Well thought out and very well written! Lydia Fish October 16, 2008, at 08:34 AM
I thought it was brilliant how Shippey defends writers like Tolkien, Vonnegut, Orwell and Golding by saying that they are not ‘escapists’ because they in no way turned their backs upon the events they experienced. It’s just interesting how they used their writing to comment upon what happened to them. I have to agree wholeheartedly. Tolkien did not write his trilogy in order to escape the real world. If anything, it examined the nature of war, of evil, even of the goodness found in small places.
On page x, I laughed at reading that “nothing else really happened.” One of the things that I love about Tolkien is that he lived responsibly and well. There aren’t any scandals to dig up or other interesting, embarrassing things that people could smudge his name with. It helps create an image of him as a simple man with incredible thoughts without any distractions to make you think otherwise.
To hear that Shippey has the same chair position Tolkien once did makes the entire commentary a bit more sincere. After reading that, it makes me think that Shippey is speaking of an old friend instead of taking a detached position. Most people who write about the lives of others, while they have great interest in the person to begin with, I find, rarely have that special bond with the person being written about. Biographers, like Shippey said, want something to sink their teeth into and of course will dig up all they can find. No, I think Shippey has a deeper respect for Tolkien and will do him far more justice than anyone else could.
It’s always interesting to hear that Tolkien was ‘rediscovering’ Middle Earth instead of inventing it. When I’m writing a story, certain things come to me as if they’re fact. Character descriptions just flow because in my mind that’s just how they are. Tolkien’s dedication in crafting an entire world, races, language… It’s awe-inspiring, and Shippey was right to say that it was one great act for the publisher to take on Tolkien’s work. I’d be suspicious of something that complex being popular, too. “Popularity does not guarantee literary quality” is a fantastic truth (and one that I’d like to direct at the Twilight series. Apologies to those who like it.). The trilogy, though is a fine example of how a series can be popular because of the undeniable care it took in writing it. People crave for in-depth writing, I think, as long as they can follow it without becoming completely lost. Lucky for us, Tolkien provides a few maps along the way.
Shippey says that Tolkien’s trilogy was written without any commercial value taken into perspective. Can you imagine how it would have turned out had he thought of his books as things to sell on a shelf? There probably wouldn’t have been appendices or extensive genealogy or nearly as much spirit placed within them. It would have been a completely different series had he actually thought of it as a product and not a lost mythology.
Devon Cozad? October 08, 2008, at 06:39 PM
