/lit/ - Literature » Thread #1735289

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 11:58:00 No.1735289 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>1735314 >>1735330

>Secret admission, this is my first post in /lit/.

What is /lit/'s opinion on Tolkein and his works?

Landon !!nBqZl5bQBVO

Landon !!nBqZl5bQBVO Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:01:00 No.1735304 Report

Quoted By:

I think he's swell and that his books are mighty charming.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:02:00 No.1735307 Report

Quoted By: >>1735311

:3
nyoro~n?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:03:00 No.1735311 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735307

I have NO fucking idea what that means.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:04:00 No.1735314 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735289
I read the Hobbit in 8th grade. Don't remember much of it, but I remember liking it well enough.

Insinuations of billions of gODS

Insinuations of billions of gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:05:00 No.1735317 Report

Quoted By: >>1735329 >>1735347

He's a racist.

Therefore I approve of him.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:07:00 No.1735321 Report

Quoted By: >>1735330 >>1735347

It's kinda sad when you think about it that he spent his entire life creating a fantasy world...

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:09:00 No.1735329 Report

Quoted By: >>1735344

>>1735317
no, he wasn't

I mean if he was virulently racist like people say, then where are the letters of his saying "FFFFFFFFFFUUUU I HATE FUCKING BLACK PEOPLE AND MUSLIMS AND ASIANS SO MUCH."

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:09:00 No.1735330 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735321
Reality sucks anyway

>>1735289
The HObbit>>>>>RINGSHIT

Too detailed very dry at times but creative considering there was nothing like at back in the day and everyone bites off of him instead of making new shit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:09:00 No.1735333 Report

Quoted By:

He's become the basis of all modern fantasy.

Gotta' give credit where credit is due.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:10:00 No.1735336 Report

Quoted By:

His shit was awesome as hell

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:11:00 No.1735340 Report

Quoted By:

He created the best fictional world to date and had a fantastic way of bringing myths to life. I love his books and think he's a genius. Not heavy on plot though.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:11:00 No.1735341 Report

Quoted By: >>1735350

he was more than an author, he was also a first class scholar

by profession he was a philologist, meaning that he studied languages

Insinuations of billions of gODS

Insinuations of billions of gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:12:00 No.1735344 Report

Quoted By: >>1735356 >>1735359

>>1735329
I only judged his racism based on the plot of the books of course.

All evil are those non-whites . urukhai = black. easterners = yellow etc. Stunning similarities to african cultures when it comes to urukhai and jews with greedy orcs and so..

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:12:00 No.1735346 Report

Quoted By:

i'm drunk so yeah no coherenceeeeeeeeeeeeeee

anywayz, you will not understand tolkien if you are the modern cosmopolitan hipster faggot, he was a country englishman and many of the traditions expressed in LOTR are lost on the current generation of suburban college kids

people bitch about descriptions of trees but it's more than that, tolkien had a talent for pin pointing extremely specific elements of nostalgia and references to country shit that anybody who grew up in the woods has to admire him, there's no way I could be that specific with shit and capture the milieu so well

yeah, like I said, if you are a city boy you will not come close to understanding LOTR which means 4chan is pretty much doomed to hating tolkien

paul masson, oh yes fuck my ass baby

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:13:00 No.1735347 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735321
It's also kind of cool. I wish I could dedicate my life to any project, much less a project that has brought so much enjoyment and inspiration to multiple generations.

>>1735317
No he wasn't. True, his works don't live up to the highest sensibilities of modern liberal though, and some of his themes might be a little off color, but he's no racist. He actually went out of his to insult the Nazis, who liked his book, for their anti-semitism.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:13:00 No.1735350 Report

Quoted By: >>1735497

>>1735341

Yeah. Dude created several of his own languages in his lifetime, didn't he?

That's especially impressive, considering it took some civilizations centuries.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:15:00 No.1735356 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735344

He was racist only in the fact that he separated races in his book, and stereotyped races within his own world.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:15:00 No.1735358 Report

Quoted By:

I read Humphrey's biography of Tolkien wherein the philologist and extreme Catholic proceeds to recites the Lord's Prayer into his newfangled tape recorder to expel any demons who might be lurking in there.

Crazy motherfucker

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:16:00 No.1735359 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735344
first of all, Uruk-hai are orcs

or they can be

all of Saruman's half-orcs were Uruk-hai but not all Uruk-hai are half-orcs

it's the orcs that have yellowish skin, and I don't recall it saying that the easterners were yellow anywhere

>Stunning similarities to african cultures when it comes to urukhai and jews with greedy orcs and so..

bullshit, he never goes into detail about their cultures

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:19:00 No.1735371 Report

Quoted By: >>1735475 >>1735547

>hurr the good guys aren't racially diverse, obvious racism derp derp

fucking politically correct bullshit

pisses me off

people have gotten way too "enlightened" for their own good

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:40:00 No.1735441 Report

Quoted By: >>1735453

He is up there with Shakespeare and Hemingway IMO. (I may take another few decades but LOTR is going to be recognized as a classic on the same level of the above works)

The entire modern fantasy genre owes its existence to his works.

Yes, sometimes he can go into a lot of detail. Keep in mind a lot of it was to make sure the reader was able to grasp the nature vs. tech themes he had going.

I only wish that he had been able to continue putting out book after ROTK. He had so many fantastic ideas he wanted to do but was never able to finish due to his death. (His son has edited and put out a few of them, but has admitted he has excerpt serious editorial control of them, which immediately steers me away)

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:45:00 No.1735453 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735441

I know. He had concepts of a cult that worshiped the overthrown Sauron years after end of ROTK.

He died before his work was truly completed.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:45:00 No.1735455 Report

Quoted By: >>1735460

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings should be required reading for any serious book reader.

It's exceptional sad to see modern academics deride these two works as without merit. Modern scholars complain that no one is writing classics anymore when Tolkien s works are starring them in the face. They just can't get past the fantasy setting stigma.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:48:00 No.1735460 Report

Quoted By: >>1735464 >>1735473 >>1735481

>>1735455
Most "serious readers" want books with themes that relate to society and people in general. Killing orcs and magic rings don't really do that though I may have missed something.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:50:00 No.1735464 Report

Quoted By: >>1735470

>>1735460
>LOTR doesn't deal with themes that relate to society and people in general

0/10

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:51:00 No.1735466 Report

Quoted By: >>1735470

1735460

>books with themes that relate to society and people in general.

LOTR is filled with this. The whole book is about society, decency, and care of nature being the proper destiny of men.

The magic and rings are just story tools.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:53:00 No.1735470 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735464
>>1735466
There are tons of books that present said themes much better. And with better writers. I'm not saying it's not a very intricate piece of work. It is but putting it on the level of REQUIRED READING for SRZ READERS is pretty absurd

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:55:00 No.1735473 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735460

>Most "serious readers" want books with themes that relate to society and people in general. Killing cyclopses and magic wind bags don't really do that though I may have missed something.

Insinuations of billions of gODS

Insinuations of billions of gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:56:00 No.1735475 Report

Quoted By: >>1735483

>>1735371

You sound way to politically polarized. You probably don't even know the meaning of "the politically correct" you dumb parrot.

Go suck a horseball somewhere before your idiocy gets noticed out of your oblivionated state.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:56:00 No.1735477 Report

Quoted By:

>LOTR is going to be eventually recognized as a classic

/agree

It was easily one of the best written works of the 20th century.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:57:00 No.1735481 Report

Quoted By: >>1735486 >>1735488 >>1735495

>>1735460
The quest to destroy the ring was symbolic to the times in which he wrote the book. The rise of the industrial complex and the coming of nuclear power during WWII. Everything in those novels is anti-industrial and anti-war.

But they are boring as shit, extremely detailed, and not worth studying seriously.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:57:00 No.1735483 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735475
>You sound way to politically polarized.

it's not about politics

it's about people hating on Tolkien for made up reasons

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:59:00 No.1735486 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735481
>The quest to destroy the ring was symbolic to the times in which he wrote the book.

no it wasn't

Tolkien hated it when people said that his works were allegorical to WWII

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 12:59:00 No.1735488 Report

Quoted By: >>1735505

>>1735481

So you're telling me you don't study anything very detailed?

>whatthefuckamireading.jpg

You make me angry.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:00:00 No.1735494 Report

Quoted By:

ITT: Hipsters trying to look cool by saying LOTR isn't good/ not underground enough.

I strongly encourage sitting down with a copy of the Hobbit and and copy of Lord of the Rings and rereading the entire thing. It is well loved for a very good reason.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:01:00 No.1735495 Report

Quoted By: >>1735519

>>1735481
>Implying most literature seriously studied isn't extremely detailed and found boring by many

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:01:00 No.1735497 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735350
LotR exists *almost* entirely as a vehicle to put some of that to use. The intermarriage of language and culture plays a big part in what makes Middle-Earth what it is. Spend any time on an Anglo-Saxon lit kick and you'll probably be quite floored with the pains Tolkien must have taken to inject a pervasive authenticity into his world... um... full of wizards and talking trees.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:01:00 No.1735499 Report

Quoted By: >>1735513 >>1735518 >>1735547

If Tolkein made any statements about his book, it was about industrialization. Not specific wars or conflicts, he was just stating that industrialization would bring about conflicts in general.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of statements about religion and it's waning in the book. You could say that the Elves fading back across the sea could be a metaphor for good Christians becoming more and more rare...

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:03:00 No.1735505 Report

Quoted By: >>1735512

>>1735488
I only read that shit ONCE you know. My memory is just very good when it comes to books.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:04:00 No.1735507 Report

Quoted By:

The Hobbit is an excellent stepping stone for those new to fantasy, or just young readers in general.

The Lord of the Rings builds upon that, although it can be found extremely boring by those not intellectually mature enough to fully grasp it.

First time I read the hobbit was in early middle school. 8th grade I picked up Fellowship of the Ring.

By the end of that year, I had blown through all three books, but had failed to really understand it all. It took at least one or two more reads to fully appreciate the works.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:05:00 No.1735512 Report

Quoted By: >>1735530 >>1735547

>>1735505

If you've only read the books ONCE, then why the FUCK are you trying to discuss it's messages?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:05:00 No.1735513 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735499
I don't even think it was as high-minded as "industrialization leads to conflict." I think he just hated seeing factories popped up in his nice pastoral landscapes so he brought Birnham Wood to life and had the trees break some smokestacks.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:06:00 No.1735518 Report

Quoted By: >>1735526 >>1735527 >>1735547

>>1735499
>Also, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of statements about religion and it's waning in the book.

bullshit

there was only one instance of anything religious in the entire book, and that was when Faramir and his men were facing west in a sort of prayer to the Valar

also, C. S. Lewis was one of Tolkien's best friends but Tolkien hated the chronicles of narnia, partly on account of their obvious religious themes and whatnot

again, he hated allegory

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:06:00 No.1735519 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735495
The books I have studied I haven't found boring. It's only Tolkein and "Of Human Bondage" that made me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:07:00 No.1735526 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735518
Not only were they great friends, Lewis gives a lot of credit to Tolkien for being part of the process that brought Lewis "kicking and screaming" away from atheism.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:07:00 No.1735527 Report

Quoted By: >>1735535

>>1735518

Have you ever read The Silmarillion? Tell me it's bullshit again.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:08:00 No.1735530 Report

Quoted By: >>1735531 >>1735537

>>1735512
I've never read a book more than once because I can recall it with as much clarity years later as the day after I finished reading it.

Implying you need to read a book more than once to understand it? Idiot.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:09:00 No.1735531 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735530

Obviously *you* do.

>idiot

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:09:00 No.1735535 Report

Quoted By: >>1735547

>>1735527
it's BULLSHIT

sure, the silmarillion was written like the bible

but how the fuck does that equate to "hurr Tolkien's stories were allegories about Christianity"

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:10:00 No.1735537 Report

Quoted By: >>1735544 >>1735547

>>1735530

Didn't you JUST fucking say your memory isn't clear when it comes to books?

Get the fuck out of here.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:11:00 No.1735544 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735537
Never said that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:11:00 No.1735545 Report

Quoted By:

Keep in mind the Silmarrillion was never completed.

One of Tolkiens letters mentions that he intended to rewrite large portions of it to make it flow more like LOTR.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:13:00 No.1735547 Report

Quoted By: >>1735555

Hey Tolkein cool I -

>>1735537
>>1735535
>>1735499
>>1735512
>>1735518
>>1735371

Oh shit I'm outta' here.

Insinuations of billions of gODS

Insinuations of billions of gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:15:00 No.1735555 Report

Quoted By: >>1735564 >>1735567

>>1735547

wisest thing said in this thread

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:18:00 No.1735564 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735555
oh shut up you're the one ITT

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:19:00 No.1735566 Report

Quoted By: >>1735572 >>1735576

Tolkien's stories certainly aren't allegories. He said as much. But what he meant was that they don't have a one-to-one symbolic correspondence - NOT that they've devoid with meaning. The novels are suffused with a Catholic worldview and resonances with Christian theology and Christian symbolism are literally everywhere in his work. For God's sake, one of the most obvious themes of the Lord of the Rings is temptation and choice, and you're questioning whether there's anything Christian about them?

There's also certainly a lot of anti-modern reaction in them - they're very conservative books, in a profoundly romantic way - very national books as well - the whole project of building a mythology for a nation is inherently conservative in some sense. That doesn't mean they're bad, but they are rather conservative and romantic.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:19:00 No.1735567 Report

Quoted By: >>1735574

>>1735555
oh shut up you're the worst one ITT

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:21:00 No.1735572 Report

Quoted By: >>1735581

>>1735566
>you're questioning whether there's anything Christian about them?

I wouldn't go that far. Allow me to clarify.

I just think that the idea that the books represent "the waning of Christianity" is pretty fucking stupid

Insinuations of billions of gODS

Insinuations of billions of gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:21:00 No.1735574 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735567
>implying i didn't panic and said something just in the midst of urge.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:22:00 No.1735576 Report

Quoted By: >>1735580 >>1735585 >>1735595 >>1735602

>>1735566
I never knew Tolkein or even C.S. Lewis for that matter had religious symbolism until christfags told me.

Ruined everything. T_T

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:23:00 No.1735580 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735576
oh for fuck's sake...

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:24:00 No.1735581 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735572
oh yeah that's dumb as fuck

the fading of the elves is the departure of magic from the world. there's really two senses you can read that in imo. in one sense, it's about tolkien's view of history - he talked, at some point, about history 'growing more mythical' as you go back, and the departure of the elves may stand for the point when history goes from the mythical or magical to the heroic, even to the prosaic. in another sense, you can read that as part of a critique of modernity - the departure of the elves and the disappearance of hobbits is the disappearance of old england, and with it everything magical and beautiful.

in my opinion, ofc

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:24:00 No.1735585 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735576

I'm officially leaving this thread. I'm OP, and I don't approve of the shitfest this has become.

Enjoy your cockmongling, you barbarians.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:27:00 No.1735595 Report

Quoted By: >>1735603 >>1735604

>>1735576
>Ruined everything.

Abject moron detected.

Don't you know all of Western literature has its origins in the Bible? There isn't one fucking book you've ever read that it's almost wholly in debt to religion.

Go fuck yourself, you stupid, ignorant loser.

Yeah, I'm mad.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:29:00 No.1735602 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735576

I'm assuming you're a troll...

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:29:00 No.1735603 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735595
but anon Christianity causes all war and hatred and is stupid and everything that is tied to it is stupid and I'm so edgy why won't people pay more attention to me!

Insinuates gODS

Insinuates gODS Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:29:00 No.1735604 Report

Quoted By: >>1735610

>>1735595
which version of the bible?

:3

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:33:00 No.1735610 Report

Quoted By:

>>1735604
there's really not that much difference between the versions, man

some have slightly more books, some have less

the books that are there are almost totally the same

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 30 Apr 2011 13:34:00 No.1735616 Report

Quoted By:

I read them in 4th grade. I was so confused.

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