This post at Grognardia took me to this very nice essay at The Cimmerian. Take that Moorcock! I vastly prefer Tolkien to Moorecock, so I am somewhat biased, but I enjoyed the essay. It makes me want to reread some Tolkien. I don’t think I’ve cracked open any of that stuff since the films came out, which was almost eight years ago (I once joked I was looking forward to the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring almost as much I was to getting married, since they happened within a month or so of each other). That is too long, perhaps. But I’ve got another Epic Read on my plate just now, so Frodo, Sam, et al may have to wait a bit. What am I reading now? I’ll let you know when I’ve finished the first book!
Tags: Tolkien
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Tolkien is indeed one of the undisputed masters of fantasy, even of story telling in general. I read the Hobbit/LTR series more years ago than I can count, and the last place I lived we had no less than 4 complete sets of the series (not counting The Silmarillion)
Which brings me to a question, have you ever read The Silmarillion?
Also just a bit of trivia.. In the mid 80′s there was a band who had a hit in the US with the song Kayleigh. This band’s name was Marillion, a change from their previous name Silmarillion, when they were a simply an instrumental band. To this day this band during the Fish (the vocalist http://www.the-company.com/) years remains one of my absolute favorite bands. They are progressive rock (ala EARLY Genesis) and Fish continues in this genre in his solo work. Marillion still exists, with a different vocalist, and the first couple of albums with Hogarth are not really bad, though they lack inspiration. After that they become harder to listen to in my own opinion, though many “freaks” (Marillion fans) will disagree.. I will admit that there are a few interesting tracts from later years.. Also as yet another trivial aside, Marillion is credited with the approach of direct artist pre-sales of an album (yeah.. CD.. whatever.. ) such that the approach is called the Marillion method..
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Moorcock’s complaint is that Tolkien is just a storyteller and LOTR is merely escapist fluff (hence the “Epic Pooh” title). The essay from The Cimmerian argues the contrary — that there are deep and developed themes within Tolkien.
I have read the Silmarillion, but it was a long time ago. And I remember your fondness for Marillion during our roommate days. I never did get into prog rock of any kind; even the radio friendly stuff like Yes doesn’t grab me.
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