I didn’t talk a lot about him or his work, because so few people were interested. When I did find a fellow fan, it was a joy. When I found – every couple of years or so – someone who knew his work as well as I did, it was like meeting a member of a secret religion.
In grad school, I was usually derided for suggesting that he was a literary genius. Granted, stylistically he’s mediocre, although he has his great moments. But as a mythologist and historical linguist, he’s brilliant. And as a creator of literary worlds, I believe his accomplishments are without parallel. I know of no single author who has done anything close to what he managed to achieve.
Back in the day, I often held out hope that someday he’d get the credit he deserves, and figured it would probably come from an inspired film adaptation (a natural assumption).
But now that it’s no longer that difficult to find people who understand the history of Ea and its relationship to European mythologies, I find (oddly and selfishly) that I frequently feel a loss.
On the one hand, I’m truly happy that more people are starting to get a feel for the richness of his imagination (of which the War of the Rings is only a small part). On the other hand, my sense of privilege, of special knowledge of a wonderful and almost magical thing, has slipped away.
Totally and completely, 110%. Though I don’t even claim to be the hardcore nerd that many are, I at least read “The Silmarillion” and The books of lost tales, Unfinished tales like the fall of numenor, Tolkien’s answer to Lewis’ “Space Trilogy.” etc. I wrote my graduate thesis on Tolkien.
It truly was something special when you met someone else that “got” Tolkien. Now, everyone you meet “loves” him, and it’s increasingly difficult to find people that have done more than just see the films. It’s upsetting because it does add noise and confusion; when you meet someone who claims to “really love Tolkien,” you no longer know what that means; it could simply mean that they really liked the movies and bought the boxed sets rather than that they’ve actually dug deep like you did.
Long ago, I joined the UK Tolkien Society and even got a reply to a letter from the great man himself. :eek:
And I see myself as a very junior follower of Qadgop here, who knows an immense amount about the subject!
But I don’t think you should be the slightest bit concerned about more people discovering Tolkien.
It’s a wonderful world and the films (particularly the Extended Editions) are superb.
Just share their joy, then mention that there is more to come.
I read the trilogy at least seven times in my younger years.
I was dubious when I heard about Peter Jackson’s folly of filming all three books in three films with “live” actors. I just didn’t think it could be done…at least not as well as the wonderful books I had read.
I was so wrong. I saw each film in the theater as it came out and even though it was a long time since reading the books, his filmed version really captured my memories of the books.
No, by no means can I quote scenes or remember every little nuance.
But I just bought the entire set of the EE version of the films…have watched the first two and tomorrow will watch ROTK.
Sheer joy.
And I almost envy kids in the future who will sound like me when I hear, “you never saw Casablanca?!” as they drag their young friends into the house and treat them to this filmed version of the books.
I think it is a safe bet to be a classic set of films for decades to come.
Or at least until they do that remake in the new holographic format in the year 2092.
I relate entirely, although not to the Tolkien thing (although I certainly read them before all those upstarts) - for me, I was into anime decades before all them punk teenagers. My old favorites in homemade Japanese gay porn comic books just don’t do it for me anymore because everybody knows about it - it’s not “just us” anymore. It’s depressing, and it makes me feel silly.
[QUOTE=It truly was something special when you met someone else that “got” Tolkien. Now, everyone you meet “loves” him, and it’s increasingly difficult to find people that have done more than just see the films. It’s upsetting because it does add noise and confusion; when you meet someone who claims to “really love Tolkien,” you no longer know what that means; it could simply mean that they really liked the movies and bought the boxed sets rather than that they’ve actually dug deep like you did.[/QUOTE]
When meeting someone who loves Tolkien, why not just ask “The books, the movies, or both?” No more confusion. You may meet somebody who knows as much about Tolkien as you & be making puns in Quenya in no time. More likely, you’ll be able to advise somone that they can find much more of what they like in the books. The latter possibility won’t waste much of your time.
Some of the newbies won’t last but others will stick around & dig deep.
Shades of band fans: “Of course, I was into them LONG before they were popular, and their earlier stuff was really much better, before they even got on the radio…” Let’s not get cliquey about this, folks.
I have a classic English lit background, and I know academics who teach Great Books and History of Western Lit type classes (often requiring books from designated time periods, genres and, more and more, different cultures and languages (in translation)).
While, like Freejooky, students have done theses on JRRT, he is less often incorporated into courses.
Length may be part of the problem (though Farmer Giles, Leaf and some of the shorter stuff could be used in survey courses), but the bigger problem I have heard expressed is the problem of teaching the book to both experts and novices. As one prof said, “I can teach a book to someone who’s never read it before, but I don’t relish teaching it to some smart-ass who’s read it 10 times more than I have.” Even in grad level courses, you can’t have a pre-req of “you must be at least an x-time reader to be admitted to this ride.”
OTOH, I think it is just a question of time–not only is LOTR a Great Book, it is also important for people who like to track “influences” and genres.
Yeah, shades of that. Only the feeling isn’t quite the same. After all, JRR has enjoyed very high popularity at various times, and I’m a little too young to be able to say I was into him before he made it big.
What I’m trying to describe is a very unexpected and admittedly petty and selfish emotion. Maybe if others feel it, too, I can chalk it up to human nature or something, and not my own lack of character.
Everyone I know who stood as much in awe of Tolkien’s accomplishments as I did, are all ecstatic that such a wonderful job has been done (finally, after certain failures) in taking his world to the big screen, and that so many people are being drawn into the books as a result.
The downside is, I don’t think I’ll ever again get that unique thrill I used to have when I discovered someone else who enjoyed, say, hashing out what Gandalf’s emotions might have been at discovering Gladmdring in Mirkwood – not because it’s trivia, but because Tolkien’s world is so complex that volumes have to be left out of any tale, and only by relating it to other tales does the rich nougaty goodness become apparent to the palate.
It’s kind of like being in a foreign country and not really speaking the language. When you run across a fellow countryman, suddenly you can say all the things no one else understands, and you end up sitting in a cafe talking for hours, just because it’s so delicious to do so. Once you learn the native tongue, your life becomes better, you no longer feel so much the outsider… but the sweetness of those encounters is lost forever.
Gandalf wasn’t there for the journey through Mirkwood–IIRC, he got the sword from the trolls’ hoard. See? Every class has that one annoying kid who won’t participate substantively but loves to nitpick and won’t shut up.
Indeed Gandalf did not accompany the party through Mirkwood - he was with the other wizards driving the Necromancer out of his stronghold. (Wonder what happened to him?!)
And the swords (Glamdring and Orchrist) did indeed come from the trolls hoard. They were originally made in Gondolin for the Goblin wars.
I’m one of those fans that likes Lord of the Rings but only for its movies. I’ve tried reading FotR and … no. It’s just not going to happen. The movies are very beautiful and there’s quite a bit in them that I like for various reasons (look at my user name, for example) but I’m definitely an LotR fan and not a Tolkien geek. I appreciate that he created this universe and I love the adaptations of his work but the originals? Not at all.
Despite being the kind of fan you’re talking about though, I definitely know what you mean. While not great literature, one of my favorite series of books right now is the relaunch of the DS9 novels, something that I love reading and talking to limited other fans about but I’ve recently discovered there are a ton more fans of it than I realized and I spent a good week annoyed and slightly disgusted by it. It was MY treasure, god damn it. I felt special and a little unique in being able to enjoy this captivating series with what I assumed was only a couple hundred others but now I’ve found out it’s more like tens of hundreds of thousands and it makes it cheaper somehow.
Rational? Not in the least. It’s how I felt though and still do to a point.
I’m with you brother. I got “The Hobbit” as birthday gift when I was around 13 or so, devoured the trilogy at 15 and have re-read it about once a year.
Oh well, now you know how the Apostles felt.
Same thing happened in 1978 when I was in junior high school and it seemed that I was the only guy who watched “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on our local PBS station.
As has already been pointed out, a lot of the would-be fans will fade away, unless they have a genuine interest and ability in really digesting all the JRRT materials. And if they have the capacity to do that, then I look forward to meeting them! And if a lot of them turn out to be my superiors in matters of Tolkien scholarship, more power to them, and all the better to improve my own understanding and appreciation.
And no matter how many new Tolkien uber-geeks swell our ranks, I always can take comfort in the knowledge that I will always be the formost poster here at SDMB when it comes to Tolkien-related corrections medicine as practiced by a recovering alcoholic!
And glee? You gots a letter from JRRT his ownself? I am so impressed! Tell more? I wish I’d have written him before he passed on.
The world is a very big place (might be almost as big as Middle Earth) and an awful lot of people have lived in it for an awfully long time. I currently love Milton more than any other author–think I could ever in my entire life read everything he wrote, much less everything that’s been written about him? Doesn’t stop me from loving him, but it does give one some humility about it all.
It’s exactly as big as Middle Earth, wouldn’t you think?
Haven’t read Hobbit in a couple decades. It’s not my fave. Probably should go back and dip into it again, though. Would like to read the original side-by-side with the post-trilogy version, in fact. Can the old one still be had, without springing for a rare book?
Hijack question for you, Humble Servant: Did/do you teach? If so, did/do you find that students frequently conflate Milton with the Bible? That was often true of my students. Now that’s a big shadow! (And why shouldn’t you be able to read all of Milton in one lifetime, btw?)
Heh. I first read LOTR about, hmm, thirty years ago now. My big brother had just bought a copy, and I asked if I could read it. I was young enough that I think he was annoyed at the question, so he said that I could borrow it for three days – no more.
That size a book, for an 11-year-old, was a bit of a challenge in three days. :dubious: I ended up hiding in the toilet for an hour after bed-time on the third day, furiously reading, but I did make it. sigh And I was really too young to appreciate the ending. Oh, well.
Oddly enough, I’d never even heard of The Hobbit at the time. Didn’t read it until years later. After LOTR, it came as a bit of a shock.
My husband teaches, and I’m a hanger-on/wanna-be. In real life, I’m a lawyer. I think I’ve read all of Milton’s poetry, but he wrote multi-volumes of political treatises, Protestant theology, history, etc. that I’m just not going to get to, at least until I finish my to do list. JRRT is more manageable.
