onthetrail wrote:
Urulókë wrote:
Thanks for sharing these! Not many collect them, but I do think it is an excellent use of time and resources to dig them up and document/share. Much appreciated.
Agreed. And comparing comtemporary reviews against modern can be a lot of fun, seeing how they have changed over time as something gains a footing in popular culture.
You're very welcome! It's relentlessly enlightening.
Now onthetrail you have me idly speculating on what Edmund Wilson would have made of The Rings of Power... 🤔
Predictable Matt wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
Urulókë wrote:
Thanks for sharing these! Not many collect them, but I do think it is an excellent use of time and resources to dig them up and document/share. Much appreciated.
Agreed. And comparing comtemporary reviews against modern can be a lot of fun, seeing how they have changed over time as something gains a footing in popular culture.
You're very welcome! It's relentlessly enlightening.
Now onthetrail you have me idly speculating on what Edmund Wilson would have made of The Rings of Power... 🤔
"oo. Those Awful Amazon's"
By Edmund Wilson.
The Rings of Power has a character much like Gandalph, but he is not Gandalph. Defenders, ahh they bubble, they squeal, they coo. They go on about the Rings of Power - but is has the charm and distinction, much like Tolkien himself, meaning there is none.
Sound about right? 😅
onthetrail wrote:
"oo. Those Awful Amazon's"
By Edmund Wilson.
The Rings of Power has a character much like Gandalph, but he is not Gandalph. Defenders, ahh they bubble, they squeal, they coo. They go on about the Rings of Power - but is has the charm and distinction, much like Tolkien himself, meaning there is none.
Sound about right? 😅
Oh yes very good! I like that 👏
One reason I like looking at old reviews in situ is that this helps to remove mass media impressions and academic clichés that have formed in recent years. Reviewers could focus on what they actually read rather than referring boringly to the international Tolkien marketing phenomenon and so on.
Two recent blog posts on Richard Adams's review of The Silmarillion from Douglas Anderson and Khamul for those interested:
https://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com ... dams-on-silmarillion.html
https://silmarillion-minutiae.blogspot ... down-through-wood-ex.html
https://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com ... dams-on-silmarillion.html
https://silmarillion-minutiae.blogspot ... down-through-wood-ex.html
Tuor son of Huor wrote:
Two recent blog posts on Richard Adams's review of The Silmarillion from Douglas Anderson and Khamul for those interested:
https://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com ... dams-on-silmarillion.html
https://silmarillion-minutiae.blogspot ... down-through-wood-ex.html
Wonderful! Thank you for highlighting those.
In the book by N. Epple ‘Fairyland And Its Surroundings’ (2024) it is said on page 232:
‘According to legend, when Tolkien was once again asked at one of his lectures whether he meant the USSR by “darkness from the East,” the Professor replied: “No, not at all, what do the Communists have to do with it? Of course I meant Cambridge!” (the rivalry between the two major universities is a traditional joke).’
According to N. Epple, he heard the joke on the sidelines of the colloquium dedicated to ‘Perelandra’ by C.S. Lewis (Oxford, 24–25 June 2009).
For me, the facts seem almost improbable. Tolkien was reading lectures (at Oxford University, according to Epple) only for about five years after the publication of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, before the undergraduate boom of reading it, it seemed strange to ask (on several occasions) the Professor questions about his literary works, not on the topic of the lecture itself, and to receive a wicked answer (Tolkien spoke respectively on Cambridge, and I haven’t find contrary evidence).
Nevertheless, some saw such an allegory. ‘History through the Mind's Eye’ by Louis I. Halle (Saturday Review 28 January 1956) begins with the caption “Could the land of Mordor be Russia?”
The Bulletin of the Tolkien Society ‘Anduril’ (Issue 2, June 1972, p. 34) contained an illustration of the allegory.
A friend of Tolkien, Professor Przemyslaw Mroczkowski arriving from the Communist Poland said ‘I come from Mordor’ (https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/server/api/core/ ... a409-6aa319301291/content p.16).
Tolkien discussed such an opinion in his letters 203 and 229 (in the latter he criticized the foreword by Åke Ohlmarks to the Swedish translation).
Have you ever heard the joke? Have you met the opinion in other early reviews or feedbacks?
‘According to legend, when Tolkien was once again asked at one of his lectures whether he meant the USSR by “darkness from the East,” the Professor replied: “No, not at all, what do the Communists have to do with it? Of course I meant Cambridge!” (the rivalry between the two major universities is a traditional joke).’
According to N. Epple, he heard the joke on the sidelines of the colloquium dedicated to ‘Perelandra’ by C.S. Lewis (Oxford, 24–25 June 2009).
For me, the facts seem almost improbable. Tolkien was reading lectures (at Oxford University, according to Epple) only for about five years after the publication of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, before the undergraduate boom of reading it, it seemed strange to ask (on several occasions) the Professor questions about his literary works, not on the topic of the lecture itself, and to receive a wicked answer (Tolkien spoke respectively on Cambridge, and I haven’t find contrary evidence).
Nevertheless, some saw such an allegory. ‘History through the Mind's Eye’ by Louis I. Halle (Saturday Review 28 January 1956) begins with the caption “Could the land of Mordor be Russia?”
The Bulletin of the Tolkien Society ‘Anduril’ (Issue 2, June 1972, p. 34) contained an illustration of the allegory.
A friend of Tolkien, Professor Przemyslaw Mroczkowski arriving from the Communist Poland said ‘I come from Mordor’ (https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/server/api/core/ ... a409-6aa319301291/content p.16).
Tolkien discussed such an opinion in his letters 203 and 229 (in the latter he criticized the foreword by Åke Ohlmarks to the Swedish translation).
Have you ever heard the joke? Have you met the opinion in other early reviews or feedbacks?
How interesting! I've not heard of that joke before, and don't have any reason to doubt it or to believe it. That said, considering the Cold War climate of the 1950s, I don't think it inconceivable that a student might have asked that question. And as you say, the caption to the Halle review made the suggestion an explicit one. However - I suspect that the caption - alongside the inclusion of the map of Mordor - may have been an editorial decision rather than one made by Halle himself. The content of his review suggests (quite strongly) that the allegory is not one to which he subscribes (I previously posted a picture, with the same comment, here):
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... t_id=48390#forumpost48390
I have a feeling there was at least one other review (from the 1950s) that I've read, which drew the comparison. But I can't quite place it right now. I'll post again if I can find it.
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... t_id=48390#forumpost48390
I have a feeling there was at least one other review (from the 1950s) that I've read, which drew the comparison. But I can't quite place it right now. I'll post again if I can find it.
Predictable Matt wrote:
How interesting! I've not heard of that joke before, and don't have any reason to doubt it or to believe it. That said, considering the Cold War climate of the 1950s, I don't think it inconceivable that a student might have asked that question. And as you say, the caption to the Halle review made the suggestion an explicit one. However - I suspect that the caption - alongside the inclusion of the map of Mordor - may have been an editorial decision rather than one made by Halle himself. The content of his review suggests (quite strongly) that the allegory is not one to which he subscribes (I previously posted a picture, with the same comment, here):
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... t_id=48390#forumpost48390
I have a feeling there was at least one other review (from the 1950s) that I've read, which drew the comparison. But I can't quite place it right now. I'll post again if I can find it.
One other thing - I wouldn't necessarily characterise the joke as a wicked one - at least not in the sense of there being any genuine ill-feeling - it would (if the story were true) have been meant in the spirit of the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry.
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