3 Reasons Why Tolkien Is The Bomb
In honor of Tolkien’s long-unavailable translation of Beowulf coming to print, I thought I’d list out what I like about the guy.
1. He’s smart, and smart is cool
Tolkien taught at Oxford University as their Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College. I’m not really sure what it means, but it sounds like pretty intellectual stuff. Below is a picture of the Oxford Tolkien. No smarty-pants is complete without a pipe:
2. He had some bad shizz happen to him and rose above it to become a prolific writer and general smarty-pants (see #1)
This is Tolkien, aged 24, in military uniform, while serving in the British Army during World War I, 1916. Look at this face. You can just see the ‘OMFG this sucks’ in his eyes:
IMHO, Tolkien’s war-time experiences led to what I call his ‘little hands do the greatest work’ theme in his books.
3. He wrote kick-ass chicks
Galadriel and Eowyn are the two classics. He didn’t write many kick-ass chicks, but compared to the lit of the time, wrote a TON. I think this stemmed from his deep love for his wife, Edith Tolkien. She was the inspiration for his fictional characters Lúthien Tinúviel and Arwen Evenstar. To illustrate my point, here is a picture of a cool elf chick by Alan Lee, who did the original illustrations for the Hobbit and LOTR looks, and is just awesome in general:
Like how I pontificate about art, culture and other random stuff? Check out these posts:
Which Lord of the Rings is Best?
Thoughts on Lawrence of Arabia
An open letter to the French guy I met in Geneva, Switzerland
I have a thing for William Powell
An Open Letter to My Brain
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