From: atsarisborn@hotmail.com (A Tsar Is Born) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: 21 Feb 2002 15:57:38 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 66 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.19.10.154 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014335858 7893 127.0.0.1 (21 Feb 2002 23:57:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Feb 2002 23:57:38 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!tethys.csu.net!canoe.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79157 qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) wrote in message news:... > I don't think it's coincidence. Sauron has only nine fingers, and so > does Frodo at the end of the story. But I don't know of any place > where Tolkien commented on this specifically. I'll be interested to > see if anyone comes up with Tolkien's own "take" on this, perhaps > from HoME. I agree. Remember: when Frodo first appears after Elrond removes the bit of morgul-knife, Pippin says, "Frodo, Lord of the Ring." Gandalf rebukes him, and the Quest hasn't even been laid on him yet, but in fact we are supposed to have Sauron and Frodo together in our mind from that point. In many ways, Frodo (unlikely as he seems for the job -- but that's part of the point; Frodo is supposed to seem unlikely for every task he undertakes, and for that very reason his triumph is miraculous) is depicted as the inverse of Sauron. He too has walked in the wraith world and he, alone of the characters, is depicted facing the Eye. His ability to learn the lesson of pity from Gandalf, and his defiance of the lesson of power-lust from Sauron (or rather, from the Ring) show the human soul receiving grace. His final shattering fall -- implied from the beginning, when he cannot toss the Ring into his hearth fire -- shows that even with all the examples and all the lessons, he still requires Grace to be saved -- and he receives it in part because Bilbo and Gandalf pitied Gollum, and later because he, on seeing him, was able to learn from their example. An inability to feel anything other than his own egotism is Sauron's primary characteristic -- he's Ego run wild (just as Gollum is Ego demolished, absorbed into Idee Fixe) -- it is the flaw that dooms him. He cannot see himself because he is locked inside himself unable to see others, even to believe in their existence, only able to absorb them magically, demonically. Thus he fails to see the threat within his stronghold because he is always looking outside it for a threat he can recognize as a peer to his monstrous power. The nine fingers of each rather nicely symbolize this parity, this likeness and unlikeness. Indeed, Tolkien often deals in doppelgangers to make a moral point: Saruman and Gandalf ("I am Saruman, Saruman as he ought to have been"), Luthien (the elven maid who becomes human for love) and Idril (the elven maid whose human lover becomes elven for love), Tuor (human adopted by elves who falls for the right girl and is saved) and Turin (his cousin, human adopted by elves who ignores the right girl and falls for the definitively wrong one and is destroyed), Elros and Elrond, Isildur and Anarion, Boromir (tempted by the Ring, falls) and Faramir (tempted by the Ring, doesn't fall), Denethor -- the aging ruler who loses a son and succumbs to the mortal sin of despair -- and Theoden -- the aging ruler who loses a son but rides to triumphant death (almost simultaneous with Denethor's, please note), elves and orcs, ents and trolls, ents and dwarves (in the Silmarillion), Gandalf and the balrog, sun and moon, tree and leaf, worm and tongue -- no wait, well, you get the idea. One might even say: Frodo and Sam vs. Shagrat and Gorbag. It can seem a bit didactic and black-white and RC and "Have You Been Saved?", but it is a tribute to Tolkien's fantastic imagination that it is nothing of the sort, that the effect sinks in while we read, enthralled by the story, without our noticing how CALCULATED it all seems to be. Parmathule atsarisborn@hotmail.com ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:53:45 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!nnxp1.twtelecom.net!news-east.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!sn-xit-06!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79120 A Tsar Is Born wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: > [snipped for brevity] Good article, IMHO. I liked your examples. And people wonder why it is that we say Tolkien was a greater writer than Leiber or Donaldson or the other writers of adventure "fantasy". Those others may be fun to read, but they've got no depth to them. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Reply-To: "john thrum" From: "john thrum" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 33 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 01:39:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.208.152.141 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014341980 67.208.152.141 (Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:39:40 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:39:40 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net X-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:39:40 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!paloalto-snh1.gtei.net!lsanca1-snf1!news.gtei.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78998 "Stan Brown" wrote in message news:MPG.16df60a5f49617f09896ce@news.odyssey.net... > A Tsar Is Born wrote in > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > > > [snipped for brevity] > > Good article, IMHO. I liked your examples. > > And people wonder why it is that we say Tolkien was a greater writer > than Leiber or Donaldson or the other writers of adventure > "fantasy". Those others may be fun to read, but they've got no depth > to them. > That's not being fair to them. Tolkien had the luxury of time and the foundation of a whole pre-invented mythology to base his stories on. As well as the perspective that only a childhood spent in rural England could give you. He was also very close friends with C.S. Lewis, another writer whose stories have subtlety upon subtlety for those who can discern them. Modern fantasy writers must churn out their quota of verbiage by their appointed deadlines. They have to put up with editors who feel free to hack up their manuscripts any way they please according to the whims of the marketing people. If Tolkien were trying to write LOTR today in America for a house like TOR or Ballantine, I'll wager he'd be hard pressed to come up with anything approaching the depth he was able to achieve in 1940's England. john thrum ###### From: Bryan Maloney Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: 22 Feb 2002 15:18:24 GMT Organization: Flarg Wa Zoo Lines: 49 Sender: bjm10@cornell.invalid (on syr-24-58-37-210.twcny.rr.com) Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: syr-24-58-37-210.twcny.rr.com X-Trace: news01.cit.cornell.edu 1014391104 15483 24.58.37.210 (22 Feb 2002 15:18:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news01.cit.cornell.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Feb 2002 15:18:24 GMT User-Agent: Xnews/4.06.22 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79060 "john thrum" wrote in news:wjhd8.6777$ZC3.548119@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net: > "Stan Brown" wrote in message > news:MPG.16df60a5f49617f09896ce@news.odyssey.net... >> A Tsar Is Born wrote in >> rec.arts.books.tolkien: >> > >> [snipped for brevity] >> >> Good article, IMHO. I liked your examples. >> >> And people wonder why it is that we say Tolkien was a greater writer >> than Leiber or Donaldson or the other writers of adventure >> "fantasy". Those others may be fun to read, but they've got no depth >> to them. >> > > That's not being fair to them. Tolkien had the luxury of time and the > foundation of a whole pre-invented mythology to base his stories on. Essentially, it wasn't his "day job". His day job financed Middle Earth. That is one fact that it appears everybody ignores when they moan about how there has been nothing made to rival Middle Earth. The thing they keep forgetting is that Tolkien was not a fiction author (wrote fiction to pay his essential bills). Tolkien was a college professor who wrote fiction (and made quite a purse on it--but he paid his daily bills for a long time from being a professor). > As well as the perspective that only a childhood spent in rural > England could give you. He was also very close friends with C.S. Everybody has a "perspective that only a childhood spent in <<<>>> could give you". Most people never bother to develop that perspective or try to develop things for which their perspective is irrelevant. > Modern fantasy writers must churn out their quota of verbiage by their > appointed deadlines. They have to put up with editors who feel free Because they don't have a real day job. Instead, they want to make a living at the fantasy writing. Thus, they have to pay the price. > whims of the marketing people. If Tolkien were trying to write LOTR > today in America for a house like TOR or Ballantine, I'll wager he'd > be hard pressed to come up with anything approaching the depth he was > able to achieve in 1940's England. He didn't write LotR for any publisher. He didn't have to. ###### From: atsarisborn@hotmail.com (A Tsar Is Born) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: 22 Feb 2002 07:51:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 54 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.19.10.160 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014393089 30505 127.0.0.1 (22 Feb 2002 15:51:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Feb 2002 15:51:29 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!151.164.30.35!cyclone.swbell.net!easynews!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79181 "john thrum" wrote in message news:... > "Stan Brown" wrote in message > news:MPG.16df60a5f49617f09896ce@news.odyssey.net... > > A Tsar Is Born wrote in > > rec.arts.books.tolkien: > > > > > [snipped for brevity] > > > > Good article, IMHO. I liked your examples. > > > > And people wonder why it is that we say Tolkien was a greater writer > > than Leiber or Donaldson or the other writers of adventure > > "fantasy". Those others may be fun to read, but they've got no depth > > to them. > > > > That's not being fair to them. Tolkien had the luxury of time and the > foundation of a whole pre-invented mythology to base his stories on. > As well as the perspective that only a childhood spent in rural > England could give you. He was also very close friends with C.S. > Lewis, another writer whose stories have subtlety upon subtlety for > those who can discern them. > > Modern fantasy writers must churn out their quota of verbiage by their > appointed deadlines. They have to put up with editors who feel free > to hack up their manuscripts any way they please according to the > whims of the marketing people. If Tolkien were trying to write LOTR > today in America for a house like TOR or Ballantine, I'll wager he'd > be hard pressed to come up with anything approaching the depth he was > able to achieve in 1940's England. > > john thrum Tolkien didn't have the luxury of time, and he pre-invented that mythology his own self. He didn't write trash fiction to earn his living; he taught linguistics instead. (This was NOT much of a living. He never had a dime until the trilogy appeared in paperback.) You're saying if he were trying to write it today for the pop fantasy market -- but I'll bet he still wouldn't write it down to that level. He wrote the books on his own, for himself, his wife, his son, his publisher (a fan from childhood), for the Inklings. If they didn't make money, he was disappointed, but not to the point of putting in warrior princesses or taking out excess poetry in order to sell better. You're saying that if Tolkien had not been Tolkien but Donaldson, why, he'd write as badly as Donaldson! I agree: Anyone who was Donaldson would write like Donaldson. But Tolkien couldn't possibly have done that, and wouldn't have wanted to. Parmathule atsarisborn@hotmail.com ###### From: qx1741@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 21:13:02 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 72 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79118 john thrum wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >"Stan Brown" wrote in message >news:MPG.16df60a5f49617f09896ce@news.odyssey.net... >> A Tsar Is Born wrote in >> rec.arts.books.tolkien: >> > >> [snipped for brevity] >> >> Good article, IMHO. I liked your examples. >> >> And people wonder why it is that we say Tolkien was a greater writer >> than Leiber or Donaldson or the other writers of adventure >> "fantasy". Those others may be fun to read, but they've got no depth >> to them. >> > >That's not being fair to them. Tolkien had the luxury of time "The luxury of time"? Read the /Letters/ and it will disabuse you of that notion. > and the >foundation of a whole pre-invented mythology to base his stories on. Pre-invented? By whom? In fact Tolkien invented the mythology himself, laboriously working and re-working it. While not ever revision was an improvement, most added subtleties and complexities that increase the richness of the reading experience. >He was also very close friends with C.S. >Lewis, another writer whose stories have subtlety upon subtlety for >those who can discern them. Everything up to the word "Lewis" in that sentence, I can agree with. You imply that his friendship with Lewis somehow improved his own writing, more than a friendship would have with anyone else who was encouraging and listened to readings; that's just not true. Again, read the /Letters/ or HoME. And while there is some subtlety in Lewis's stories, they are bludgeons compared to Tolkien. Look at the Christ figures in /The Voyage of the Dawn Treader/ versus /The Lord of the Rings/, for instance. (For a start, in LotR you have to ask _which_ Christ figure? Frodo? Gandalf? Aragorn? In VotDT it's the lamb that offers fish to the travelers and then turns into a lion. Of the nouns that come to mind, "subtlety" is pretty far down the list.) Beyond that, it's obvious which writer has more subtlety and complexity, just by the highly disparate amounts of discussion that the two generate. >Modern fantasy writers must churn out their quota of verbiage by their >appointed deadlines. They have to put up with editors who feel free >to hack up their manuscripts any way they please according to the >whims of the marketing people. So have many writers all through history. There have always been editors who edited with a heavy hand, and editors who had more respect for their good authors. Look at /Grumbles from the Grave/, an edition of excerpts from Robert A Heinlein's letters, to see how differently he got edited by different editors, even when he was the top-selling sf author. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### Reply-To: "john thrum" From: "john thrum" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 30 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 03:45:30 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.202.74.177 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014435930 67.202.74.177 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:45:30 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:45:30 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net X-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:45:28 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!paloalto-snh1.gtei.net!lsanca1-snf1!news.gtei.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79000 "Bryan Maloney" wrote in message news:a55ng0$f3r$5@news01.cit.cornell.edu... > snip > Everybody has a "perspective that only a childhood spent in <<<>>> could > give you". Most people never bother to develop that perspective or try to > develop things for which their perspective is irrelevant. > Most people don't even know they have a perspective. > > Because they don't have a real day job. Instead, they want to make a > living at the fantasy writing. Thus, they have to pay the price. > All want to be the next Hemingway, no doubt. > > He didn't write LotR for any publisher. He didn't have to. > My point exactly. john thrum ###### Reply-To: "john thrum" From: "john thrum" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 56 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 03:56:26 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.202.74.177 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014436586 67.202.74.177 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:56:26 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:56:26 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net X-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:56:24 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78991 "A Tsar Is Born" wrote in message news:d4f8c75b.0202220751.36e8adaa@posting.google.com... > snip > Tolkien didn't have the luxury of time, and he pre-invented that > mythology his own self. He didn't write trash fiction to earn his > living; he taught linguistics instead. (This was NOT much of a living. > He never had a dime until the trilogy appeared in paperback.) > He had the luxury of time in terms of not having to meet some publisher's deadline. I didn't mean that he had gobs of spare time to just loll around and scribble all day. > You're saying if he were trying to write it today for the pop fantasy > market -- but I'll bet he still wouldn't write it down to that level. He would try not to. But he would be fighting the axis of evil in the publishing empire, wouldn't he ? :-) > He wrote the books on his own, for himself, his wife, his son, his > publisher (a fan from childhood), for the Inklings. If they didn't > make money, he was disappointed, but not to the point of putting in > warrior princesses or taking out excess poetry in order to sell > better. > Exactly. He wrote what *he* wanted to write, and stuck with it until it struck a chord at the right time and place. Instead of trying to pimp himself out to try and catch the wave of whatever popular trend was current. > You're saying that if Tolkien had not been Tolkien but Donaldson, why, > he'd write as badly as Donaldson! I agree: Anyone who was Donaldson > would write like Donaldson. But Tolkien couldn't possibly have done > that, and wouldn't have wanted to. > No, I don't think so. That's not what I was thinking. I was thinking that if he had been raised in 1950's-60's America, and was under contract with some gangsta publishing company, that he would find it difficult to write LOTR with the same degree of richness and depth. He would still have been an excellent writer, and most likely as excellent a person. Perhaps he would have been more like a George RR Martin, or Orson Scott Card. But he would not have been like a Steven Donaldson or Terry Brooks. john thrum ###### From: Donald Shepherd Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 14:10:06 +1000 Organization: Sad Fuckers of the World Lines: 19 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 246-155-11-210-cns.nq.net X-Trace: gnamma.connect.com.au 1014437505 11453 210.11.155.246 (23 Feb 2002 04:11:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@connect.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 04:11:45 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.60 X-Virus: I am a header virus. Please add me to your headers. X-Ignore-Godwin: Yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79142 In article , Bryan Maloney (bjm10@cornell.edu) says... > > whims of the marketing people. If Tolkien were trying to write LOTR > > today in America for a house like TOR or Ballantine, I'll wager he'd > > be hard pressed to come up with anything approaching the depth he was > > able to achieve in 1940's England. > > He didn't write LotR for any publisher. He didn't have to. He wrote LotR for the Unwins, whether it be because he liked them personally (as seems the case) or because they insisted he write a sequal to the Hobbit. The main difference was they gave him a lot more leeway than most publishers would give an author today. -- Donald Shepherd BALROG: Screw Gandalf! Where’s this Ralph Bakshi guy? - http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=534018 ###### Reply-To: "john thrum" From: "john thrum" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 80 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: <9DEd8.10338$ZC3.780527@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 04:10:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.202.74.177 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014437445 67.202.74.177 (Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:10:45 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:10:45 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net X-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:10:43 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:78983 "Stan Brown" wrote in message news:MPG.16e0c4bc33638b969896dc@news.odyssey.net... > snip > "The luxury of time"? Read the /Letters/ and it will disabuse you of > that notion. > Read my reply to tsar regarding this issue. > > Pre-invented? By whom? In fact Tolkien invented the mythology > himself, laboriously working and re-working it. While not ever > revision was an improvement, most added subtleties and complexities > that increase the richness of the reading experience. > Yes, that's what I meant. He spent years developing the whole mythology that LOTR drew from before he ever started on it. > > Everything up to the word "Lewis" in that sentence, I can agree > with. You imply that his friendship with Lewis somehow improved his > own writing, more than a friendship would have with anyone else who > was encouraging and listened to readings; that's just not true. > Again, read the /Letters/ or HoME. > I certainly didn't mean to imply that Tolkien's friendship with Lewis was some sort of 2-man writer's workshop. But I think that Lewis and his other friends and associates probably had more of an influence on him than perhaps he realized. Certainly they would have had chats, discussions, shared ideas with each other. This is not something that contemporary writers are known for. Are you so sure that Tolkien would never have changed one thing he wrote because of something someone else said ? > And while there is some subtlety in Lewis's stories, they are > bludgeons compared to Tolkien. Look at the Christ figures in /The > Voyage of the Dawn Treader/ versus /The Lord of the Rings/, for > instance. (For a start, in LotR you have to ask _which_ Christ > figure? Frodo? Gandalf? Aragorn? In VotDT it's the lamb that offers > fish to the travelers and then turns into a lion. Of the nouns that > come to mind, "subtlety" is pretty far down the list.) > Personally, I feel that this business of seeing Christ figures everywhere is somewhat dubious. No doubt Lewis was into that sort of thing, but I'm skeptical of the idea that Tolkien was trying to tie everything to Christianity. I think he was just trying to write really good Nordic fantasy. And I disagree with you about Lewis's talents. I think the Perelandra/Silent Planet/Hideous Strength trilogy was every bit as excellent as LOTR. In terms of both prose and subtlety. > Beyond that, it's obvious which writer has more subtlety and > complexity, just by the highly disparate amounts of discussion that > the two generate. > No, it's just that most people are more drawn to Tolkien's world than to Lewis's. They can identify with it and project themselves into the various roles and situations much more easily, whereas in Lewis's writings you're dealing with bizarre situations that make you think, but you wouldn't really want to be in them yourself. > So have many writers all through history. There have always been > editors who edited with a heavy hand, and editors who had more > respect for their good authors. Look at /Grumbles from the Grave/, > an edition of excerpts from Robert A Heinlein's letters, to see how > differently he got edited by different editors, even when he was the > top-selling sf author. > One wonders how many really good masterpieces have been ruined by heavy-handed egotistical editors. john thrum ###### From: "AC" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 31 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4910.0300 Message-ID: Organization: Randori News - http://www.randori.com Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 06:17:17 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeder.randori.com!news2.randori.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79074 "Donald Shepherd" wrote in message news:MPG.16e1b3175a91d0b698986d@news.cairns.net.au... > In article , Bryan Maloney > (bjm10@cornell.edu) says... > > > whims of the marketing people. If Tolkien were trying to write LOTR > > > today in America for a house like TOR or Ballantine, I'll wager he'd > > > be hard pressed to come up with anything approaching the depth he was > > > able to achieve in 1940's England. > > > > He didn't write LotR for any publisher. He didn't have to. > > He wrote LotR for the Unwins, whether it be because he liked them > personally (as seems the case) or because they insisted he write a sequal > to the Hobbit. The main difference was they gave him a lot more leeway > than most publishers would give an author today. They did not wield that much control of Tolkien. Certainly they pressured him, because they knew that a sequel to the Hobbit was bound to sell at least fairly well. In fact, Tolkien was so displeased at one point with Allen and Unwin (mainly because they wouldn't commit to publishing the unfinished Silmarillion with LotR) that he actually sent LotR to another publisher. When that publisher decided that the book needed cutting, Tolkien, greatly chastened, went back to Allen and Unwin. The point is that neither side controlled the other, though, at the end of the day, both Tolkien and Sir Stanley Unwin had a great deal of respect for each other. --- AaronC ###### From: atsarisborn@hotmail.com (A Tsar Is Born) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Date: 23 Feb 2002 09:15:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <9DEd8.10338$ZC3.780527@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.19.15.158 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014484522 32652 127.0.0.1 (23 Feb 2002 17:15:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2002 17:15:22 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79372 "john thrum" wrote in message news:<9DEd8.10338$ZC3.780527@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>... > Personally, I feel that this business of seeing Christ figures > everywhere is somewhat dubious. No doubt Lewis was into that sort of > thing, but I'm skeptical of the idea that Tolkien was trying to tie > everything to Christianity. I think he was just trying to write > really good Nordic fantasy. If you can show me a Nordic pre-Christian fantasy in which the theme of the story is the unexpected, nay, miraculous victory of those who put aside their personal desires to attempt the impossible through pure ideals, who are predestined to this and whose victory is succeeded by a pure-minded salvation, I'll be very surprised. Tolkien is subtle about the Christian construction behind his creation, but it is very distinctly there, and was one of the reasons he created his mythology in the first place. > And I disagree with you about Lewis's talents. I think the > Perelandra/Silent Planet/Hideous Strength trilogy was every bit as > excellent as LOTR. In terms of both prose and subtlety. The prose is better. Subtle it ain't. The story is full of howlers created to bash you over the head with overt Christianity, and this gets a little tedious before the end. CSL had read far too much medieval allegory, a type of writing that JRRT specifically rejected for his own fictions. As to the change in the times: Yes, both men read their fictions aloud to a group of their friends (including each other) and occasionally took the friends' advice in rewrite. There are plenty of writers who still do that. Pulp fantasy writers perhaps do not, which would explain some things. > One wonders how many really good masterpieces have been ruined by > heavy-handed egotistical editors. If the authors had much integrity, probably very few. I'm sure you're speaking of bad masterpieces, for which you have a greater affinity. The whole point of your arguments still seems to be "If Tolkien hadn't been Tolkien he wouldn't have written as well, so we should give him less credit since it was just luck that he was Tolkien." Seems like a really dim and pointless remark to make. Parmathule atsarisborn@hotmail.com ###### Reply-To: "john thrum" From: "john thrum" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <9DEd8.10338$ZC3.780527@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Subject: Re: Tolkien's Doppelgangers Lines: 24 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: <4FRd8.11195$0C1.938489@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 19:00:16 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.202.12.130 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1014490816 67.202.12.130 (Sat, 23 Feb 2002 11:00:16 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 11:00:16 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net X-Received-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 11:00:17 PST (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:79243 "A Tsar Is Born" wrote in message > snip > > If the authors had much integrity, probably very few. > I'm sure you're speaking of bad masterpieces, for which you have a > greater affinity. > > The whole point of your arguments still seems to be "If Tolkien hadn't > been Tolkien he wouldn't have written as well, so we should give him > less credit since it was just luck that he was Tolkien." Seems like a > really dim and pointless remark to make. > No, I rather think the point is that you are obviously a condescending arrogant ass who looks for points that don't exist, except in your own overinflated head, to make yourself feel superior to compensate for the fact that you have no life other than posting pompous tripe on usenet. john thrum