David C. Downing's Blog, page 9

Here's a poster for the upcoming Hobbit movie. (See TheHobbitMovie on Facebook.)...

Here's a poster for the upcoming Hobbit movie. (See TheHobbitMovie on Facebook.) Gandalf is beginning to look like a figure for religious veneration! Let's hope films don't leave out the robust humor in the original story.

Here's a rare recording of J. R. R. Tolkien himself reciting from The Lord of th...

Here's a rare recording of J. R. R. Tolkien himself reciting from The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was feeling discouraged in the summer of 1952, as his fantasy epic had been rejected by yet another publisher. In August of that year, Tolkien's friend George Sayer brought out the tape recorder one day, asking JRRT to read a few choice passages from LOTR.

Tolkien had never seen a tape recorder before and thought it was vaguely sinister. He even suggested that he should say the Lord's Prayer over it to cast out any unclean spirits. This he did (quoting in Old Gothic, an extinct language which virtually no one else on Earth could read, much less speak). Tolkien turned out to be a wonderful reader of his own works. And his discouragement was short-lived, as LOTR sold more than 3 million copies in his lifetime and has sold many more millions since his passing in 1973.


J.R.R. Tolkien recites the Ring Verse
This is a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien reciting the Ring Verse, from 'The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past'. "Three rings for the Elven-kings under t...

Other readers of this site have noticed how much J. K. Rowling draws on J. R. R....

Other readers of this site have noticed how much J. K. Rowling draws on J. R. R. Tolkien for many of her creative ideas in the Harry Potter books. Here's an amusing piece, courtesy of Jonathan Fruoco, about a reader who accused Tolkien (who published LOTR in the mid-50s) of ripping off J. K. Rowling!


Um, An IMDB User Actually Thought 'Lord of the Rings' Ripped Off 'Harry Potter'
www.businessinsider.com
Wonder what J.R.R. Tolkien would say.

Both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis endured the trenches of World War I and we...

Both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis endured the trenches of World War I and were scarred with memories that show up in their fiction.

Tolkien's depiction of the Dead Marshes in LOTR reflects his experience of No Man's Land, sodden wastes littered with corpses. In THE LAST BATTLE, Lewis depicts a band of unicorns being shot down before they even reached the battlefield, a common occurrence in WWI when "Tommies" were mowed down by machine gun fire as soon as they emerged from the protection of the trenches, before they even had a chance to raise their rifles.

LOOKING FOR THE KING author David C. Downing ponders a question at the F. W. Ewb...

LOOKING FOR THE KING author David C. Downing ponders a question at the F. W. Ewbank Colloquium at Taylor University. The photo is by gifted photographer Lancia E. Smith. Others photos of the conference may be viewed at her website, http://networkedblogs.com/yrNVk

LOOKING FOR THE KING author David C. Downing will be speaking this Friday, 9 am,...

LOOKING FOR THE KING author David C. Downing will be speaking this Friday, 9 am, at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Titled "Journey to Joy," Downing's presentation will focus on C. S. Lewis's PILGRIM'S REGRESS, which Lewis composed during a two- week holiday in 1932. (How many books composed in just a fortnight are still in print, and selling briskly, 80 years later?)

As a schoolboy, Tolkien was thrilled by these lines in Shakespeare: "M...

As a schoolboy, Tolkien was thrilled by these lines in Shakespeare:
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him."

Tolkien was very disappointed later in the play when the woods did not actually march against the castle. But the idea was not wasted on him, was it? . . .

C. S. Lewis admired "The Lord of the Rings" so much that he nominated Tolkien fo...

C. S. Lewis admired "The Lord of the Rings" so much that he nominated Tolkien for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But Tolkien didn't even make it past the first round. If you look up the Nobel Prize winners on Wikipedia, you might be surprised how few "popular" authors appear there--and how many writers you even never heard of!


Tolkien Rejected For Nobel Prize Because Of 'Poor Storytelling'
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
J. R. R. Tolkien may have won over millions of devoted fans across the globe with The Lord of the Rings, but to a small committee in Sweden known as the Nobel prize jury, his epic tale of Middle Earth just wasn't up to scratch. Newly declassified documents showing the inner workings of the world's m...

In his 20s, while translating "Beowulf" line by line from Anglo-Saxon, J. R. R....

In his 20s, while translating "Beowulf" line by line from Anglo-Saxon, J. R. R. Tolkien also ran across an old Germanic tale of one "Frotho," who seeks treasure from a "hoard the hill-haunter holds, a serpent of winding coils." Hmm, there might be a story worth retelling there . . .

Here is David C. Downing's commentary on Lewis's OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, due o...

Here is David C. Downing's commentary on Lewis's OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, due out soon as an e-book.

This preview also appears on the CSLewisOfficial Facebook page, which has over 500,000 "Likes." Lewis didn't enjoy tv or radio, so one can imagine how he would feel being "Liked" half a million times on the internet!


C. S. Lewis Blog: Out of the Silent Planet: Cosmic Voyage as Spiritual Pilgrimage
booksbycslewis.blogspot.com