CotW Silm Ch 4 Of Thingol and Melian
Taemon
way we can keep to the schedule. For the schedule, see
http://parasha.maoltuile.org/. We still need volunteers!
Of Thingol and Melian
Not even two pages, this shortest chapter, yet full of riddles for us
to discuss. Let's start with the first sentence.
"Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar."
The index tells us that the Valar is the name "given to those great
Ainur who entered into Eä at the beginning of time". The Ainur are
"the first beings created by Ilúvatar, the 'order' of the Valar and
Maiar, made before Eä". Maiar are "Ainur of lesser degree than the
Valar". So how can a Maia be of the race of the Valar? Do we have a
special Vala-type of Maiar? It seems that Maiar and Valar are not the
same.
Second sentence.
"... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is it
with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
detail, but one is starting to wonder where the women
are who are not the most beautiful. We don't get to hear how Thingol
looks like. Methinks he must have been quite the stud.
Third sentence. No, kidding! Fifth sentence.
"She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was made
to Yavanna" mean?
Enter Thingol. He walks through the woods on his way to his pal Finwë
when he comes along Melian. Rather, he hears her singing and is
immediately sold. He follows her voice, comes to a glade and there she
is. Does this story sound familiar? Apparently, being the most
beautiful and meeting the love of your life while you are singing in
the woods runs in the family. I love the romance of it all and the
fact that it is probably rooted in Edith singing and dancing for John
once but to be honest, after three times it gets old.
Thingol sees Melian and his original "wonder and desire" gets replaced
by love. Nice! It doesn't say whether Melian loves him back but we
might assume so because they proceed with standing and gazing for
*years*.
A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot in
Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in love.
Do we know of a love that grows, develops? The story of Aldarian and
Erendis comes to mind, "The Mariner's Wife" from Unfinished Tales.
But... that isn't a very romantic story. Not romantic at all. Then
there is Eöl and his shamble of a marriage. Or was it even a marriage?
Not much love involved, anyway.
There is only one case I know of in which love at first sight didn't
work out, and that was with Éowyn and Aragorn. And, of course, that
one was originally supposed to work out.
I must say that Tolkien has some very Platonian views on love. It is
all very abstract and courtly and idealistic. People meet, immediately
know they are meant for each other and stay together for the rest of
their lives without a fight, without doubts and usually without sex (I
still think babies are brought by the stork in Tolkien's universum).
When I talked about this with a friend she wondered about Edith's role
in this. What was she like, in love, in sex, in all the messy aspects
of normal human relationships? But it's almost impossible to find
something about Edith apart from her being mentioned as "wife of".
I don't like it. It is all too clean, too perfect, too sure. I cannot
relate (and I have a sound relationship). What are your ideas? And are
there exceptions in Tolkien's work other then the ones I mentioned?
Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring at
each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars about
them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can you imagine
how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage? Clearly it
couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an elf, and elves
have bodily needs. Is it symbolic? Does it stand for Thingol removing
himself from the world and the people he came from? Choosing love and
abandoning everything else? Somehow, that doesn't sound right. Because
Tolkien was not too fond of symbolism and if he wanted Thingol to
abandon anything he would probably just have said so. Not to mention
the fact that Thingol became a great king afterwards. So what does
this passage mean?
In the meantime, his people look for him as he is their leader. This
disturbs me. He leaves them, abandons them, drops his responsibility
on the very spot. This is not how a leader should act. I understand he
couldn't ask for Melian's phone number, but he could have asked her to
come along while he did what he had to do. Instead he disappears,
having his people think he is lost or dead or worse and leaves his
brother Olwë to take over.
We don't get to hear anything about that and I think that leaves a lot
of questions unanswered. How did the Teleri react when they heard he
was alive and well? Why did the Eldar chose him as their king? What
did his mother have to say about all this? (If he even had one.)
Nex it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves and
Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Again, I
am at a loss as to what this means. What does "of her came a strain of
Ainur" say? That she gave birth to them? But the Ainur were "the first
beings created by Ilúvatar" so that can't be it. And there weren't any
humans around before Eä so the second part makes no more sense to me
then the first. Please enlighten me.
Well, I spent a lot more words on this chapter than there are words in
the chapter, but then, it is full of mystery.
T.
Chris Kern
I thought we had agreed to bump the schedule up a week. The Chapter 2
thread is still missing responses from some important contributors
(not that they have to respond, of course, I'm just saying...) and
Chapter 3 hasn't gotten a single response yet. I think going slower
for more quality responses is better than charging ahead at full speed
and ending up with single-digit response threads.
-Chris
Taemon
> I think going slower
> for more quality responses is better than charging ahead at full
> speed
> and ending up with single-digit response threads.
I don't disagree. This is what Christopher and I sort of decided upon.
I wouldn't mind much either way but I think rescheduling might be
better.
T.
Taemon
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>
> wrote:
>> "She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
>> I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
>> mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was
>> made to Yavanna" mean?
> This sentence could be rearranged thus: "Before the World was made,
> she was akin to Yavanna herself". Akin to means kin of, related to.
Commas! I missed the commas! (comma's? No? Truly not? "Commas" looks
stupid to my Dutch eye).
"She was akin, before the World was made, to Yavanna herself", is that
what you mean? That makes more sense but still... wasn't she kin to
Yavanna afterwards, too? :-)
> I'm in complete agreement with you over the idealistic, sexless
> nature
> of Tolkien's portrayal of love. Judging by one of the Letters, his
> doesn't seem to have been like that. I think it has more to do with
> the treatment of male/female relationships in the kind of heroic
> saga
> which he was emulating.
I don't think it's very passionate.
>> Nex it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves
>> and
>> Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä".
> It means that her descendants carried the "bloodline" of the Ainur
> "who were with Iluvatar before Ea", i.e. before the world was
> created.
So... "of her there came both Elves and Men a strain of the Ainur, who
(the Ainur) were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Not very clear writing, I
say.
T.
JimboCat
>Of Thingol and Melian
>
>Not even two pages, this shortest chapter, yet full of riddles for us
>
>Second sentence.
>
>"... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
>
>Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is it
>with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
It's like Galadriel and Arwen: Eomer and Gimli bury the hatchet when
they agree to disagree on who is most beautiful. An anonymous narrator,
however, can say six contradictory things before breakfast.
>"She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
>
>I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
>mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was made
>to Yavanna" mean?
Try it like this: "She was ([from way, way back] before the World was
made) akin to Yavanna (herself [i.e. yes, _that_ Yavanna])"
>A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot in
>Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in love.
>Do we know of a love that grows, develops? The story of Aldarian and
>Erendis comes to mind, "The Mariner's Wife" from Unfinished Tales.
>But... that isn't a very romantic story. Not romantic at all. Then
>there is Eöl and his shamble of a marriage. Or was it even a marriage?
>Not much love involved, anyway.
We don't see much man/woman love, though one that comes to mind as a
slow development is Turin and his sister. Tragic, of course, in that
case.
Most of the slowly-developing love is between comrades-in-arms.
Legolas/Gimli, Eomer/Aragorn, etc. Probably goes back to JRRT's
experience in the War.
>Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring at
>each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars about
>them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can you imagine
>how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage? Clearly it
>couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an elf, and elves
>have bodily needs.
Not, perhaps, while they stand entranced by the eyes of a Maia.
Remember, Yavanna (was it Yavanna?) put every living thing in Arda into
a long preservative sleep after the destruction of the Lamps. Seems to
be no problem to me. Love is so powerful that it obviates such base
physical needs.
>Is it symbolic? Does it stand for Thingol removing
>himself from the world and the people he came from? Choosing love and
>abandoning everything else? Somehow, that doesn't sound right. Because
>Tolkien was not too fond of symbolism and if he wanted Thingol to
>abandon anything he would probably just have said so. Not to mention
>the fact that Thingol became a great king afterwards. So what does
>this passage mean?
I take it as simply literal truth. They stared into each others' eyes
for years without moving.
>In the meantime, his people look for him as he is their leader. This
>disturbs me. He leaves them, abandons them, drops his responsibility
>on the very spot. This is not how a leader should act. I understand he
>couldn't ask for Melian's phone number, but he could have asked her to
>come along while he did what he had to do. Instead he disappears,
>having his people think he is lost or dead or worse and leaves his
>brother Olwë to take over.
I don't think he made a conscious choice. I don't think he *had* any
choice in the matter. "Love at first sight" is like that (at least in
Tolkien).
>We don't get to hear anything about that and I think that leaves a lot
>of questions unanswered. How did the Teleri react when they heard he
>was alive and well? Why did the Eldar chose him as their king? What
>did his mother have to say about all this? (If he even had one.)
>
>Nex it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves and
>Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Again, I
>am at a loss as to what this means. What does "of her came a strain of
>Ainur" say? That she gave birth to them? But the Ainur were "the first
>beings created by Ilúvatar" so that can't be it. And there weren't any
>humans around before Eä so the second part makes no more sense to me
>then the first. Please enlighten me.
It means that her children/grandchildren/etc were descended from
(surprise!) the Maia Melian, as well as from their various Elven and
Mannish forebears. Blood (in Tolkien) will tell: all those descendents
had some sort of specialness due to this ancestry.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"I think most scientists are more comfortable with unanswerable
questions, and thinking about them, than with unquestionable answers,
and *not* thinking about them." - Jay Banks
Gary Thompson
JimboCat wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
> >"... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
> >
> >Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is it
> >with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
>
> It's like Galadriel and Arwen: Eomer and Gimli bury the hatchet when
> they agree to disagree on who is most beautiful. An anonymous narrator,
> however, can say six contradictory things before breakfast.
>
Lewis' Perelandra. I can't remember the exact quote, but the gist is
that among the preternaturally beautiful, the one you are standing
before is the most beautiful. Thus, Melian _was_ the most beautiful
woman in Arda. So too were Galadriel, Lúthien, and Arwen.
Derek Broughton
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
>>"Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar."
...
>>how can a Maia be of the race of the Valar?
>
> All the Ainur are of one "race". Some of them entered into Ea after it
> was created by Illuvatar. Some are more powerful (for want of a better
> word) than the others, and they are the Valar. The other Ainur who
> entered in Ea with the Valar are called the Maiar. Melian is a Maia.
Read it as "a Maia, of the [same] race [as] the Valar".
>>Third sentence. No, kidding! Fifth sentence.
>>
>>"She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
>>
>>I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
>>mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was made
>>to Yavanna" mean?
>
> This sentence could be rearranged thus: "Before the World was made,
> she was akin to Yavanna herself". Akin to means kin of, related to.
Tolkien's known for being sparse with commas. Read it as "akin, before the
World was made, to Yavanna".
--
derek
Steve IA
What about (my favorite LOTR chick) Eowyn and Faramir? He, maybe, was
guilty of LAFS, but she needed a figurative /dope-slap/ to the forehead
to catch on.
Steve
Soutiowa, USA
bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk
bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk
bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk
bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk
receive the signals that Faramir was sending out to her?
I am saddening by the way they were both portrayed in the movie but
Faramir came off the worst by a long shot. He was a very sad man
denied his mother's love from birth and then denied his father's love
and understanding as he grew up. He was not really interested in war
and fighting but learning, then he realised that maybe the only way to
win his fathe over was to try and behave as Boromir would have done.
"If I should return, think better of me father." Denethor replied
that "it will depend on the manner of your return" in other words be
victorious as your brother would have been or else! Denethor accused
him of being a "Wizward's pupil" and so he was in a way because of his
love of Lore.
He was ever unsure afterwards until he met Eowyn and then he was sure
of winning her love. Although it took her some time because of her
loneliness in her past.
Lacking one parent, never mind two, can have this efect on all of us.
bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk
Does anyone think that there will ever be a movie of the Hobbit and how
accurate wil it be to the book?
John W. Kennedy
> Does anyone think that there will ever be a movie of the Hobbit and how
> accurate wil it be to the book?
See <URL:http://www.thehobbitfilm.com/>.
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
Davémon
> bre...@court30.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
>> Does anyone think that there will ever be a movie of the Hobbit and how
>> accurate wil it be to the book?
>
> See <URL:http://www.thehobbitfilm.com/>.
Is it just me, or is anyone else sick of the visual treatment of Tolkiens
work being so standardised?
Tolkiens work seems to have been overshadowed by 'fanasy art' kitch since
the 80's, and really PJLOTR takes it to its photo-realistic conclusion.
Tolkien himself had Cor Blok's work on his walls, not airbrushed fairies.
Cor Blok:
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/translations/dutch/images/A3afr.jpg
Or perhaps the visual style could be taken directly from the visual side of
the cultures that inspired Tolkien?
12th Century chess-pieces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen
...which inspired Oliver Postgate and Peter Fimin to make Noggin the Nog:
http://www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk/
Or perhaps even the work of a visual fantasist who was a contemporary of
Tolkiens?
Lotte Reinigers Prince Achmed.
http://www.milestonefilms.com/movie.php/achmed/
which is the closest thing to what I see in my head when I read the
Silmarillion.
To my mind, there is more than one way to see Tolkiens worlds, and more
than one way to make a movie.
And as much as I enjoyed PJLOTR, please, don't let Jackson get his hands on
the Hobbit, it could be the waste of a great opportunity.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
JimboCat
I like that! It's an equally good or perhaps even a better explanation,
overall.
OTOH it doesn't quite cover the Gimli/Eomer thingy (above). And what
about poor Paris? Would he have gotten out of the whole problem by
saying "both are most beautiful"? I kinda doubt it... Goddesses would
be a bit impatient with an "Elven answer" (that is "both no and yes") I
suspect.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
Precept Eight:
"Acquiescence to the demands that bullshit proliferates may enervate my
soul, but it also recapitulates my ontogeny." - Alexei Waters
Peter Andersen
> I like that! It's an equally good or perhaps even a better
> explanation, overall.
I'll second that.
> OTOH it doesn't quite cover the Gimli/Eomer thingy (above). And what
> about poor Paris? Would he have gotten out of the whole problem by
> saying "both are most beautiful"? I kinda doubt it... Goddesses would
> be a bit impatient with an "Elven answer" (that is "both no and yes")
> I suspect.
They were all the most beautiful! (And I'm telling you 'cause I know)
Besides I don't do elven answers: sssurre honneyppie, yyouu'ree sttill tthe
[hiccups] niftiest lill' thingk arrounddy!!
Gimly and Eomer were just mesuring private parts. Let's just leave it at
that :)
--
____________________
Peter Andersen
Taemon
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>
> wrote:
>> A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot
>> in
>> Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in
>> love.
>> Do we know of a love that grows, develops?
> We don't see much man/woman love, though one that comes to mind as a
> slow development is Turin and his sister. Tragic, of course, in that
> case.
Yes, I had forgotten that one. Beautiful and truly romantic, until the
inevitable crash.
> Most of the slowly-developing love is between comrades-in-arms.
> Legolas/Gimli, Eomer/Aragorn, etc. Probably goes back to JRRT's
> experience in the War.
True! Good point! So... he COULD do it, he only choose not to where
romantic love is considered. What do you all think, was that a
conscious decision on his part? Or did he involuntarily shy away from
it?
>> Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring
>> at each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars
>> about them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can
>> you
>> imagine how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage?
>> Clearly it couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an
>> elf, and elves have bodily needs.
> Not, perhaps, while they stand entranced by the eyes of a Maia.
> Remember, Yavanna (was it Yavanna?) put every living thing in Arda
> into a long preservative sleep after the destruction of the Lamps.
> Seems to be no problem to me. Love is so powerful that it obviates
> such base physical needs.
Base physical needs? Eating? Sitting down? I don't buy it. This was
not a preservative sleep, they were standing up and watching. Maybe a
Maia could do such a thing, _before_ she dressed herself in flesh. But
once you acquire a body, you acquire bodily needs. Gandalf had to eat
and sleep. So I don't think Melian could do that, let alone Thingol.
T.
Taemon
> I think it's instead akin to an effect mentioned in a passage from
> C.S. Lewis' Perelandra. I can't remember the exact quote, but the
> gist is that among the preternaturally beautiful, the one you are
> standing before is the most beautiful. Thus, Melian _was_ the most
> beautiful woman in Arda. So too were Galadriel, Lúthien, and Arwen.
Baaah. Cop-out! History told by the victors! "It is said Melian was
the most beautiful" - by Melian, I bet! I'm sure it is also said that
she was bald, and three feet tall, and had eyes the colour of clay.
Warts. A sagging belly. Long nose-hair. A hunchback. Her one boob was
smaller than the other. She had smelly feet, with long nails. Yeah,
she looked like a toad. And don't get me started on Thingol, who
really was called Greymantle because of his smoking habits.
T.
Taemon
> Taemon wrote:
<snip>
(Could you snip a bit more?)
>> A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot
>> in
>> Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in
>> love.
>> Do we know of a love that grows, develops?
> What about (my favorite LOTR chick) Eowyn and Faramir? He, maybe,
> was
> guilty of LAFS, but she needed a figurative /dope-slap/ to the
> forehead to catch on.
What, that?
E: Gods, I'm so depressed.
F: Can I speak my mind?
E: Yeah, sure.
F: I think you're hot.
E: Really?! Let's get married!
Nope. Sorry :-)
T.
ste...@nomail.com
> JimboCat wrote:
>> Most of the slowly-developing love is between comrades-in-arms.
>> Legolas/Gimli, Eomer/Aragorn, etc. Probably goes back to JRRT's
>> experience in the War.
> True! Good point! So... he COULD do it, he only choose not to where
> romantic love is considered. What do you all think, was that a
> conscious decision on his part? Or did he involuntarily shy away from
> it?
There is no slow development of the Legolas/Gimli relationship.
One chapter they are rather indifferent to each other, and then
they are suddenly best of friends. Eomer/Aragorn is also
"love at first sight', or so says Eomer.
"Since the day when you rose before me out of the green
grass of the downs I have loved you, and that love shall
not fail."
Stephen
Chris Kern
the following:
>Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring at
>each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars about
>them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can you imagine
>how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage? Clearly it
>couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an elf, and elves
>have bodily needs. Is it symbolic? Does it stand for Thingol removing
>himself from the world and the people he came from? Choosing love and
>abandoning everything else? Somehow, that doesn't sound right. Because
>Tolkien was not too fond of symbolism and if he wanted Thingol to
>abandon anything he would probably just have said so. Not to mention
>the fact that Thingol became a great king afterwards. So what does
>this passage mean?
According to the Grey Annals, the time that Thingol spent staring at
Melian was approximately 220 years. There is no indication that this
is to be read symbolically. The GA passage says "Hand in hand they
stood silent in the woods, while the wheeling stars measured many
years, and the young trees of Nan Elmnoth grew tall and dark."
I think we simply have to accept this as a mythical story that doesn't
have a real-world explanation for it.
-Chris
Yuk Tang
news:3vd987F...@individual.net:
>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>
>> wrote:
>>> A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a
>>> lot in
>>> Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in
>>> love.
>>> Do we know of a love that grows, develops?
>> We don't see much man/woman love, though one that comes to mind
>> as a slow development is Turin and his sister. Tragic, of course,
>> in that case.
>
> Yes, I had forgotten that one. Beautiful and truly romantic, until
> the inevitable crash.
And it's something that I'm covering. Makes up for missing out on the
Nirnaeth, but I'm surprised no-one plumped for it before I did. I'm
just hoping I can do it justice.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Yuk Tang
news:f2m3p1lupbdeuckj4...@4ax.com:
> According to the Grey Annals, the time that Thingol spent staring
> at Melian was approximately 220 years.
It took that long for the impact to register on Thingol's brain.
Judging by Celeborn, quick-wittedness obviously runs in the family.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Chris Kern
Sources
The text is mostly drawn from QS (where this appears as a chapter with
this exact title), but there may be some lines taken from the the
Annals of Aman or the Grey Annals as well.
Tradition
This is a very old story in the mythology, going back all the way to
the Tale of Tinuviel in the Lost Tales, and it survived essentially
without change into the latest versions. Melian was not a Maia in the
older versions (since the concept of Maia did not exist until later),
she was simply a "fairy" or "fey" from the gardens of Lorien. Also
Thingol, in the older myths, had not been to Valinor. But other than
that the story is pretty much exactly the same as when Tolkien wrote
it back in the 1910's(?).
I'll get to the source/tradition for chapter 3 and 5 later; it's
finals week now so I don't have a whole lot of time.
-Chris
Christopher Kreuzer
> Gary Thompson wrote:
>> JimboCat wrote:
>>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
>>>>
>>>> Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is
>>>> it with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
>>>
>>> It's like Galadriel and Arwen: Eomer and Gimli bury the hatchet when
>>> they agree to disagree on who is most beautiful. An anonymous
>>> narrator, however, can say six contradictory things before
>>> breakfast.
>>>
>> I think it's instead akin to an effect mentioned in a passage from
>> C.S. Lewis' Perelandra. I can't remember the exact quote, but the
>> gist is that among the preternaturally beautiful, the one you are
>> standing before is the most beautiful. Thus, Melian _was_ the most
>> beautiful woman in Arda. So too were Galadriel, Lúthien, and Arwen.
>
> I like that! It's an equally good or perhaps even a better
> explanation, overall.
I like that explanation as well, though I also like the "rhetorical
superlative" explanantion, which says that Tolkien was prone to saying
things were the best, oldest, tallest, worst, and so on, without
carefully checking to see whether they really were - kind of like poetic
licence. In other words, Tolkien might not let mere plot details get in
the way of a good sentence, and the atmosphere of the moment being
decribed.
Actually, that's not quite true. Tolkien did often say "x is best, save
for y" (where he is using 'save' in the sense of 'except', using it to
add an afterthought to modify his superlative comment). Some good
examples are:
"[Frodo in Moria] ...could see more in the dark than any of his
companions, save perhaps Gandalf." (A Journey in the Dark)
"[Legolas in Lothlorien] It was a Balrog of Morgoth, of all elf-banes
the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower." (The Mirror
of Galadriel)
"[The coming of the Nazgul-lord to the Gates of Minas Tirith] ...all
fled before his face. All save one. There waiting, silent and still in
the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax..." (The Siege of
Gondor)
"[The Nazgul] ...still flew high and out of sight of all save
Legolas..." (The Black Gate Opens)
"[Arwen on Bilbo] ...he will not again make any long journey save one."
(Many Partings)
Tolkien seems to use this "all save something" device a lot. It seems
like an "all this" flourish with one hand, and then a restraining
"except this" with the other hand.
Gandalf (as an Istar) and Legolas (as an Elf) are most often the
exception to the rules. We see Gandalf compared at different times to
both Aragorn and Denethor, and we are told that though Aragorn and
Denethor initially seem to have the greater power, it is in fact Gandalf
who has the greater majesty and true power.
Which brings me to Aragorn's coronation scene. The text says: "Tall as
the sea-kings of old, he stood above all that were near..." For some
unknown reason, I've felt like this should be another "all save
something" moment. I've always wanted to insert a "save something" here
(usually Gandalf - but then maybe he was no longer _near_ Aragorn...
:-) ), but I suppose that in reality, as this is Aragorn's moment, he
really does stand supreme here, at least among those who remained close
by. And in any case I suppose "that were near" is a modifying clause
that reduces the superlative here.
And it is not only in LotR that Tolkien uses this "all save something"
device. It occurs in /The Silmarillion/ as well:
"...of the many messengers that in after days sailed into the West none
came ever to Valinor - save one only: the mightiest mariner of song."
(Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor)
"None have ever come back from the mansions of the dead, save only Beren
son of Barahir..." (Of Men)
"...the Sindar had the fairer voices and were more skilled in music,
save only Maglor son of Feanor..." (Of the Sindar)
"[The Lay of Leithian is said to be the] longest save one of the songs
concerning the world of old..." (Of Beren and Luthien)
So in the cases where there is a superlative, but no "save" clause,
should we say that Tolkien left out the "save" clause because the
superlative is genuine and nothing is better/older/wiser/etc? Or, if
there is doubt, is it OK to say that it is this "rhetorical
superlative"?
> OTOH it doesn't quite cover the Gimli/Eomer thingy (above). And what
> about poor Paris? Would he have gotten out of the whole problem by
> saying "both are most beautiful"? I kinda doubt it... Goddesses would
> be a bit impatient with an "Elven answer" (that is "both no and yes")
> I suspect.
Isn't that yes, yes, and yes? There were three goddesses weren't there,
that Paris had to choose from? Aphrodite, Hera and Artemis.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Christopher Kreuzer
> Sources
>
> The text is mostly drawn from QS (where this appears as a chapter with
> this exact title), but there may be some lines taken from the the
> Annals of Aman or the Grey Annals as well.
>
> Tradition
>
> This is a very old story in the mythology, going back all the way to
> the Tale of Tinuviel in the Lost Tales, and it survived essentially
> without change into the latest versions. Melian was not a Maia in the
> older versions (since the concept of Maia did not exist until later),
> she was simply a "fairy" or "fey" from the gardens of Lorien.
I also seem to remember that, as the term fey implies, Gwendeling(?) was
a more dangerous creature than Melian. I seem to remember that she was
much more like a witch and more prone to enchant people, than Melian
was.
> Also Thingol, in the older myths, had not been to Valinor. But other
> than that the story is pretty much exactly the same as when Tolkien
> wrote it back in the 1910's(?).
Was he called Singollo or something, which became his epithet in the
published story?
Christopher Kreuzer
Was that not more Eomer instantly recognising the kingliness of Aragorn?
Developing into the love of a loyal subject for his king? [Something you
would expect to see in a heroic saga.] Or was it more the sword-brother
type of love? Or even just recognising a kindred spirit?
There are similar things said about Ecthelion and Thorongil:
"[Ecthelion] had the aid and advice of a great captain whom he loved
above all. Thorongil men called him in Gondor, the Eagle of the Star..."
(Appendix A)
Christopher Kreuzer
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
<snip>
>> Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring
>> at each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars
>> about them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can you
>> imagine how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage?
>> Clearly it couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an
>> elf, and elves have bodily needs.
>
> Not, perhaps, while they stand entranced by the eyes of a Maia.
> Remember, Yavanna (was it Yavanna?) put every living thing in Arda
> into a long preservative sleep after the destruction of the Lamps.
> Seems to be no problem to me. Love is so powerful that it obviates
> such base physical needs.
Yes. Though the wheeling stars bit reminds me of what Gandalf said when
he returned after his battle with the Balrog and told how he lay on the
top of the mountain:
"There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day
was as long as a life-age of the earth." (The White Rider)
>> Is it symbolic? Does it stand for Thingol removing
>> himself from the world and the people he came from? Choosing love and
>> abandoning everything else? Somehow, that doesn't sound right.
>> Because Tolkien was not too fond of symbolism and if he wanted
>> Thingol to abandon anything he would probably just have said so. Not
>> to mention the fact that Thingol became a great king afterwards. So
>> what does this passage mean?
>
> I take it as simply literal truth. They stared into each others' eyes
> for years without moving.
I agree.
>> In the meantime, his people look for him as he is their leader. This
>> disturbs me. He leaves them, abandons them, drops his responsibility
>> on the very spot. This is not how a leader should act. I understand
>> he couldn't ask for Melian's phone number, but he could have asked
>> her to come along while he did what he had to do. Instead he
>> disappears, having his people think he is lost or dead or worse and
>> leaves his brother Olwë to take over.
>
> I don't think he made a conscious choice. I don't think he *had* any
> choice in the matter. "Love at first sight" is like that (at least in
> Tolkien).
Not only the love bit, but the doom. In chapter 5 we are told of Elwe
that a "high doom was before him." I reckon if you ask Mandos about any
of this, he would say "It is doomed" (surprise!)
Which reminds me of Yuk Tang's comment about how the story gets
"meatier" later on, with the Silmarils and the Wars of the Jewels, and
how Mandos was a party-pooper. These first few chapters are indeed
setting the scene. As soon as other people start talking, and Mandos
zips his trap (after uttering his famous curse), things get even more
interesting, but the style of these first few chapters can seem 'remote'
and 'high'.
But actually, I _like_ the flowery poetic language of the narrator here
and elsewhere in these first few chapters. Tolkien's 'high' style, with
rhetorical flourishes and philosophical diversions about the fate of
Elves and Men, and extended legendary accounts of the beginning of days.
How do other people react to this sort of writing?
Christopher Kreuzer
>>> I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
>>> mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was
>>> made to Yavanna" mean?
>> she was akin to Yavanna herself". Akin to means kin of, related to.
>
Yes. Commas would help here. Most of the time, having read the story
before, I sort of understand how the sentence should flow, and can
insert the appropriate pauses. But there are some sentences that still
trip me up. I read them and then, when they come out all wrong, have to
go back and re-read it, pausing in the right places to recognise the
clauses and sub-clauses that are densely packed into Tolkien sentences
(at least in this book).
<snip>
>>> Next it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves
>>> and Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä".
>>
>> It means that her descendants carried the "bloodline" of the Ainur
>> "who were with Iluvatar before Ea", i.e. before the world was
>> created.
>
> So... "of her there came both Elves and Men a strain of the Ainur, who
> (the Ainur) were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Not very clear writing, I
> say.
The important sense of the sentence is:
"...of her there came among both Elves and Men a strain of [those] who
were with Iluvatar before [the world was made]."
Tolkien uses the terms 'Ainur' and 'Ea' to name these concepts.
When reading these sort of sentences, you have to remember that they are
not always very focused, and are often very rambling. The point of the
sentence might not be fully clear until the end, but the sense should
then become clear. Re-reading the sentence several times, and looking at
the context should help. I often find myself re-reading whole sentences
and paragraphs to make sure I've understood it properly.
The next sentence is a good example of a rambling one:
"In after days he became a king renowned, and his people were all the
Eldar of Beleriand; the Sindar they were named, the Grey-elves, the
Elves of the Twilight and King Greymantle was he, Elu Thingol in the
tongue of that land."
The sentence goes from talking about Thingol being renowned, to a
linguistic ramble about the Sindar, giving two other terms for them, and
two other terms for Elwe Singollo, eventually ending up with the name
Thingol that he will be mostly known by hereafter.
In that sentence though, the commas and semi-colons help break it up
into clauses and make clear what is going on. When the commas aren't
there, you have to wing it a bit!
ste...@nomail.com
> ste...@nomail.com <ste...@nomail.com> wrote:
>> In rec.arts.books.tolkien Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>>> JimboCat wrote:
>>
>>>> Most of the slowly-developing love is between comrades-in-arms.
>>>> Legolas/Gimli, Eomer/Aragorn, etc. Probably goes back to JRRT's
>>>> experience in the War.
>>
>>> True! Good point! So... he COULD do it, he only choose not to where
>>> romantic love is considered. What do you all think, was that a
>>> conscious decision on his part? Or did he involuntarily shy away from
>>> it?
>>
>> There is no slow development of the Legolas/Gimli relationship.
>> One chapter they are rather indifferent to each other, and then
>> they are suddenly best of friends. Eomer/Aragorn is also
>> "love at first sight', or so says Eomer.
>> "Since the day when you rose before me out of the green
>> grass of the downs I have loved you, and that love shall
>> not fail."
> Was that not more Eomer instantly recognising the kingliness of Aragorn?
> Developing into the love of a loyal subject for his king? [Something you
> would expect to see in a heroic saga.] Or was it more the sword-brother
> type of love? Or even just recognising a kindred spirit?
No matter which you choose, it was not slowly developing.
Eomer's words are plain as day.
> There are similar things said about Ecthelion and Thorongil:
> "[Ecthelion] had the aid and advice of a great captain whom he loved
> above all. Thorongil men called him in Gondor, the Eagle of the Star..."
> (Appendix A)
That is quite different as it gives no time frame. It does
not say that Ecthelion loved Aragorn at first sight, whereas
Eomer clearly says that he loved Aragorn at first sight.
Stephen
Christopher Kreuzer
Just to play devil's advocate, he could, possibly, have come to
recognise some time later that he loved Aragorn, and only then realising
that he loved him from that moment he first saw him.
I mean, they didn't spend 220 years looking in each other's eyes. :-)
Eomer's first words to Aragorn were:
"Who are you, and what are you doing in this land?"
Then:
"...he drew his sword and stood face to face with Aragorn, surveying him
keenly, and not without wonder. At length he spoke again."
Part of what he said was:
"...there is something strange about you, Strider."
And then:
"He bent his clear bright eyes again upon the Ranger."
Whatever friendship then develops between them, I would say it is only
an instinctive recognition that Aragorn is a good man that Eomer
perceives at first (much like Faramir immediately perceived that Frodo
and Sam were honourable people). The later "loved at first sight" is
just overblown rhetoric, said in the context of two allies renewing
bonds of friendship (it is said when Aragorn is receiving people in the
Hall of Kings in the days after his coronation). Surely Eomer is just
saying that the league between Gondor and Rohan shall never fail - while
also acknowledging the strong friendship between the two rulers of the
realms.
>> There are similar things said about Ecthelion and Thorongil:
>
>> "[Ecthelion] had the aid and advice of a great captain whom he loved
>> above all. Thorongil men called him in Gondor, the Eagle of the
>> Star..." (Appendix A)
>
> That is quite different as it gives no time frame. It does
> not say that Ecthelion loved Aragorn at first sight, whereas
> Eomer clearly says that he loved Aragorn at first sight.
Ah, but it doesn't say that he _didn't_ love him at first sight! :-) And
anyway, I'm now arguing that Eomer meant something subtly different.
Count Menelvagor
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
> JimboCat <10313...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
> > Not, perhaps, while they stand entranced by the eyes of a Maia.
> > Remember, Yavanna (was it Yavanna?) put every living thing in Arda
> > into a long preservative sleep after the destruction of the Lamps.
> > Seems to be no problem to me. Love is so powerful that it obviates
> > such base physical needs.
>
> Yes. Though the wheeling stars bit reminds me of what Gandalf said when
> he returned after his battle with the Balrog and told how he lay on the
> top of the mountain:
>
> "There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day
> was as long as a life-age of the earth." (The White Rider)
now i'm horribly reminded of when people get knocked out in comic books
and see stars wheeling around.
> Not only the love bit, but the doom. In chapter 5 we are told of Elwe
> that a "high doom was before him." I reckon if you ask Mandos about any
> of this, he would say "It is doomed" (surprise!)
he was quite the lapidary wit, was he not? even melkor admitted as
much.
Count Menelvagor
> When reading these sort of sentences, you have to remember that they are
> not always very focused, and are often very rambling. The point of the
> sentence might not be fully clear until the end, but the sense should
> then become clear. Re-reading the sentence several times, and looking at
> the context should help. I often find myself re-reading whole sentences
> and paragraphs to make sure I've understood it properly.
one that used to give me mild trouble, not so much for syntactical
complexity, as for the weird use of words, was "his cat, he calls her,
though she owns him not." i used to think that should be, "he owns her
not." but he's not using "own" in the usual sense.
Michael Hellman
"Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:3v5iknF...@individual.net...
>A bit soon after the last chapter but we're not busy anyway and this
> way we can keep to the schedule. For the schedule, see
> http://parasha.maoltuile.org/. We still need volunteers!
>
>
>
> Of Thingol and Melian
>
> Not even two pages, this shortest chapter, yet full of riddles for us
> to discuss. Let's start with the first sentence.
>
> "Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar."
>
> The index tells us that the Valar is the name "given to those great
> Ainur who entered into Eä at the beginning of time". The Ainur are
> "the first beings created by Ilúvatar, the 'order' of the Valar and
> Maiar, made before Eä". Maiar are "Ainur of lesser degree than the
> Valar". So how can a Maia be of the race of the Valar? Do we have a
> special Vala-type of Maiar? It seems that Maiar and Valar are not the
> same.
Are Valar and Maiar not both of the race of the Ainur?
>
> Second sentence.
>
> "... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
>
> Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is it
> with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
> detail, but one is starting to wonder where the women
> are who are not the most beautiful. We don't get to hear how Thingol
> looks like. Methinks he must have been quite the stud.
Well, they were all related, weren't they? It's in the genes, you know.
>
> Third sentence. No, kidding! Fifth sentence.
>
> "She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
See response to first sentence.
>
> I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
> mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was made
> to Yavanna" mean?
>
> Enter Thingol. He walks through the woods on his way to his pal Finwë
> when he comes along Melian. Rather, he hears her singing and is
> immediately sold. He follows her voice, comes to a glade and there she
> is. Does this story sound familiar? Apparently, being the most
> beautiful and meeting the love of your life while you are singing in
> the woods runs in the family. I love the romance of it all and the
> fact that it is probably rooted in Edith singing and dancing for John
> once but to be honest, after three times it gets old.
>
> Thingol sees Melian and his original "wonder and desire" gets replaced
> by love. Nice! It doesn't say whether Melian loves him back but we
> might assume so because they proceed with standing and gazing for
> *years*.
>
> A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot in
> Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in love.
> Do we know of a love that grows, develops? The story of Aldarian and
> Erendis comes to mind, "The Mariner's Wife" from Unfinished Tales.
> But... that isn't a very romantic story. Not romantic at all. Then
> there is Eöl and his shamble of a marriage. Or was it even a marriage?
> Not much love involved, anyway.
Well, Eowyn wasn't exactly hot for Faramir at first. But JRRT does seem to
rely heavily on destiny. It does tend to simply things.
>
> There is only one case I know of in which love at first sight didn't
> work out, and that was with Éowyn and Aragorn. And, of course, that
> one was originally supposed to work out.
>
> I must say that Tolkien has some very Platonian views on love. It is
> all very abstract and courtly and idealistic. People meet, immediately
> know they are meant for each other and stay together for the rest of
> their lives without a fight, without doubts and usually without sex (I
> still think babies are brought by the stork in Tolkien's universum).
> When I talked about this with a friend she wondered about Edith's role
> in this. What was she like, in love, in sex, in all the messy aspects
> of normal human relationships? But it's almost impossible to find
> something about Edith apart from her being mentioned as "wife of".
>
> I don't like it. It is all too clean, too perfect, too sure. I cannot
> relate (and I have a sound relationship). What are your ideas? And are
> there exceptions in Tolkien's work other then the ones I mentioned?
He also doesn't mention anything about the characters using the bathroom,
getting colds or suffering the agony of psoriasis. He hits the high points.
How many couples of standing would you guess had pre-marital sex in
Victorian England? Or post-marital, for that matter! >-/
>
> Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring at
> each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars about
> them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can you imagine
> how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage? Clearly it
> couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an elf, and elves
> have bodily needs. Is it symbolic? Does it stand for Thingol removing
> himself from the world and the people he came from? Choosing love and
> abandoning everything else? Somehow, that doesn't sound right. Because
> Tolkien was not too fond of symbolism and if he wanted Thingol to
> abandon anything he would probably just have said so. Not to mention
> the fact that Thingol became a great king afterwards. So what does
> this passage mean?
>
> In the meantime, his people look for him as he is their leader. This
> disturbs me. He leaves them, abandons them, drops his responsibility
> on the very spot. This is not how a leader should act. I understand he
> couldn't ask for Melian's phone number, but he could have asked her to
> come along while he did what he had to do. Instead he disappears,
> having his people think he is lost or dead or worse and leaves his
> brother Olwë to take over.
>
> We don't get to hear anything about that and I think that leaves a lot
> of questions unanswered. How did the Teleri react when they heard he
> was alive and well? Why did the Eldar chose him as their king? What
> did his mother have to say about all this? (If he even had one.)
Yeah, Tolkien does have a tendency toward the extreme. I remember thinking
the same about Thrain when he learned of Thror's death. He sat unmoving for
seven days. I seriously doubt that I could sit unmoving for seven hours.
But, hey, I don't have a dwarven constitution either.
>
> Nex it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves and
> Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Again, I
> am at a loss as to what this means. What does "of her came a strain of
> Ainur" say? That she gave birth to them? But the Ainur were "the first
> beings created by Ilúvatar" so that can't be it. And there weren't any
> humans around before Eä so the second part makes no more sense to me
> then the first. Please enlighten me.
Since she was an Ainu, she was with Iluvatar before Ea. Her offspring would
constitute such a 'strain' (no pun intended). I think it just means that
she was one of the few Ainur to have progeny.
>
> Well, I spent a lot more words on this chapter than there are words in
> the chapter, but then, it is full of mystery.
>
> T.
>
>
>
>
Michael Hellman
> And as much as I enjoyed PJLOTR, please, don't let Jackson get his hands
> on
> the Hobbit, it could be the waste of a great opportunity.
>
>
> --
>
> Davémon
> http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
>
If we've learned anything in the last decade, we've learned that any movie
made can be re-made. PJ's certainly wasn't the cinematic treatment of LOTR
that I've been waiting for all my life, but it has, at least, brought the
work back to the attention of the public at large. And, while the films
were in the theatres, all three books were, albeit briefly, back on the best
sellers' list.
Robert Kolker
>
>
> If we've learned anything in the last decade, we've learned that any movie
> made can be re-made. PJ's certainly wasn't the cinematic treatment of LOTR
> that I've been waiting for all my life, but it has, at least, brought the
> work back to the attention of the public at large. And, while the films
> were in the theatres, all three books were, albeit briefly, back on the best
> sellers' list.
A motion picture that really does justice to LOTR is too expensive to
make. To carry the burden of the novels the motion pictures would have
to be something like 30 to 50 hours in length (total for the three
parts). Forget it. It is not going to happen.
1. It is too expensive.
2. The back-story (The Silmarillion) is too complex to incorporate into
an LOTR film, properly done.
3. No professional actor is going to dedicate the -years- it would take
to make such a movie series. As it was Peter Jackson had his cast sign
up for 1.5 years of very hard work. That effectively took them out of
circulation for other parts.
4. Except for a few afficienados no general audience is going to sit
still for that length of time (even in separate sittings).
Bob Kolker
Kevin K
wrote:
One thing to consider is that at some point, avoiding some worldwide
disaster, technology continues to improve. With the history of movies
being remade, someone, sometime, will be able to have a fully produce
a fully digital version of the movies. They may even be able to do it
with the equivalent of a home pc, given enough talent.
The early versions may steal sets, etc, from other movies, and not be
fully legal, but still ... :)
--
Raker
"Kevin K" <kev...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:KIRoJuEXw9g9-pn2-qzyILedKqufZ@ecs...
that Jackson has been.
Let's face it, none of us sees Middle Earth the same way. And I doubt very
much that any of us see it the same way that Tolkien did.
But that's OK. Tolkien's effort was, in essence, to create a Saxonesque
mythology. And mythology is never the creation of one person, but of an
entire society. We all, I suspect, interpret and envision very different
things regarding, say, Greek mythology.
Todd
Davémon
> And when that happens, the creators will be subject to the same criticism
> that Jackson has been.
>
> Let's face it, none of us sees Middle Earth the same way.
I'm not sure the job of a film-maker is to make a film that everyone
immediately recognises, but to interpret the work through their own visual
language.
> And I doubt very much that any of us see it the same way that Tolkien did.
We do know that Tolkien hung the work of Cor Blok in his house, we do have
Tolkiens own drawings, and more importantly we have the visual languages of
the cultures he's referencing. None of these is the kind of stylisticly
homengeneous, easily digestable 'fantasy art' kitch that PJLOTR gives us.
>
> But that's OK. Tolkien's effort was, in essence, to create a Saxonesque
> mythology. And mythology is never the creation of one person, but of an
> entire society. We all, I suspect, interpret and envision very different
> things regarding, say, Greek mythology.
>
Both the Greek and Saxon cultures have their own visual languages, which
could be clearly referenced by a film-maker/animator. Surely to partake in
the same mythmaking as Tolkien, the film-maker should have gone to the same
cultural sources of inspiration and not meerly ape the current fashions in
'fantasy art'?
BTW: as the Hobbit is essentially episodic, would it not make a better TV
series than a movie?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Raker
"Davémon" <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:o7jlctqklkq$.19d2jokabu2qz$.dlg@40tude.net...
> Raker arranged shapes to form:
>
>> And when that happens, the creators will be subject to the same criticism
>> that Jackson has been.
>>
>> Let's face it, none of us sees Middle Earth the same way.
>
> I'm not sure the job of a film-maker is to make a film that everyone
> immediately recognises, but to interpret the work through their own visual
> language.
I think that was my point. Jackson has come under a great deal of criticism
because he created a movie that differed with the images that writers on
this group have.
>
>> And I doubt very much that any of us see it the same way that Tolkien
>> did.
>
>
> We do know that Tolkien hung the work of Cor Blok in his house, we do have
> Tolkiens own drawings, and more importantly we have the visual languages
> of
> the cultures he's referencing. None of these is the kind of stylisticly
> homengeneous, easily digestable 'fantasy art' kitch that PJLOTR gives us.
This seems to contradict your earlier point: If it's his job to create the
movie as he sees it, he may find inspiration from the images Tolkien had,
but he doesn't have an obligation to conform to that.
>
>>
>> But that's OK. Tolkien's effort was, in essence, to create a Saxonesque
>> mythology. And mythology is never the creation of one person, but of an
>> entire society. We all, I suspect, interpret and envision very different
>> things regarding, say, Greek mythology.
>>
>
> Both the Greek and Saxon cultures have their own visual languages, which
> could be clearly referenced by a film-maker/animator. Surely to partake in
> the same mythmaking as Tolkien, the film-maker should have gone to the
> same
> cultural sources of inspiration and not meerly ape the current fashions in
> 'fantasy art'?
Not at all. Myths through history have been constantly revised to keep
current with the mores and standards of the existing culture. Besides, while
Saxon visual art may remain, its mythology has long since succumbed to
influences from the Celts, the French and others.
>
> BTW: as the Hobbit is essentially episodic, would it not make a better TV
> series than a movie?
>
One of the challenges in that concept is the notion of television series. As
I understand British TV, very successful series can be very short-lived, a
half-dozen or dozen episodes, and maintain artistic integrity. In American
TV, if it makes money, it gets renewed (with the idea of making the magic
100 episodes that makes it viable for syndication.) My concern in the
business that is entertainment is that if The Hobbit is successful as a TV
series, producers would start making stuff up to string out the series well
past the original storyline. I would rather avoid that temptation.
Todd
Derek Broughton
>
> "Davémon" <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:o7jlctqklkq$.19d2jokabu2qz$.dlg@40tude.net...
>>
>> BTW: as the Hobbit is essentially episodic, would it not make a better TV
>> series than a movie?
>>
> One of the challenges in that concept is the notion of television series.
> As I understand British TV, very successful series can be very
> short-lived, a half-dozen or dozen episodes, and maintain artistic
> integrity. In American TV, if it makes money, it gets renewed (with the
> idea of making the magic 100 episodes that makes it viable for
> syndication.) My concern in the business that is entertainment is that if
> The Hobbit is successful as a TV series, producers would start making
> stuff up to string out the series well past the original storyline. I
> would rather avoid that temptation.
Not _all_ American TV is that way. The "miniseries" is common enough.
Often they really are mid-season replacements that the producers hope will
be picked up as regular series, but many of them are intended to be
fixed-length, no renewals.
--
derek
JimboCat
>A motion picture that really does justice to LOTR is too expensive to
>make. To carry the burden of the novels the motion pictures would have
>to be something like 30 to 50 hours in length (total for the three
>parts). Forget it. It is not going to happen.
You keep asserting this, but that doesn't make it any more true. Fifty
years ago, only a major music company could put an LP on the market.
Today, any kid with a computer can make his own CD and sell it on the
Internet. The same is going to happen, eventually, with animated video
(it's already starting to happen now, though they're mostly cheesy
Flash animations). I expect within the next fifty years there will be
*dozens* of new animated versions of LOTR -- copyright or no -- and
that at least a few of them will be 30 to 50 hours in length. Most of
them will be garbage start to finish, of course...
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry
Davémon
> "Davémon" <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:o7jlctqklkq$.19d2jokabu2qz$.dlg@40tude.net...
>> Raker arranged shapes to form:
>>
>>> And when that happens, the creators will be subject to the same criticism
>>> that Jackson has been.
>>>
>>> Let's face it, none of us sees Middle Earth the same way.
>>
>> I'm not sure the job of a film-maker is to make a film that everyone
>> immediately recognises, but to interpret the work through their own visual
>> language.
>
> I think that was my point. Jackson has come under a great deal of criticism
> because he created a movie that differed with the images that writers on
> this group have.
My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I imagine, but
that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy art' looks like.
Pure visuals aside, even the voice acting completely rips off the BBC radio
4 dramatisation. Other than plot and some dialogue, nothing in the PJLOTR
is original or taken from Tolkien, or from returning to Tolkiens sources.
It all feels very third-hand.
>>> And I doubt very much that any of us see it the same way that Tolkien
>>> did.
>>
>>
>> We do know that Tolkien hung the work of Cor Blok in his house, we do have
>> Tolkiens own drawings, and more importantly we have the visual languages
>> of
>> the cultures he's referencing. None of these is the kind of stylisticly
>> homengeneous, easily digestable 'fantasy art' kitch that PJLOTR gives us.
>
> This seems to contradict your earlier point: If it's his job to create the
> movie as he sees it, he may find inspiration from the images Tolkien had,
> but he doesn't have an obligation to conform to that.
>
No my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art" he has
seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources than gift-books
and role playing games boxes and more interesting ways of presenting the
stories than resorting to hyper-realism kitch.
>>>
>>> But that's OK. Tolkien's effort was, in essence, to create a Saxonesque
>>> mythology. And mythology is never the creation of one person, but of an
>>> entire society. We all, I suspect, interpret and envision very different
>>> things regarding, say, Greek mythology.
>>>
>>
>> Both the Greek and Saxon cultures have their own visual languages, which
>> could be clearly referenced by a film-maker/animator. Surely to partake in
>> the same mythmaking as Tolkien, the film-maker should have gone to the
>> same
>> cultural sources of inspiration and not meerly ape the current fashions in
>> 'fantasy art'?
>
> Not at all. Myths through history have been constantly revised to keep
> current with the mores and standards of the existing culture.
We're not actually talking about a living mythology. Tolkiens work is
fiction, and doesn't serve the social functions of real myth (i.e. a story
that serves to explain the world view of a people).
I agree PJLOTR revised Tolkiens work to the aesthetic lowest common
denominator, and in that way presents a story to a post-literate audience
in ways a book, or sophisticated film (or animation) could never do.
>>
>> BTW: as the Hobbit is essentially episodic, would it not make a better TV
>> series than a movie?
>>
> One of the challenges in that concept is the notion of television series. As
> I understand British TV, very successful series can be very short-lived, a
> half-dozen or dozen episodes, and maintain artistic integrity.
I also think a british production house (either independant, or BBC) would
probably be able to treat it better than an american company. There also
seems to be some quite strong Australian childrens TV output.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Yuk Tang
> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy
> art' looks like.
Such as?
> Pure visuals aside, even the voice acting completely rips off the
> BBC radio 4 dramatisation. Other than plot and some dialogue,
> nothing in the PJLOTR is original or taken from Tolkien, or from
> returning to Tolkiens sources. It all feels very third-hand.
Blame Hollywood for placing British theatre acting on such a
pedestal, that 'quality' must inevitably follow such a pattern. Have
you seen the HBO-funded series 'Rome'? It was made for a primarily
US audience, but it drew almost entirely from British and other
European actors, because the American audience feels more comfortable
with them in weightier roles.
> No my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art"
> he has seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources
> than gift-books and role playing games boxes and more interesting
> ways of presenting the stories than resorting to hyper-realism
> kitch.
One would have that Howe and Lee would be among the most popular
interpreters of Tolkien around, apart from Tolkien himself.
> We're not actually talking about a living mythology. Tolkiens work
> is fiction, and doesn't serve the social functions of real myth
> (i.e. a story that serves to explain the world view of a people).
And there I was thinking that Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
alternative English mythology.
> I agree PJLOTR revised Tolkiens work to the aesthetic lowest
> common denominator, and in that way presents a story to a
> post-literate audience in ways a book, or sophisticated film (or
> animation) could never do.
PJ used Tolkien's LotR to make a Hollywood film. He was
extravagantly successful in this aim, cf. the profits. He also tried
to adapt Tolkien's LotR to a different medium. In this, in the
opinions of many here, he has been extravagantly unsuccessful. IMO
he made a beautiful Middle Earth, but he's also entirely missed the
point of the book.
>>> BTW: as the Hobbit is essentially episodic, would it not make a
>>> better TV series than a movie?
>>>
>> One of the challenges in that concept is the notion of television
>> series. As I understand British TV, very successful series can be
>> very short-lived, a half-dozen or dozen episodes, and maintain
>> artistic integrity.
>
> I also think a british production house (either independant, or
> BBC) would probably be able to treat it better than an american
> company. There also seems to be some quite strong Australian
> childrens TV output.
Depends on what mode the BBC adaptation would be in. HBO can ignore
ratings completely, but the BBC, balancing the pressures of quality
productions and justifying its licence fee with popular programmes,
frequently makes stuff that is neither. That's why the big-name
productions by by reliables like David Attenborough are such
important cornerstones of the BBC schedule, with a guaranteed
audience assuming from the outset that their minds will be
challenged. I suppose a Tolkien adaptation might fall into this
category, but I wouldn't bet on it.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Derek Broughton
> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I imagine, but
> that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy art' looks like.
>
...
>
> my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art" he has
> seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources than
> gift-books and role playing games boxes and more interesting ways of
> presenting the stories than resorting to hyper-realism kitch.
Jackson, himself, says that - he actively sought out some of the best known
LOTR artists for his movie. How exactly that is unauthentic, I can't
figure. Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
_that_ authentic LOTR art either. It's not as if PJ hired the brothers
Hillebrandt :-)
--
derek
Davémon
> Davémon wrote:
>
>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I imagine, but
>> that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy art' looks like.
>>
> ...
>>
>> my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art" he has
>> seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources than
>> gift-books and role playing games boxes and more interesting ways of
>> presenting the stories than resorting to hyper-realism kitch.
>
> Jackson, himself, says that - he actively sought out some of the best known
> LOTR artists for his movie. How exactly that is unauthentic, I can't
> figure.
IMHO Any aesthetic that attempts to create a photo-realistic representation
of the imaginary world, is by its nature non-authentic and illusionary.
Only the surface is revealed, not the essence of the narrative, emotions or
character.
> Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
> _that_ authentic LOTR art either.
Why not? What would your criteria for authenticity be? Mine is - an
affinity with the authors work ie. should be as entrenched in the medieval
periods art as Tolkien was in its languages - and still have a modern
sencibility.
> It's not as if PJ hired the brothers Hillebrandt :-)
IMHO PJ's result is not 100 miles away, more realism - less camp, but
pretty similar nontheless.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:1u114lkdimxds$.1uhmte5b...@40tude.net:
>>
>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy
>> art' looks like.
>
> Such as?
>
Larry D. Elmore, Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith, Chris Achlleos
>
>> Pure visuals aside, even the voice acting completely rips off the
>> BBC radio 4 dramatisation. It all feels very third-hand.
>
> Blame Hollywood for placing British theatre acting on such a
> pedestal, that 'quality' must inevitably follow such a pattern.
PJLOTR doesn't have lots of english actors. It has american actors doing
impressions of The Radio 4 series, and the only person to blame is the
person who made it.
>> No my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art"
>> he has seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources
>> than gift-books and role playing games boxes and more interesting
>> ways of presenting the stories than resorting to hyper-realism
>> kitch.
>
> One would have that Howe and Lee would be among the most popular
> interpreters of Tolkien around, apart from Tolkien himself.
>
I don't dispute that it's popular. I dispute that its little more than
kitch.
>> We're not actually talking about a living mythology. Tolkiens work
>> is fiction, and doesn't serve the social functions of real myth
>> (i.e. a story that serves to explain the world view of a people).
>
> And there I was thinking that Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
> alternative English mythology.
>
The English don't treat LOTR as a mythology, the english live by the myths
of capitalism, celebrity worship, binge drinking, the old empire, and
winning WWII. We're not waiting for the king to return. But perhaps we
have a different understanding of what mythology and fiction is.
> IMO
> he made a beautiful Middle Earth, but he's also entirely missed the
> point of the book.
>
indeed, middle earth is part and parcel of the the narrative(s), not an
independant creation in its own right.
>
> Depends on what mode the BBC adaptation would be in. HBO can ignore
> ratings completely, but the BBC, balancing the pressures of quality
> productions and justifying its licence fee with popular programmes,
> frequently makes stuff that is neither.
Thats interesting, does HBO make childrens TV?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Yuk Tang
>> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
>> news:1u114lkdimxds$.1uhmte5b...@40tude.net:
>>>
>>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary
>>> 'fantasy art' looks like.
>>
>> Such as?
>
> Larry D. Elmore, Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith, Chris Achlleos
So whose vision would you rather have, if not Lee's, Howe's and
Nasmith's?
>>> Pure visuals aside, even the voice acting completely rips off
>>> the BBC radio 4 dramatisation. It all feels very third-hand.
>>
>> Blame Hollywood for placing British theatre acting on such a
>> pedestal, that 'quality' must inevitably follow such a pattern.
>
> PJLOTR doesn't have lots of english actors. It has american actors
> doing impressions of The Radio 4 series, and the only person to
> blame is the person who made it.
Have you not noticed that Hollywood usually turns to Britain when
they want a bad guy or someone else with similar weight to play the
hero off against?
>>> No my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy
>>> art" he has seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic
>>> sources than gift-books and role playing games boxes and more
>>> interesting ways of presenting the stories than resorting to
>>> hyper-realism kitch.
>>
>> One would have that Howe and Lee would be among the most popular
>> interpreters of Tolkien around, apart from Tolkien himself.
>
> I don't dispute that it's popular. I dispute that its little more
> than kitch.
So whom, or what would you rather have? It's one thing to say
something is bad, but what vision would count as 'good' in your eyes?
Errol Flynn and his tight green costumes?
>>> We're not actually talking about a living mythology. Tolkiens
>>> work is fiction, and doesn't serve the social functions of real
>>> myth (i.e. a story that serves to explain the world view of a
>>> people).
>>
>> And there I was thinking that Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
>> alternative English mythology.
>
> The English don't treat LOTR as a mythology, the english live by
> the myths of capitalism, celebrity worship, binge drinking, the
> old empire, and winning WWII. We're not waiting for the king to
> return. But perhaps we have a different understanding of what
> mythology and fiction is.
So I guess that Tolkien should have borne these things in mind when
he started to write the Book of Lost Tales and the genesis of the ME
world. Note 'Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an alternative English
mythology', ie. that was one of JRRT's intentions. What you see as
genuine English mythology has nowt to do with authorial intentions.
>> IMO
>> he made a beautiful Middle Earth, but he's also entirely missed
>> the point of the book.
>
> indeed, middle earth is part and parcel of the the narrative(s),
> not an independant creation in its own right.
PJ missed the point of the book as much as you missed the point of
the above. In plainer words, PJ's creation is very pretty, but it
misses the philosophy and thinking behind Tolkien's creation.
>> Depends on what mode the BBC adaptation would be in. HBO can
>> ignore ratings completely, but the BBC, balancing the pressures
>> of quality productions and justifying its licence fee with
>> popular programmes, frequently makes stuff that is neither.
>
> Thats interesting, does HBO make childrens TV?
That's interesting, you've snipped the part where I discuss the
strengths and weaknesses of the BBC. And would the BBC make The
Hobbit specifically as a children's programme?
--
Cheers, ymt.
Yuk Tang
>> Davémon wrote:
>>
>>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary
>>> 'fantasy art' looks like.
>>>
>>> he has seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic
>>> sources than gift-books and role playing games boxes and more
>>> interesting ways of presenting the stories than resorting to
>>> hyper-realism kitch.
>>
>> Jackson, himself, says that - he actively sought out some of the
>> best known LOTR artists for his movie. How exactly that is
>> unauthentic, I can't figure.
>
> IMHO Any aesthetic that attempts to create a photo-realistic
> representation of the imaginary world, is by its nature
> non-authentic and illusionary. Only the surface is revealed, not
> the essence of the narrative, emotions or character.
I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
be authentic and non-illusionary? One would have thought that photo-
realism would be an important part of any such attempt, but you
obviously disagree.
Methinks someone has been studying film or art theory and is itching
to try out these long words without any thought of how they hang
together.
>> Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
>> _that_ authentic LOTR art either.
>
> Why not? What would your criteria for authenticity be? Mine is -
> an affinity with the authors work ie. should be as entrenched in
> the medieval periods art as Tolkien was in its languages - and
> still have a modern sencibility.
I challenge you to find a way of making such a film palatable to a
modern audience. Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
the medieval period.
>> It's not as if PJ hired the brothers Hillebrandt :-)
>
> IMHO PJ's result is not 100 miles away, more realism - less camp,
> but pretty similar nontheless.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> Jackson, himself, says that - he actively sought out some of the best
> known LOTR artists for his movie. How exactly that is unauthentic, I
> can't figure. Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study
> doesn't make _that_ authentic LOTR art either. It's not as if PJ
> hired the brothers Hillebrandt :-)
Did you know they (the brothers Hildebrandt) had plans for a LotR film?
R. Dan Henry
>So I guess that Tolkien should have borne these things in mind when
>he started to write the Book of Lost Tales and the genesis of the ME
>world. Note 'Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an alternative English
>mythology', ie. that was one of JRRT's intentions. What you see as
>genuine English mythology has nowt to do with authorial intentions.
Your first mistake is in indiscriminately clumping all of the tales of
Middle-Earth together. Those tales we're currently doing COTW on, the
stories of the Valar, the Silmarils, and the early days of Middle-Earth
are written as mythology, but _The Hobbit_ is a children's tale, brought
into the circle of Arda almost by accident, while LOTR is written as a
history, recorded largely by those who experienced first-hand. Tolkien
wrote in many different modes and ignoring those modes is your first
mistake.
The second mistake is failing to distinguish between Tolkien having
written with the intent of creating an English mythology and his
actually having achieved that. It's fairly clear that he himself
realized that his early work was unsuitable for this purpose and thus
tried to come up with more modern-audience-believable origins than "the
Sun is a fruit". He never finished this project even to his own
satisfaction. He certainly never published, nor has his posthumously
published work served as, a viable English mythology, capable of
becoming a central foundation of an Englishperson's world view.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>IMHO Any aesthetic that attempts to create a photo-realistic representation
>of the imaginary world, is by its nature non-authentic and illusionary.
>Only the surface is revealed, not the essence of the narrative, emotions or
>character.
Well, now, that's just the fundamental limitation of the filmed medium,
and even a non-photo-realistic approach (which pretty much leaves
animation or filmed theatre, including puppet shows) which is why I
think certain books, among them LOTR, are really unfilmable. Tolkien
accomplishes tricks that are only possible with words. No actor, nor any
computer-generated image, could ever live up to the descriptions of
Aragorn, for example. And the key movie method for expressing deeply
emotional scenes is manipulative music, which isn't so terrible in
itself, but is cheesy in comparison to well-written prose.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Today, any kid with a computer can make his own CD and sell it on the
>Internet. The same is going to happen, eventually, with animated video
>(it's already starting to happen now, though they're mostly cheesy
>Flash animations). I expect within the next fifty years there will be
>*dozens* of new animated versions of LOTR -- copyright or no -- and
>that at least a few of them will be 30 to 50 hours in length. Most of
>them will be garbage start to finish, of course...
Most will likely be mixed live action and animation (like PJ's movies,
only heavier on the animation for lack of a large cast) and at least
half a dozen will include light sabre battles. (At least one will start
as someone's light sabre battle project and warp into a LOTR adaptation
as it searches for a context for the fighting.)
Yuk Tang
news:crnsp19d47m1mp0ia...@4ax.com:
> wrote:
>
>>So I guess that Tolkien should have borne these things in mind
>>when he started to write the Book of Lost Tales and the genesis of
>>the ME world. Note 'Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
>>alternative English mythology', ie. that was one of JRRT's
>>intentions. What you see as genuine English mythology has nowt to
>>do with authorial intentions.
>
> Your first mistake is in indiscriminately clumping all of the
> tales of Middle-Earth together. Those tales we're currently doing
> COTW on, the stories of the Valar, the Silmarils, and the early
> days of Middle-Earth are written as mythology, but _The Hobbit_ is
> a children's tale, brought into the circle of Arda almost by
> accident, while LOTR is written as a history, recorded largely by
> those who experienced first-hand. Tolkien wrote in many different
> modes and ignoring those modes is your first mistake.
You'll find that I was responding to the OP's statement that LotR and
the ME world in general was not written as, and does not fulfill the
functions of a living mythology. I've written above that the Lost
Tales were the genesis (origin) of the ME world, and that an
alternative English mythology was one of his intentions. He dropped
the English part (except in his lasting interest in Rohan), but that
he continued to envision ME as a mythology can be seen in his
continuing efforts to reconcile Arda with our world. If Tolkien saw
his creation as merely a work of fiction, as the OP claimed, why
would he bother explaining the flat-earth/round earth distinction?
> The second mistake is failing to distinguish between Tolkien
> having written with the intent of creating an English mythology
> and his actually having achieved that. It's fairly clear that he
> himself realized that his early work was unsuitable for this
> purpose and thus tried to come up with more
> modern-audience-believable origins than "the Sun is a fruit". He
> never finished this project even to his own satisfaction. He
> certainly never published, nor has his posthumously published work
> served as, a viable English mythology, capable of becoming a
> central foundation of an Englishperson's world view.
Nonetheless, that was his original intention, and parts of the
original intention show through even to his later works. Certainly
enough to show that Tolkien was _still_ trying to create a mythology.
Whether he succeeded or not is another matter, but surely
adaptations, as what's being discussed here, should have authorial
intentions at their centre?
What I'm trying to point out is that the OP places his own
perceptions, rather than the author, as the artistic keystone of any
adaptation. I can see such a compromise as inevitable in trying to
gain an audience, but criticising the artistic validity of an
adaptation on these grounds is beyond my understanding.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Morgoth's Curse
>JimboCat wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:01:20 +0100, "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>
>> wrote:
>>> A word on love at first sight. It's not only that it happens a lot
>>> in
>>> Tolkien's work, it seems that it is the only way people fall in
>>> love.
>>> Do we know of a love that grows, develops?
>> We don't see much man/woman love, though one that comes to mind as a
>> slow development is Turin and his sister. Tragic, of course, in that
>> case.
>
>Yes, I had forgotten that one. Beautiful and truly romantic, until the
>inevitable crash.
>
>> Most of the slowly-developing love is between comrades-in-arms.
>> Legolas/Gimli, Eomer/Aragorn, etc. Probably goes back to JRRT's
>> experience in the War.
>
>True! Good point! So... he COULD do it, he only choose not to where
>romantic love is considered. What do you all think, was that a
>conscious decision on his part? Or did he involuntarily shy away from
>it?
I think it is important to remember that Tolkien was born and raised
in the waning days of the Victorian age. He was also raised by a
Catholic priest. These two factors influenced all of his writings and
doubtless his preference for romantic or courtly love rather than
sexually explicit relationships which are so prevalent in literature
today.
>>> Back to Thingol and Melian. No hurry there - they are still staring
>>> at each other while "long years were measured by the wheeling stars
>>> about them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark". Can
>>> you
>>> imagine how long that is? What is the meaning of this passage?
>>> Clearly it couldn't have happened like that because Thingol was an
>>> elf, and elves have bodily needs.
>> Not, perhaps, while they stand entranced by the eyes of a Maia.
>> Remember, Yavanna (was it Yavanna?) put every living thing in Arda
>> into a long preservative sleep after the destruction of the Lamps.
>> Seems to be no problem to me. Love is so powerful that it obviates
>> such base physical needs.
>
>Base physical needs? Eating? Sitting down? I don't buy it. This was
>not a preservative sleep, they were standing up and watching. Maybe a
>Maia could do such a thing, _before_ she dressed herself in flesh. But
>once you acquire a body, you acquire bodily needs. Gandalf had to eat
>and sleep. So I don't think Melian could do that, let alone Thingol.
And yet you subscribe to the concept that Melian had sufficient power
to shield thousands of square miles of Doriath from the power of
Melkor, mightiest of the Valar? ;-)
Morgoth's Curse
Davémon
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:33:50 +0000, Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com>
> wrote:
>
>>IMHO Any aesthetic that attempts to create a photo-realistic representation
>>of the imaginary world, is by its nature non-authentic and illusionary.
>>Only the surface is revealed, not the essence of the narrative, emotions or
>>character.
>
> Well, now, that's just the fundamental limitation of the filmed medium,
> and even a non-photo-realistic approach (which pretty much leaves
> animation or filmed theatre, including puppet shows) which is why I
> think certain books, among them LOTR, are really unfilmable.
Animation, puppetry, filmed-theater, yes, all preferable mediums for
Tolkiens work to 'live action'.
> Tolkien
> accomplishes tricks that are only possible with words. No actor, nor any
> computer-generated image, could ever live up to the descriptions of
> Aragorn, for example.
Exactly, so why try? sidestep the whole 'literal representation' issue.
Give the audience another, equally poetic form.
> And the key movie method for expressing deeply
> emotional scenes is manipulative music, which isn't so terrible in
> itself, but is cheesy in comparison to well-written prose.
or beautifully executed animation.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
> R. Dan Henry <danh...@inreach.com> wrote in
In the same way Arthur C Clarke tends to get his science right. It's still
science fiction, not science.
>
>> The second mistake is failing to distinguish between Tolkien
>> having written with the intent of creating an English mythology
>> and his actually having achieved that. It's fairly clear that he
>> himself realized that his early work was unsuitable for this
>> purpose and thus tried to come up with more
>> modern-audience-believable origins than "the Sun is a fruit". He
>> never finished this project even to his own satisfaction. He
>> certainly never published, nor has his posthumously published work
>> served as, a viable English mythology, capable of becoming a
>> central foundation of an Englishperson's world view.
I agree wholeheartedly.
>
> Nonetheless, that was his original intention, and parts of the
> original intention show through even to his later works. Certainly
> enough to show that Tolkien was _still_ trying to create a mythology.
> Whether he succeeded or not is another matter, but surely
> adaptations, as what's being discussed here, should have authorial
> intentions at their centre?
>
Yes. However the authorial intention with The Hobbit wasn't to 'create a
mythology', it was to 'entertain children', specifically, the authors own.
IMHO children can be challenged by art in the way that teenagers can't.
Their expectactions havent been set, and a more creative, imaginary world
than can be offered to them.
> What I'm trying to point out is that the OP places his own
> perceptions, rather than the author, as the artistic keystone of any
> adaptation.
well I'm not the OP. And also, erm, the author is dead, so we can't ask. If
we look to the visual art of the author, we don't see him taking photos of
kids with pointy ears, do we? If we look at the visual art that the author
approved of, it's not photorealism. I don't believe Tolkien thought about
or saw fantasy in that way at all. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
> I can see such a compromise as inevitable in trying to
> gain an audience, but criticising the artistic validity of an
> adaptation on these grounds is beyond my understanding.
No, I'm stating that PJLOTR has little artistic validity because it has
little original in terms of its visual interpretation to offer, takes away
the poetry and imagination and replaces it with a surface.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Troels Forchhammer
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> enriched us with:
>
> Did you know they (the brothers Hildebrandt) had plans for a LotR
> film?
You scare me . . .
(I will expect some reimbursement for lost sleep . . . <G>)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.
- Aragorn "Strider", /Two Towers/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Davémon
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:1b543aiajilrv.3...@40tude.net:
>> Derek Broughton arranged shapes to form:
>>> Davémon wrote:
>>>
>>>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>>>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary
>>>> 'fantasy art' looks like.
>>>>
>>>> my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art"
>>>> he has seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic
>>>> sources than gift-books and role playing games boxes and more
>>>> interesting ways of presenting the stories than resorting to
>>>> hyper-realism kitch.
>>>
>>> Jackson, himself, says that - he actively sought out some of the
>>> best known LOTR artists for his movie. How exactly that is
>>> unauthentic, I can't figure.
>>
>> IMHO Any aesthetic that attempts to create a photo-realistic
>> representation of the imaginary world, is by its nature
>> non-authentic and illusionary. Only the surface is revealed, not
>> the essence of the narrative, emotions or character.
>
> I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
> bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
> medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
> be authentic and non-illusionary?
a non-literal representation using a combination of animation, puppetry and
motion-graphics.
> One would have thought that photo-
> realism would be an important part of any such attempt, but you
> obviously disagree.
Yes I do disagree.
> Methinks someone has been studying film or art theory and is itching
> to try out these long words without any thought of how they hang
> together.
>
I think you're projecting thoughts and behaviours on to me.
>>> Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
>>> _that_ authentic LOTR art either.
>>
>> Why not? What would your criteria for authenticity be? Mine is -
>> an affinity with the authors work ie. should be as entrenched in
>> the medieval periods art as Tolkien was in its languages - and
>> still have a modern sencibility.
>
> I challenge you to find a way of making such a film palatable to a
> modern audience.
Sorry, you've switched arguments from what is 'authentic' to what is
'popular'. I've no argument with PJLOTR being popular, so what would your
criteria for authenticity be?
> Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
> the medieval period.
Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:105x5wd96loy4$.1ep38xovt62tm$.d...@40tude.net:
>> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>>> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
>>> news:1u114lkdimxds$.1uhmte5b...@40tude.net:
>>>>
>>>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>>>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary
>>>> 'fantasy art' looks like.
>>>
>>> Such as?
>>
>> Larry D. Elmore, Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith, Chris Achlleos
>
> So whose vision would you rather have, if not Lee's, Howe's and
> Nasmith's?
>
Absolutely anyones.
But some examples:
Cor Blok:
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/translations/dutch/images/A3afr.jpg
Oliver Postgate and Peter Fimin:
http://www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk/
Lotte Reinigers Prince Achmed:
http://www.milestonefilms.com/movie.php/achmed/
And Pauline Baynes.
And Tove Jansson.
(these were mostly in my first post by the way)
>>> IMO
>>> he made a beautiful Middle Earth, but he's also entirely missed
>>> the point of the book.
>>
>> indeed, middle earth is part and parcel of the the narrative(s),
>> not an independant creation in its own right.
>
> PJ missed the point of the book as much as you missed the point of
> the above. In plainer words, PJ's creation is very pretty, but it
> misses the philosophy and thinking behind Tolkien's creation.
>
I understood your point, I just don't think it's all that relevant. Yes it
is pretty, but pretty doesn't mean authentic, valid, or good.
>>> HBO can ignore ratings completely,
>> Thats interesting, does HBO make childrens TV?
> And would the BBC make The
> Hobbit specifically as a children's programme?
I'd hope so, what with it being a childrens story and all.
Does HBO make childrens TV or not?
Troels Forchhammer
Yuk Tang <jim.l...@yahoo.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
> So I guess that Tolkien should have borne these things in mind
> when he started to write the Book of Lost Tales and the genesis of
> the ME world. Note 'Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
> alternative English mythology', ie. that was one of JRRT's
> intentions. What you see as genuine English mythology has nowt to
> do with authorial intentions.
I think there is somewhere an underlying mistake in what Tolkien
meant by creating a mythology dedicated to England.
Also - and here I hope I shall not sound absurd - I was
from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved
country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its
tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and
found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There
was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian,
and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing
English, save impoverished chap-book stuff.
[Letter #131, To Milton Waldman (probably written late in 1951)]
The point here is not that the English should actually believe this
stuff -- that is absurd, and Tolkien would have been outraged at the
suggestion. Tolkien's point to create something of the same order as
the mythological bodies he mentions -- a body of legends and myths
that nobody actually believs, but which would still /belong/ in a
peculiar way to the people.
At the extreme, Tolkien may have thought of something akin to the
relationship of the Nordic peoples to our Norse mythology: very few
believes it (and fifty years ago nobody did), but it is still a very
present part of our cultural background, and some superficial
knowledge of it is required. There are a lot of the songs (many by
one of the poets with the most psalms in the Danish book of psalms)
that draw on the Norse mythology to create a national (for a value of
'national' that may include all the Nordic countries) identity or
ideal (whether the interpretation of the old mythology that is
implied in this is actually historically correct is another matter).
This, however, is how I've read Tolkien's statements; that he dreamed
of creating a body of legends and myths, which could exist in the
same close symbiosis with an English identity or 'national
character' -- and that is the dream which he dismissed simply as
'absurd' in letter #131.
The dismissal of that idea, however, does not mean that Tolkien did
not still mean to capture something essentially English in his
stories, nor that he had given up on the idea of doing it for England
-- certainly his target audience remained primarily the English.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain
in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or
error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the
primary 'real' world.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, letter #131 to Milton Waldman
Yuk Tang
news:Xns972B89CC...@131.228.6.98:
> Yuk Tang <jim.l...@yahoo.com> enriched us with:
>
>> when he started to write the Book of Lost Tales and the genesis
>> of the ME world. Note 'Tolkien wrote the ME stories as an
>> alternative English mythology', ie. that was one of JRRT's
>> intentions. What you see as genuine English mythology has nowt
>> to do with authorial intentions.
>
> I think there is somewhere an underlying mistake in what Tolkien
> meant by creating a mythology dedicated to England.
>
> Also - and here I hope I shall not sound absurd - I was
> from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved
> country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its
> tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and
> found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There
> was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian,
> and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing
> English, save impoverished chap-book stuff.
> [Letter #131, To Milton Waldman (probably written late in 1951)]
>
> The point here is not that the English should actually believe
> this stuff -- that is absurd, and Tolkien would have been outraged
> at the suggestion. Tolkien's point to create something of the same
> order as the mythological bodies he mentions -- a body of legends
> and myths that nobody actually believs, but which would still
> /belong/ in a peculiar way to the people.
My reading of it is that he looked to create a mythology born from
existing English myths that in turn could add to one's understanding
of those existing myths. That the idea of a coalescent mythology was
shattered by the events of 1066, but these fragments could still be
read and given new meaning by a new framework or reading, which
Tolkien was providing.
> At the extreme, Tolkien may have thought of something akin to the
> relationship of the Nordic peoples to our Norse mythology: very
> few believes it (and fifty years ago nobody did), but it is still
> a very present part of our cultural background, and some
> superficial knowledge of it is required. There are a lot of the
> songs (many by one of the poets with the most psalms in the Danish
> book of psalms) that draw on the Norse mythology to create a
> national (for a value of 'national' that may include all the
> Nordic countries) identity or ideal (whether the interpretation of
> the old mythology that is implied in this is actually historically
> correct is another matter).
Wouldn't that be the very definition of a living mythology? I doubt
if many believed the literal readings of the various myths floating
around history, but they would have been taken to represent a deeper,
symbolic truth. I think the dichotomy between literal and symbolic
may have arisen from the primacy of science, whereas before people
were quite comfortable with a fuzzier embrace of both knowledge and
symbolism.
> This, however, is how I've read Tolkien's statements; that he
> dreamed of creating a body of legends and myths, which could exist
> in the same close symbiosis with an English identity or 'national
> character' -- and that is the dream which he dismissed simply as
> 'absurd' in letter #131.
>
> The dismissal of that idea, however, does not mean that Tolkien
> did not still mean to capture something essentially English in his
> stories, nor that he had given up on the idea of doing it for
> England -- certainly his target audience remained primarily the
> English.
I still think that the ME stories were intended to be a mythology of
some kind, the main evidence being that he spent so much bleeding
time revising its world over something few of us would care about,
simply because it was evident that the real world is not flat. That
he failed in this aim can be seen in the fact that he died before the
Silm was published. Nonetheless, IMO that was clearly his intention.
Was it an 'English' mythology? From what I've read of HoME, the
later writings excise the mentions of Albion that were present in the
Lost Tales, but the Rohirrim were clearly Anglo-Saxons on horseback.
I'd say he created a Northern European mythology that had heavy
emphasis on the English.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Derek Broughton
> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>
>> I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
>> bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
>> medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
>> be authentic and non-illusionary?
>
> a non-literal representation using a combination of animation, puppetry
> and motion-graphics.
And my immediate reaction to that would have been, I think, echoed by many:
"omigod, they've turned it into an Art Movie" (capitalization required).
One thing that could be guaranteed is that at least as many people would
have hated it as hated PJ's LOTR.
I wrote:
>>>> Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
>>>> _that_ authentic LOTR art either.
>>>
>>> Why not?
Why? Unlike some of us here, LOTR was NOT Tolkien's life. The art in his
study was the art he liked to see. He may (or not - I have no idea) have
taken some inspiration, but I've seen some of Cor Blok's work (from a prior
URL you posted) and it's much further from the LOTR I've always seen in my
imagination (from well before seeing anybody else's LOTR art) than PJ's
version.
>>> What would your criteria for authenticity be? Mine is -
>>> an affinity with the authors work ie. should be as entrenched in
>>> the medieval periods art as Tolkien was in its languages - and
>>> still have a modern sencibility.
I don't see that you can prove PJ's has any less authenticity that way than
yours. Or "any more" - I'm not claiming your vision has no validity, just
that defining visual "authenticity" is a heck of a lot harder than
objecting to the places where PJ actually changed the plot. However, you
did say your definition of "authentic" would be "non-literal" - that'll get
you shot down in no time by the folks who are already upset that PJ wasn't
literal enough.
It's a work of fantasy. Even Tolkien's own son has had to spend most of his
life trying to get the "authenticity" aspect correct. Those of us who've
only ever read his work will take a lot longer :-)
>
>> Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
>> the medieval period.
>
> Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
How much Anglo-Saxon/OE did he actually use? For all that he really was
rooted in Anglo-Saxon tradition, only the Rohirrim spoke a language that
was based on OE.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
Ack! Thankfully, no...
I try not to be a snob, but sometimes you just have to say "this isn't art",
and their work has always done that for me. They were probably the first
LOTR illustrators whose work I saw, and immediately I felt they'd got it
wrong.
--
derek
Larry Swain
And the hobbits original language as evidenced by the commonality of
words in the two languages.
Derek Broughton
> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>
>> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in
>> news:1u114lkdimxds$.1uhmte5b...@40tude.net:
>>>
>>> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I
>>> imagine, but that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy
>>> art' looks like.
>>
>> Such as?
>
> Larry D. Elmore, Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith, Chris Achlleos
That, of course, because at least two of those were on the art team (Lee &
Howe, that I know of).
>>
>>> Pure visuals aside, even the voice acting completely rips off the
>>> BBC radio 4 dramatisation. It all feels very third-hand.
>>
>> Blame Hollywood for placing British theatre acting on such a
>> pedestal, that 'quality' must inevitably follow such a pattern.
>
> PJLOTR doesn't have lots of english actors. It has american actors doing
> impressions of The Radio 4 series, and the only person to blame is the
> person who made it.
Given that the criteria was "British", not English:
McKellen, Lee, Monaghan, Bean, Boyd, Bloom, Holm, Rhys-Davies are either
British born & raised, or have careers in Britain.
Blanchett and Weaving aren't British, but not American either - and
Weaving's career is certainly not Hollywood.
That leaves Wood, Mortensen, Astin & Tyler as the only Americans of the
major cast members of "The Fellowship". I don't particularly feel like
trying to hunt down more from the other two movies.
I'll grant that three of the actual fellowship are American, but then that
leaves two-thirds as British.
As for any of them doing "impressions" of a BBC series, I'd say those who
had a history were pretty much cast to type, anyway, so while that would
still lay the blame in Jackson's court, you'd have to admit that any
imitation was entirely on his part, not theirs.
The interesting part of this is: Why are most of the male actors British -
but none of the principal female actors?
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Davémon wrote:
>>
>>>Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>>>>Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
>>>>the medieval period.
>>>
>>>Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
>>
>> How much Anglo-Saxon/OE did he actually use? For all that he really was
>> rooted in Anglo-Saxon tradition, only the Rohirrim spoke a language that
>> was based on OE.
>
> And the hobbits original language as evidenced by the commonality of
> words in the two languages.
Oops. So right!
--
derek
Taemon
Well, yes. You see, that is flat out impossible. Standing for 220
years is thinkable, which makes it totally unbelievable. Tolkien
created rules for his creatures and he breaks them here. Rule: Maia
have magic (power). Rule: Maia, clad in bodies, have physical needs.
You can't just put some rules aside if they don't suit you anymore.
Not if you want to be convincing.
I am willing to suspend disbelief concerning, say, the Trees. A flat
earth. Light-eating spiders. But when an elf suddenly doesn't need
to eat anymore, I drop suddenly back in the cold, harsh light of
day. Baaah.
T.
Taemon
> Rule: Maia have magic (power).
Maiar <cringe>.
T.
Raker
"Davémon" <"davémon"@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:1u114lkdimxds$.1uhmte5byybi1.dlg@40tude.net...
> Raker arranged shapes to form:
>
>
> My problem with PJLOTR isn't that it's different from what I imagine, but
> that its the same as what most contemporary 'fantasy art' looks like.
>
> radio
> is original or taken from Tolkien, or from returning to Tolkiens sources.
> It all feels very third-hand.
>
>>
>> the
>> movie as he sees it, he may find inspiration from the images Tolkien had,
>> but he doesn't have an obligation to conform to that.
>>
>
> No my point is his POV is largely defined by all the "fantasy art" he has
> seen. I'm just saying that there are more authentic sources than
> gift-books
> and role playing games boxes and more interesting ways of presenting the
> stories than resorting to hyper-realism kitch.
OK, now I see your point. It's true that he hired a couple of the more
popular fantasy artists as artistic directors for the project, and certainly
they drew on their earlier works.
>
Todd
Davémon
rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien you wrote:
> Davémon wrote:
>
>> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>>
>>> I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
>>> bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
>>> medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
>>> be authentic and non-illusionary?
>>
>> a non-literal representation using a combination of animation, puppetry
>> and motion-graphics.
>
> And my immediate reaction to that would have been, I think, echoed by many:
> "omigod, they've turned it into an Art Movie" (capitalization required).
Again, thats an argument for popularity, which I don't dispute.
> I wrote:
>>>>> Just because Tolkien had certain art in his study doesn't make
>>>>> _that_ authentic LOTR art either.
>>>>
>>>> Why not?
>
> Why? Unlike some of us here, LOTR was NOT Tolkien's life. The art in his
> study was the art he liked to see. He may (or not - I have no idea) have
> taken some inspiration,
Tolkien specifically had Cors illustrations for LOTR and it was the /only/
LOTR art that Tolkien had on his walls. That seems rather telling to me...
> but I've seen some of Cor Blok's work (from a prior
> URL you posted) and it's much further from the LOTR I've always seen in my
> imagination (from well before seeing anybody else's LOTR art) than PJ's
> version.
And mine too! but what the art I'm arguing for doesn't do is give you a
definitive representation and say 'this is what it really is', which is
what the 'realist' school of fantasy art does.
How many people watched LOTR, and reading it after 'saw' Elijah Wood
instead of imaging Frodo Baggins? Most (I'm guessing here). Cor Bloc (et
al)'s work just doesn't have that effect, it doesn't supplant it's own
vision of 'reality' in place of Tolkiens, it sits along-side it.
>>>> What would your criteria for authenticity be? Mine is -
>>>> an affinity with the authors work ie. should be as entrenched in
>>>> the medieval periods art as Tolkien was in its languages - and
>>>> still have a modern sencibility.
>
> I don't see that you can prove PJ's has any less authenticity that way than
> yours.
Well, I'll give it a go: There is no northern european art movement from
the cultures which Tolkien's work references (Celt/ Norse / Anglo-Saxon
/Finnish etc.) that uses photo-realism to depict narrative. Therefore
"photo-realism" isn't an authentic style with which to transmit that
vision.
IMHO, using 'photo-realism' to illustrate tolkiens work is like using
techno music, or glam rock for a soundtrack to it. It just isn't an
appropriate aesthetic.
> Or "any more" - I'm not claiming your vision has no validity, just
> that defining visual "authenticity" is a heck of a lot harder than
> objecting to the places where PJ actually changed the plot.
Indeed!
> However, you
> did say your definition of "authentic" would be "non-literal" - that'll get
> you shot down in no time by the folks who are already upset that PJ wasn't
> literal enough.
>
Literal in what sense? I'm talking about a visual treatment which is
largely symobolic rather than representational.
</:-|> = Gandalf
You can't argue "Gandalf doesn't look like that", because nobody is saying
he does. Although I am saying he's serious and wears a crooked hat, and has
a beard - I think we can all agree on that!
It's clearly a symbol for Gandalf, not a picture /of/ him. Of course, ASCII
smilies aren't 'authentic' in the way that runic smilies might be :-)
> It's a work of fantasy. Even Tolkien's own son has had to spend most of his
> life trying to get the "authenticity" aspect correct. Those of us who've
> only ever read his work will take a lot longer :-)
>>
>>> Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
>>> the medieval period.
>>
>> Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
>
> How much Anglo-Saxon/OE did he actually use?
Wasn't he professor of OE at oxford? Probably had a major influence on his
ideas of language, even if he didn't directly use it in the formation every
proper noun.
In many ways Tolkien could be seen to do with historical languages what
William Morris had done with historical visual arts from similar periods
(of which he was obviously aware, and claims influence from). Another nail
in the coffin for the photorealists I feel!
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
Cool!
Do you also think, perhaps, that Tolkiens work is taken less seriously by a
lot of people by it's association with such kitch? In a way that the work
of other authors (like Jane Austen, or Charles Dickens) isn't?
Do you agree (or dissagree) that there are more interesting and more
authentic, methods of visual representation of Tolkiens work than those of
the 'popular fantasy artists'?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
> Wasn't he professor of OE at oxford?
Apologies, I meant Anglo-Saxon, not OE, slip of the brain.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Stan Brown
>
> "Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar."
>
> So how can a Maia be of the race of the Valar? Do we have a
> special Vala-type of Maiar? It seems that Maiar and Valar are not the
> same.
Maiar and Valar are the two divisions of the Ainur who entered into
Arda (or into Ea if you wish). They are the same "order" of being,
just that one group is greater in majesty than the other.
In ordinary language, Tolkien was saying, "Melian was a Maia, the
same sort of angelic being as the Valar but not so great."
> "She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself"
>
> I do not understand this sentence at all. Akin to what? Does "akin"
> mean something else then "being kin to"? What does "the World was made
> to Yavanna" mean?
Parse the sentence differently, or put in punctuation:
She was akin (before the World was made) to Yavanna herself.
Before the World was made, she was akin to Yavanna herself.
In other words, in the Timeless halls they were associated in some
way, more than the general run of Ainur were associated with each
other. Compare with Tolkien's statement that Manwe and Melkor were
brothers. Clearly the kinship relations among the Ainur are different
from those among Elves and Men.
> Nex it says about Melian that "of her there came among both Elves and
> Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä". Again, I
> am at a loss as to what this means. What does "of her came a strain of
> Ainur" say? That she gave birth to them? But the Ainur were "the first
> beings created by Ilúvatar" so that can't be it.
In modern language, her descendants (both Elves and Men) each had a
few drops of angelic blood. All the Elves and Men who had Luthien in
their ancestry had that small bit of angelic nature, since Luthien
herself was half an angel because Melian was an angel.
"Of her there came among both Elves and Men a strain of the Ainur" =
"Her descendants were the descendants of an angel."
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Stan Brown
@gmail.com>:
> According to the Grey Annals, the time that Thingol spent staring at
> Melian was approximately 220 years. There is no indication that this
> is to be read symbolically. The GA passage says "Hand in hand they
> stood silent in the woods, while the wheeling stars measured many
> years, and the young trees of Nan Elmnoth grew tall and dark."
>
> I think we simply have to accept this as a mythical story that doesn't
> have a real-world explanation for it.
Unlike the very realistic story that Melian was an angel from before
the creation of the world. :-)
Seriously, I was just bemused by your use of "real-world" for
Tolkien's created world, since I did the same thing n a different
context earlier today.
Troels Forchhammer
Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
> Do you also think, perhaps, that Tolkiens work is taken less
> seriously by a lot of people by it's association with such kitch?
> In a way that the work of other authors (like Jane Austen, or
> Charles Dickens) isn't?
I really couldn't say for sure -- it's possible, I suppose, though I
don't really think so. If anything it is the association with such
things as Dungeons and Dragons that would make some people take
Tolkien less seriously -- association by serious artists is, by
comparison, of no consequence.
> Do you agree (or dissagree) that there are more interesting and
> more authentic, methods of visual representation of Tolkiens work
> than those of the 'popular fantasy artists'?
Quite possibly, though I would not count the people you listed in an
earlier post . . .
On the other hand, Christopher has clearly found Howe's illustrations
good enough for the HoMe series -- not quite the same as J.R.R. but
close, IMO.
If you want 'authenticity' then you'd have to turn to Tolkien
himself, or possibly those that he approved of as illustrators.
The idea of trying to go back to styles reflecting the mythological
inspirations of Tolkien is, frankly, ludicrous. Not only are the
inspirations so numerous that there will be no one style that could
be chosen, but Tolkien moved, stylistically, far beyond his sources
of inspiration, and moving back in that way would be a mistake.
I wonder what you think of the illustrations by Ingahild Grathmer?
Personally I find that they fit well with the style of Tolkien's own
illustration of 'The Mountain-path' (The Hobbit, 'Over Hill and Under
Hill') or 'The Front Gate' (from 'On the Doorstep') -- obviously with
some of the illustrations being better than others.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the
world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
- Aragorn, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Davémon
> In message <news:1mwnj92igs126.847z6xh2p53n$.d...@40tude.net>
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>>
>
> <snip>
>
>> Do you also think, perhaps, that Tolkiens work is taken less
>> seriously by a lot of people by it's association with such kitch?
>> In a way that the work of other authors (like Jane Austen, or
>> Charles Dickens) isn't?
>
> I really couldn't say for sure -- it's possible, I suppose, though I
> don't really think so. If anything it is the association with such
> things as Dungeons and Dragons that would make some people take
> Tolkien less seriously -- association by serious artists is, by
> comparison, of no consequence.
>
IMHO someone who isn't familiar with Tolkien or D&D will not differentiate
between the two because they get the same visual treatment. IMHO Tolkien
becomes 'generic fantasy' rather than literature because of the way it is
packaged (which includes film adaptations).
>> Do you agree (or dissagree) that there are more interesting and
>> more authentic, methods of visual representation of Tolkiens work
>> than those of the 'popular fantasy artists'?
>
> Quite possibly, though I would not count the people you listed in an
> earlier post . . .
I'd be keen to see other peoples ideas.
> On the other hand, Christopher has clearly found Howe's illustrations
> good enough for the HoMe series -- not quite the same as J.R.R. but
> close, IMO.
I can't see any similarity, and again, commercial and popular opinion may
well have had a hand the that decision.
> If you want 'authenticity' then you'd have to turn to Tolkien
> himself, or possibly those that he approved of as illustrators.
>
> The idea of trying to go back to styles reflecting the mythological
> inspirations of Tolkien is, frankly, ludicrous. Not only are the
> inspirations so numerous that there will be no one style that could
> be chosen, but Tolkien moved, stylistically, far beyond his sources
> of inspiration, and moving back in that way would be a mistake.
I think, ideally, the art should be /inspired/ by those sources, and still
be something new (in a similar way to Peter Firmin's Noggin). I have no
problem with the stylistic portrayal of the Rohirrim being different to
that of the Hobbits.
> I wonder what you think of the illustrations by Ingahild Grathmer?
> Personally I find that they fit well with the style of Tolkien's own
> illustration of 'The Mountain-path' (The Hobbit, 'Over Hill and Under
> Hill') or 'The Front Gate' (from 'On the Doorstep') -- obviously with
> some of the illustrations being better than others.
Thanks for the pointer. What I've seen of them, they do feel highly
appropriate. I'd be interested in seeing more, especially to see how the
Grathmer/Fraser balance is struck in the final work, especially as Frasers
Hobbit (again, from what I've seen - which isn't a lot) is excellent.
Have you seen the Czech edition illustrated by Jiri Salamoun? (link to the
image for 'out of the frying pan - into the fire'
http://pblancho.free.fr/cz1/html/image016.html ) I think it's a little too
anarchic for Tolkiens quite orderly world, but is interesting nontheless.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Derek Broughton
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:03:59 -0400, in
> rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien you wrote:
>
>> Davémon wrote:
>>
>>> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>>>
>>>> I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
>>>> bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
>>>> medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
>>>> be authentic and non-illusionary?
>>>
>>> a non-literal representation using a combination of animation, puppetry
>>> and motion-graphics.
>>
>> And my immediate reaction to that would have been, I think, echoed by
>> many: "omigod, they've turned it into an Art Movie" (capitalization
>> required).
>
> Again, thats an argument for popularity, which I don't dispute.
No, that's MY argument that it would be intolerable to me - I just happen to
think that many others would agree.
>> but I've seen some of Cor Blok's work (from a prior
>> URL you posted) and it's much further from the LOTR I've always seen in
>> my imagination (from well before seeing anybody else's LOTR art) than
>> PJ's version.
>
> And mine too! but what the art I'm arguing for doesn't do is give you a
> definitive representation and say 'this is what it really is', which is
> what the 'realist' school of fantasy art does.
That's an age old argument in art itself. There's nothing inherently wrong
with representational art. That's why I like Alan Lee and despise the
Brothers Hildebrandt - it's got nothing to do with their talent or lack of
it, but has everything to do with Lee's depictions being much closer to my
own sense of "authenticity" than the Hildebrandts.
>> However, you
>> did say your definition of "authentic" would be "non-literal" - that'll
>> get you shot down in no time by the folks who are already upset that PJ
>> wasn't literal enough.
>
> Literal in what sense? I'm talking about a visual treatment which is
> largely symobolic rather than representational.
>
</:-|> = Gandalf
>
> You can't argue "Gandalf doesn't look like that", because nobody is saying
> he does. Although I am saying he's serious and wears a crooked hat, and
> has a beard - I think we can all agree on that!
LOL. I have to concede it's a good argument that can only be countered by
the "popularity" card :-)
>>>> Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
>>>> the medieval period.
>>>
>>> Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
>>
>> How much Anglo-Saxon/OE did he actually use?
>
> Wasn't he professor of OE at oxford? Probably had a major influence on his
> ideas of language, even if he didn't directly use it in the formation
> every proper noun.
Absolutely, but then he went off and invented Elvish & Dwarvish languages,
Westron & Numenorean, that were unrelated. He certainly used his knowledge
of language as a whole, I'm not convinced you can say it was rooted in
Anglo-Saxon.
--
derek
Troels Forchhammer
Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>
> Troels Forchhammer arranged shapes to form:
>>
>> In message <news:1mwnj92igs126.847z6xh2p53n$.d...@40tude.net>
>> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>>>
<snip>
>> If anything it is the association with such things as Dungeons
>> and Dragons that would make some people take Tolkien less
>> seriously -- association by serious artists is, by comparison,
>> of no consequence.
>
> IMHO someone who isn't familiar with Tolkien or D&D will not
> differentiate between the two because they get the same visual
> treatment.
I think, and hope, that you are underestimating the majority of the
audience (the part that cares, anyway).
And of course there is also a part of the audience for whom the
association with the later generic fantasy is a good thing.
> IMHO Tolkien becomes 'generic fantasy' rather than literature
> because of the way it is packaged (which includes film
> adaptations).
Again I can only hope that you're underestimating people, but it does
remain, I think, that Tolkien has acted as a very important -- possibly
the most important -- source of inspiration for the 'generic fantasy'
wave. That way Tolkien has, in many ways, achieved to not only 'leave
scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama'
but actually inspiring other minds in all these (and more) ways of
artistic (in the broadest possible sense) pursuit. In that way the
tradition represented by people like Lee, Nasmith, Howe is derived
directly from Tolkien's works, and that aspect should count as much in
their favour as for instance for Blok (whose illustrations I,
personally, don't like at all, though I couldn't explain why: I simply
find them ugly).
>> Quite possibly, though I would not count the people you listed in
>> an earlier post . . .
>
> I'd be keen to see other peoples ideas.
I wonder what you'd think of some of Lee's less detailed pencil
drawings for The Hobbit:
<http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/lee/bilbo_ring.jpg>
One of the problems I have with some of the very detailed realistic
paintings is that there are too many details and a lot of them will
inevitably deviate from my mental picture, causing me to back off.
>> On the other hand, Christopher has clearly found Howe's
>> illustrations good enough for the HoMe series -- not quite the
>> same as J.R.R. but close, IMO.
>
> I can't see any similarity, and again, commercial and popular
> opinion may well have had a hand the that decision.
That it may, though I would suspect Christopher to carry enough weight
to get it changed if he was opposed to the paintings -- it is not all
that many artists 'wielding paint and music and drama' that get the
approval of the estate, and then only those that they feel work
according to the spirit of J.R.R.T. In this respect Christopher, as
his father's literary executor, and as having a say already in the
writing of LotR (in more ways than drawing maps), does, to my mind,
carry a bit more weight than most.
>> The idea of trying to go back to styles reflecting the
>> mythological inspirations of Tolkien is, frankly, ludicrous. Not
>> only are the inspirations so numerous that there will be no one
>> style that could be chosen, but Tolkien moved, stylistically, far
>> beyond his sources of inspiration, and moving back in that way
>> would be a mistake.
>
> I think, ideally, the art should be /inspired/ by those sources,
> and still be something new (in a similar way to Peter Firmin's
> Noggin).
Ultimately all art can, of course, draw a line back to these sources,
but that is not, I'm sure, what you mean ;-)
Personally I'd prefer something rather less caricatured for the
characters.
I was fascinated by your comment to Reiniger's silhouette films that it
'is the closest thing to what [you] see in [your] head when [you] read
the Silmarillion.' That is probably one of the basic qualities, which,
together with general taste, dictates which illustrations work best for
the individual reader. To be frank, I don't care about stylistic
considerations (other than for consistency), the basic thing is that it
has to work for me -- to reflect in some way what I see when I read the
books.
> I have no problem with the stylistic portrayal of the
> Rohirrim being different to that of the Hobbits.
Once they start to mingle, I am afraid I'd find it horrible.
>> I wonder what you think of the illustrations by Ingahild
>> Grathmer?
[...]
> Thanks for the pointer. What I've seen of them, they do feel
> highly appropriate.
Yes, it's difficult to find on the web other than small, single
illustrations. I believe there's a permanent exhibition of some of her
sketches on Koldinghus, so perhaps I should stop there next I come by
(of course we have, in Denmark, seen quite a lot of the illustrations
at various times in television etc. so I'm familiar with the overall
style).
> I'd be interested in seeing more, especially to see how the
> Grathmer/Fraser balance is struck in the final work, especially
> as Frasers Hobbit (again, from what I've seen - which isn't a
> lot) is excellent.
From what I've seen, I like the style in general (though the same
definitely doesn't apply to everything she has done), though there are
individual illustrations which I find out of place (too abstract for my
tastes).
> Have you seen the Czech edition illustrated by Jiri Salamoun?
> (link to the image for 'out of the frying pan - into the fire'
> http://pblancho.free.fr/cz1/html/image016.html ) I think it's a
> little too anarchic for Tolkiens quite orderly world, but is
> interesting nontheless.
Well, one can hide a lot of opinion behind that word, 'interesting' ;-)
I did not like the colour illustrations, though many of the black-and-
white illustrations works fine for me -- in particular the various
dragons (e.g. image 20
<http://pblancho.free.fr/cz1/html/image020.html>)
Just for reference, I wonder what you think of the following (there's a
lot of artists achieving, or clearly striving for, a very detailed
realism at Rolozo, but also a few others).
<http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/collection/algarra?hide=-3>
<http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/collection/gondron?hide=-3>
Both of these would, generally, 'work for me' as well, though they will
probably never be my favourite Tolkien illustrators -- I prefer either
the more realistic approach (though not too detailed: I do like a lot
of Lee's, Howe's and Nasmith's works, but certainly not all), or one
akin to Tolkien's own black ink drawings ('The Mountain Path' and 'The
Front Gate' are very good examples of what I mean -- he is making
brilliant use of the black line in those drawings, and e.g. gets the
essence of wild mountains with simple means).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are
subtle and quick to anger.
- Gildor Inglorion, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Davémon
> In message <news:1wp6g8dme7njd$.55fh67ixdhsm$.d...@40tude.net>
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>>
>> Troels Forchhammer arranged shapes to form:
>>>
>>> In message <news:1mwnj92igs126.847z6xh2p53n$.d...@40tude.net>
>>> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>> If anything it is the association with such things as Dungeons
>>> and Dragons that would make some people take Tolkien less
>>> seriously -- association by serious artists is, by comparison,
>>> of no consequence.
>>
>> IMHO someone who isn't familiar with Tolkien or D&D will not
>> differentiate between the two because they get the same visual
>> treatment.
>
> I think, and hope, that you are underestimating the majority of the
> audience (the part that cares, anyway).
>
Exactly, I mean the average man in the bookshop.
> Again I can only hope that you're underestimating people, but it does
> remain, I think, that Tolkien has acted as a very important -- possibly
> the most important -- source of inspiration for the 'generic fantasy'
> wave. That way Tolkien has, in many ways, achieved to not only 'leave
> scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama'
> but actually inspiring other minds in all these (and more) ways of
> artistic (in the broadest possible sense) pursuit. In that way the
> tradition represented by people like Lee, Nasmith, Howe is derived
> directly from Tolkien's works, and that aspect should count as much in
> their favour as for instance for Blok
I can't agree that the work of anyone who is inspired to make art by
Tolkien is equally valid.
> (whose illustrations I,
> personally, don't like at all, though I couldn't explain why: I simply
> find them ugly).
>
Just looking at:
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/translations/dutch/images/A3afr.jpg
the characterisation is superb. the differences in the faces tell you
Whether it's ugly, or pretty doesn't really matter to me, what it's done is
tell me exactly who each character is (well the ones we know), what they
think and how they feel. I've not seen a single other Tolkien illustration
that captures the essence, and drama of a scene with such immediacy and
skill, and joy.
It also doesn't have the problem of 'robbing' the viewers imagination of
what the characters might /really/ look like.
>>> Quite possibly, though I would not count the people you listed in
>>> an earlier post . . .
>>
>> I'd be keen to see other peoples ideas.
>
> I wonder what you'd think of some of Lee's less detailed pencil
> drawings for The Hobbit:
>
> <http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/lee/bilbo_ring.jpg>
>
It's a very good drawing, but again it's telling me what Bilbo physically
looks like, so it's denying me the opportunity to use my imagination, or to
connect with Bilbo as an idea rather than a thing.
>>> On the other hand, Christopher has clearly found Howe's
>>> illustrations good enough for the HoMe series -- not quite the
>>> same as J.R.R. but close, IMO.
>>
>> I can't see any similarity, and again, commercial and popular
>> opinion may well have had a hand the that decision.
>
> That it may, though I would suspect Christopher to carry enough weight
> to get it changed if he was opposed to the paintings -- it is not all
> that many artists 'wielding paint and music and drama' that get the
> approval of the estate, and then only those that they feel work
> according to the spirit of J.R.R.T. In this respect Christopher, as
> his father's literary executor, and as having a say already in the
> writing of LotR (in more ways than drawing maps), does, to my mind,
> carry a bit more weight than most.
>
Christopher, whilst not being mercenary, I think is likely to have selected
art that he thinks is going to sell his books, rather than challenge the
audience.
>
> I was fascinated by your comment to Reiniger's silhouette films that it
> 'is the closest thing to what [you] see in [your] head when [you] read
> the Silmarillion.' That is probably one of the basic qualities, which,
> together with general taste, dictates which illustrations work best for
> the individual reader.
Agreed. Unless the illustrations side-step the whole literal-representation
issue (like Blok, and in many ways Reiningers also).
> To be frank, I don't care about stylistic
> considerations (other than for consistency), the basic thing is that it
> has to work for me -- to reflect in some way what I see when I read the
> books.
Whilst we're being frank, to not care about the style is to ignore what 90%
of art is about! Also, I'm not sure fulfilling your expectations is a
requirement of good illustration either, art can challenge.
<snip Fraser/Grathmer - it's mostly good stuff>
>> Have you seen the Czech edition illustrated by Jiri Salamoun?
>> (link to the image for 'out of the frying pan - into the fire'
>> http://pblancho.free.fr/cz1/html/image016.html ) I think it's a
>> little too anarchic for Tolkiens quite orderly world, but is
>> interesting nontheless.
>
> Well, one can hide a lot of opinion behind that word, 'interesting' ;-)
Indeed - it made me think about the Hobbit in a completely new way that I
had never done before, which is the complete opposite of what PJLOTR, Lee,
Nasmith and Howe does. However, I find it too 'loud' and full of energy to
be appropriate.
> I did not like the colour illustrations, though many of the black-and-
> white illustrations works fine for me -- in particular the various
> dragons (e.g. image 20
> <http://pblancho.free.fr/cz1/html/image020.html>)
He's not really 'powerful' enough to be Smaug, more 'psychotic'! but
stylistically yes. There are some good trees and things in the margins too.
> Just for reference, I wonder what you think of the following (there's a
> lot of artists achieving, or clearly striving for, a very detailed
> realism at Rolozo, but also a few others).
>
> <http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/collection/algarra?hide=-3>
> <http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/collection/gondron?hide=-3>
Craftsmanship issues aside, to me they are examples of the same 'fantasy
art' school as so much else and have similar problems.
> Both of these would, generally, 'work for me' as well, though they will
> probably never be my favourite Tolkien illustrators -- I prefer either
> the more realistic approach (though not too detailed: I do like a lot
> of Lee's, Howe's and Nasmith's works, but certainly not all), or one
> akin to Tolkien's own black ink drawings ('The Mountain Path' and 'The
> Front Gate' are very good examples of what I mean -- he is making
> brilliant use of the black line in those drawings, and e.g. gets the
> essence of wild mountains with simple means).
It might be interesting to note that the 50th Anniversary Harper Collins
editions are using Tolkiens more abstract, graphical works as covers:
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/tolkiencovers/0007203543.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
As does the Houghton Mifflin 50th Anniversary hardback:
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=689507
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Davémon
> Davémon wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:03:59 -0400, in
>> rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien you wrote:
>>
>>> Davémon wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yuk Tang arranged shapes to form:
>>>>
>>>>> I wrote a number of replies to this, but in the end deleted it all in
>>>>> bafflement. How on earth would you suggest using the cinematic
>>>>> medium to reveal the essence of narrative, emotions and character and
>>>>> be authentic and non-illusionary?
>>>>
>>>> a non-literal representation using a combination of animation, puppetry
>>>> and motion-graphics.
>>>
>>> And my immediate reaction to that would have been, I think, echoed by
>>> many: "omigod, they've turned it into an Art Movie" (capitalization
>>> required).
>>
>> Again, thats an argument for popularity, which I don't dispute.
>
> No, that's MY argument that it would be intolerable to me - I just happen to
> think that many others would agree.
>
If it's intolerable because it doesn't match your expecations, then I would
think that is because your expectations had been, in part, set by the
popular fantasy artists of the day - hence I see the "Art Movie" (quotation
marks required) argument as one for popluarity.
>>> but I've seen some of Cor Blok's work (from a prior
>>> URL you posted) and it's much further from the LOTR I've always seen in
>>> my imagination (from well before seeing anybody else's LOTR art) than
>>> PJ's version.
>>
>> And mine too! but what the art I'm arguing for doesn't do is give you a
>> definitive representation and say 'this is what it really is', which is
>> what the 'realist' school of fantasy art does.
>
> That's an age old argument in art itself.
Not really. Since the advent of photography, the portrayal of 'surface
reality' has been mostly rejected by serious artists, and the portrayal of
a non-existant surface reality even more so.
> There's nothing inherently wrong with representational art.
I'm not saying there is either. I am saying that the application of
representational art to the illustration of Tolkien has got to a point
where it's blandness and repetition has started to get very boring, and
that a lot of secondary wrong-ness stems from it, such as
http://makeashorterlink.com/?K5972305C
> That's why I like Alan Lee and despise the
> Brothers Hildebrandt - it's got nothing to do with their talent or lack of
> it, but has everything to do with Lee's depictions being much closer to my
> own sense of "authenticity" than the Hildebrandts.
>
Sure, I'd guess you don't like the Ralph Baski animated version either! But
what would you define your criteria for authenticity as?
>>> However, you
>>> did say your definition of "authentic" would be "non-literal" - that'll
>>> get you shot down in no time by the folks who are already upset that PJ
>>> wasn't literal enough.
>>
>> Literal in what sense? I'm talking about a visual treatment which is
>> largely symobolic rather than representational.
>>
> </:-|> = Gandalf
>>
>> You can't argue "Gandalf doesn't look like that", because nobody is saying
>> he does. Although I am saying he's serious and wears a crooked hat, and
>> has a beard - I think we can all agree on that!
>
> LOL. I have to concede it's a good argument that can only be countered by
> the "popularity" card :-)
>
OK, but I think it can be taken one step further, to something like Lotte
Reinigers Prince Achmed, without it becoming 'dictatorial'.
>>>>> Or proving that Tolkien entrenched his languages in
>>>>> the medieval period.
>>>>
>>>> Aren't anglo-saxon and old english medieval languages?
>>>
>>> How much Anglo-Saxon/OE did he actually use?
>>
>> Wasn't he professor of OE at oxford? Probably had a major influence on his
>> ideas of language, even if he didn't directly use it in the formation
>> every proper noun.
>
> Absolutely, but then he went off and invented Elvish & Dwarvish languages,
> Westron & Numenorean, that were unrelated. He certainly used his knowledge
> of language as a whole, I'm not convinced you can say it was rooted in
> Anglo-Saxon.
No doubt you are right. Specifics aside, Tolkiens inspirations are largely
from cultures that don't have photography or realist art.
And if Tolkien were a primarliy visual artist (instead of a linguistic
one), he I'm sure would have been more interested in forms of
representation that were native to those cultures, more William Morris than
John William Waterhouse.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton arranged shapes to form:
>
>> Davémon wrote:
>>>>
>>>> And my immediate reaction to that would have been, I think, echoed by
>>>> many: "omigod, they've turned it into an Art Movie" (capitalization
>>>> required).
>>>
>>> Again, thats an argument for popularity, which I don't dispute.
>>
>> No, that's MY argument that it would be intolerable to me - I just happen
>> to think that many others would agree.
>
> If it's intolerable because it doesn't match your expecations, then I
> would think that is because your expectations had been, in part, set by
> the popular fantasy artists of the day
You could think that, but my expectations were set in my imagination long
before I was familiar with fantasy artists, other than Boris Vallejo (and
similar) who were on the covers of all the SF I was reading. The only LOTR
art I was familiar with was the few drawings by Tolkien himself that I had
seen (mostly maps).
>
>>>> but I've seen some of Cor Blok's work (from a prior
>>>> URL you posted) and it's much further from the LOTR I've always seen in
>>>> my imagination (from well before seeing anybody else's LOTR art) than
>>>> PJ's version.
>>>
>>> And mine too! but what the art I'm arguing for doesn't do is give you a
>>> definitive representation and say 'this is what it really is', which is
>>> what the 'realist' school of fantasy art does.
I'm afraid I don't see a lot of difference between Jackson showing me what
he sees and Blok showing me his version. I have too much trouble
juxtaposing 'realist' and 'fantasy'. Since it _is_ fantasy, I don't have a
problem with anybody's interpretation, provided it doesn't blatantly
contradict what Tolkien has described.
> I am saying that the application of
> representational art to the illustration of Tolkien has got to a point
> where it's blandness and repetition has started to get very boring, and
> that a lot of secondary wrong-ness stems from it, such as
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?K5972305C
Ack! Ack! It's Christmas - I drank too much at the party last night and
you really shouldn't do that to my sensitive stomach!!! I'll grant that
repetition can get boring, but I'm not bored yet by the Lee/Howe/Jackson
school.
>> That's why I like Alan Lee and despise the
>> Brothers Hildebrandt - it's got nothing to do with their talent or lack
>> of it, but has everything to do with Lee's depictions being much closer
>> to my own sense of "authenticity" than the Hildebrandts.
>
> Sure, I'd guess you don't like the Ralph Baski animated version either!
Loved it. I'd probably like your perfect version too. Despite my
contributions to this thread, I'm really quite uncritical of others
adaptations of novels.
> But what would you define your criteria for authenticity as?
I try not to: because it's fantasy. If it clashes with what I've imagined
I'm going to have trouble with it, if it reinforces my imagination, I'll
love it.
--
derek
Troels Forchhammer
>> In that way the tradition represented by
>> people like Lee, Nasmith, Howe is derived directly from Tolkien's
>> works, and that aspect should count as much in their favour as
>> for instance for Blok
>
> I can't agree that the work of anyone who is inspired to make art
> by Tolkien is equally valid.
That isn't quite what I said either. What I did say was that such
inspiration, if you count it in any case, must count equally -- not
that the result has to be the same (there are other factors of which
personal taste isn't the least).
<snip>
Cor Blok:
> Whether it's ugly, or pretty doesn't really matter to me, what
> it's done is tell me exactly who each character is (well the ones
> we know), what they think and how they feel.
[...]
I guess that's another area where our tastes differ. It might be
simply because I am unable to see past 'ugly', but whatever the
reason, it simply doesn't work for me.
Had it, however, done all this for me, I think I would have resented
the level of interpretation introduced by the artist -- it is one
thing to visualise the story, but quite another for the artist to
interpose himself between the text and the reader.
> It also doesn't have the problem of 'robbing' the viewers
> imagination of what the characters might /really/ look like.
I'll agree to that, for sure ;-)
But my problems with Blok aside, I don't have any problem with others
enjoying it -- if I don't like his illustrations, I can simply
refrain from buying the books having them. Even with the few editions
of the Danish translation, you get various illustrators (though I
don't think there's been any with Cor Blok).
>> I wonder what you'd think of some of Lee's less detailed pencil
>> drawings for The Hobbit:
>>
>> <http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/lee/bilbo_ring.jpg>
>
> It's a very good drawing, but again it's telling me what Bilbo
> physically looks like, so it's denying me the opportunity to use
> my imagination,
No more than Blok's illustrations, surely, and far less than
Tolkien's own. IMO, anyway
> or to connect with Bilbo as an idea rather than a thing.
If that's your preference then you should shun /all/ visualisations
(or stick solely to wholly abstract ones), because they all objectify
the character, even the Gandalf smiley. You may reduce Gandalf to a
beard and a pointy hat, but it is still a thing, rather than an
abstract idea -- that is inherent in any illustration, except perhaps
the non-figurative style.
<snip>
>> To be frank, I don't care about stylistic
>> considerations (other than for consistency), the basic thing is
>> that it has to work for me -- to reflect in some way what I see
>> when I read the books.
>
> Whilst we're being frank, to not care about the style is to ignore
> what 90% of art is about! Also, I'm not sure fulfilling your
> expectations is a requirement of good illustration either, art can
> challenge.
But I do not want art -- I want illustrations. The art is in the
text, and that's the art I'm going to bother with. If I want visual
art, I can go for something completely different, that doesn't try to
explain to me how to read the story.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own
image when it turns out that God hates all the same people
you do.
- Anne Lamott
jbaloun
Taemon wrote:
>
> Second sentence.
>
> "... there were none more beautiful than Melian"
>
> Later, Lúthien was the most beautiful. Later still, Arwen. What is it
> with Tolkien and women who are the most beautiful? It's a minor
> detail, but one is starting to wonder where the women
> are who are not the most beautiful. We don't get to hear how Thingol
> looks like. Methinks he must have been quite the stud.
>
.
>
> T.
(New to a.f.t)
It depends on the definition of 'none'. Could be none during the age in
which she lived, none in the country, none among her people, none in
her village. Not necessarily none as in for all time over all ages. So
there could be many who were 'none more beautiful' as well as the many
who were brave and the many villians. Then there are the few who lived
for many ages.
Side note: This analytical discussion of JRRT's works is very similar
to the analytical techniques used in Torah study. Although JRRT's
writing is likely not nearly as well constructed. The Torah seems to
have no end to the depth of analysis if guided by one fluent in the
language. Tolkeins ramblings, though voluminous and brilliant, may be
limited. The techniques used here are the same. For example: Read the
text literally, look for hidden meanings, consider rearranging key
words or phrases, consider related references, consider symbology, and
of course, try to get in the head of Tolkien who single handedly
created the thousands of years of ME history. Don't hesitate to play
with the material for what its worth.
If only measured by volume, Tolkein's work is truley amazing. I have
only browsed Silm but came away amazed that one or two pages could
equal LOTR as far as the amount of ground covered by the characters. It
goes on and on...
Thanks for the visit, doubt I will be abel to stay long.
James
Davémon
> That isn't quite what I said either. What I did say was that such
> inspiration, if you count it in any case, must count equally
if it all counts equally, then lets not count it.
>
> <snip>
>
> Cor Blok:
>
>> Whether it's ugly, or pretty doesn't really matter to me, what
>> it's done is tell me exactly who each character is (well the ones
>> we know), what they think and how they feel.
> [...]
>
> I guess that's another area where our tastes differ. It might be
> simply because I am unable to see past 'ugly', but whatever the
> reason, it simply doesn't work for me.
>
What is your definition of 'work'?
> Had it, however, done all this for me, I think I would have resented
> the level of interpretation introduced by the artist -- it is one
> thing to visualise the story, but quite another for the artist to
> interpose himself between the text and the reader.
>
That is inevitable. Blok actually, buy not dictating appearances, imposes
himeslf less, than the popular fantasy art.
>> It also doesn't have the problem of 'robbing' the viewers
>> imagination of what the characters might /really/ look like.
>
> I'll agree to that, for sure ;-)
>
Exactly, so there is less imposition.
> But my problems with Blok aside, I don't have any problem with others
> enjoying it -- if I don't like his illustrations, I can simply
> refrain from buying the books having them.
Indeed, but that creates a homogeneous, market driven /look/ applied to
Tolkiens work (which is what I'm arguing against), which isn't, imho any
way authentic or true to the spirit of the work.
>>>
>>> <http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/lee/bilbo_ring.jpg>
>>
>> It's a very good drawing, but again it's telling me what Bilbo
>> physically looks like, so it's denying me the opportunity to use
>> my imagination,
>
> No more than Blok's illustrations, surely, and far less than
> Tolkien's own. IMO, anyway
Blok doesn't tell you anything about what he thinks things actually look
like!
>> or to connect with Bilbo as an idea rather than a thing.
>
> If that's your preference then you should shun /all/ visualisations
> (or stick solely to wholly abstract ones), because they all objectify
> the character, even the Gandalf smiley. You may reduce Gandalf to a
> beard and a pointy hat,
he's not being reduced, he's being represented, in much the same way as the
sequence of letters G a n d a l f represent.
> but it is still a thing, rather than an
> abstract idea -- that is inherent in any illustration, except perhaps
> the non-figurative style.
Not at all. There is a world of difference between </:-|> and a photo of a
man in a hat with a false beard. They're completely different visual
languages, and completely different mental process are required to
understand them.
> <snip>
>
>>> To be frank, I don't care about stylistic
>>> considerations (other than for consistency), the basic thing is
>>> that it has to work for me -- to reflect in some way what I see
>>> when I read the books.
>>
>> Whilst we're being frank, to not care about the style is to ignore
>> what 90% of art is about! Also, I'm not sure fulfilling your
>> expectations is a requirement of good illustration either, art can
>> challenge.
>
> But I do not want art -- I want illustrations.
This is semantics. Change the word 'art' to illustration in the paragraph
above, and my point is the same.
> The art is in the text, and that's the art I'm going to bother with.
I think the attitude that the art of illustration is less than the art of
the words might come from having the work associated with so much bad
(genric fantasy realist) art, because in /those cases/ it is. It doesn't
mean that it is in all cases.
> If I want visual
> art, I can go for something completely different, that doesn't try to
> explain to me how to read the story.
dictating how to read the story is exactly what naismith/lee/jackson does
do! It tells us to think of ME as a real world, with physical rules like
our own, not as work of literature, but as a simple story set in an
'alternate reality' where these things /really do exist/.
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Troels Forchhammer
>>
<snip>
>> I guess that's another area where our tastes differ. It might be
>> simply because I am unable to see past 'ugly', but whatever the
>> reason, it simply doesn't work for me.
>
> What is your definition of 'work'?
There is nothing whatsoever in that picture that makes me think of the
story without someone pointing out the connection. It does not, for me,
add anything to my appreciation or understanding of the story, neither
visually or textually.
[...]
> That is inevitable. Blok actually, buy not dictating appearances,
> imposes himeslf less, than the popular fantasy art.
I actually disagree. The more popular illustrators impose themselves
less, IMO, by restricting themselves to an interpretation of
appearance, leaving the interpretation of emotions etc. to be directly
derived from the text. Appearance, or visualisation of the text, if you
will, is of little consequence for me, and the illustrator is free to
let himself go in that area -- it is the artist who wants to impose his
interpretation of emotions etc. that bothers me.
<snip>
>> But I do not want art -- I want illustrations.
>
> This is semantics. Change the word 'art' to illustration in the
> paragraph above, and my point is the same.
Then you misunderstand me. Art, as I intended it used, has something to
say -- it has a message of some kind, while I didn't intend the
illustration to do that, it merely supports that visual side that is
more difficult for the text.
> I think the attitude that the art of illustration is less than the
> art of the words might come from having the work associated with
> so much bad (genric fantasy realist) art, because in /those cases/
> it is. It doesn't mean that it is in all cases.
I quite agree. My point is merely that I /prefer/ it that way. The
other stuff 'gets in the way' of the story for me.
Rather superciliously I might say that if they want to make art, they
should do it on their own time rather than meddling with other peoples
art (in this case, literature), and leave the illustrating to people
who are willing to do the simpler stuff. I wouldn't mean that, of
course, but I assert my right to choose differently from you, and if
you wish to deride me for choosing that way, I will speak up.
>> If I want visual art, I can go for something completely
>> different, that doesn't try to explain to me how to read
>> the story.
>
> dictating how to read the story is exactly what
> naismith/lee/jackson does do!
As I said above, I don't agree. They merely show how the story /can/ be
visualised, but don't impose anything on the spectator -- in particular
if you look at more than one illustrators representations.
Dictating, as you say Blok does for you, what emotions I should think
the characters have, or what their motivations are (as Jackson
obviously does) is what I find nauseatingly meddling -- merely showing
me how a scene might be visualised is of no consequence by comparison
-- for me, that is.
> It tells us to think of ME as a real world, with physical rules
> like our own, not as work of literature, but as a simple story
> set in an 'alternate reality' where these things /really do exist/.
Well, it is not set in an 'alternate reality' but in our real world in
an imaginary history . . . according to J.R.R. Tolkien, of course
(''Middle-earth', by the way, is not a name of a never-never land [...]
imaginatively this 'history' is supposed to take place in a period of
the actual Old World of this planet.' Letter #165).
Middle-earth not only has the same physical rules as our world, it /is/
our world, so that aspect is something the illustrators have obviously
understood quite well -- if you have a problem with that, it suggests
that you don't read the texts as Tolkien intended them (which may be
fine for you, but it seems unwise to blame illustrators for referring
to the author's stated intention).
Derek Broughton
> In message <news:1ehqx3t5k8tfh$.1asfmw67...@40tude.net>
> Davémon <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>>
>> Troels Forchhammer arranged shapes to form:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> I guess that's another area where our tastes differ. It might be
>>> simply because I am unable to see past 'ugly', but whatever the
>>> reason, it simply doesn't work for me.
>>
>> What is your definition of 'work'?
>
> There is nothing whatsoever in that picture that makes me think of the
> story without someone pointing out the connection. It does not, for me,
> add anything to my appreciation or understanding of the story, neither
> visually or textually.
Assuming we're talking about the same picture, there actually is. It took
me a long while and two or three trial scenes to figure it out, but we have
a seeming ghost, falling off a table, a dark and (potentially) menacing
figure in the top right, two evil looking guys in the top left and some
kind of sign at the top. It must be Frodo falling off the table in the
Prancing Pony, with Aragorn looking on from one side and Bill and/or his
cronies from the other. Since it's three or four days since I looked at
it, and my memory is notoriously bad for this sort of thing, I think it
made an impression. Presumably if this was just one scene from a movie,
I'd not have needed to take so long to figure out where they were. otoh, I
would at least have thought the sign could look something like a prancing
pony :-)
>
> [...]
>> I think the attitude that the art of illustration is less than the
>> art of the words might come from having the work associated with
>> so much bad (genric fantasy realist) art, because in /those cases/
>> it is. It doesn't mean that it is in all cases.
>
> I quite agree. My point is merely that I /prefer/ it that way. The
> other stuff 'gets in the way' of the story for me.
You've definitely stated my opinion better than I could :-)
--
derek
Troels Forchhammer
Derek Broughton <ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
<snip>
>> There is nothing whatsoever in that picture that makes me think
>> of the story without someone pointing out the connection. It does
>> not, for me, add anything to my appreciation or understanding of
>> the story, neither visually or textually.
>
> Assuming we're talking about the same picture, there actually is.
What I meant was that once I've been made aware that the picture is
actually related to LotR, I can, of course, see where it belongs, but
without the pointer, I don't think I would ever have looked on the
picture long enough to realise the connection myself -- my brain would
simply have made the 'ugly -- look somewhere else' connection much
faster than the LotR connection ;-)
(Oh, and there's a jumping cow in front of the moon as well)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
We're leaving WISDOM
to starve and thirst
when we cultivate
KNOWLEDGE as such.
The very best comes
to the very worst
WHEN IGNORANTS
KNOW TOO MUCH.
- Piet Hein, /When Ignorants --/
Christopher Kreuzer
> In message <news:nlfe73-...@news.pointerstop.ca>
> Derek Broughton <ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
>>
>> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>> There is nothing whatsoever in that picture that makes me think
>>> of the story without someone pointing out the connection. It does
>>> not, for me, add anything to my appreciation or understanding of
>>> the story, neither visually or textually.
Knowing it is LotR gave it away for me. But it did take a while for me
to figure it out. It didn't help that I first thought: why is a white,
ghost-like Yoda falling off that table?
<snip>
> (Oh, and there's a jumping cow in front of the moon as well)
LOL! So it isn't a Prancing Pony then!
Having said that, I think it is important to distinguish between artwork
of people, and artworks of landscapes. I find the latter (landscapes)
far less intrusive (when not believable in my thoughts) than when I see
what I think of as unsuitable artwork of people. There is a subtle art
to showing just enough of someone to make them recognisable, but leaving
enough to the viewer's imagination. I am thinking particularly of the
Gandalf painting by John Howe.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Davémon
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
Then that only leaves us with the (original) thorny issue of
film/animation, where the visuals /are/ the story...
BTW, is it possible it 'gets in the way' less, because we've learned to
accept it by constant exposure and association, rather than any merits of
the work itself?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Derek Broughton
> In message <news:nlfe73-...@news.pointerstop.ca>
> Derek Broughton <ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
>>
>> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>> There is nothing whatsoever in that picture that makes me think
>>> of the story without someone pointing out the connection. It does
>>> not, for me, add anything to my appreciation or understanding of
>>> the story, neither visually or textually.
>>
>> Assuming we're talking about the same picture, there actually is.
>
> What I meant was that once I've been made aware that the picture is
> actually related to LotR, I can, of course, see where it belongs,
Oh, right. The fact that it was a cover of one of the LOTR volumes was a
giveaway :-) I agree that I'd never have figured out it _was_ LOTR on my
own, but I wonder how true that would be of the same scene done more
"photographically"? After all, you'd not have any sign of Frodo - at best
everybody would be looking at a blank spot. Still, you'd have had a pub
seen with a mixture of Humans and bare-footed "halflings". Probably not
too difficult to figure out.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> BTW, is it possible it 'gets in the way' less, because we've learned to
> accept it by constant exposure and association, rather than any merits of
> the work itself?
I'd accept that it's self-reinforcing. The more you're exposed to similar
work that you accepted in the first place, the more acceptable it is. But
I never accepted the Brothers Hildebrandt and it hasn't mattered how many
LOTR posters and calendars they've made, I still don't like them. So, no,
I don't think that artwork without merit is good enough simply because
we're continually exposed to it.
A neighbor has a Jackson Pollack-like painting titled "Sure you could have
done this, but you didn't". Cute, clever ... and still not art. Or in the
words of the immortal John Cleese: "Look! I'm the bloody pope, I am! I may
not know much about art, but I know what I like!".
--
derek
Troels Forchhammer
<snip>
> Then that only leaves us with the (original) thorny issue of
> film/animation, where the visuals /are/ the story...
The films bother me for the same reasons -- for interpretations of
the story, not for the visualisation of the scenes. This applies
equally to Bakshi and Jackson, though the latter at least has the
virtue of getting a lot of the scenes spot-on /visually/.
> BTW, is it possible it 'gets in the way' less, because we've
> learned to accept it by constant exposure and association, rather
> than any merits of the work itself?
I rather doubt that. The first illustrations I saw were more akin to
Blok's stuff than Lee's (the covers of some old Danish book-club
edition that isn't available any longer), though Tolkien's own
illustrations were fortunately used inside. I never did like that
stuff.
<http://www.tolkien.gyldendal.dk/gyldendal/gb/bdbproskon.nsf/omslagFS
?readForm&db=gyldendal/gb/bdbproskon.nsf&isbn=8700360767>
Since that probably wraps:
<http://tinyurl.com/88sqn>
On the other hand, I've loved the illustrations for Lindgren's books
from the first day.
<http://www.astridlindgren.se/index_1024.htm>
I met all of this long before I saw anything from Lee, Nasmith, Howe
or any other standard fantasy illustrator.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet
leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and
music and drama. Absurd.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, /The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien/ #131
Davémon
> In message <news:1moyrglv4r2s6.1...@40tude.net> Davémon
> <"davémon"@nospam.com> enriched us with:
>
>> Then that only leaves us with the (original) thorny issue of
>> film/animation, where the visuals /are/ the story...
>
> The films bother me for the same reasons -- for interpretations of
> the story, not for the visualisation of the scenes.
>
Is it the visual interpretation that bothers you (in which case no film,
animation, tv series, puppet show or illustration is ever really going to
'work' for you) or the changes of emphasis on characters, and cutting of
whole chunks of story?
>> BTW, is it possible it 'gets in the way' less, because we've
>> learned to accept it by constant exposure and association, rather
>> than any merits of the work itself?
>
> I rather doubt that.
>
oh well, there goes coca-cola's need for a coherent visual brand to market
it's products ;-)
> The first illustrations I saw were more akin to
> Blok's stuff than Lee's (the covers of some old Danish book-club
> edition that isn't available any longer), though Tolkien's own
> illustrations were fortunately used inside. I never did like that
> stuff.
I did see this:
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/translations/hobbits/hobbits-afbeeldingen/8.jpg
Danish cover. It looks a bit like Dick Bruna, but I don't think it is. I
like the way the dwarves react to the little hobbit guy cheerfully waving
to the viewer ('hello bilbo!'). It illustrates how the dwarves must have
felt when Gandalf invited him along on their quest... but stylistically its
far too modern and cheerfull for The Hobbit.
> <http://www.tolkien.gyldendal.dk/gyldendal/gb/bdbproskon.nsf/omslagFS
> ?readForm&db=gyldendal/gb/bdbproskon.nsf&isbn=8700360767>
>
> Since that probably wraps:
> <http://tinyurl.com/88sqn>
eeks. well, they must be marching orcs of some type or other, but theres no
real drama - so i don't like that one, though it might be a detail of a
larger picture, and the style is appropriate...
> On the other hand, I've loved the illustrations for Lindgren's books
> from the first day.
> <http://www.astridlindgren.se/index_1024.htm>
>
There's a whole bunch of different styles there!
The first illustrators work I ever loved was Maurice Sendak
http://www.darlingcards.com/1465G-med.jpg
before 'progressing' to Marvel comics - mostly steve ditko, and so on...
But none of the above are much associated with Tolkien, so won't have
effected my opinions of what is Tolkien-y (although they do effect what I
think of as visual story-telling - which is what good illustration does).
Perhaps we should do an IOTW (image of the week!) by a different artist and
select a published image related to Tolkiens work and debate its merits?
--
Davémon
http://www.nightsoil.co.uk/
Christopher Kreuzer
> In message <news:lEnnf.7627$iz3....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> enriched us with:
>>
>> Derek Broughton <ne...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>> It's not as if PJ hired the brothers Hillebrandt :-)
>>
>> Did you know they (the brothers Hildebrandt) had plans for a LotR
>> film?
>
> You scare me . . .
>
> (I will expect some reimbursement for lost sleep . . . <G>)
I did find some links that might be vaguely of interest.
http://www.januarymagazine.com/artcult/gregandtim.html
http://www.brothershildebrandt.com/
I also remembered the book where they are interviewed and talk (briefly)
about their abandoned plans to do a live-action film. It was
"Meditations on Middle-earth".
Odysseus
>
> JimboCat <10313...@compuserve.com> wrote:
<snip>
>
> > OTOH it doesn't quite cover the Gimli/Eomer thingy (above). And what
> > about poor Paris? Would he have gotten out of the whole problem by
> > saying "both are most beautiful"? I kinda doubt it... Goddesses would
> > be a bit impatient with an "Elven answer" (that is "both no and yes")
> > I suspect.
>
> Isn't that yes, yes, and yes? There were three goddesses weren't there,
> that Paris had to choose from? Aphrodite, Hera and Artemis.
Not Artemis, but Athene -- who, with Hera, comprised the principal
divine 'backers' of the Greeks against the Trojans in the ensuing
war. Artemis wasn't one for showing off her beauty; in fact those men
who beheld it (Actaeon e.g.) had a tendency not to live long
thereafter ...
--
Odysseus
R. Dan Henry
<Menel...@mailandnews.com> wrote:
>Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>> When reading these sort of sentences, you have to remember that they are
>> not always very focused, and are often very rambling. The point of the
>> sentence might not be fully clear until the end, but the sense should
>> then become clear. Re-reading the sentence several times, and looking at
>> the context should help. I often find myself re-reading whole sentences
>> and paragraphs to make sure I've understood it properly.
>
>one that used to give me mild trouble, not so much for syntactical
>complexity, as for the weird use of words, was "his cat, he calls her,
>though she owns him not." i used to think that should be, "he owns her
>not." but he's not using "own" in the usual sense.
Yes, he is. He's making a rather conventional joke about cats.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com