A new anti-Tolkien critique

[Mithalwen]

I am going ot read it again, mainly to review it and save anyone else from wasting their pennies. I doubt any Tolkien haters actually need to pay someone to tell them why they should hate it (and I do appreciate that it isn't everyone's thing) but those of us who love it can rebuff the "arguments" and you can get a far better critique and criticism for free here and elsewhere.

Tell me - does bolster mean something else Stateside to here or does the US edition differ... this guy makes a huge fuss about "sacks of grain" being put in the beds at the Pony to make them look occupied. Now in my version it is bolsters which are of course long round pillows...

Anyway I do feel that I have taken one for the team here...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Tell me - does bolster mean something else Stateside to here or does the US edition differ... this guy makes a huge fuss about "sacks of grain" being put in the beds at the Pony to make them look occupied. Now in my version it is bolsters which are of course long round pillows...

I don't think I'd heard the word used as a noun until I read FOTR. At any rate, I've never heard of it used in connection with grain. My old-school Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary doesn't have that definition either. Maybe the author's knowledge of language is as lacking as his taste in books.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Anyway I do feel that I have taken one for the team here...

Yes indeed. I shall have a frosty bottle of hobbit-approved beer in your honor.

[Mithalwen]

I am not sure Hobbits would approve of frosty ale - they aren't Australian. But I won't grudge you... I may need a brandy ere I am done...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I am going ot read it again, mainly to review it and save anyone else from wasting their pennies. I doubt any Tolkien haters actually need to pay someone to tell them why they should hate it (and I do appreciate that it isn't everyone's thing) but those of us who love it can rebuff the "arguments" and you can get a far better critique and criticism for free here and elsewhere.

Tell me - does bolster mean something else Stateside to here or does the US edition differ... this guy makes a huge fuss about "sacks of grain" being put in the beds at the Pony to make them look occupied. Now in my version it is bolsters which are of course long round pillows...

Anyway I do feel that I have taken one for the team here...

I think the idea of using sacks of grain is a philological joke by Tolkien. Of course sacks of grain would be used to make the beds look occupied by Hobbits: as we discussed elsewhere in these fora, a "hobbit" is an old Welsh measure equaling two and a half bushels of grain. That would be four pecks, Gregory. That, and the Nazgul did literally "hit the sack".

Obviously, this sly bit of wordplay would escape a critic who titles a piece "How Tolkien Sucks". Any literary critique on any notable writer must be discounted as immature and unprofessional for such a crass lack of common courtesy.

P.S. I went over to Amazon.com and perused the "Look Inside" feature. I immediately found an editing error "Children of Hurinn (sic)" - comforting to know you've studied your subject! Then he mentions that "I am not critiquing"; well of course you're not critiquing, that involves research and fundamental literary knowledge. He naturally bows to China Mieville (who is a man, or so I've been told) and Michael Moorcock (who has written the same book 20 or 30 times over, but merely changes the title) as if that lends credence to his "not critiquing". That neither Moorcock nor Mieville ever criticize Tolkien in context, but rather in prolepsistic or anachronistic attacks is lost on this fellow Dickerson. Naturally, he yearns for "gay orcs" - homosexuality abounding in any number of medieval epics. T.H. White was a homosexual, but he didn't write a character of that orientation into "The Once and Future King". Probably because it wasn't necessary to further the plot.

But his banal writing style is interjected with the f-word, "jack-offs" and other other obscenities because a shabby writer must punctuate with profanity where erudition is lacking. Dickerson (scion of one who dickers, I suppose) also uses the word "geek", "geeks" or "geekery" as a mantra of disdain, while at the same time admitting he is a geek of some high order himself. I am not quite sure what to make of this odd implication except for some sort of self-loathing. Finally, and with much hilarity, he uses the term "elves" and not "elfs", not realizing that it was Tolkien himself who popularized that spelling (along with "dwarves" rather than "dwarfs").

That's as far as I cared to go. I wouldn't waste the .99 cents to download such tripe. It is not provocative because it is not seriously researched, and the forced humor leads one to believe it is no more than an elongated piece of trolling that would more than likely be deleted by moderators due to its crude language. I've seen funnier spam.

[Mithalwen]

Sorry a bit confused now. In my edition Nob puts a bolster in each bed. It is Mr Dickerson who refers to sacks of grain which made me wonder if it were different in the states. I have a bolster though it is vintage, and they were common in France even when I lived there.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Sorry a bit confused now. In my edition Nob puts a bolster in each bed. It is Mr Dickerson who refers to sacks of grain which made me wonder if it were different in the states. I have a bolster though it is vintage, and they were common in France even when I lived there.

I am going to reread the page. I can't recall now, honestly. A bolster is a long pillow in the U.S. as well.

P.S. It is "bolster", not "sack of grain". Alas, my philological joke was, it is certain, a figment of my imagination. Maybe the author has the book mixed up with the movie. I can't recall what they used in the film sequence.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

It seems to me to be satire. Sometimes, things that seem serious at first really are just poking fun.

Anyone who has read the Sherlock Holmes satire "Watson Was A Woman" knows what I'm talking about.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I am going to reread the page. I can't recall now, honestly. A bolster is a long pillow in the U.S. as well.

P.S. It is "bolster", not "sack of grain". Alas, my philological joke was, it is certain, a figment of my imagination. Maybe the author has the book mixed up with the movie. I can't recall what they used in the film sequence.

Pillows.

[Mithalwen]

Thanks for the film info. I don't know. If it is satire it isn't very funny. If it is criticism it is fairly feeble. I haven't quite steeled myself to re read. So many other things I should do..