/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22100461]

Why do people rate Tolkien? His gay elf philosemitic writings are marvel tier slop

[Anonymous No.22100471]

>rate
You're infinitely gayer than anything gay you could ever call gay, faggot.

[Anonymous No.22100490]

>>22100461
I am going to kill J.R. Tolkien

[Anonymous No.22100498]

based
>The great epics dignified death, but they did not ignore it, and it is one of the reasons why they are superior to the artificial romances, of which Lord of the Rings is merely one of the most recent.
>Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven’t got the approval yet to put a new one in.
>The sort of prose most often identified with “high” fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies. It is soft
>Moderation was the rule and it is moderation which ruins Tolkien’s fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are “safe”, but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are “dangerous”. Experience of life itself is danger- ous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious con- firmation of the values of a morally bankrupt middle class. Their cowardly, Home Counties habits are primarily responsible for the problems England now faces. The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob — mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence — the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom “good taste” is synonymous with “re- straint” (pastel colours, murmured protest) and “civilized” behaviour means “conventional be- haviour in all circumstances”. This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil — but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure — because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders — if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we’re told. After all, anyone who hates hobbits can’t be all bad.

[Anonymous No.22100503]

>>22100461
antisemite here BUT imagine rating authors based on their ideology.
as for tolkien, the movies (meant as entertainment, achieved a little more) are better than the books (meant for children, achieved exactly that). when i want to read medieval mythology i read the primary material (beowulf, nibelungenlied, etc) or edda, macpherson, kalevala, etc

[Anonymous No.22100508]

>>22100461
Yeah he sucks, diseased mind
>>22100503
Same but don't think I didn't notice >MacPherson

[Anonymous No.22100512]

Tolkien wrote a total chimera. People have unsuccessfully tried to tease out themes and morals about Lord of the Rings for almost a century, and they'll keep doing it.

[Anonymous No.22100521]

>>22100498
Holy shit this is one of the most shoehorned Marxist analyses I’ve ever seen. In fact I can’t see a Marxist signing off on this as legitimate criticism. Sauron is the proletarian mob? Medieval country bumpkins are the post-industrial middle-class?

[Anonymous No.22100531]

like I was saying about being a chimera
>>22100521
On the other end you have people saying Frodo is Jesus and the alliance is christianity or some such nonsense. Or that the Lord of the Rings is about WWII. Crock of shit.
The Lord of the Rings is utterly alien and doesn't relate to this world at all. Nothing is metaphorical or allegorical, at least concerning our world, the books are only concerned with themselves. Being timeless as it were must explain its appeal as a piece of fantasy.

[Anonymous No.22100602]

>>22100521
Cope
>>22100531
It isn't timeless
It tries to be a historical epic yet is nothing like historical epics. It glorifies and valorises the weak and little and demonises warfare for warfares sake
It's a fake historical epic with prissy middle class catholic themes
It's not alien in any way

[Anonymous No.22100624]

>>22100602
>it's catholic
You're insane. Catholics despise anything associated with high fantasy

[Anonymous No.22100678]

yeah it's fucking catholic
>all people are created equal under god
>except for the elves that come from space and the dwarves made under the mountain, completely different from mortal men
>all people need redemption for eternal life
>except for elves lmao they just live forever by default
>the hobbits are allegorical for jesus
>except they're just little drunks with worldly desires, too simple for ambition
>the wizard next to them with divine miraculous powers would probably be jesus, if he didn't admit that evil tempts him
>maybe they both represent jesus lol
>sure its catholic it has to be
>just look at harry potter, catholics love wizards lmao

[Anonymous No.22100784]

maybe aragon is jesus because he's crowned "the king" even though he doesn't do anything particularly holy or special, and he's just king of roihan or whatever they call it that age