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Originally Posted by Mithalwen
Surely you can't buy experience (well... debatable)...
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That's the thinking behind this - as it was behind the Exeter College Tolkien do a few years back which cost £695 for a 5 day conference (but that was full board, admittedly). I'll be interested to see whether this gets many takers.
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After all the great thing about books is that they are essentially the same if you have a mint first edition or a tattered paperback..
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My feelings exactly. I get annoyed by the antics of this academic clique that seems to have claimed 'superior' knowledge. They seem to be doing exactly what Tolkien condemned in that quote I gave earlier:
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He thinks that there is now a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost.
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Don't get me wrong - I've enjoyed a lot of the stuff Shippey, Flieger & Garth have produced, but what's coming out now is increasingly esoteric & obsessed with trivialities, & appears only in expensive journals & talks at these kind of conferences. Been there, done that, got the high price books (& they're all in the attic now). However, I recently bought a lovely old (1974) hardback set of LotR, (replacing a set I owned & lost in the early '80's) for £38, & am still basking in a nostalgic glow every time I look at them.