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8 Nov, 2011
2011-11-8 5:55:49 AM UTC
John Rateliff describes some of the changes in the one volume History of the Hobbit.

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/11/ ... obbit-second-edition.html
8 Nov, 2011
2011-11-8 9:57:30 AM UTC

Khamul wrote:

What I was really edging towards saying was --if Rateliff (watch that spelling SonOfDolf! ) just doesn't like Blok's art personally (otherwise known as personal taste), he should just plainly state this. Instead it's dressed up in some fairly harsh criticism of the art itself. It was the tone more than anything.
BH

To be fair to Rateliff, I think that any discussion of art (beyond any technical comments on a particular technique) would be considered to personal taste. I'm not sure it is necessary for comments to be prefaced as such.


Khamul wrote:

That aside, I wonder who he does rate. I think, personally, that Tolkien saw in Blok's art something he liked --hence buying a few. Blok reminds me of Baynes (& more recently Ruth Lacon) in lacking realism. Somehow I don't think (just speculation, mind) Tolkien would have much liked Howe, Nasmith, or even perhaps Lee. I'm just curious as to whether Rateliff rates any of the big three...

BH

I'm not sure that it really matters that much what Tolkien would have liked as to whether the art has merit for someone else. Given the personal nature of art appreciation, the fact that someone else draws value from something doesn't necessarily mean a great deal - whether that 'someone else' is Tolkien or Rateliff.

With regards to the review, I agree that it was perhaps a tiny bit mean in tone, but fundamentally it was an "opinion piece" and should be treated as such.

And to declare my own personal position, I quite like some of Blok's pictures and others not at all. They seem to be a mixed bag, quality-wise. I think the book is actually the right format for them, rather than the calendar which I think is more of a throwaway item for the masses and should have more mainstream appeal.

Stu
8 Nov, 2011
2011-11-8 9:02:49 PM UTC
I agreed with most of what you say Stu.

I just thought "glorious awfulness" was a little uncalled for; & stating that the most worthwhile thing about this book was Tolkien's letter --well, that's a little unfair. If that's what he thinks, why buy it?, since he clearly dislikes Blok's work with a passion.

BH
10 Nov, 2011
2011-11-10 6:25:27 AM UTC
13 Nov, 2011
2011-11-13 6:26:15 AM UTC
John Rateliff posts on the new release of Mr Bliss (the title mentions the Art of the Hobbit but that will be in his next post).

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/11/ ... -hobbit-and-mr-bliss.html
15 Nov, 2011
2011-11-15 5:14:43 AM UTC

Trotter wrote:
(the title mentions the Art of the Hobbit but that will be in his next post).

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/11/art-of-hobbit.html
14 Feb, 2012
2012-2-14 5:46:31 AM UTC
Looks like this book has finally been published

Green Suns and Faerie
Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien


Verlyn Flieger

A major contribution to the growing body of Tolkien scholarship

With the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and forthcoming film version of The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien’s popularity has never been higher. In Green Suns and Faërie, author Verlyn Flieger, one of world’s foremost Tolkien scholars, presents a selection of her best articles—some never before published—on a range of Tolkien topics.

The essays are divided into three distinct sections. The first explores Tolkien’s ideas of sub-creation–the making of a Secondary World and its relation to the real world, the second looks at Tolkien’s reconfiguration of the medieval story tradition, and the third places his work firmly within the context of the twentieth century and “modernist” literature. With discussions ranging from Tolkien’s concepts of the hero to the much-misunderstood nature of Bilbo’s last riddle in The Hobbit, Flieger reveals Tolkien as a man of both medieval learning and modern sensibility—one who is deeply engaged with the past and future, the regrets and hopes, the triumphs and tragedies, and above all the profound difficulties and dilemmas of his troubled century.

Taken in their entirety, these essays track a major scholar’s deepening understanding of the work of the master of fantasy. Green Suns and Faërie is sure to become a cornerstone of Tolkien scholarship.



http://www.kentstateuniversitypress.c ... 11/green-suns-and-faerie/
14 Feb, 2012
2012-2-14 8:14:09 AM UTC
This is a rhetorical question - why should a description of a serious book about Tolkien begin with references to Peter Jackson?!

I'm officially disgruntled.

14 Feb, 2012
2012-2-14 8:31:16 AM UTC

garm wrote:
This is a rhetorical question - why should a description of a serious book about Tolkien begin with references to Peter Jackson?!

I'm officially disgruntled.



Hee Hee, you are easily disgruntled.

But I agree with you :)
14 Feb, 2012
2012-2-14 12:35:28 PM UTC
For the record (I've already announced the book in a comment to the news section):

The Romance of the Middle Ages by Nicholas Perkins and Alison Wiggins (exhibition book from the Bodleian Library)

From King Arthur and the Round Table to Alexander the Great's global conquests and encounters with fire-breathing dragons, the stories of romance appear in some of the most beautiful books of the Middle Ages, and still resonate today. This book provides an engaging, scholarly, and richly illustrated guide to medieval romance and its continuing influence on literature and art. Romance's conjunctions of chivalric violence, love, sex, and piety, and its openness to the miraculous, monstrous or bizarre mark it out as the most fertile narrative form of the Western Middle Ages. This book examines the development of romance as a literary genre, its place in medieval culture, and the scribes and readers who copied, owned, and commented on romance books, from magnificent illuminated manuscripts to personal notebooks and chance survivals. It also explores the complex anatomy of human desire in romance, as portrayed by writers including Dante, Chaucer, and Thomas Malory. Medieval romance was hugely popular after the Middle Ages. Shakespeare, Spenser, and Walter Scott imbibed its motifs, Mark Twain parodied them, and the Pre-Raphaelites based an aesthetic movement around them. The Romance of the Middle Ages traces the influence of the genre to the twentieth century and beyond, encompassing the stories of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and J.K. Rowling, the Jedi knights of Star Wars and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Nicholas Perkins is Fellow and Tutor in English at St Hugh's College and University Lecturer in Medieval English, University of Oxford. Alison Wiggins is Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Glasgow.

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