Tolkien Day!
Something a bit different...This is taken from an interview from 1971 in a BBC broadcast... between Tolkien and Dennis Gerrolt.
Some tidbits I particularly liked:
Gerrolt: You have a particular fondness then for Hobbits?
Tolkien: That's why I feel at home... The Shire is very like the kind of world in which I first became aware of things, which was perhaps more poignant to me as I wasn't born here, I was born in Bloomsdale in South Africa. I was very young when I got back but at the same time it bites into your memory and imagination even if you don't think it has. If your first Christmas tree is a wilting eucalyptus and if you're normally troubled by heat and sand - then, to have just at the age when imagination is opening out, suddenly find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands English countryside, based on good water, stones and elm trees and small quiet rivers and so on, and of course rustic people about.
G: Did you intend in Lord of the Rings that certain races should embody certain principles: the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsmanship, men husbandry and battle and so forth?
T: I didn't intend it but when you've got these people on your hands you've got to make them different haven't you. Well of course as we all know ultimately we've only got humanity to work with, it's only clay we've got. We should all - or at least a large part of the human race - would like to have greater power of mind, greater power of art by which I mean that the gap between the conception and the power of execution should be shortened, and we should like a longer if not indefinite time in which to go on knowing more and making more.
Therefore the Elves are immortal in a sense. I had to use immortal, I didn't mean that they were eternally immortal, merely that they are very longeval and their longevity probably lasts as long as the inhabitability of the Earth.
Find more here:
http://www.lordotrings.com/interview.asp
...
And i was reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth (http://www.amazon.com/Tolkiens-Sanctifying-Myth-Understanding-Middle-Earth/dp/1882926846) by Bradley Birzer today and was quite interested in it...(it's sometimes good to not lose sight of Tolkien's religious background... but i admit i was overwhelemed a little by all the meanings behind characters...)
I might take it out in the library sometime soon when the dust clears... (aka when RL doesn't pull a noose over my neck and try to strangle me...... heh, i'm so graphic aren't i?) :P
...
and went to Borders today and very pleased CoH is in the number one spot on the shelves... :D
anyone done with it yet? (or got it finally yet? ::itching fro discussion and for spoilery squees ;)
Some tidbits I particularly liked:
Gerrolt: You have a particular fondness then for Hobbits?
Tolkien: That's why I feel at home... The Shire is very like the kind of world in which I first became aware of things, which was perhaps more poignant to me as I wasn't born here, I was born in Bloomsdale in South Africa. I was very young when I got back but at the same time it bites into your memory and imagination even if you don't think it has. If your first Christmas tree is a wilting eucalyptus and if you're normally troubled by heat and sand - then, to have just at the age when imagination is opening out, suddenly find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands English countryside, based on good water, stones and elm trees and small quiet rivers and so on, and of course rustic people about.
G: Did you intend in Lord of the Rings that certain races should embody certain principles: the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsmanship, men husbandry and battle and so forth?
T: I didn't intend it but when you've got these people on your hands you've got to make them different haven't you. Well of course as we all know ultimately we've only got humanity to work with, it's only clay we've got. We should all - or at least a large part of the human race - would like to have greater power of mind, greater power of art by which I mean that the gap between the conception and the power of execution should be shortened, and we should like a longer if not indefinite time in which to go on knowing more and making more.
Therefore the Elves are immortal in a sense. I had to use immortal, I didn't mean that they were eternally immortal, merely that they are very longeval and their longevity probably lasts as long as the inhabitability of the Earth.
Find more here:
http://www.lordotrings.com/interview.asp
...
And i was reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth (http://www.amazon.com/Tolkiens-Sanctifying-Myth-Understanding-Middle-Earth/dp/1882926846) by Bradley Birzer today and was quite interested in it...(it's sometimes good to not lose sight of Tolkien's religious background... but i admit i was overwhelemed a little by all the meanings behind characters...)
I might take it out in the library sometime soon when the dust clears... (aka when RL doesn't pull a noose over my neck and try to strangle me...... heh, i'm so graphic aren't i?) :P
...
and went to Borders today and very pleased CoH is in the number one spot on the shelves... :D
anyone done with it yet? (or got it finally yet? ::itching fro discussion and for spoilery squees ;)