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03-03-2006, 07:50 PM | #1 | |||||
Itinerant Songster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,066
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LotR, an Edwardian Adventure Story?
Below is a rather "book reportish" summary of a book I've read twice. Feel free to skip and scan. I suggest, at the least, to check out the "characteristics of Edwardian adventure story" list, and the questions that follow at the end of this post. For those with a more literary bent and interest, I invite you to read this entire post.
------------------------ Jared Lobdell wrote a book called England and Always: Tolkien's World of the Rings, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI in 1981. Many of you may have missed this little treatise; I have it partly because I live in the town where it was published. Jared Lobdell was also the editor of The Tolkien Compass. So much for background. Lobdell offers an explanation for why LotR is so despised by modern critics, or what we have been calling the "literati". It should be said at the outset that such an explanation was not the primary motivation for his book. Lobdell's self professed motivation was to write a book that discusses the "four most obvious facts about the author's life"(vii). These are that: (1) Tolkien grew to manhood in the years before the Great War; (2) he was a philologist; (3) he was Roman Catholic; (4) LotR is one of the most successful works of modern times. Granted, these themes have been covered here and by books written since 1981 quite thoroughly. .... which makes Lobdell's differing perspective all that much more intriguing. To summarize, Lobdell says that Tolkien has written an Edwardian adventure story. ---------------------------- Characteristics of Edwardian adventure story:
------------------------ Examples Lobdell provides of Edwardian adventure stories and their authors:
I don't know a lot of these authors, but note them for the sake of completeness. Lobdell admits great dissimilarities between the many books and authors listed, but finds this intriguing connection, which he reiterates a number of times: Quote:
So what? Well, this: Quote:
Quote:
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I'm tempted to ask if we have here stumbled upon "the six-pence", but that is a question for those who wish to discuss it on that (albeit related) thread: "What does the six-pence =?" ------------------- Now for the questions. Do you agree that LotR fits all or most of Lobdell's characteristics of the Edwardian mode? (such as?) Do you think that some of these Edwardian characteristics may perhaps reflect an issue that you have with LotR? (please relate) I wrote a marginal note by way of summary of a certain section in Lobdell's book that he is basically saying that Tolkien was the J.S. Bach of the Ewardian adventure story. What do you think of such a characterization? Feel free to discuss any other aspects of this introductory post, take issue with any assertions, et cetera. |
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