Posted on 03/14/2002 5:07:26 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
Do you happen to know where in the letters this appears?
I have found something close in Letter 177 (to Rayner Unwin dated 8 Dec. 1955.) "Edwin Muir, reviewing The Return of the King in the Observer on 27 November, wrote:'All the characters are boys masquerading as adult heroes....and will never come to puberty.....Hardly one of them knows anything about women.'"
To which Tolkien replied:
Blast Edwin Muir and his delayed adolescence. He is old enough to know better. It might do him good to hear what women think of his 'knowing about women', especially as a test of being mentally adult. If he had an M.A. I should nominate him for the professorship of poetry-a sweet revenge.[A footnote about the poetry professorship [at Oxford] states that it was vacant at the time and nominations were being made for his successor. W.H. Auden was elected. He's the guy who said "If someone dislikes it [LOTR], I shall never trust their literary judgement about anything again."]
I'm not sure why that would be a sweet revenge (but then, sometimes I'm a slowcoach!)
I write stories for fun. Let me tell you, I have very little control over the characters. Once I create them, and start them off, I really am just along for the ride, chronicling the adventures. Occasionally a minor character will take over the story, or someone who should be the main character turns out to be totally unimportant. Maybe real writers don't work like that, but I find it fun! Almost as much fun as reading, and sometimes more.
Men don't know anything about women either until they've been married for a while...or so I've heard. ;) And isn't that the best way to learn?
Of course, I have no right at all to speak on the subject, but that's never stopped me before. :o
WOW! Lots and lots of goodies....
Hence ... cometh the muse .
I remember John Denver saying about "Rocky Mountain High" and "Calypso" that they came, all of a piece, in about 20 minutes. He had no idea where it came from ... he just received it and wrote it down. Of course, he was on a ski lift in the Rockies for the first one and actually on Jacque Coustos (Sp?) ship at sea for the second. There were others as well. Example only.
I may be over re-acting to the change. Maybe not.
Either way, I don't know what you're trying to say! It's in another language! ;-)
At first, there was this huge build up of excitement about the movie amongst many on FR and for some reason, the NZ Builds a Hobbit Hole thread seemed to be the gathering place. I think it was because it was a short article and there were few large graphics and it just was easy to post to it. A few people posted some pretty insightful thoughts and it got others who happened by to thinking and they started posting what they thought and the next thing you know, the huge build-up was released! People were talking and commenting like crazy! Then ultimately, everyone "felt better" and started not commenting as often. And being responsible Freepers, they moved the chat-like comments to a more informal setting, the FR Hobbit Hole egroup.
I am of the opinion that after this Friday, things may well pick up for a while again. The Two Towers preview is going to be quite a thrill.
DOH! Call me Nob the Slowcoah! I've been doing some guessing in my slow pate. If Tolkien had nominated that bozo, W.H. Auden would have kicked his butt in the election.
It is impossible to maintain the same intensity that we had when everyone was seeing the film for the first time, second time, third time, fourth time, and retelling the emotion of seeing this film. Many are still going to see it, but the conversations have all been had on the subject of the first film! (some of the better conversations have been had 3-4 times!) And what a great ride it was! Now we wait for the next important new thing to re-light our fires.
If things are quiet now, it is because we are between events. Personally, I will need that break in intensity. I can't do it for three years at that pace without a breather.
Gandalf and Thorongil were battling the Corsairs fleet 40 years before the War of the Ring (2979).
Did anyone else notice how different Frodo was in this final scene as compared to the entire rest of the movie? He was very calm, almost disconnected from all of the turmoil that he had been caught up in from the time that he took possession of the ring. It is quite startling, especially when compared with the previous scenes where he makes his decision and where Sam joins him, which contain some of the most intense emotional turmoil he's experienced thus far. And yet here in this scene, his words reflect that he knows he is going forward to his death, yet it is here that he is the calmest.
I thought that was interesting, and I wonder what all went into deciding to do this this way, and since it's been awhile since I read that part of the book, does the book follow a similar emotional arc? Or is it different?
As for your earlier comments about rings of power and their danger, except for the one ring, it seemed to me that magic rings were not nearly as dangerous to the bearer as that ring turns out to be. And it's likely Gandalf thought that a magic ring in the possession of a hobbit, who would not likely use it for anything beyond just disappearing, would not be a problem. There also seems to be something about the fact that no one who is not being extraordinarily tempted by the ring ever thinks it would be okay to just take the ring away from either Bilbo or Frodo. Perhaps Gandalf didn't feel it was appropriate for him to take the ring away in the first place, and he did not truly realize the danger. By the time he spoke to Frodo of the perilous nature of rings of power, he understood more fully what they were dealing with, but perhaps what was "perilous" to humans and/or elves he didn't think would be a problem to a hobbit...
Okay, it's a bit of a stretch, but it's the best I can come up with. ;) I do think that Gandalf had no idea of the corrupting power of the ring that Bilbo possessed until Bilbo's birthday and he saw all the Gollum-like symptoms. In the movie, I thought they (and particularly Ian Holm) did a wonderful of job of pointing to that, because Bilbo literally turned into another person during that scene. It was truly a Jekyll-Hyde moment. Until then, I honestly don't think Gandalf thought there was any lasting effect or danger to Bilbo in possessing the ring. Then the ring passed to Frodo, and Gandalf spent the next several years trying to find Gollum to find out where the ring came from in the first place.
All rings of power might be "perilous" but Bilbo was no pushover--he had a lot of strength of character and knowledge and goodness in his own right. Maybe Gandalf figured he was up to the task...and he would have been, if it had been an ordinary, garden-variety ring of power.
Which brought me back to the question of what Gandalf was doing all those years. The real world intruded and I had to get back to work before I got much farther than finding the date of the Corsair thing.
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