
The Fantastic World of Professor Tolkien (1956) - lermontov
https://newrepublic.com/article/136543/fantastic-world-professor-tolkien
======
oska
> “I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.”

> “Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some
> die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to
> deal out death in the name of Justice ... even the wise cannot see all
> ends.”

Remains a very good, concise argument against capital punishment.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
An alternative to capital punishment: exile.

Fence off a large part of the American southwest. Surround it with guard
towers and automatic motion-activated machine guns to destroy anything that
comes within 100 ft of the fence. Then drop the exiles off with a backpack of
basic equipment and wish them well.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
That's not "exile." That's just prison, only even more sadistic and poorly
run.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
It's not sadistic; it's neutral. Nature is the only guard. It's not poorly
run; it's not run at all. This is nearly the very definition of exile, so I'm
not sure where your confusion comes from. Perhaps you feel throwing them into
a desert is inhumane? Fine, then fence off part of a jungle or plains with a
river or something else more comfortable. Build some basic infrastructure if
necessary.

------
cousin_it
LOTR is really cool. For example, Aragorn is a supersoldier and long lost true
heir who's engaged to an immortal princess, but the world ends up being saved
by Sam who doesn't have any of those gifts. Sadly, most later genre fiction
succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or
Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers.

~~~
spdionis
>Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with
heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special
powers.

Which by the way I prefer. The cliche of the powerless humble guy who in the
end saves the world has become boring and predictable.

~~~
guard-of-terra
It's only boring when done wrong. But so is any plot.

------
rubidium
Since it's the best source on Tolkien's view of his stories, let me recommend
his "On Fairy Stories" for those who have not read it:
[http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/tolkien/fairy_stories.pdf](http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/tolkien/fairy_stories.pdf)

------
pault
The Lord of the Rings is the book that turned me into an avid reader when I
was 13 or so. I remember sitting in the school library studying the maps and
translating the runes with a reference book I found. I was so excited when I
discovered that the runes on the maps in the Hobbit turned out to be the
riddle for opening the way to the lonely mountain. I still read it every few
years, and was just listening to the audiobook while browsing HN and saw this
article! I do get tired of all the singing though. :)

~~~
aisofteng
Tangentially related, in the sense of inspiring imagination - this summer I
was in Switzerland and looked up Wiki articles on where I was visiting, and
came across this Tolkien-related tidbit:

>J. R. R. Tolkien hiked from Interlaken to the Lauterbrunnen Valley while on a
trip to the Continent in 1911. The landscape of the valley later provided the
concept and pictorial model for his sketches and watercolours of the
fictitious valley of Rivendell, the dwelling place of Elrond Half-elven and
his people.

Source:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauterbrunnen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauterbrunnen)

Having accidentally recreated this trek, I can attest to its natural beauty,
and I can see how it inspired his imagination. I highly recommend doing the
same if you're lucky enough to be able to.

A photo of Lauterbrunnen: [http://gotravelaz.com/wp-
content/uploads/images/Lauterbrunne...](http://gotravelaz.com/wp-
content/uploads/images/Lauterbrunnen_16610.jpg)

~~~
fnayr
I did that exact hike in 2014 and didn't know that. That's incredible! It is
the most beautiful place I have ever seen with my eyes for sure. I highly
agree with your recommendation.

------
backtoyoujim
"For evil is matched and overcome not by superior power, but by the
determination and the goodness of ordinary beings, ennobles by the assumption
of burdens beyond their capacity to bear."

Lovely bit of prose for a book review.

~~~
veddox
I do love the style of that review - you don't find reviews like that
nowadays. Pity about all the spelling mistakes in the digital edition though.

------
eternauta3k
If you're into Tolkien, I highly recommend listening to the Silmarillion
Seminar: [http://tolkienprofessor.com/lectures/courses/silmarillion-
se...](http://tolkienprofessor.com/lectures/courses/silmarillion-seminar/) and
also to the Tolkien Professor's other series. They've greatly increased my
understanding and enjoyment of Tolkien.

~~~
macintux
Shippey's "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century" is a very good read.

[https://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Century-Tom-
Shippey/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Century-Tom-
Shippey/dp/061812764X)

------
edpichler
"The Lord of The Rings" is the most incredible book and the most well done I
ever read.

I read it recently, I knew it first time because the movie. I read it in
English, and it improved my language skills a lot (even the listening, to my
surprise).

------
pastProlog
The author, Michael Straight, later said he was a KGB operative at the time he
wrote this.

~~~
guard-of-terra
...and Tolkien wasn't really translated or available to Russian up until late
80s, but when the Professor finally arived he sparked spectacular amount of
activity in Russian-speaking fandom.

------
macintux
One more random thought: I can barely remember anything of the animated LotR
film, but the "Where there's a whip, there's a way" marching song has stuck
with me for _decades_.

"We don't want to go to war today, but the Dark Lord says, nay nay nay".

~~~
macintux
Found it: [https://youtu.be/YdXQJS3Yv0Y](https://youtu.be/YdXQJS3Yv0Y)

Was a bit off ("lord of the lash", not "Dark Lord"), but not bad for something
I haven't heard for ~35 years.

------
oconnor0
I wish that copyright law was different than it is largely because Tolkien's
works would then have entered the public domain. And the opportunity to
create, play, and profit in Middle-earth sounds amazing.

------
SoylentOrange
This review is scarily wrong in its understanding of Tolkien's works. First,
LotR does not refer to the One Ring, but to the master of the ring. Second,
Balrogs are not "dreadful spirit of the underworld" but are Maia, basically
corrupted angels. Third, Orcs are not "a new kind of goblin", but are tortured
and enslaved elves. And they're not new; they've been around since the First
Age. Fourth "Aragorn returns from the battle and by healing earns his place as
King". No. That is not why he is the King, it just fulfills the prophecy. He
is King because he was descended from Isildur, not because he has magic
healing powers.

If you're going to review something, at least get the facts right.

~~~
SnakePlissken
Satan isn't a dreadful spirit of the underworld, he's basically a corrupted
angel!

I get where you're coming from, but this kind of pedantic hair-splitting with
a condescending tone doesn't advance the conversation. There's nothing
"scarily wrong" about a reviewer from 1956 not being intimately familiar with
the breadth and depth of Tolkien's canon.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
In fact, most of this background material only became available ~20 yrs after
this article was published.

------
pessimist
LOTR is a fine but flawed book. Reading it as a dark skinned Asian boy the
characterization of all dark races as evil definitely stung and still hurts.
The evil side is one dimensional and has no redeeming qualities at all.

The female characters also tend to be quite weak and uninteresting.

Still the vision and the universe was inspiring. I still prefer it to most
other fantasy.

~~~
reedlaw
That Sauron was evil with no redeeming qualities was the whole point.
Otherwise the quest would not have been so heroic. Some of the dark races were
described as deceived more than evil. As far as female characters go, I would
say Galadriel, Eowyn, and Arwen were all quite powerful and interesting.

~~~
DavidWanjiru
>Some of the dark races were described as deceived more than evil. I would
argue the larger point still stands if the light skinned races aren't depicted
as falling for similar deception, because a tendency to fall for deception is
equally unedifying. I haven't read the books, so I wouldn't know how other
races are portrayed.

~~~
reedlaw
In Tolkien's legendarium many light-skinned races, including elves, fell for
Sauron's deception.

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forgottenacc56
Much of the article is retelling of the storylines.

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everyone
"trilogy" Eh,, Maybe I'm being a pedant but LOTR is 6 books is it not?

~~~
everyone
I looked it up.. whomp "Tolkien regarded it as a single work and divided it
into a prologue, six books, and five appendices. Because of post-World War II
paper shortages, it was originally published in three volumes." :p Tolkien is
quite clear about that in his letters

[http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/47419/is-lord-of-
th...](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/47419/is-lord-of-the-rings-a-
trilogy-of-books-in-tolkiens-opinion)

~~~
evincarofautumn
Reminds me of the, uh, “mistrilogiation” that happened with the Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy:

> The novels are described as “a trilogy in five parts” […] The US edition of
> the fifth book was originally released with the legend “The fifth book in
> the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy” on the cover. […]
> the blurb on the fifth book describes it as “the book that gives a whole new
> meaning to the word ‘trilogy’”.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)

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macintux
Wish they'd put a bit more time into editing this OCR scan. So many typos, it
gets quite distracting.

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triplesec
'(1956)' should be appended to the title [1] thank you for fixing

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stephancoral
Most overrated author of all time whose shortcomings and excesses (simplistic
morals, obvious dichotomy between good and evil, wafer thin characterizations)
continue to haunt the genre

~~~
noonespecial
I'd say he _invented_ the genre and so had to include some simple and readily
grasped tropes in order to give it mass appeal... Or perhaps it gained that
mass appeal precielsely by incorporating what you criticize.

Don't sweat it, when you write your world changing, genre defining masterwork,
you can make it as deep and morally ambiguous as you please.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
There was plenty of fantasy fiction pre-Tolkien.

~~~
yolesaber
No clue why you are being downvoted. You are 100 percent correct. If anything,
we are now saddled with Tolkien's dry tropes as the defining element of
"fantasy".

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
It's just how things are on HN.

Here are some pre-Tolkien authors people may be interested in: * Dunsany *
Mirrlees * Hodgson * Eddison * Howard * Lovecraft * and there are more, just
google them, these are just the ones that come to mind

------
IndividualOne
Just like with Star Wars, revisiting one's preferred childhood media can lead
to disappointment.

I recently re-read Tolkien's material and have to admit that whilst it is
indeed genre-defining and carefully planned on the conceptual level LotR is
indeed a heavily flawed book. I do not understand the reviewer's POV as we had
excellent "high" literature all through the 20th century.

I totally accept that the more nerdy HN community mostly see literature as
having three genres (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror) but there is a weird egghead
world of people reading "art" books. Those who attended school might had the
questionable experience of studying Hemingway or Joyce or Fitzgerald. These
authors are different to Tolkien.

You can indeed compare Beethoven to Elvis. Or Michelin gourmet places to
street food. I am just not sure it makes sense.

And no, one is not "better" than the other. Outside of the minds of console
warmongers and GOP nominees there are more shades of grey than any shady SM
e-book fanboi would ever fathom.

~~~
blowski
Who's comparing? It is a great book. It both influences and is influenced by
other great books. I agree that it's pointless to ask whether "Lord of the
Rings" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the best, but I don't think anyone here
is doing that.

