Doom , and the rest of the Fellowship crushed before the gates of Mordor by the Ring-weilding Dark Lord

I think we all enjoy in fiction seeing evil do well temporarily , if nothing else to show the magnitude of the task facing the 'good guys' - who DIDN'T want to see Dick Dastardley catch the pigeon , or win at least one Wacky Race , or wish that Wile E. Coyote could get a taste of Roadrunner pie ; and I don't there is any coincidence that ESB is seen as the best of the Star Wars trilogy partly for this reason - but whether we want to see the bad guys be ultimately victorious at the end of the story is another matter altogether

[dreir]

Well, Tolkien didn't say the wars didn't influence his work. He only denied that LOTR was an allegory of the war. Influence and allegory are two very different things, I think. Besides, there are enough bad guys in the other works that influenced him, I think, that any of them could have ended up as Sauron or Morgoth.

To be honest, if you sit down right now and start to write a story, would you really be able to write something that isn't influenced by anything? Or, if I were to pick up that story once you're finished, is there any event which I couldn't claim the story is influenced by? I mean, I can conjure up as many probable links as I want, really, including ones that would never have crossed your (the author's) mind.

The fact that Tolkien expounded on the distinction between 'applicability' and 'allegory' tells us that he's one of those writers who are very aware of the influences on his works and the sort of perceptions they leave people with (with regards to those influences). So as JD mentioned, we should be able to trust him when he admits or denies that this or that thing plays a part.

- Dreir -