ot-my mini review of Children of Hurin

don doggett · 17 Apr 2007, 07:52 · from 2007-April.txt.gz

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From: kingwukong at yahoo.com (don doggett)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:52:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) ot-my mini review of Children of Hurin
In-Reply-To: <807595.83300.qm at web54407.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <408200.1000.qm at web32402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

--- Nathan Spears <spearofsolomon at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> Of course I concede that Tolkien wrote fantasy - I
> am not saying that Tolkien requires an entire genre,
> "genre of Tolkien," because he was so great.  What I
> am saying is that hordes of writers have found
> themselves operating within boundaries that Tolkien
> created without even realizing it,

Tolkien was a traditionalist. He had very set rules
for what he was doing, especially with his background
material. He didn't create these boundaries, others
have simply limited themselves to them. Not Wolfe,
obviously. > 
> I am also saying (and I think Don was saying as
> well) that while Tolkien's work is fantasy, it ALSO
> merits being labeled an epic or mythology on the
> order of the great works like the Iliad, Beowulf,
> etc. 

I am not saying that. What I'm saying is that his work
was intended to be the kind of thing he wanted to
read, epic mythology and heroic romance. Not fantasy
as we call it today. When I see Beowulf, The Song of
Roland, etc. etc. in the fantasy section of any
bookstore or library, I'll call the Silmarillion or
this new book fantasy. The Lord of the Rings is
debateable (I'd put it in classics if I could), but I
haven't spoken of it once in this entire discussion.

 Now that sounds snobbist, or at least awfully
> fanboyish.  

I'm hardly a Tolkien fanboy. If you look hard enough
on this list you'll find that I got on the wrong side
of an argument here because I questioned the
heterosexuality of Sam and Frodo's relationship and
implied that Tolkien might have written it that way
unconsciously. And I used Robert Graves to back myself
up! But I have no interest in that fight and mention
it only for illustrative purposes. (ducks and runs)

Don

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