The Hall of Fire

As I briefly mentioned elsewhere in response to this news, we've known for 28 years that Tolkien was recruited for cryptography work in 1939. What's notable in this article is the claim that he turned them down. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981) says just the opposite: In January 1939 Tolkien was...

Now- how many knew that Gollum was captured and questioned by Uglúk outside Lórien? Anyone who's closely read Hammond and Scull's The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion since that work appeared late in 2005. It has been < argued > that this is one catch-and-release too many, fortunately absent...

solicitr wrote:...and Costa-Gavras' films have, to put it mildly, a political agenda.

He was an excellent filmmaker, though: Z is brilliantly done.

Charles Noad, author of the essay "On the Construction of The Silmarillion "... He has both praise and criticism for it, not surprisingly. Overall I think it is a good review. I was most struck by this comment by Noad: The 1977 version became a work of lesser importance, a somewhat second...

I agree with Sir V; I am puzzled as to why Palin is so often in the limelight. As the wife of a VERY conservative Republican, I hear lots of conservative talk radio in my home. Palin is really not discussed too much on those shows. And if she is, it is only to respond to situations where she was pu...

Great report! For the moment, I'll just add that it was great to meet Voronwë properly (two years ago we spoke for all of 30 seconds) and that both his paper and his contribution to the panel were excellent.

Finally, the OED on gibberish: Unintelligible speech belonging to no known language, and supposed to be of arbitrary invention; inarticulate chatter, jargon. Often applied contemptuously to blundering or ungrammatical language, to obscure and pretentious verbiage, etc. The OED's examples of that co...

Still, there is no doubt that most of the supporting posts are sincere. Of a particular interest was this one. THERE ARE 28 STATES SERIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT SECEDEING... Texas is the front runner and kept their right to do so before joining the Union of the States... I know I'll run with a succession...

Brian Henderson has this to say about the tone of AR ...But it might be observed how at odds this is with the general tone of criticism in scholarly and academic Tolkien studies. ...Still, it certainly is true that some of it is at odds with the general tone of criticism in scholarly and academic T...

To be fair Bratman does give examples to explain what he means by the "spirit" of Tolkien's work. Amusingly, at one point he cites the exact same quote by Jackson in support of his argument that Kristin Thompson ... uses ... to show that Jackson knew what he was doing. Thus the unfalsifia...

I always shake my head when someone claims to have an insight on what, precisely, the "spirit" of a work of literature is. To be fair Bratman does give examples to explain what he means by the "spirit" of Tolkien's work. Amusingly, at one point he cites the exact same quote by J...

Did Edith Tolkien ("Lúthien") have pointed ears?

Well, as I said in another thread, you're not the only one to (justly) criticize something Shippey's written.

Anduril wrote:Looks interesting, as does the book itself.

Bratman's is a superb essay, but it's not about the films so much as arguments made by the films' defenders.

There is, in the new issue of Tolkien Studies an essay entitled "Councils and Kings: Aragorn's Journey Towards Kingship in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings " by Judy Ann Ford and Robin Anne Reid. I know nothing about the authors, and I haven...

3. The big one: Èowyn vs. Witch-king Èowyn: I will kill you if you touch him! Witch-king: Do not come between the Nazgûl and his prey. Witch-king: Fool... No man can kill me... die now... Èowyn: I am no man! I don't rememer the films much, so it's almost like I'm seeing these for the first time. It...

Regarding the latter, Kane observes that “Tom Shippey cites [one passage] as an example of Tolkien’s genius for creating compelling images. Yet, as we have seen, Thingol’s death in the dark recesses of Menegroth was completely an invention of the editors” (216). Though Kane is circumspect enough, p...

Once I joined TORC, however, I made the mistake of taking the word of certain people about the TORN community, which was a shame. I vaguely gather that the hostility went both ways, though I've never been sure how each side characterized the other. I was late in discovering online Tolkiena (in Dece...

Oh! That's a great point. I never thought of it, but it's true -- Frodo was armed with the same kind of knife from the barrow that Merry had. No wonder WiKi was nervous -- assuming he figured out what the knife was . But of course the readers, or the hobbits, don't find out about that until much la...

N.E.B., I hardly think those examples are similar to PJ's use of Dwarf-humour, either. Thorin is self-important to a fault; he would certainly never lower himself to the level that Gimli does in the films. At least that is how I see it. Oh, sorry, wasn't following the conversation closely enough, a...