Michael’s Comments (group member since Jun 10, 2010)

Michael’s comments from the J.R.R. Tolkien group.

Both excellent choices, David ☺ Good luck with the Silmarilion - I found that once I 'clicked' into it, I fair flew along.

On reflection, I think I'm with John Rhys-Davies.

If it happens, it's inevitable that I'll watch it. I hope I won't be bitter about it, like those Star Trek "fans" who are so voluably excoriating about the new Discovery series (which I've enjoyed).

Ah - perhaps the moon's journeyings prior to the Fourth Age were a little different :-D

How interesting! That Tolkien should have ensured that he correctly used the lunar phases in his stories is, on reflection, as expected as it is delightful to discover :-)

WIth sincere apologies for its late launching, the 2018 Tolkien Reading Challenge is, at last, under sail!

If you've already read a book this year that you want to include in your challenge, just create a new shelf for your challenge and set that shelf on the Challenge page when you join. If you have any difficulties, please let us know :-)

Tara wrote: "It was all over social media today that Christopher has stepped down as the head of the Tolkien Estate, which is not a good sign IMO"

His introduction to Beren and Lúthien suggested he would soon be relinquishing the reins. It feels like we may be about to experience something akin to the passing of the Ring from Bilbo to Frodo.

So, I feel I want to clarify that Amazon doesn't have the rights to LoTR, rather they have the rights to play in the Middle-earth sandtray. As previously noted, the intention is to focus on happenings between the end of The Hobbit and the start of The Lord of the Rings.

The Amazon adaptation of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle was excellent in the first series, pedestrian in the second (just my opinion, of course). They also co-produced the Electric Dreams series of adaptations of some PKD short stories, with hit-and-miss results. Both shows played fast and loose with PKD's original narratives in a way that I feel bodes ill for their Tolkien foray. Obviously, I hope it's a rollicking success if it makes it to the screen, but I'm filled more with trepidation than anticipation.

Here's the amusingly pessimistic view of a TV critic who also hasn't seen the show yet 😉

Tracey wrote: "
I'm feeling a queasy mix of excitement and terror..."

I'm feeling only the terror! 😨😁

Jackson's not in the frame as director, that position has gone to Finnish director Dome Karukoski.

Nicholas Hoult will pay the young Tolkien, and Lilly Collins his wife, Edith.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/08/31...

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt3361792/

Here's a link to John D. Rateliff's blog (always worth a read for a Tolkeinista), focusing on the firmest possibility to date of a Tolkien biopic going into production. A prospect which fills me with a high degree of trepidation.

Well, I got distracted from reading B&L, but back to it now...

Yes, he has strong female characters, but relatively few, with male characters overwhelmingly taking the centre stage. In terms of being an active protagonist, Eowyn stands out as a lone example, whilst the other female characters are remote archetypes (Galadriel) or defined by their relationships to men (Arwen>Aragorn; Goldberry>Tom Bombadil).

This doesn't, for me, detract from Tolkien's writings, as I carry across some understanding of his personal experience, cultural milieu and religious background (cf. St. Paul on the subordinate/submissive role he expects women to take in church/society), but it is undeniably true that Tolkien's works are heavily androcentric. As Tolkien is adamant that his work is not allegorical, we can't fall back on a consciously intended subtext of a masculine/active-feminine/passive universal principle as acting in Middle-earth, and must locate that in Tolkien's own, real-world attitudes.

This is not to say that I think he is misogynistic, but women do not figure as largely in his legendarium as do men.

Joshua wrote: ""There aren't any women in the battles or on the quest, so Tolkien's women aren't strong characters and therefore he was afraid of women and chauvinistic, or infantile and not interested in sex." ..."

Ah, yes - I see what you mean. That sort of faux psychologising is annoying. I can't comment as to whether it happens more to Tolkien than other writers, however, as one of the most popular of writers in the West, I guess it's no surprise that he attracts a certain attention.

I take your point entirely about Eowyn - she is probably the best drawn of his female characters. Obviously, a character like Galadriel is 'strong' in the sense of the power she wields in Middle-earth, but we don't get to know her as a rounded person in the same way we do with the male characters in LoTR.

The Hobbit has only one female 'character' - the white hind which crosses the travellers' path in Mirkwood. There and gone in a couple of sentences.

I've seen criticism from people who don't like Tolkien as a writer, or who don't like fantasy as a genre, but that's just personal taste and those people are entitled to their (view spoiler)[incorrect ;-) (hide spoiler)] opinion.

I'm interested to hear about the arguments that are "vitriolic" or "vituperative" as I can't recall seeing such (maybe I've blocked them out!) and would like to know what those arguments amount to.

I think a criticism that can seriously be made against him is the sparcity of female "lead" characters in his main works. It's not that he couldn't write them, as Beren and Lúthien shows to some degree, but that he he chose not to. A result of his times and social position, no doubt, though I'm sure he could have transcended such if he had wished to.

Does he attract vituperative and unreasonable criticism? I suppose that's a naïve question these days. :-)

Could you give a couple of more specific examples of the types of criticism you feel are unwarranted? (Please don't mention reviewer names as I don't want to inadvertently start a 'campaign' against anybody!)

Derek Jacobi is a magnificent actor. Pity he didn't get a part in the films (or a lucky escape for him, depending on your view!

Codex wrote: "There is also an excellent German radio adaptation. Why, when they can do radioplays so faithfully, have films to be such abominations?"

The "special effects" are the listener's imagination.

When the BBC first broadcast their radio adaptation of LoTR, you could send off for a free poster, which I did and which lived on my walls for a long time, but somewhere over the years it went off on its own perilous journey. I still miss it...

I'm grateful that I've found it easy to separate the books from the films in my mind. I'd read both LoTR and The Hobbit dozens of times before the films were released, so my own images must be hardwired into my brain!

The books have primacy for me, but I enjoy the LoTR films in their own right. The Hobbit films, sadly and predictably, are execrable.