h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, SHO, I am definitely with you on the history aspect> It is almost like a dry-stick, crusty professorial Theseis, which is strange considering The Hobbit, LotR and Farmer Giles of Ham. I must admit that The Silmarillion did put me off reading other books by JRRT, and maybe I have been a bit harsh. Shall have to put on my wish list. Just found out there is a LotR Monopoly for £37:95. Ooohhh! A combination of my favourite book and game. Yes please

I came not to praise Tolkien but to bury him. Personally cannot abide the stuff, but if books can get people as involved as this it's got to be good, shame people don't get so up in the air about some other writers.

Thirdman,

Such as?

Milan Kundera,John Dos Passos or Thomas Hardy for example. Sorely underrated in our Austenite age.

And how about Dickens?

I think it's the fantasy aspect that really grips people with Tolkien. Then when someone else's vision (such as Peter Jackson, whose vision is very public) doesn't tally with theirs, then there is conflict.

I'm all for debate - especially with the younger generations. Yep, I'm an old biddy, and I lament that the kids of today don't seem to read as much as we did.

Well, I am afraid I don't know the first two, and vaguely remember doing 'Far from the Madding Crowd' in Eng. Lit. years ago, and have seen 'Tess' on the Television, but have never really been into "period" drama. More a Greek/Roman era reader, or Sci-Fan style trash. Having said that I certainly would have no problem trying them, as I have with Dickens!!!! His writing is not bad, although wouldn't rave about every novel.

Thanks for the link SHO. Well worth a read. Ever so funny. I could easily get "sucked into LOTR fanfic" if it's all as entertaining as that essay. I haven't read enough of the stuff to know how accurate it is either but I recognised some of the accounts. It confirms to me that elves wouldn't make much sense in the modern world. That probably has a lot to do with Tolkien's religious outlook. Very handy to be able to just decide when your sexual activities will result in conception and when they won't using nothing more than your will - beats the rhythm method in any case.

I wonder if it's significant that Tolkien always made it a female elf and a male human in the small number of mixed marriages. That was puzzling to me to - the thing about Elros and Elrond choosing to be men or elves. It was the Valar who made them choose, wasn't it? Are they still sort of lurking around in the background do you suppose, making Arwen, for example, sign a document renouncing her immortality. How does she lose her immortality otherwise? Is mortality like a venereal disease to the elves. Hmmm very perplexing.

Your pet peeve is interesting. It's a sign that the book means more than mere entertainment to you. Poor Faramir. Even if he was lying (do you think that's the interpretation Tolkien intended?), does that make him a bad person? It doesn't seem such a stretch to me that Denethor could have been an unwise and unjust father. That happens in real life. I've seen it. I know someone who treats their firstborn as though they're perfect in every way even though the rest of us can see the that he's a perfect sh*t and treats his younger and much nicer brother as though he can do nothing right. Some people, even intelligent people, can be complete idiots about some things - especially emotional attachments.

One of the things that makes LotR so attractive, is the unreal perfections. Even the orcs are perfect in their own way. They're a perfect enemy. Of course the good guys have to take every opportunity to wipe them out. If they were down to the last dozen orcs, they wouldn't stop to worry about species extinction or genocide massacre. The orcs are evil. They have to be killed - all of them if possible. They don't make a big deal out of it in the book but they seem to have started off as elves before Morgoth got his mitts on them. That must irk the elves.

I think the Welsh and Irish have a bit of a mythology. Don't know how to spell the names but something like Arianrodborialis and Rhiannon ring a bell. Myth managed to hang on longer there the same as the Celts managed to hang on longer before having their myths smothered by the myths and religions of other invaders probably.

... oh, blimey look at the time. I've got to cook dinner.

Well, fic in the LOTR world is like fic everywhere else - only a lot longer. Much much much longer. I've now given up writing it (well, it was only writing practice, and some of it was just gratuitous sex) and reading it, and feel a lot better now.

That essay is interesting. I've been reading the novel for years, but it's only since the films came out that I've become even remotely interested in Tolkien's life or what he thought of the novel. It's interesting, but I don't really believe too much in letting a writer overly influence my reading of their work. Maybe I should, but... well I'm too long in the tooth to change now.

And you're right - LOTR is a little more than entertainment for me. I was given it just before I went to boarding school - it was my refuge from all things horrible and because of that it is a bit "precious" (hee hee) to me. But still, I don't think it's perfect. Sometimes the writing is tortuous, and sometimes it whizzes by and I wish there was more of it.

I love the imperfections. Denethor is a pretty ruthless guy, but he has succeeded in keeping Mordor from overrunning Gondor, and for that he deserves more praise than he gets. He wrecked his life using the palantir, for the good of his people, and he does get judged harshly by a lot of readers, I think. Faramir... maybe it's my military background, but I think he didn't use the opportunity he had to question Sam and Frodo properly. He is too... just too Ivanhoe goody two shoes squeaky clean for me. Until he asks Eowyn to love him, then he melts my heart completely.

The fact that they have a smug wizzard, who when he wins probably the most important battle of his life, isn't prepared and gets dragged to his "death", the fact that Aragorn is so unsure if he is doing the right thing - and is torn between going with Boromir and sticking with Frodo, Boromir's desperation and Gimli's willingness to put centuries (millennia?) of mistrust of elves behind him for the good of Middle Earth... all this is what makes it such a good story.

I still always wonder just what it was, apart from Saruman's golden tongue, that turned Grima against Theoden and Rohan, though. I sometimes think that maybe he had hopes of marrying Eowyn or something, and she fobbed him off. That could have been a last straw, but we never find out, and at the end I feel really really sorry for him. I often wonder how it would have turned out had he left the tower at Orthanc when he almost had the chance.

Yep, LOTR features too large in my life, but still, I don't think that the films and everyone who was involved with them is the Evil Spawn of Mordor or anything.

I risk great wrath by offering my worth; this is a short thread arising from a journal entry: F103872?thread=245889

Somewhere in the discussion on that thread (it's really short!) I regret the fact that Jackson made Smeagol a more sympathetic character than Tolkien did. Justified him and made him morally three-dimensional; like Copolla did with Dracula in that awful travesty of Bram Stoker -- why is it that citing the author's name seems to guarantee falsification of the author's work? Is it a Faramir-style "I never lie" lie? (We know now that lying is utterly inevitable in human society; a child that doesn't learn to make at least white lies is arrested in its development.)

Tolkien like Beckett knew well enough to steer clear of justifying anyone too much or too little. Jackson has fallen into the trap a little, I feel.

Personally speaking, what I found interesting about Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien is that he renders very specific some of those parts of Tolkiens books which are always pointedly underplayed in accordance with old JRR's 'it doesn't mean anything' tosh.

Saruman (though vastly flattened in the film, having already thrown in his lot with Sauron at the beginning rather than the more morally ambigious stance he takes in the novels) is clearly in the film the standard bearer of change, and change through mechanization and technology. The world of fire and the wheel, with shambling hordes pouring forth from smoke belching factories.

I also find it much more obvious in the movie (merely because it's a visual thing) that those of darker skin tones don't come across well in Tolkien - black orcs, arabic-style Southerners and the like are pitched are against the wise old Elves (Very much Tolkien and his Oxford cronies in their ivory towers) and the anglo-Saxon Rohirrim and the pastoral idyll of the shire.

The best and worst of Tolkien are those bits were his sub-concious mind is exposed - for example the Paths of the Dead are based very clearly on his experiences in his trenches of WWI, as are many of the battle scenes, but much of the 'politics' of Middle Earth all too directly reflect the attitudes of the white middle classes of England towards industry, the working classes and racial integration and even urbanization.

I wonder how much of the difficulty of the rabid die hards who object so much to Jackson's films is die to the fact that he is confronting them with that sometimes uncomfortable reality in a way that makes it almost impossible to avoid?

And he obviously likes contoversy - next up he's re-making King Kong, as pointless and thankless a task as i can imagine.

If one struck me was the 1984 feelings.

All seeing state.
Control of people though various methods.

As already pointed out there is the aspect of the small lone voice, growing, topling the monathic state.

After watching the Big Read, and learining more about the JRR T His experinces of war, can be read into the book.

Lightman.

oh well it's all over now.. I survived but had to keep the tv and radio turned off most of the day .

The reason that I haven't seen any of the movies is because I don't want Peter Jackson's images in my head for the rest of my life each time I read the book. Although it will be interesting to see what happens next time, given the ubiquitous nature of some of the characters in the culture now esp Frodo and Gollum. I imagine it'll be a few years before I will read it again because of that.

As for beautiful ole NZ...you might be interested to know that a huge number of the images seen in the film are compostie - eg Rivendell is made up of mountains from one place, a river from others, hillside from somewhere else...at least that's what I've been told.

Yeah, it's beautiful here, but so are many places in the world. If I have a beef with PJ it's the damage he's done to the country by increasing the number of tourists running round through the ecosystem here .


In terms of Tolkein and what he was doing, the attempt to create a mythology was for the _English_. As has been noted the Irish and Welsh, and other Celts have their own mythology. Tolkein was attempting to create one of the great sagas for the English.

That thing about Arwen and Aragorn...it's such a common theme in Celtic mythology - of a doomed love affair because one is mortal and the other not. Or the immortal one having to choose between immortality and their love for a human.


Blues, that's an interesting take on the class and race issues in LotR - book and film. Sometime in my 20s I got the inherent sexism and racism in the book. It bothered me for a bit, but eventually I saw it as being a product of Tolkein being a product of his time. If someone wrote in such a way now without being conscious of it, I would find it offensive. Some people do seem to get upset when those issues are raised.


Mostly for me, the book _does_ work on the mythological level. This means that there are themes and ideas that enter into one's mind through other ways than just the intellectual. I think this is why people can reread the book so many times and still get new things out of it.

All great stories take one on a journey that is personal and transformative beyond just entertainment. The great sagas can also act as cultural signposts, both in political terms as mentioned, albeit unintentionally in Tolkeins case, and in terms of the collective needs and desires of a people. Mythology is both the telling of a tale, and the means of protecting and evolving the psychology/soul of the culture.

This may explain why some people are so upset with the movies, because in fact Jackson is actively changing that particular mythology.

I know when LotR's started making the top of lists of the best books of the last century, people thought it was weird - they didnt get it. I think it's because Tolkein was very successful in what he tried to do - he _did_ create a mythology that speaks to a huge number of people especially the anglosaxons. This appears strange because the West has lost its understanding of the value of cultural myths.


Anyway, that's my rambling over. Don't get me started about Thomas Hardy

What's wrong with Thomas Hardy? Tess of the D'Urbevilles is one of the finest novels in the English language.

What's wrong with Thomas Hardy?

Probably nothing, but after being force-fed The Return of the Native during an Eng. Lit O level I now find it difficult to remain in the same room as a Thomas Hardy novel without resorting to violence...

Thomas Hardy books are dull, dull *dull*. The Major of Casterbridge haunted my GCSEs.

The Major of Casterbridge . . . was that a sequel?

(Sorry, I was lampooned for a typo on another thread. Just passing it on.)

Disagree with that K. Wouldn't say Hardy is dull, more sad, very sad and incredibly sad.

It's more than just entertainment but far less than a religion then SHO. Some of the angry people seem to treat the book like a bible. You obviously don't. Can't imagine a follower of any religion saying they "don't really believe too much in letting [the bible's writers] overly influence my reading of their work". If it got you through the horrors of a nightmare school experience, then it deserves a place of honour in you head and your library. The writing style of the Silmarillion reminded me of the bible and that was what put me off reading it for years. Turgid I thought. But the style grew on me and the stories were good.

You do seem to think of the characters as real people though - independent of their creator. Tolkien probably didn't mean you to think Faramir a liar and if the characters aren't real, then you can decide for yourself why Grima turned against Theoden and Rohan. Of course, if the characters are real to you, then you can't decide that.

Hmmm.

A few random ideas:

I believe Tolkein when he says there is no hidden meaning or allegory in LOTR. But the book is a product of its creator and its times (a rather unworldly Oxford don, who was a practicing Roman Catholic, writing in the 1930's), so it inevitably carries this "luggage" behind it as an inevitable consequence of the world-view of its author.

I put "luggage" in inverted commas so as not to make a direct link with Terry Pratchett, who uses "luggage" in a more literal sense in his fantasy world! Although I'm really surprised that Pratchett's debunking of fantasy fiction - including Tolkein - hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread. (Gollum's walk-on, or rather slither-on, part in "Witches Abroad", for instance, or Pratchett's take on the Elves in "Lords and Ladies")

Tolkein's world-view does come out loud and strong in LOTR. The Roman Catholicism that makes all his female characters into aspects of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for instance. (Galadriel as an aspect of the BVM - the parellel is striking.)This prevents them from being "humanly" female or developing particularly strong characters - at best, the female characters in Middle-Earth are unevolved, two dimensional, cardboard cut-outs.

This might have worked in the 1930's and 40's, but Peter Jackson was right to flesh them out a bit more for the film and take them in directions Tolkein would never have envisaged for them. Otherwise, their portrayal would have been wrong in the film - dated, antiquated, stuck in a time-warp. 1930's women, in their various aspects. (Rosie - faithful wife, waiting for Sam to come home from the wars, for instance)

The book is of the 1930's and right for the 1930's; the film is of the early 2000's and is right for the early 2000's. Somehwere along the way, Peter Jackson has to compensate for the elapsing of seventy years of thought and change in our world and make Middle Earth reflect this. That's inevitable too.

The nastiness coming out of the East, threatening to overwhelm the civilized West - in the 1940's, Germany, in the 1950's, the inevitable reading of Russia - this has to be an obvious link, even if not consciously meant by the author. (Godless Germany first, Godless Russia second - both objects of fear and loathing for a practicing RC)

and Tolkein was a product of the British Empire - thereofre, the implicit understanding in the book that the peoples of north-west Europe are racially, culturally, socially and ethically superior to everyone else would have been so ingrained in Tolkein's makeup that he wouldn't even have thought any other set-up was possible. This isn't the Nazi concept of "ubermensch" - in his collected letters, Tolkein makes it clear he would rather his books were not published in Germany if in order to publish there he has to sign a declaration that he has no Jewish blood. (In other words, expresses distaste for Nazism, even if he loses money by this)

Rather, Tolkein seems to subscribe to the Kipling idea of the "white man's burden", that would have been part of his make-up as an upper middle-class member of British society at the height of Empire.

(Again, a mind-set needing to be adjusted for the film?)

Right, that's my tea-break over - posting from work right now! May be back with more, all replies gratefully read!

Enjoyed the books (all of them, many times) and the films, animatic and latest PJ versions.

Why is it hard to believe that Tolkien didn't mean anything other than to write good, entertaining, novels?

Bob