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Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book, Movie ...
Posted by Lale on 29/12/2001, 14:00:03
So, what is all the fuss about?
Why some people are crazy about Lord of the Rings and some people couldn't care less?
Long before the movie, it was obvious that there were two kinds of people: you are either a Tolkien person or you are not. No middle-way about it. Now, with the arrival of the movie, books are re-read, passions are flared, discussions turn nasty...
Posted by Michael Sympson on 29/12/2001, 15:54:19, in reply to "Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book, Movie ..."
Dunno Lale. Tolkien has been praised as master of the language - I never understood why. I mean he writes a correct English - so? I had found it a chore to read his stuff, I found it a chore to see the film - despite of a few stunning visuals. Thin on story.
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Posted by Andres Natal on 30/12/2001, 8:11:59, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book, Movie ..."
How come no one seems to notice that the "Lord of the Rings" is the old Siegfried legend from Germany?! --The Niebelungen (a race of elves) make magical rings and there is a race to possess them all. Wagner popularized this pagan pre-Christian legend during the height of his German nationalism and Aryan-o-mania. Then a few generations later, an English writer named Tolkien sets down into prose the round of operas that Wagner had popularized in the Nineteenth Century and a sort of cultural amnesia sets in where people assume that all these creatures and rings and monsters were invented by Tolkien? (Ever hear the classic piece "Flight of the Valkuries? --That's from Wagner's treatment of the Siegfried legend!)
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Posted by Dave on 31/12/2001, 0:01:35, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book, Movie ..."
Oh my, please do not say such things... a chore to read The Lord of The Rings? I've read it twice now, and have every intention to read it again. But you know, in all seriousness, I think it is just one of those types of stories for which there will always be a wide range of opinionated readers, both for and against. So many of my friends and I agree that Tolkien made us want to KEEP READING and flipping the pages faster than any other author we've known. Four of us went to the movie on opening night, and I must agree with Michael on the "chore" side of the movie. There was definitely a lot of great (computerized) cinemetography, memorable scenes (like the mines of Moria, and Gandalf's fight with Saruman)... but whoa, I was actually waiting for it to end already. There were a few fanatics in the theatre dressed in full garb... so yes, there will always be those who go a bit overboard. All in all, I just wanted to put in my two cents worth here and defend what I think is a great masterpiece of literature. I believe that no movie will ever do it justice.
I do want to look into Andres Natal's comments on possible plagiarism of a sort. If there is DIRECTLY CONNECTABLE truth to his comments, I would be a little disappointed perhaps.
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 2/1/2002, 14:54:40, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Tolkien was of course a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature (i.e. English literature covering the period up to 1100 AD) and he never made a secret of it that he used many elements from Germanic and Celtic mythology in his Lord of the Rings. I read both Tolkien's novel and The Nibelungen Saga (medieval Icelandic version) and the stories are entirely different in my opinion. It is just certain elements that are similar, such as the rings and the dwarfs. I never encountered any elfs in the Nibelungen saga - they are typical of Celtic myth as far as I know, there are certainly none in the Anglo-Saxon pieces I studied. The Nibelungen Sage is a story of greed, revenge, fate and violence. It is blood curdling and very powerful, but neither the atmosphere nor the plot in the least resemble those of The Lord of the Ring as fas as I am concerned. So, while of course there are definite similarities, I personally would not accuse Toldien of plagiarism.
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 2/1/2002, 15:02:24, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book, Movie ..."
Dave, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the book. I read it twice, too, became completely immersed and loved it. I have not seen the film and am not sure yet whether I want to go. But the book was wonderful. Of course there are no very profound ideas in it, the plot is failry straightforward, as are the characters, but I can't see what is wrong with that. It is simply a marvellous work of the imagination, the bringing to live of an entire world, a pageturning plot.
What more could a reader want?
And I don't agree with the accusation of plagiarism (see my other message)
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Posted by Lale on 2/1/2002, 15:46:09, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Last night we went to the movie. My daughter loved it. My husband liked it quite a lot. Moi, je ne sais pas. It is not my kind of movie. Every reason why I didn't like it will be someone else's reason to like it. So I will just say that it simply is not the kind of thing I enjoy. The scenery, both real and pretend, was fabulous. But I was sick of the gory fights and the sound was way too loud.
About common elements in ancient and modern works: Perfectly acceptable, as far as I am concerned. How many times Faust was written?
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Posted by Gerrit on 3/1/2002, 0:09:52, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
I saw the movie the previous year and liked it a lot. The only negative point to me being the very blasé musical score.
I admit that I liked the book although I cannot say that is a real mind-opener.
About the common elements in it: I remember reading that it is loosely based on the myth of Ragnarok. I believe Einstein said that if he was a great man, it was because he stood on the shoulders of other giants.
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Posted by Dave on 3/1/2002, 3:35:17, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Anna: Thank you for your comments about the Celtic "Ring" legend/story. And Lale, funny you should mention such a thing but I also thought the sound in the movie theatre was HORRIBLY loud. Way too loud. Here in North America, Lord Of The Rings is still beating out every other movie by about TWICE the $$money$$. (Something that the Tolkien estate is surely not upset about). Inner-ear damage aside, the movie seems to be a big hit!
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Posted by Lale on 3/1/2002, 13:31:30, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Nice trick! For about one second I was thinking "the movie just came out recently, how could he have seen it last year?"
One of the very few things I liked about the movie was the score. Amazing, how tastes differ ;-)
Dave, the sound during the special effects and fight scenes were so loud, I kept worrying if my piano player daughter's musician-ears were being damaged. Ear damage is permanent. Luckily, we are exposed to that kind of sound only once in a while.
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 3/1/2002, 13:47:51, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Hello Gerrit, a very happy new year to you, too.
The final battle of The Lord of the Rings is indeed reminiscent of Ragnarok, which is the end of the world in Germanic mythology (the Germans called it Götterdämmerung). Actually Ragnarok is a huge and destructive fight between the forces of good and evil, after which the world is created anew - a somewhat different ending therefore. The language and the tone of this piece in Tolkien's novel imitate that of Germanic epic poetry, which I thought was out of place and a break with the style of the rest of the novel and the reason why this is definitely my least favourite part of the book.
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Posted by Michael Sympson on 3/1/2002, 16:31:35, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Not with me. As if all of a sudden nobody has seen a real good film before. This is a cult. Or an outbreak of Tolkienitis.
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Re: Nibelungen (as defined by Webster's)
Posted by Andres Natal on 3/1/2002, 20:46:31, in reply to "Re: Tolkien, Ring, Hobbit, Book"
Anna said that there were no elves in the old tales, just references to the Nibelungen. Here is how "nibelung" is defined by Webster's dictionary (Second College Edition): Nibelung [G.] Germanic Legend a) any of a race of dwarfs, the children of the mist, who owned a magic ring and a hoard of gold, taken from them by Siegfried.
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 4/1/2002, 8:55:13, in reply to "Re: Nibelungen (as defined by
Thanks for looking it up, but I am afraid you are misquoting me. I merely mentioned that Tolkien got his dwarfs from Germanic myth, such as The Nibelungen Saga, and his elfs from Celtic myth. Dwarfs and elfs are not the same thing! He took the trolls from Scandinavian myth, by the way.
Besides, I did not say there were Nibelungen IN the story, I referred to The Nibelungen Saga as a source of inspiration for the ring story, which once again does NOT figure elfs - as I said, elfs are from Celtic mythology, not Germanic. It seems that most people are not entirely clear about the difference between Celtic and Germanic myth. Germanic belongs to (among others) the Germans, the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons. Celtic is Irish, Welsh, Breton. Though there is some overlap, their literature is quite different. I studied Anglo-Saxon poetry and some Germanic myth for my MA and as I said Tolkien got the inspiration for his dwarfs, his trolls, his rings and his final battle from there. Hoards of silver rings were actually dig up at several places in north-western Europe (I saw some in a museum just a couple of days ago), only these rings are really bracelets and neckrings, not the kind you wear on your fingers. Tribal chiefs in Anglo-Saxon epic poetry are often given the epithet "ringgiver" to denote their wealth and their status. Here, too, the reference is most likely to the large variety. So, yes, Tolkien definitely took the ring from ancient Germanic myth where it was such an important symbol, but he then made it into something else, something of his own.
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