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06-16-2007, 01:07 PM | #241 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
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Do you have a link to the BD fan-fic site? I wouldn't mind reading some offerings and perhaps adding some of my own. As far as the RPG here, it is quite good, but I am more interested in novelized RP than the strict adherence to RPG'ing norms (that and the fact I have been doing novel-based RP'ing for the last eight or so years). P.S. Never mind, I overcame my weekend lethargy and found the fan-fic forum by the sweat of my own brow (an epic journey in itself!). Now if I could only use mind control to have the beer bottle leave the fridge and float over to me on its own accord.
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06-16-2007, 03:57 PM | #242 | ||
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06-16-2007, 05:32 PM | #243 | |
Cryptic Aura
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Drigel, I must apologize for anouncing that deletion of your post. You were/are of course absolutely free to delete as you choose. Most members have, I suspect, deleted posts and I hardly think we are required to give reasons, despite what that little blank box says. What prompted me to comment upon it was the timing. Literally, I read it, hit the reply button, and the reply screen came up blank. I still think it is extraordinary timing.
No doubt with all Tolkien's talk of pipeweed, you folks have entirely the wrong opinion about "snorting." The verb derives from Middle English and only later--going by the OED--do the slang uses of the word appear. It has a completely legitimate use to suggest human contempt or indignation. I recall that (and of course my memory at the end of long, hot day battling the elements in the garden is as liable to tricks as anyone's) the OED records uses by Dickens and Walter Scott to describe characters' reactions of scorn or ridicule to a statement, so the word quite legitimately is not limited to animal breathing noises only . Besides, my quick perusal of the third part of Mithadan's story, shows that it is Gandalf who is described as snorting, in indigation to being called "father." Quote:
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06-16-2007, 09:09 PM | #244 | |
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v.intr. 1. a. To breathe noisily and forcefully through the nostrils. b. To make a sound resembling noisy exhalation: "The wind snorted across the Kansas plains" Gail Sheehy. 2. To make an abrupt noise expressive of scorn, ridicule, or contempt. I can fully see a 1st Age Elf the likes of the haughty Caranthir or Curufin snorting. Eol was said to have snorted on any number of occassions.
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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06-23-2007, 10:12 AM | #245 | |
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However, I shall be more careful with my examples in future. |
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06-23-2007, 12:25 PM | #246 | |
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So does Merry
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06-23-2007, 01:56 PM | #247 | ||
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Middle-class Hobbits say 'lunch' & middle-class Hobbits are in the minority in the Shire. They are the exception. Hence, its true to say that Hobbits do not say 'lunch' - just as its true to say that Hobbits have nothing to do with Elves. Those Hobbits who do have anything to do with Elves are a tiny minority. LotR focusses on a tiny minority of unusual Hobbits. Hobbits don't wear footwear - (except for the minority who wear boots). Quote:
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06-23-2007, 03:45 PM | #248 | |
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06-23-2007, 04:22 PM | #249 |
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The social consequences of mis-use of lunch/dinner and supper/dinner/tea are deep. Don't you believe otherwise. People have been hounded out of Yorkshire for over use of sinister words like 'lunch'. The only way you can get away with using the word lunch round these parts is to add -eon meat to the end of it. And even then someone will ask you if you're too stuck up for Spam.
The matter is only slightly less dangerous than all the pitfalls to be had when using napkins (I avoid this by wiping me gob on me sleeve).
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06-23-2007, 04:56 PM | #250 | ||
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And, if you can tell me how this whole digression is relevant to the thread I'll be happy to continue it. If not, I'm happy to leave it here. |
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06-23-2007, 05:21 PM | #251 | |||
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just as soon as someone reminds me what we were originally talking about.
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06-23-2007, 06:01 PM | #252 |
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Continued writing...
Though Tolkien did not want others to "continue" his work or write new stories based on his work, I find it interesting that as in LOTR, Bilbo began writing the Red Book, then he gave it to Frodo to continue, and Frodo gave it Sam and so on... that it reflected how Tollien himself began writing the mythology for ME and he passed it on to Christopher to continue. So who does it go to next? Is it not within us all to continue on in our own way? We won't all have the same story to tell, but does that mean that we should't tell it? That's just my thought on the subject.
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06-24-2007, 01:21 AM | #253 | ||||
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Now, to repeat myself again, it was a generalisation, made in a rush. I'll try not to do it again. It was also, as I've shown, generally correct, from a linguistic point of view. What I will concede though, is that only middle class Hobbits would (or should) use the word 'lunch', that being a contraction of luncheon, only recorded from 1829, according to the On-line Etymology Dictionary - which is the only resource I can be bothered to consult at the moment. Quote:
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06-24-2007, 03:26 AM | #254 |
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Tolkien may not have been from Yorkshire, and in contrast to davem I reckon he was quite pleased about that - he did have a fondness for Lancashire's green and verdant valleys - but he would have well known the essential difference between lunch and dinner. This is in the very blood of the English, class is of vital importance to us, to none more so than the eternally anxious middle classes.
Note how Tolkien makes play of a Lancastrian working class term for dinner - baggin becomes Baggins, a witty name for a Hobbit obsessed with his grub. Rather like snap this word comes from the fact that the working man's main meal of the day was carried off to the field or foundry in a bag. If you think the use of 'lunch', 'dinner' and other terms amongst Hobbits is entirely casual on Tolkien's behalf you are sorely mistaken. He was an Englishman, keenly aware of class and language and how they are interlinked, as shown in his work; in The Shire there is much satire on the British way of life - cast that subtlety aside at your peril
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06-24-2007, 05:01 AM | #255 | |
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What's interesting is that 'lunch' does not appear in The Hobbit at all ('lunchtime' is used once) - based on an overly quick skim. In FotR the word is used 8 times - 7 times by the narrator & once by Pippin. In TT it is used twice - once by Merry & once by Gimli:
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In RotK it isn't used at all. Hence, a specifically middle-class term for the mid-day meal * (arising, as I stated, in the early 19th Century), &, given the nature of Hobbit society, not one that would be in general usage - given the fact that Hobbits are based on rural English folk & that 'lunch' is not a word used by rural English folk. * cf the Asparagus/'Sparrowgrass' thing - Asparagus is to Lunch what Sparrowgrass is to dinner. Or, in other words, Merry & Pippin would eat Asparagus for lunch, while Sam & the Gaffer would have Sparrowgrass for dinner. Or the bitter Nasturtians/Nasturtiums controversy.....
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06-24-2007, 07:53 AM | #256 | |||
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Considering the controversy swirling about the terms 'lunch' and 'dinner' (which obviously is the demarkation point between civilized society and utter chaos), I briefly perused LOTR this morning and found a discussion in the Ivy Bush between the Gaffer, Old Noakes, Ted Sandyman, Daddy Twofoot and other rustic, working class stiffs. This comment I found most interesting: Quote:
I think you're both confusing Hobbits with actual people. The Hobbits, even the poorest, ate more meals a day ('six if they could get it') than we do; ergo, they would naturally have more designations for meal times that the entire Hobbitish society would consider acceptable terminology.
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06-24-2007, 08:22 AM | #257 |
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Fascinating digression. I can't help but think this is precisely the kind of debate that would take place if persons began creating/reformulating "official" Middle Earth stories. Do Elves snort? Do Hobbits have 'lunch'? And of course the eternal question "What would Tolkien say?"
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06-24-2007, 09:49 AM | #258 | ||||
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In The Council of Elrond we have Bilbo stating: Quote:
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What this clearly shows is that 'lunch' is not even the only way that middle class Hobbits refer to the mid-day meal. They will as happily say 'dinner'. What we see, therefore, is that the mass of Hobbits call the mid-day meal 'dinner'. A couple of middle class dandies among them use the affected term 'lunch'. All other uses of 'lunch' are down to the narrator/translator. |
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06-24-2007, 04:50 PM | #259 | |||
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As far as 'lunch' being used often by the narrator/translator, just whom do you think that is, exactly? My guess would be the author, Tolkien, hadn't the slighest concern over using the term 'lunch' in any applicable situation.
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06-24-2007, 08:44 PM | #260 | |
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06-24-2007, 10:52 PM | #261 |
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I'm not suggesting that the digression's discussion of language, use of words is somehow unique.
But for me it highlights one of the problems for anyone who would wish to create new ME stories - whether their use of language or their potrayal of characters is consistent with what already exists, i.e. Middle Earth as Tolkien conceived it. Commenting on Tolkien's use of language is one thing. Discussing another person's use of language in an attempt to create ME fiction is another.The conversations/debates that would follow would differ from what exist as they would be examining not just the meaning or nuances of this word or that but whether the word should have been used at all, whether a particular character in ME can accurately be described as behaving in a particular way.
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He looked down at her in the twilight and it seemed to him that the lines of grief and cruel hardship were smoothed away. "She was not conquered," he said Last edited by Morwen; 06-24-2007 at 10:55 PM. |
06-25-2007, 01:10 AM | #262 | ||||
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06-25-2007, 04:35 AM | #263 | |
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I am also curious concerning the moment in time when these "classes" presumably appeared in the Shire, esspecially the aristocracy. Since the Third Age is some 6.000 years ago, could there have been such a thing as a middle class ? Isn't this a notion forced upon this work?
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06-25-2007, 06:46 AM | #264 | |
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Yet another subtlety that someone not brought up in this class conscious society might not pick up on is how words can be used and mis-used for effect. If a character like Pippin breaks rank and uses dinner for lunch there's no proof in that being an indicator of his 'class' - we know he is an upper crust young Hobbit so why would he do that? The answer is that young upper crust people often do break rank and use language outside the norm, just as the aristocracy share with the working class a liking for simple food such as bangers and mash and a love of vulgar humour, you'll often hear upper crust lads asking where the 'bogs' or 'traps' are, taking up lower class words and behaviours as a way of establishing 'difference' or eccentricity. I've no doubt Glastonbury this weekend was full of Oxbridge trustafarians, looking like crusties but in reality being the sons and daughters of lords. But a class-anxious middle class person would never ever use words 'below' them - you'd never get a Sackville-Baggins using dinner for lunch unless it was a social faux pas (I'll bet they used napkin rings though ). 'Supper' is a word used by all classes, but again this has differences. Supper as used by most people refers to something you'd eat towards bedtime, a pot of tea, a bit of toast maybe. But Supper as used by higher classes is also used interchangeably with 'dinner' - maybe it should be referred to as Suppah, as that's how it's pronounced
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06-25-2007, 07:05 AM | #265 | |
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06-25-2007, 07:07 AM | #266 | ||||||
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06-25-2007, 07:22 AM | #267 | |
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06-25-2007, 07:32 AM | #268 | |
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This discussion is hilarious!
One side insists on yoking Tolkien's language with the social, cultural and historical aspects of language in the Primary World. Previously, I do believe that the argument was strenuously insisted upon that for Tolkien's work to succeed, it cannot break the illusion of the sub-created world by referencing the Primary World. Thus, any explanation of the terminology which relies upon language use in that class-ridden little septic isle ( ) means that Tolkien failed to maintain the illusion of his sub-created world -- or that the reader breaks the veil. Really, I hardly think that a reader needs to know the petty little nuances of English social class distinctions (hah--now there's a double word if ever one existed) at the end of the nineteenth century/early twentieth to enjoy the books or appreciate the fact that food was an important aspect for hobbits. Perhaps these comments highlight just how onerous is Sam's and Frodo's struggle to survive and destroy the Ring when even lembas runs out. Quote:
EDIT: I've editted this last paragraph to make it reflect my sincere thoughts about Aurel's comments, in case the original comment could be misconstrued and I wrote in haste. I received an unsigned negative rep for this post, stating it was "offensive and patronizing," but I had previously positively repped and commented on Aurel's post. I have no idea how many "points" I lost, since I don't particularly keep track of my rep count, so I can't guess if it was a "rep heavy" Downer or not who objected to my comments. I wonder if the anonymity was accidental--we call can accidentally forget to sign a rep comment--or deliberate. If deliberate, why lack the courage to stand by your comment?
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06-25-2007, 09:01 AM | #269 |
Illustrious Ulair
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Ok. Let's say Breakfast, second breakfast, dinner, tea, second dinner, & supper - & we get 'six square meals a day'.
Finally, to get back to my initial post – I was attempting to show how 'lunch' 'felt' wrong, & being in a hurry threw out a few suggestions as to options which might sound better. Being picked up on that I attempted to develop the argument, & show why. That developed into a discussion on the rightness or wrongness of 'lunch'. I think I've shown that 'lunch' is a middle-class Victorian neologism, & its usage would smack of 'putting on airs' to the majority of Hobbits ('Battle Gardens' is thrown out in favour of 'New Row' for the same reason). What we can say is that the translator/narrator may use lunch & dinner interchangeably. Pippin may also use them interchangeably, but no other character does. Other characters use 'dinner' in every case & Merry uses 'lunch' in the only example we have of him referring to said meal. Hence, Hobbits don't have 'lunch' – unless they are young men about town putting on airs (as they did in choosing to wear their armour around the Shire long after Sharkey & his ruffians had been dispatched). What you're missing is that their use of 'lunch' is deliberate on Tolkien's part in portraying their characters. It's precisely because Hobbits in general don't 'do lunch' that its significant that Merry & Pippin do. |
06-25-2007, 09:52 AM | #270 | |
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The perils of inordinate class consciousness
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********************* Sam: “By my reckonin’, Mister Frodo, it’s high time for dinner.” Frodo: “Dinner? But it’s only just gone midday, Sam.” Sam: “That’s right, Mister Frodo. Dinner-time.” Frodo: “Surely you mean lunch-time, Sam?” Gollum: “Yesss Master, we thinks it’s lunch-time too. Let's do lunch, my preciousss.” Sam: “Beggin’ your pardon, Mister Frodo, sir, but I’m not sure as I get your meaning. My old Gaffer always insists on six square meals a day: Breakfast, second breakfast, dinner, tea, second dinner, and supper. No mention of this ‘lunch’, whatever that may be when it’s at home.” Frodo: “Ugh! You mean to say that you don’t ‘do lunch’, Sam? Really, I don’t believe that I can stand your company a moment longer. Come on, Smeagol, let’s leave this grubby little oik here and go on without him.” ********************* Translator’s note: It is my unfortunate duty to record that Frodo was consumed by Shelob only two days following this incident. The Ring was subsequently picked up by an Orc patrol out of Cirith Ungol and conveyed to Sauron, resulting in his complete and utter victory over the Free Peoples. Gandalf, on the voyage back to Aman, was heard to curse himself for relying on such a ridiculously class conscious people as Hobbits to save the world.
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06-25-2007, 11:26 AM | #271 | ||
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What kind of characters would throw around neologisms? Bilbo, Frodo, & the other Hobbits don't say 'lunch', they say 'dinner'. Anyone who can't see that the use of such a neologism by two young men about town is significant is missing a very interesting bit of social commentary on Tolkien's part. Of course, it doesn't matter if all you're concerned about is the story itself. But LotR is not simply a 'story' its a secondary world & the details matter. Of course one can laugh the whole thing off - I suspect Tolkien may have been having fun with the 'lunch' thing too, but that doesn't mean its insignificant. |
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06-25-2007, 12:06 PM | #272 | ||
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So first it was class issue,
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06-25-2007, 12:27 PM | #273 | |
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Still, I suppose claiming that the classes do not matter any more helps negate the possibility of social fax pas involving garden gnomes, napkins and what you call the toilet, front room and settee. That's why one Tony Blair claims we now live in a meritocracy where class does not matter; this may be fine in The River Cafe but he might find otherwise as he folds his napkin up after a midday-meal* in the Dorchester. :P *this being a nice bland corporate term we could use instead, when it comes time for the next edition of LotR, so as not to confuse readers from more egalitarian societies on t'other side of t'pond, t'channel, t'watford gap and t'40% income tax bracket. Funny how nothing seems to ruffle feathers more these days when you bring up class and language in discussion, yet nevertheless, despite the metrosexual tendencies of the modern reader, Tolkien was a product of a class-conscious society and was well aware of the issue. You only have to read the first couple of chapters of The Hobbit to discover a fabulous and gentle satire on middle-class mores, and that's just the beginning of Tolkien's use of the class structure in his work.
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06-25-2007, 12:32 PM | #274 |
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Taters, potatoes...let's call the whole thing off.
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06-25-2007, 01:04 PM | #275 | |||
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You know, this is, in my not-so-humble opinion, becoming rather like the story about a rich man who commissioned a team of sculptors to fashion a statue of an elephant. The sculptors thought it would make the statue more interesting to add a houdah on the elephant's back and, of course then there had to be a rajah in the conveyance, and before long all the sculptors were focusing their attention on designing the filigree to be sculpted into the rings on the rajah's left index finger.
You all realize, of course, that so passionately arguing that "the finer points of Tolkien's uses of idioms-peculiar-to-the-English are inviolable" wholly invalidates every edition of LOTR that has been translated into other languages. I mean, let's recall every edition in Italian or Swahili, becuase everyone knows you can't have a proper "secondary world" in any language other than Tolkien's original English. Any other language would lose the intangible flavor (or is it "flavour") and local color (or "colour") of the original, and by Eru, we just can't have that. If Tolkien was so careful about language and not-letting-real-world-references-intrude-upon-the-secondary, then riddle me this, Batman: just what in Middle-Earth is a "pop-gun"? Quote:
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Within the bounds of legality we cannot add to the "canon" of Middle-Earth, but that has not stopped new stories from being written and shared around. We can try to bring this thread back on-topic by discussing whether we should do so, or whether Tolkien intended that others could or should do so, but please let us not elevate LOTR to the realm of the sacred. There are enough revisions and corrections to successive editions to make "infallibility" a moot question. Personally, I rather enjoyed Gilthalion's "The Hobbits" story in the fan-fic section, and was able to read it and enjoy it as a ripping good piece. The first chapter, describing the death of Mistress Rose, actually brought tears to my eyes. But I wasn't about to pick out whether he chose to use "blueberries" or "cherries" in the pies she baked just before she died. That smacks of verbally breaking something apart to see how it works, and as Gandalf said, Quote:
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06-25-2007, 02:33 PM | #276 | |
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Translation is a difficult issue - Tolkien wrote a guide for translators of LotR, & there have been numerous essays on the finer points of the translator's art in regards to Tolkien's work.
The simple fact is that no novel can be translated in such a way as to preserve all its subtleties ('Bottom, though art translated!') & much will be lost, particularly with a novel like LotR. I'm sure there are aspects of LotR & TH which will only be noticed by English readers - & English readers of a certain age & background at that - just as there are aspects of War & Peace or Don Quixote which I as an English reader only able to read those works in translation will never pick up on unless they are pointed out to me by a Russian or Spanish reader. Now, an awareness of those aspects will not be necessary to understand the novels, or appreciate the bigger picture. It is not necessary to be aware of the difference between lunch & dinner for an English reader in order to understand LotR. It is a very minor point of interest & I admit that most English readers will not care one way or the other, let alone readers from other countries, & especially those who read the work in translation. However, there's a difference between saying 'x' is insignifcant, & is hardly worth making a fuss about, & saying 'x' doesn't exist. The lunch/dinner thing is a little bit of social commentary which an English reader would pick up on & a non English reader probably would not. It seems to me that, unusually, some posters have taken such umbrage with my posts that they are ignoring what I consider to be a very interesting little insight into class differences in The Shire. And the wider point? A writer of M-e stories who doesn't get that there is a vast difference for an English reader between lunch & dinner is probably not going to get (or pay attention to) other linguistic & social differences. You see Tolkien based the Hobbits & The Shire on the rural folk he knew in Sarehole at the time of the Diamond Jubilee, & used their speech patterns along with their social structure. Once you start saying 'x' is such a minor point that its not worth bothering about you start down a potentially very slippery slope into generic fantasy, & end up writing 'Dragonlance' books: Quote:
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06-25-2007, 02:51 PM | #277 | |
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06-25-2007, 03:04 PM | #278 | |
A Mere Boggart
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06-25-2007, 03:06 PM | #279 |
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Forgive me for stamping my foot so loudly, I believe I broke a bone or two. I suppose that one of my points was that the story is a great story, even if you don’t get all the English class references when you read it in German or Chinese. I would propound a new question for discussion here, directly related to the original thread topic.
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? 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. 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. I’m sure the divine Miss Bb could speak better to those issues of words and communication, but to drag this wordy post back on topic, dialect and cultural trappings are not what makes LOTR special – it is the inner consistency and the universality of the themes. If someone, and it certainly won’t be me, can propound such themes within the bounds of the existing Tolkienesque sub-universe and make a good story out of it, I don’t find that invalid, even if someone writes pop-guns and pickles into a story supposedly set before such things existed…oops, that was Tolkien himself.
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06-25-2007, 03:20 PM | #280 | |
A Mere Boggart
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If you're arksin', it already 'reaches' people. There's nowt more vomit-worthy (and patronising) than writers/artists trying to 'get down with ver kids' and churning out bogus nonsense. Ugh. It makes me think of David Cameron and his hoody hugging. Respeck. *** But seriously, such a notion takes away all the subtlety of the work. It would be like burning the Mona Lisa and replacing it with a Paint-By-Numbers Fuzzy Felt version. I suppose it all depends upon whether you just like the stories or if you like the whole package. You know, like the difference between the films and the books - the former are decent enough, but the latter is the Real Thing.
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