Article

I am not sure if this goes here but anyway I found this article about LotR.

Never ever mess with a hobbit

The Tolkies' provisional wing is after me for dissing their religion

Mark Lawson
Saturday December 29, 2001
The Guardian

As a journalist, I've never been a controversialist. Britain's prisoners start sewing extra mail-sacks when they learn that Julie Burchill is writing a column. For me, they could make the shallowest of in-trays during recreation. But, in the last two weeks, I've started looking at brochures for bunkers. There have been letters verging on death-threats, calls for me to be sacked or (a recurrent and perhaps revealing word) "disciplined", vicious comments on websites.
What produced this abuse was expressing dislike of the recent film of The Lord Of The Rings twice on television. For the record, it's my view that JRR Tolkien's books are a laboured reorganisation of Norse myth by a writer who struggled with the sentence structures of English. Professor Germaine Greer, who joined in, is also, according to my correspondents, to be the subject of calls to the director general for her life-time banishment from the BBC.
In the course of more than 900 arts shows on radio and television - on such reliably contentious subjects as The Satanic Verses, modern jazz, pornography, Intimacy, and Tracey Emin - there has never been such an extreme reaction. Nowhere in the commendably detailed book of BBC producer guidelines on the handling of contentious editorial issues did anyone ever think to print: Don't Mess With Hobbits.
As in all discussion of fundamentalism, it's necessary to acknowledge that the vast majority of Tolkien-readers are gentle, peaceful people who tolerate the existence of other points of view. We are talking in this piece only about a small band of fanatics who have misunderstood the message of the holy book.
The religious metaphor is appropriate. The nearest I've previously come to the seething directed at me in the last two weeks followed hostile comments about the TV version of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. It's clear from this that I suffer artistic resistance to mock-antiquated myths which tweely create fake kingdoms, and that works of that kind have a tendency to become, for some admirers, a displacement religion.
So deep is these people's acceptance of the legends and beliefs of Peake's or Tolkien's fiction that any dissent from this world-view is classified as blasphemy. But at least Salman Rushdie took on a great prophet. My nemesis is elves and those other ones called - is it orks? Orcs?
Reading the letters and emails from the extremist Tolkies, I thought of a story which has appeared in Britain's newspapers in the last few Christmas seasons. It's about a man who loves the rituals of December 25 so much that he eats a full Christmas dinner every day of the year after sitting down to watch a video of the most recent Queen's Speech.
For several years, this has been reported as if it were a touching human interest story -The Man They Call Mr Christmas - although it always seemed to me that he might more accurately be described as Mr Christmas Crackers. Finally, this year's pieces revealed that his doctor has warned that the unvaried intake is killing him and that he is being treated as an addict.
It's pretty clear that festive lunch had become a crutch for Mr Christmas: he was happier living there than in the actual calendar. And I'd guess that, among the provisional wing of The Tolkies, elves are to them what turkey is to Mr Christmas. Escapist literature has its place, but if a book, and a children's book at that, means so much to you that you can hate other people for disliking it, you've walked through the library into some other room: and perhaps a ward.
While the Tolkies are an extreme example, the elevation of dislike of a children's movie to heresy is part of a worrying wider trend in culture. A curious feature of cinema in 2001 was the sudden clutch of movies made from books which had attained the status of sacred texts for their readers: Harry Potter, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Bridget Jones's Diary, as well as the Tolkien saga.
At screenings of these, you felt that large parts of the audience had come not in search of enjoyment but to monitor deviation from the original. The directors were widely praised for how close they had stayed to the page. This hostility to interpretation is anti-cinematic. The point of movies is to rip up the words and reassemble them as pictures which may - which should - differ in key details.
Another point of films, in fact, of all art, is to produce two views about their meaning and worth. Although the word "reviewer" has become synonymous with critic, it's an odd term because it strictly means to see again - a second opinion - despite the fact that critics pride themselves on giving the first opinion. This kink in etymology is presumably explained by the fact that critics are looking over or re-viewing the conclusions of the creator.
Even so, there will always be a second opinion or a twentieth. The opinions of critics are reviewed by audiences and then by other audiences. I accept that the Tolkies may disagree with me about the supremacy of the movies of Baz Lurhman or the excellence of the novels of John Updike. But I wouldn't want them reviled or sacked for thinking differently. Like Christ, Mohammed and Karl Marx (though all were rather better wordsmiths), JRR Tolkien would surely be horrified by some of his followers.

Well what do you think?

[Beren87]

who struggled with the sentence structures of English.

That's obviously why he was a proffesor of the English language and did work on a dictionary.

My nemesis is elves and those other ones called - is it orks? Orcs?

I put much value in the opinion of someone who is insulting something he hasn't studied or even apparently remotely understood. When he's read the books (I doubt someone who did could misspell the word "orc"), then he is qualified to have an opinion.

[lindil]

Welcome to the Downs UnshatteredSilence!

And what a bang you come in with!

Estelyn , may I humbly reccomend you move this to the books for a perhaps broader ranging discussion?

Well in biref [ as I need to run out the door] He is right in that no one should loose their job as a critic or editor or whatever for disliking Tolkien [ although it certainly might effect future hirings [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ] as to his review of LotR as recycled Norse myths with bad grammar and also 'escapism', he needs to read Author of the Century by Shippey, it blows this facile charge into it's constituent atoms where they can be profitably recylced.

As for the bit about the movies, he was prob accurate in assesing the motives for attendence. I have a fair bit of that in me.
Of course who wouldn't after having read it too many times!

Fundamentalist's of Tolkien though, it is true, do no one any good, least of all themselves.

[ March 24, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]

[Beren87]

means so much to you that you can hate other people for disliking it

That's a big thing for some people to remember here. There is such a thing as going to far. Tolkien may be a life-changing experience, but it probably won't be to everyone. A lot of the newer people here seem to think of it is a new religion. Let's keep things in perspective.

[The Saucepan Man]

Thanks for posting that article, UnshatteredSilence, and welcome to the Downs. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

For the record, it's my view that JRR Tolkien's books are a laboured reorganisation of Norse myth by a writer who struggled with the sentence structures of English.

It's clear from this that I suffer artistic resistance to mock-antiquated myths which tweely create fake kingdoms ...

Hmm, he's not doing himself any favours with Tolkien fans there. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Mark Lawson chairs a late night art show on the BBC (it used to be called the "Late Show" but it is now, I think, attached to Newsnight). It involves him and various panellists from the academic and arts worlds discussing recent artistic works (ranging from television programmes and films to books and art exhibitions). It is a programme which I generally enjoy when I watch it and I have a fair bit of respect for Mr Lawson and the other regular panellists on the programme, although I frequently disagree with their views.

Although I wholly disagree with his opinion on JRRT's works (and indeed the film adaptations), he is of course right. These books and films are not for everyone. Indeed, the films are likely to be more accessible to a greater majority than the books (which, of course, does not necessarily make them better). My brother, and a good many other people who I consider intelligent and whose views I respect, have no time whatsoever for JRRT's works. Some have expressed similar opinions to those expressed by Mr Lawson. And of course neither they nor Mr Lawson deserve to be vilified for their views. They are entitled to dislike JRRT's works just as much as I am entitled to dislike the works of Dickens. Free speech is a treasure to be greatly valued, and those who seek to shout Mr Lawson down for holding an opinion on JRRT's books which is different from their own do a great disservice to the Professor and his works. I tend to agree with Mr Lawson that JRRT himself would not have appreciated such a reaction.

And, finally, I also agree with Mr Lawson when he says:

At screenings of these, you felt that large parts of the audience had come not in search of enjoyment but to monitor deviation from the original. The directors were widely praised for how close they had stayed to the page. This hostility to interpretation is anti-cinematic. The point of movies is to rip up the words and reassemble them as pictures which may - which should - differ in key details.

I made the mistake outlined in the first sentence above on my first viewing of TTT, and so had some quite serious misgivings about the film. But I thoroughly agree with the sentiment, if not the precise phraseology, of the final sentence. Film adaptations of books are interpretations of them rendered in a wholly different art form and therefore will, almost inevitably, differ in large measure from the books. And, having accepted that, I was able to derive far greater enjoyment from my second viewing of TTT.

[ March 24, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Welcome UnshatteredSilence.

Wow.

He's right about a lot of things in his article. I think that it's a shame when people have to threaten someone's well-being and/or life because they disagree with their opinion. Probably most of those are just outraged individuals who overreacted, but you never know. Maybe one person is serious in their threat. I am surprised that he went about addressing this potentially serious problem the way he did.

artistic resistance to mock-antiquated myths which tweely create fake kingdoms

Right there it seems that he would only further infuriate those people who he is addressing, and those people are the ones who want to use his head as a baseball. I'm not sure that he takes those people serious. I think that he should because you never know if someone could be dead serious about it. And if he really isn't taking them serious, then why is he making a serious deal out of it. I would enjoy the article much much more if he took those people more serious, especially for his sake. I truly hope that no one was serious in those threats.

[ March 24, 2003: Message edited by: MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie ]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

UnshatteredSilence, welcome to the Downs! You certainly did come in with a bang, and this thread is one of the rare examples of humility in that it was posted on the Novices and Newcomers forum and is being moved to the Books forum because it is worth being discussed there. Carry on, all!

[Legolas]

The point of movies is to rip up the words and reassemble them as pictures which may - which should - differ in key details.

Why "should" it? That's one of the dumbest things I've heard.

[The Saucepan Man]

Mark Lawson is a commentator on the arts (ie a critic) and no doubt adheres to the belief that "new" art should differ in some way from that on which it is based. For example, a cover version of a song should not be just a facsimile copy of the original, but should add to it, or approach it differently, in some way. The same with a film adaptation of a book. He would probably see it as PJ's duty to make changes to the original, so as to "stamp his mark" on the films.

Now, that may be true in some cases, but I don't think it applies here. When making a film adaptation of a book, there is no particular reason why the director should purposely strive to make key aspects of it different. But, at the same time, it almost inevitably will be different in key respects, because it is being conveyed in a different medium, because the underlying work is open to interpretation and because of all sorts of other pressures (availability of funds, the need for commercial success etc).

[Dain]

I think some of the best films I've seen have been "innacurate" or incomplete adaptations of good books (most of which I've never read, but have heard that "the book was way better"). So, I think that very often, in order to make a good film, you have to change things, even in a good book. But only if those changes make it better and make sense. For example, PJ making Aragorn a more obvious and central hero makes sense. Having him fall off a cliff and get kissed by a horse, however, does not seem to me to be an improvement... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

He's also taking cheap shots throughout the article, which isn't exactly going to make his position any better. Oh well...