Dessert setting?
Posted on 03/19/2020 8:43:30 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Maybe it’s because of Amazon’s upcoming TV series, but lately we seem to be learning a lot of hitherto unknown facts about The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, or at least, some old facts are getting spread around anew. Just recently, author John M. Bowers posited that Tolkien may have written his genre-defining trilogy while procrastinating on his academic work. (Would that all our procrastinations were that fruitful.) Now, the @SecretsOfDune Twitter account has posted a page from Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist by Oronzo Chili, which seeks to understand this literary titan by perusing his bookshelf. And in going through Tolkien’s old letters, Chili gained some insight into Tolkien’s opinion on other genre-defining books of the day.
I’m talking about Frank Herbert’s Dune, a towering sci-fi classic that influenced everything from Alien to Blade Runner to Star Wars. What did Tolkien think of it? Read on:
So the pertinent quote comes form a letter Tolkien wrote to someone named John Bush in 1966, a year after Dune was published. Bush, for whatever reason, had sent Tolkien a copy of Dune, and the author wasn’t exactly bowled over:
It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment.
So Tolkien wasn’t a fan of Herbert’s heady space opera. I’d love to ask him why. Speaking as someone who’s read both works more than once, I definitely prefer the warmth and open emotionality of The Lord of the Rings to the chilly precision of Dune, but that’s just me.
Anyway, both of these franchises are about to come back to the fore in a big way, with Amazon’s LOTR series on the one hand and Denis Villeneuve’s new movie adaptation of Dune on the other. Whether you prefer sci-fi or fantasy, it’s a good time to be into genre.
I read Dune once.That was enough.
Read and enjoyed LOTR several times.
He was definitely a snob about C. S. Lewis’ work even though they were friends.
Do you remember who the third person was who died on the same day as Kennedy and C.S. Lewis? Interesting.
I beg to differ. He was certainly an influence but he did not convert C.S. Lewis.
“The Screwtape Letters” read by Cleese are a masterpiece.”
Thanks for that tip, I’ll be searching that out.
bookmark
As much as I enjoyed Tolkien, I think I enjoyed Dune more. Suspension of disbelief wasn’t as much required with Dune. Matter of fact, replace spice with petroleum and it’s go time.
Dessert setting?
Absolutely...I have it. Time to listen again!
I liked the Dune series but then have realized that the author must have had a bit of snarky bit of fun, making bank on a series in which the entire universe was hooked on psychodelic worm feces! Spice blow indeed! At least Duncan Idaho in the later books reintroduced A.I. and computers allowing FTL ships without Spiced space navigation.
An entire universe hooked on baby worm feces and making millions off the books. I’ve been had! L Ron Hubbard must have ben envious of Herbert.
Brits of academe fame love trying to out”snob” each other...it’s their national past time.
Aldous Huxley...
There is a great book from Peter Kreft about them in the lobby of the afterlife having a discussion.
You are correct. CS Lewis was let to the LORD by a combination of things and people. GK Chesterton and his writing were credited by Lewis as examples of those things. The friendship between Lewis and Tolkien are a little overblown, they were definitely friends. Tolkien did not like the mixing of different mythological characters e.g. Greek characters and North-Western European types in one setting, he was a bit of purest. Hence, he didn’t like Narnia that much.
They were friends, but later Tolkien grew estranged for several reasons.
I read/heard somewhere to replace spice with a substance holds the value of oil and cocaine simultaneously.
Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin books are also on that shelf.
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I have special leather-bound copies on my shelf...some of the best written novels I’ve ever read - and I’m not even a sailor!
I actually really liked the prequels but I saw more of Kevin J. Anderson in the writing.
Then again, I’m just sitting back waiting for a Foundation or Rama series of films.
The problem with getting a book to the screen is the director.
Like a dog, they have to sniff it and piss on it before anything else about it can get done.
Without googling, no, I don’t. Who else did we lose that terrible day?
How many noticed the Arabic honorifics used, as well.
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