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W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

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Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#71

Post by eredengrin »

zabzonk wrote: post #66
antonyt wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faramir never needed to.

i have never found that believable - if the ring is represented as capable of corrupting anyone, why not faramir? why not send faramir to mordor with it, rather than frodo?

I mean there's degrees of temptation. I don't think that simply being in the ring's presence was generally portrayed to be an insurmountable temptation. Some situations were specifically mentioned as causing the ring's power over a person to increase (eg length of time someone used the ring would put them more under its temptation) so I don't see why it's so hard to believe that someone could send off the ring bearer. In any case if that's an issue for you, how do you get around other more fundamental issues, such as how eg Aragorn manages to escape the temptation?

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#72

Post by ajkjk »

pjbster wrote: post #69
soligern wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well what are the two major gripes?

I have two different major gripes. First, the power of the ring is not put into a proper context and, second, the film's exposition ruined the role of Gandalf and undermined the otherworldliness of Galadriel. Let's put the ring into context. Imagine you were walking along and you came across an ordinary looking smartphone. Amazingly it works and you can make calls on it. Anywhere in the world. For free! That's not ba…

"Drivel" seems like a strong word. All that stuff works pretty well, despite how much it annoyed you.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#73

Post by ajkjk »

csallen wrote: post #12
andrewstuart wrote: post #10

It 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…

If you don't like the recent commercial depictions of the LotR series… don't watch them? Of course you have the right to criticize and complain about them. But to let their existence "spoil" your enjoyment of the original works seems excessive. The original works were not somehow changed by the creation of new works, and so neither should your ability to enjoy them change.

> If you don't like the recent commercial depictions of the LotR series… don't watch them?

for me they don't "spoil" the original work and I ignore them, but it is, in a way... deeply, cosmically, saddening, to the see the world do a shit job with a thing that you love. It hurts. It feels tragic that the world could be so shitty, in the same way that reading news articles about horrible people does.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#74

Post by propter_hoc »

shrubble wrote: post #24
mberning wrote: post #5

I 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 have to say it's massively unlikely that someone who read LOTR and disliked it would enjoy the Silmarillion.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#75

Post by gumby »

zabzonk wrote: post #61
gumby wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. I never saw the hobbit movies because I heard they had a lot of fighting. It’s a lighthearted book.

You might not like the movies (I don't) but I think it is a bit suspect not to watch them because of a review, if you like the books. Also, there is quite bit of fighting in the book.

In the Lord of the Rings, sure, but not much in the hobbit.

But in general I’m not interested in a film of a book I liked anyway.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#76

Post by gumby »

resolutebat wrote: post #19

"The Fellowship of the Ring is at least as good as The Thirty-Nine Steps. " For anybody else wondering what The Thirty-Nine Steps is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Nine_Steps

I took that as sarcasm when I saw that but by the end I felt he was earnest.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#77

Post by msla »

resolutebat wrote: post #19

"The Fellowship of the Ring is at least as good as The Thirty-Nine Steps. " For anybody else wondering what The Thirty-Nine Steps is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Nine_Steps

In more context:

> on the primitive level of wanting to know what happens next, The Fellowship of the Ring is at least as good as The Thirty-Nine Steps.

That is, it's an engaging narrative up there with a book that's been adapted into four films, a stage play, and enough radio dramas it would be tiresome to count them all. So, yes, high praise for Tolkien's ability to tell a story people want to continue reading.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#78

Post by TillE »

maxFlow wrote: post #30

Currently listening to the LOTR audiobooks narrated by Andy Serkis. Highly recommended. His characters are heavily influenced by Peter Jackson's movies; it put me off a bit at first, but I've really come to like it now.

The Serkis ones are good, but I really love the old Rob Inglis versions. Someone described them as the closest thing to Tolkien himself reading the books.

Surprisingly I think some of his voices (eg, Gandalf) do match the vibe of the films better; even his Gollum isn't too far off.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#79

Post by helsinkiandrew »

zabzonk wrote: post #8

I had not read this review before, and I was surprised how positive it was. I can't imagine Auden and Tolkein would have got on well. But they both loved countryside, and so maybe I am wrong.

> I can't imagine Auden and Tolkein would have got on well. But they both loved countryside, and so maybe I am wrong

They became friends later in life, perhaps because of Auden's championing of his work, although they fell out when Auden wanted to write a book about Tolkien.

https://lithub.com/how-j-r-r-tolkien-blocked-w-h-auden-from-...

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#80

Post by AlbertCory »

cafard wrote: post #2

For a contrary view, Google for Edmund Wilson's essay, "Oh, Those Awful Orcs".

For a contrary view of Edmund Wilson, get the Kindle sample of To the Finland Station https://www.amazon.com/Finland-Station-Writing-History-Class... :

I wouldn't give a lot of deference to a book review by someone who'd write that. I'm sure his titanic reputation is well-deserved, but "readability" isn't his strong suit.

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