Posted on 03/19/2020 8:43:30 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien was published in 1981. I've had my own copy for around 35-40 years.
VERY old news.
Since “Dune” has been called the brainiest science fiction franchise, I doubt the 2020 Dune remake will be better than the Syfy series. I’m afraid they’ll mimic Brian Herbert’s lousy prequels and attempts to finish the series, dumbing it down for the sake of popular appeal, while the fan base is told you’re bad or worse for not liking it.
BTW I utterly detest some of Brian's work. Nowhere near all, but for me some of it stinks on ice. 'Nuff said...
Possibly not thrilled with it’s islamicism?
He didn't like Lewis's "Everything and the kitchen sink" fantasy of Narnia rather than a tight, internally consistent story like his own.
I'm Highland Scots - but the history was ALWAYS dry and boring till I read her [HUGE] books.
I actually rate her as a more gifted writer than Tolkien, if that's possible.
I read “The Lord of the Rings” (and “The Hobbit” and “The Silmarillion”) and “Dune”.
I found both to be very entertaining reads some years ago.
I think I like TLOTR a little better.
The follow-up Dune books are not too good.
And yes...I think Stephen Miller is Trump’s Gurney Halek, his knifeman.
Is this Dune connected to that movie that was in a dessert setting, and had giant worms in it?
I never saw it, nor wanted to see it once I found that out.
Some folks are into Science Fiction, while others are not.
I feel the same way about all the Alien Series.
Not for me.
I think the endless quarrel is Aristotle vs. Plato.
LOTR is very Aristotle, numbers, classifications, reality.
Dune is very Plato, ideals, magic-realism, messianic man.
They’re just too far apart, but I love both.
It wasn't that Tolkien wasn't keen on Narnia, per se, it was that he despised allegory. He thought it unartful and cheap.
yet cleese remains an atheist.
It’s a bit more than what you describe. The movie dramatized the scenic giant worms. Herbert had a simple way think up the giant worms— ever see someone use a stick and a board to vibrate mud and giant worms will come right up to the surface from the irritation.
Same thing with the giant Dune worms—who rather sense sound on the surface of the sand dunes and come up to attack people or things making sound. The particular connection (parallels the oil wells of Middle East imho) is to the Spice which allows vast distances in space to be navigated by ships. A plausible biologic known universe trade in a special “drug” (heroin?) wired into space travel and the battle between medieval like “Houses” on different planets. Good (the water planet Ruler and House) comes to rescue the Desert Planet (taken over and ruled by some real sicko perverts and murderers)vs.Evil.
Movie is difficult to follow without having read the main Novel Dune, which is very busy in the “culture” of the worlds the writer created. Not bad for a futuristic Middle East war scenario far in the future and in another galaxy. An early kind of Game of Thrones... without stupid plot lines.
Why did he want to read it?
Tolkein’s fellow “Inklings” at their meetings at the Eagle and Childe pub in Oxford were not uncritical of Lord of the Rings as Tolkein previewed his work in progress. Stephen Spender once interrupted a reading by Tolkein of a passage where the hobbits meet an elf along the way by moaning, “Oh no, not another f*cking elf!” Tolkein carried on, stoically.
Referring to John Cleese-— reading Screwtape Letters? Because it was a national broadcast at some point, and he was on contract with BBC and it paid well in the broadcast residuals aside from scale hourly pay to do it. The listening data showed record number of people listening in— however they were determining this number. Residuals could add up to multiples of the original counted in the contract-— they all wanted to hear John Cleese, so they paid the ticket for the hall live and then bought the later recordings. Great pay for reading a novel
Hmmm. I thought he was a true believer.
there is a discussion with archbishop of canterbury,malcolm muggeridge, cleese and michael palin, on their new at the time movie “life of Brian” is on youtube. Obvious cleese at that time a non-believer
No need to be. You don’t have to adopt Tolkien’s opinions. It may have been jealousy for all we know. They are, after all, completely different genrés. Tolkien was writing mythic fantasy while the Dune series was mythic Science Fiction with a Religious bent. While some think they are the same, they aren’t. They operate under somewhat different rules. Fantasy writers don’t have to apply the same restrictions that SF writers do.
Sorry about that. Deal with it. Different strokes for all of us.
As a side note, the tank warfare Smartphone/tablet game World of Tanks Blitz has (or had, it may have been removed) an Easter Egg on one of the desert maps where, when you shoot a certain building’s window, a sand worm appears (!!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42v1U7YFqoQ
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