"Arcadian rustics": I love it.
W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
31–40 of 193 posts
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#32I need to re-read it. I probably finished the last book 20 years ago. Then I saw the films. And in the intervening years my opinion and attitude towards it, and the genre as a whole, has shifted toward the negative. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just from getting older.
Have you read The Silmarillion, by chance? It gives a great deal of the background mythology of LOTR.
I got about 1/3 through it.
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#33It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…
Honestly I think any LOTR fan should be so grateful for those movies. It could have gone wrong in so many ways. At one point it was supposed to be a single movie. It could have deviated completely from the books, it could have been super cheaply made. Remember, the books didn't have a big pop culture presence at the time. Fortunately, Jackson and others involved were really passionate about doing it right, and convin…
> At one point it was supposed to be a single movie. It could have deviated completely from the books, it could have been super cheaply made.
The problem, if you will, with a great but imperfect work of art is that no one else will attempt the same work again. Because it has already been done and it's hard to top a smashing success.
If it had been a bad LotR movie, one would be able to hope, probably reasonably, that a good one might eventually be made. It would be a dissatisfying situation, just like that 1978 film. But the 2000s LoTR films were, indeed, quite good. And so they will likely be the final word.
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#34It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…
I feel fortunate that I read those books as a kid before seeing so much as a fan-art drawing. Nothing can compare to the visuals drawn in your imagination from reading Tolkien. Jackson's aesthetic take on the places was largely as wonderful as his take on the characters was abominable, but either way it would be a tragedy for someone to see the movies before reading the books. And you're right that there was no excuse to so mangle the material.
Waterson has a degree of artistic integrity that's sadly vanishingly rare these days.
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#35For a contrary view, Google for Edmund Wilson's essay, "Oh, Those Awful Orcs".
When I was a teenager, my mum suggested I read Lord of the Rings. Or perhaps it was The Hobbit. Whatever. There were some guys on horses, and maybe a spider. That's all I remember. It was boring as fuck, and I gave up at about page 70,000 - or so it felt like. I was still young enough that I hadn't realised that you could just give up at page 2 if you wanted.
Anyway, dear reader, I guess my point is: if you hate this fucking shit too, you are not alone.
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#36I need to re-read it. I probably finished the last book 20 years ago. Then I saw the films. And in the intervening years my opinion and attitude towards it, and the genre as a whole, has shifted toward the negative. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just from getting older.
As for the genre as a whole, here's Pratchett on considering fantasy "genre": https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/lvoi3t/the_late_si...
(I didn't quickly find a more readable form than the image uploaded to Reddit)
Maybe it helps you to reconsider.
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#37I need to re-read it. I probably finished the last book 20 years ago. Then I saw the films. And in the intervening years my opinion and attitude towards it, and the genre as a whole, has shifted toward the negative. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just from getting older.
I’m old and tried re-reading it recently and the low number of female characters and voices is really jarring now. YMMV. There’s so much I haven’t yet read I just moved on.
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Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#38It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…
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Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#39It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…
I too love the books, I've read the trilogy at least 16 times and the Silmarillion at least 3 or 4 at this point (haven't gotten into the others yet but hope to one day). Yes, the tv series can be entirely forgotten. So can the hobbit trilogy - I personally don't mind if the tone is a bit more lighthearted, the book was as well, it was meant to be more of a children's book after all. But certainly much of the extra m…
Well what are the two major gripes?
Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly I think any LOTR fan should be so grateful for those movies. It could have gone wrong in so many ways. At one point it was supposed to be a single movie. It could have deviated completely from the books, it could have been super cheaply made. Remember, the books didn't have a big pop culture presence at the time. Fortunately, Jackson and others involved were really passionate about doing it right, and convin…
> At one point it was supposed to be a single movie. It could have deviated completely from the books, it could have been super cheaply made. The problem, if you will, with a great but imperfect work of art is that no one else will attempt the same work again. Because it has already been done and it's hard to top a smashing success. If it had been a bad LotR movie, one would be able to hope, probably reasonably, that…
I'm not sure that's really true. Take, for example, the Harry Potter movies. They were great, but imperfect, and were really well received. But they are still being readapted into a TV series.