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Originally Posted by Morwen
These are things that I think make Wide Sargasso Sea interesting to discuss as an independent work. But if I were analysing Bertha or Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre I don't know that I could or should rely on interpretations of those characters that Bronte never suggested. And this is why I think that Rhys' work has to be treated as distinct.
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Originally Posted by Lal
Alas the Wide Sargasso Sea is a case in point of exactly why we should not allow Tolkien rip-offs. No student now can read Jane Eyre unadulterated, no student can take Charlotte Bronte's word for what it is - it is now forever tarnished thanks to Jean Rhys and her provocative, oppositional take on Bronte's work. She's entitled to do this of course, but I think it should have been left as an iconoclastic curiosity - instead it has been taken to heart by generations of lecturers scrambling for 'different interpretations'. Sigh. Poor Charlotte. But then she were only a humble Yorkshirewoman. What did she know in comparison to these clever Postmodernists.
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Reading books is a dangerous thing. No telling who will come off better or worse, the ancients or the moderns.
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Originally Posted by Lal
Hmmm, funny how that 500 years down the line Shakespeare's work has not been 'expanded' by the ponderings of ghost writers - you know, there is no Midsummer Nights Dream Part VIII (in the manner of Police Academy's many interminable parts). Why would Tolkien be any different? Only if he's to be considered not as a serious writer but as a producer of mere entertaining pap of course.
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Shakespeare didn't write a mythology, didn't create a Legendarium, as Tolkien, Lewis, Asimov, Lucas, Whedon have done. And the interminable parts belong to the debate over who actually wrote the plays.
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Originally Posted by davem
The point is whether anyone else can do what Tolkien did, have Tolkien's insight in to his own creation sufficient to enable them to create convincing stories set in his world. The answer is no.
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There's the rub:
convincing stories set in his world.
convincing is a subjective state, so
no follows only for you.
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Originally Posted by davem
What you seem to be asking for is another writer's personal interpretation to be given extra weight by being officially sanctioned.
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The original post asked if Tolkien encouraged others to take up his mythology. No mention of official sanction there.