Hi Marina
My views on Tolkein are sadly twisted at the moment because I am reading
Lord of the Rings to my 7yr old.
We read The Hobbit in the summer and I quite lost my affection for this
childhood favorite. Until you try to read it aloud you don't notice how
convoluted most of the sentences are.
We've read to page three hundred and something of LotR and I've had enough
of it. To my mind most of the best bits are in the first book and we've got
past those.
I have to admit that as a teenager I read LotR over and over and I was
probably pretty fed up with it before stating the rading aloud exercise.
I recently read a book called _The Natural History of Make-Believe_ by John
Goldthwaite that I found put into words much of my feelings for LotR. He
writes:
'Very seldom does one encounter emotion this fraudulent and writing this
bad in any genre. And there will be a hundred pages more of flashing and
breaking like thunder before Tolkein brings the pother to its last,
breathless gasp of cliches.'
He names this Faerie-land's answer to Conan the Barbarian.
I love the shire, i love the hobbits, particularly Sam, although I wish he
were less subserviant ( was *he* gay do you think?), I like Faramir but the
battles and high glory leave me bored to tears.
Incidentaly, while we're talking about Oxford dons, how about CSLewis for a
woman hater? His women are all evil or unpleasant and his girls have to be
pretty and boyish (as opposed to girlish), able to follow orders and not
blubber. I still have some affection for the Narnia books but they are full
of petty nastiness that I could well live without.
Yvonne
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