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geordie
Tol Eressea
Jan 31 2015, 7:09pm
Post #1 of 2
(479 views)
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New York Times reviews The Hobbit -
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- and lots of other Tolkien titles, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien.html
I like this page; it has reviews ranging from 1938 onwards - very illuminating, and useful too.
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squire
Half-elven
Jan 31 2015, 8:03pm
Post #2 of 2
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I loved what NYT reporter Harvey Breit published in 1955, just after the release of Two Towers
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Breit ran a kind of literary gossip column in the Times' book section. He thought LotR was a kind of 'somber and brilliantly bizarre Gothic masterpiece', which seemed odd coming from a children's book writer. This is what he put in his column that week:
What, we asked Dr. Tolkien, makes you tick? Dr. T., who teaches at Oxford when he isn't writing novels, has this brisk reply:
"I don't tick. I am not a machine. (If I did tick, I should have no views on it, and you had better ask the winder.)
"My work did not 'evolve' into a serious work. It started like that. The so-called 'children's story' was a fragment, torn out of an already existing mythology. In so far as it was dressed up as 'for children,' in style or manner, I regret it. So do the children.
"I am a philologist, and all my work is philological. I avoid hobbies because I am a very serious person and cannot distinguish between private amusement and duty. I am affable, but unsociable. I only work for private amusement, since I find my duties privately amusing."
As the editor of the Letters of JRRT notes, this rather acerbic and snappy answer was, evidently, extracted from a longer and more reasonable letter that Tolkien wrote. He defended himself to his American publishers with: 'Please do not blame me for what Breit made of my letter!.... The original made sense: not a quality, however, of which Harvey B. seems perceptive. I was asked a series of questions, with a request to answer briefly, brightly, and quotably.' He then gave them an all-purpose autobiographical 'who is Tolkien and why did he write that book' press release that is given in the book as Letter 165.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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