Tolkien’s own annotated map newly discovered loose inside copy of LOTR

One Ring Net ^ | 10/23/15 | MrCere

[ottbmare]

I thought Tolkien wrote with WW2 in mind. Mostly Nazi influence.

He began thinking about and working on it long before World War II; recall that he actually fought in WWI, and some of the imagery is drawn from his recollections of the ruined fields of France. Frodo's reaction after his triumphant homecoming is also typical of what he saw veterans of WWI experience, as their sacrifice was not the physical loss of life, but an emotional loss--Frodo tells this to Sam at the end, when he is preparing to go to the West.

There is Communist as well as Nazi ideology represented in the books. Neither the Communists nor the Nazis suddenly rose in 1939, and anyone who was paying attention could see them coming a long way off. Some Catholics like Tolkien had their ears up about the coming horrors in the early 1920s. He stated that LOTR is an explicitly Catholic work.

[Artemis Webb]

bump

[GreyFriar]

J.R.R. Tolkien ping

[MCH]

Elijah Wood was my one criticism of the movies. Reading the books, Frodo was self-doubting but tough. Watching the movies, Frodo was a complete whimp with perpetually watering eyes.
Otherwise, I thought they were well done if too short.

Agree. Frodo in the books was not the whiny wimp portrayed in the movies. Overall I really liked the movies as well, but I really wish they'd cut the parts toward the end of the 3rd movie where they spent 15 or so sickening minutes crying and looking all mooney eyed and pathetic before boarding the ship to the Undying Lands. What a pukefest that overly long segment was.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. Very interesting.

[Textide]

Never could crack into the Silmarillion. It sits a few feet away collecting dust on my bookshelf, as it has for nearly twenty years. Perhaps it’s time to try again.

And I agree. For the most part, the casting in the movies was superb.

[2001convSVT]

What a great find!

[Tax-chick]

I’ve been reading it to three of my sons, who are currently 13, 11, and 9. (Sometimes other people hang around, too.) We started out reading and studying “The Hobbit” with a group from the homeschool association in the year before the first movie came out. Then I figured we might as well read LOTR, and it took several years to get through it all.

Then I figured I hadn’t read the Silmarillion since I was in high school, so we started that. Parts of it go very slowly, but other parts have lots of action. And it’s full of vocabulary that might be useful on the SAT!

[huldah1776]

You have inspired me to read the Hobbit and LOTR again. It’s been decades.