[davem]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

Assume for a moment that gifted writers would be allowed with the blessing of the Tolkien Estate to write books or collections of short stories as additions to “canon”. Assume further that the overarching LOTR story can be understood and appreciated as genius in other languages, despite the lack of nuance that, presumably, only English readers will “get.” Can new stories be written within the inviolable boundaries of races, lands, and the rich history of the original works, and yet be written in French, Russian, or even the ghastly American dialect, and still be good stories, perhaps even great stories, in themselves?

Yes, but how far can one move away from the original & still have the story be considered 'genuine'? I think the point that's being missed is that the Shire is not England per se, but rural Warwickshire/Berkshire at the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee - hence pickles, tomatoes & potatoes. Pop guns & express trains are in there because they are references that the original audience (Tolkien's children) for TH would have gotten. The style & references are of their time.

I maintain that they can. I don’t find anything particularly wrong with a snorting elf, because within my inferior USian experience a “snort” is not the haughty, rude, and disdainful thing that it seems to be to proper English gentry. If I was writing it, I perhaps would revise it to “(insert elf character name here) lifted an eyebrow in disdain,” but that essentially expresses the same thing to me.

No, 'snort' in reference to Elves is a bit like 'gross' in reference to Hobbits....

It could even be said that if the story was rewritten to use different phrasing or perhaps different cultural settings when translated into a new language, it might have equally deep and nuanced meaning as the English version does for the English. I shudder to think what a US-inner-city version of LOTR would look like (the mind recoils in horror at the thought of Bilbo “rappin’” his poetry), but it would perhaps “reach” people that the original does not.

Oh, I'm sure that any sequel would be designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. CoH would not have had a chance - that 'boring' start with all the family history, & that depressing ending - & who could identify with that crazy Turin?? Except that anyone familiar with Saga literature would recognise all that as part of the Saga genre, & realise that Tolkien was actually emulating Saga literature. Even Morwen is a classical saga mother-figure. People (& critics in particular) don't read the Sagas & don't get what Tolkien was doing - they don't recognise that, uniquely in modern literature, Tolkien has produced a saga equal to the Icelandic greats. In other words, what Tolkien produced was high art, not stories about Elves & Hobbits, & its the subtleties which are often (dis)missed which are essential to that.