The Desolation

[Zigûr]

Interestingly, the article author made a comment of his own (which can currently be found by loading the first lot of additional comments below the ones showing up immediately beneath the article at present).

This is the author, Thomas Monteath. I've just been reading the comments on this article. Thank you to everyone for posting. They make fascinating reading. This review seems to have triggered a debate - which was in part my intention - about the nature of the TORn community. What does it mean to call oneself a 'fan', as opposed to someone who enjoyed the books/ movies? What is the difference between a 'fan' of Tolkien and a 'fan' of Jackson (bearing in mind this is after all a site dedicated to the works of Tolkien not Jackson)? Is there a difference between being a 'fan' of what is put on screen and a 'fan' of the people putting it on screen, and if so, does that effect how we judge what is put on screen? As a social scientist in real life, I find the manner in which the discussion is being conducted here absolutely fascinating. It's very interesting how the responses are almost wholly polarised - I'm either an 'arrogant, pompous troll' or a 'brave, courageous truth-teller'.

The meta-commentary on the 'fan-base' (as those who self-identify as part of it call it) in the review was made precisely to stir up a reflexive discussion on the nature of 'fandom'. I find it curious that many people who self-identify as 'fans' appear to engage with Tolkien's work as a community exercise, rather than a private imagined one. For me, and for most people engaging with most literature and cinema, its consumption is a private experience. Yet in the case of these wholly and vividly imagined alternative/ fictional worlds - star wars; potter; tolkien; star trek; game of thrones - there tends to grow a community. And like any community, it tends to trend towards an exclusive consensus, and tends to try and censor. Where that fails, censure occurs. The community begins to act as a hive mind, and individual critical faculties tend to be suspended in the context of that community. This is widely noted characteristic of communities everywhere, particularly where the community is defined around a central idea, principle or precept. Or in the case of fansites, a legendarium.

One of the more interesting characteristics of such communities is that disagreements that challenge things from which people derive or on which people assert or by which people associate their identities end up being ad hominem (I should note that ad hominem - personal - attacks are ones directed at an individual. In my review, I do not attack any individual 'fan', but rather gently mock - and it was clearly done somewhat tongue in cheek by the way - a caricature of a 'fan' that was general in nature, not specific. It is extremely interesting that, despite the set up of a caricatured archetype, there is clearly a tendency for some people to slot themselves into it, despite it being a overly-simplistic caricature. So before anyone says I 'insulted' the fans, please note that there is a huge difference between insulting an individual and lightly mocking a caricature, especially when it is done as part of a broader and largely absurd satire, largely written for the mischievous fun of it). Thus it is especially interesting to see some of the ad hominem comments made about me - an individual, not a type of person, remember - in the comments. In light of the hostile comments, I expected to receive similarly hostile private emails. Instead, what is interesting is that in direct email, I've received 9 that are extremely supportive (often phrased in relatively strong terms, with asides about not wanting to comment on the article itself for fear of being 'flamed' by other commenters), and only one that was disagreeing with me, and that one was very polite. Comparing the public and private responses the article has received has been fascinating, and says something about the culture of how we interact on the internet in public forums.

The one mildly hostile email I've received did, however, make some interesting points. The correspondent self-identified as a fan, and went on to implicitly claim to speak for other 'fans', and then chided me for 'hating on their movie' (by which the correspondent implicitly meant 'our movie'). This is one of the curious things about the 'fan communities' that appear around these sorts of stories. For the Hobbit etc is, of course, not their/ your movie; it is just a movie. It is precisely this sort of community-based conformity, where the world is organised into 'likers' and 'haters', that is curious and arguably quite distasteful. It is a barrier to dispassionate discussion. Where, in my review, I talk of 'fanatics', it is precisely this sort of binary thinking that I'm addressing.

I therefore would not describe myself as a 'fan' of the books or the films. What I am is someone who has thoroughly enjoyed the Hobbit and LotR since I first read them as a child, and thought the first trilogy was a largely brilliant (if often tonally and thematically flawed) attempt to bring the LotR to the screen. I had extremely high hopes for this new trilogy, as evidenced by articles I posted to theonering.net in July-Dec 2012, largely focused (optimistically) on the possible way the films could be structured over three films.

However, no matter how much I wanted the new films to be wonderful, in the end I am sorely disappointed. I then found myself thinking why that might have been the case. What was wrong with them? And that process is what has led to the review. You have an intuitive response to a piece of art; you try and put it into words and give it a structure to communicate it; and then you disseminate it. Fiat justitia ruat caelum - do justice and let the skies fall. The point of a review is to state an opinion, and to eschew caveating it for the sake of not offending people. An opinion is not an opinion if it is watered down simply to avoid the ire of people don't both disagree with it and are emotionally invested in the thing being opined upon. Is the reviewers job to say what they think, or is it to tell people what they want to hear? Which has more integrity as a review?

Having read a lot of the other reviews of this film on TORn, I was aware that a lot of writers were careful to caveat or downplay or balance their criticisms. While this possibly to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, I suspect it was in part to avoid being 'flamed' in the comments, which can actually be upsetting when it gets personal. Writing any article is like standing on a stage in front of an audience you can't see, but who can heckle you anonymously. I can fully sympathise with the tendency to couch and caveat and water down negative reviews in such a forum as the theonering.net. And this is why I decided to go with the reflexive comments on the nature of 'fanatical' followings. I was well aware that those paragraphs would be like poking a nest of hornets (I'm not saying people are like hornets - that was just a metaphor, relax folks). But I think the goal - beyond reviewing the film - of sparking a debate about the nature of 'fandom' on sites like TORn has been achieved. How should the community here define itself? What is the community? What are it's basic points of consensus? These are valid and interesting questions. I'm glad the review has triggered a discussion.

One final point: my point about the 'fanatics' not seeing the light of day was, as with much of the first section of that review, clearly satirical, tongue in cheek and mildly teasing. It is a stereotype - the tolkien 'geek' who never leaves their bedroom. People should lighten up and not get so sensitive. I'm a regular reader of Tolkien myself, and I am given a friendly ribbing from many friends as a consequence. It is important in life to be able to laugh at oneself. And also to be able to see a running gag when it sprints past you.

I think the author raises some interesting points about consensus. This is why, as a general rule, I think fandom can, in its own trivial way, be a dangerous thing. The establishment of a consensus which drowns out critical discourse and motivates outrage and hostility based on nothing more than differing opinions is surely an unhealthy thing. The kind of 'aggressive consensus' that things like internet comments (as opposed to discussion forums) and like/dislike ratings have given rise to make serious discussion virtually impossible.

Then again adopting an 'us and them' philosophy is a deeply ingrained human trait, and I despair of any way of our society as a whole escaping it. Yet it seems so utterly absurd when applied to enthusiasts of Professor Tolkien's work. What would he think of the desire for us to all walk in step?

EDIT: (Addendum) I think even a change of vocabulary would help. Instead of people saying something was "good" or "bad", saying that one "enjoyed" or "didn't enjoy" something would probably be helpful. Everyone knows opinions are subjective, but they still don't like opinions being phrased as objective truth (even though the assumption, generally, is that it's just the opinion of the person making the judgement).

[Bêthberry]

An interesting comment, Ziggy; thanks for posting it. He does seem to have used a ruse to stimulate debate.

I don't think that discussion boards are immune to some of what he says. I remember at one point being subjected to a barage of complaints from fellow Downers when I dared to suggest that certain aspects of Tolkien's writing style were questionable. No one actually tried to refute my claim (I have later found some good points which do) so much as to descry how I could have the temerity to attack The Professor. There is a wee bit of hagiography involved in Tolkien fandom

*ducks*

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I don't think that discussion boards are immune to some of what he says. I remember at one point being subjected to a barage of complaints from fellow Downers when I dared to suggest that certain aspects of Tolkien's writing style were questionable. No one actually tried to refute my claim (I have later found some good points which do) so much as to descry how I could have the temerity to attack The Professor. There is a wee bit of hagiography involved in Tolkien fandom.

Oh yes; I can think of worse examples than that, actually.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

EDIT: (Addendum) I think even a change of vocabulary would help. Instead of people saying something was "good" or "bad", saying that one "enjoyed" or "didn't enjoy" something would probably be helpful. Everyone knows opinions are subjective, but they still don't like opinions being phrased as objective truth (even though the assumption, generally, is that it's just the opinion of the person making the judgement).

I think it's best, generally, that people try not to be too abrasive when expressing their views on films (or whatever); however, if you're thinking of the comments to that article... well, "he doesn't say it's just his opinion" is one of the stock fanboy "arguments" used to dismiss any negative reviews or comments. That is, according to such people even professional critics should have to qualify their every statement with, "in my personal opinion..." and "...of course, this is just how I happen to feel..." etc, etc. That would get tedious pretty fast.

Besides, it wouldn't make any difference to your real fanboy types, like the TORNites- they have a whole arsenal of "arguments" they can use in place of that one.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

EDIT: (Addendum) I think even a change of vocabulary would help. Instead of people saying something was "good" or "bad", saying that one "enjoyed" or "didn't enjoy" something would probably be helpful. Everyone knows opinions are subjective, but they still don't like opinions being phrased as objective truth (even though the assumption, generally, is that it's just the opinion of the person making the judgement).

So, saying "it absolutely sucked" is right out?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

So, saying "it absolutely sucked" is right out?

Heh.
I suppose having to couch all of your opinions in clarifying language is potentially stifling. Probably what we really need is for people to stop over-identifying with their hobbies so that they don't feel personally threatened when something they like is criticised.
My distinction between comments sections and discussion boards is that I feel like boards more let everyone have their say whereas in comments sections someone can blurt out a statement and disappear, then get bumped up to the top due to having the most "likes" or what have you, which makes it seem like there's some kind of "party line" to be towed.
I like to think that on the Downs at least, while the majority of people probably have varying degrees of objection to the films, there is room to manoeuvre. From what I've seen trawling through old posts from before my time the majority of exasperation with pro-film arguments is when they are arguments like:
"I'd like to see you do better."
"Peter Jackson tried really hard and deserves our respect."
"They did the best they could."
"Tolkien wasn't perfect either."
"At least try to see the positives."
Which are all pointless and lead discussion nowhere. In terms of actual discussion of the films though I think we're quite open to different opinions though, and lack the worst thing of all, which is probably snarky and thinly-veiled personal attacks on people with different points of view in lieu of discussion, something I think pervades other forums quite a bit.

[jallanite]

Personally I tend to pick up on posts where I think the poster has said something incorrect, and point it out. Not a good trait, perhaps. Yet I honestly feel gratitude when someone has convinced me that I am wrong. I’ve learned something, and owe that person.

What many posters don’t realize is that often, when an argument is serious, the winner may only emerge months later when the quarrel has been forgotten and the apparent winner may have had more time to think about the matter and then change his or her mind. Also, if I am totally right in my argument, then I may be convincing many others who are not taking part in it openly.

Again, as I have mentioned, I don’t see a great deal of difference between academia and fandom. Academics also include a large percentage of people who most consider to be nuts. And that includes some that I mostly respect. Often they may, like many non-academics, be perfectly sane in most matters but have particular areas where they are irrational.

The critic Harold Bloom some years back created a list of 1,524 books which he believed everyone should read and this list is now often known as Bloom’s Canon. It contains a lot of books which have Stories or Poems or Plays in their titles so this covers many more works than its numbers show. For example, Shakespeare is represented by one book only: Plays and Poems.

For the complete Bloom Canon list see http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/theocraticcanon.html .

J. R. R. Tolkien is not included because Harold Bloom hates Tolkien, as did such a significant number of other academics that he didn’t feel compelled to include him. He, nevertheless, was pressed into producing a book of Tolkien criticism which most think laughable. See the reviews at http://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-...owViewpoints=1 .

Bloom also wrote a fantasy novel, A Flight to Lucifier: A Gnostic Fantasy which was a sequel to David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus which Bloom puts in his canon. Fair enough. Tolkien (and C. S. Lewis) also thought highly of A Voyage to Arcturus though they very much disliked the writer’s philosophy, in which Pain is the sole ultimate truth, and so the ultimate good. But though A Flight to Lucifier: A Gnostic Fantasy got mostly good first reviews, Bloom decided to disown it as garbage and it seems to have also sold poorly. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_to_Lucifer . Possibly those reviews were by the kinds of fans you mention who are over-identifying with what they think is their side.

For a freewheeling and mostly polite discussion of Bloom and Tolkien see http://sacnoths.blogspot.ca/2011/03/...ien-again.html .

But is an academic like Michael D. C. Drout any better? Drout is an English professor who specializes in Old English, loves Tolkien, is co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review and is editor of the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Yet a recent talk which was recommended to me by another Downer I think also to be utter nonsense.

Supposedly Drout is attempting to explain why some readers can’t enjoy Tolkien. But he doesn’t. He shows quite well one feature of Tolkien’s writing and says, without any presented evidence, that this is the reason. I don’t think it is, though I don’t know what is, or if any one thing is.

Drout says a few other things about Tolkien and about stories related to Beowulf and gets his facts wrong, more than I showed in my answer to Drout which I posted at http://wormtalk.blogspot.com.au/2013...ture-from.html and at http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...6&postcount=52 because the answer box limited the number of words I could use.

That no-one here has commented on my post suggests that you may be right, that no-one feels they are allowed to join in to criticize a famous Tolkien scholar like Drout or perhaps they don’t want to criticize me.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by jallanite

That no-one here has commented on my post suggests that you may be right, that no-one feels they are allowed to join in to criticize a famous Tolkien scholar like Drout or perhaps they don’t want to criticize me.

Well I know for my part that I didn't comment simply because I don't have anything to contribute. I wouldn't feel any reluctance to criticise Drout simply because he's famous.
Regarding Bloom, I'm aware that he's voiced similar objections regarding the Harry Potter books. Now regardless of whether or not one likes Harry Potter, what baffles me is why on earth serious academics waste their time writing and publishing on why books are "good" or "bad" or "should" or "should not" be read. These are pointless subjective criteria which can't be proved. It's the same case with Drout trying to explain why some readers don't "like" Tolkien. Who cares? Or if people do, surely it's a matter for psychology and cultural studies, not English scholars. I feel like academics (myself included) should be exploring new ways of thinking about texts, ways of reading them and so on, a myriad of scholarly activities other than going on about subjective appreciation.
But I suppose that's the kind of sensationalism that gets articles written about it (and irritated forum posts like this) and sells books.
On my blog I review TV shows, books, films and so on, but in an informal way, because I don't think matters of taste are a really a very scholarly issue. I didn't really enjoy Ulysses when I read it and I find the works of Henry James rather tedious. It doesn't mean I'm going to write a thesis on "why What Maisie Knew" is boring or how "people who like Ulysses are wrong." It'd be absurd.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Thomas Monteath

As a film, even as one that sits in the middle of a trilogy, it is just a bad film, with a lazily conceived focus and structure, poor editing, dialogue and an injudicious use of effects.

Sadly, this sums it up for me. Peter Jackson made a wonderful trilogy of films that weren't quite Tolkien's LotR, but captured the spirit and were nevertheless great films. These films largely fail to capture the spirit of The Hobbit and TDoS is, unforgiveably, just a plain bad film.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Sadly, this sums it up for me. Peter Jackson made a wonderful trilogy of films that weren't quite Tolkien's LotR, but captured the spirit and were nevertheless great films. These films largely fail to capture the spirit of The Hobbit and TDoS is, unforgiveably, just a plain bad film.

Saucy's back! Folks have been wondering when you might return to comment on the Hobbit movies.

How's life and the young ones?

I still have not seen DoS yet. It's still showing at one cinema here, so I suppose there's still a chance.

[jallanite]

Still, the fact remains that academics often do try to show that a particular work is better or worse objectively than another work. Whether they should do this is another matter. Fans, who are not very academic, often do the same.

Tolkien seems to try to avoid it, but at least comes close. In the introduction to his translations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo Tolkien says on page 13: �“But he was a major poet of his day; ...”, this of a poem known only from a single manuscript. He appears to agree with the general opinion that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best surviving Middle English poem, or at least one of the best. On page 21 Tolkien writes of the poem “Pearl”: “The reality of the bereavement will not save the poetry if it is bad, save to those who are in fact interested, not in poetry, but in documents, whose hunger is for history or biography or even for mere names.”

In short, a critic who does not care whether a work of literary art is good or bad is very rare, or is looking at the work in some nonliterary way. If it were not so, should not one just as well teach one of Terry Brooks�’ novels or one of E. R. Eddison’s books? The situation is that those who loathe Tolkien mostly dislike these others far more.

People, whether fans or academics or those who claim to be both do have differences of opinion about what they read. They do disagree in public. They sometimes do this politely, and sometime do this with great anger. And they have always done so as far as I can see.

And they sometimes misunderstand the work that they claim to explain. Bloom obviously thinks he understands Tolkien, and Tolkien is not worth bothering about. Drout thinks he understands Tolkien but his talk to me shows someone ignorant both about Tolkien and about Beowulf because he makes gross factual errors. Or maybe I don’t understand Drout and am being the fool, but no-one shows me where my understanding that Drout is the fool is wrong.

I see no difference between a fan who follows a particular line and an academic who follows some particular line, save, as you point out, literary academia is an area where one can’t prove anything, unlike pure mathematics. But I see an academic named Drout who it seems to me doesn’t know the basic facts of his own discipline, like discovering a modern physician is completely unaware of penicillin.