A new anti-Tolkien critique

[tumhalad2]

This is an apparently comical (though serious in intent) "takedown" of Tolkien. Why anyone feels the need to write an entire ebook taking Tolkien down is beyond me but each to their own. As I can't access it (it's a kindle ebook), it'd be cool if someone downloaded it, read it and posted their thoughts here. I'd be keen to know what he says.

How Tolkien Sucks

***quite by accident I posted this in the wrong forum, I was obviously aiming for "The Books" section. Be great if this could be moved over, thanks.

[Mithalwen]

I have a train journey today I will read, digest and report later ... it is only 35 pages but you do wonder what market he is aiming at.. laters..

[Mithalwen]

Right have finished it..save your seventy seven pences. He hates Tolkien, he hates the history, the geography, the languages, the songs, makes various factual errors, claim you can't tell who is speaking when virtually every character has their own ideolect. Basically he hates middle earth and just wants an action movie. Seemingly involving drunken Lesbian gunslingers.

Draw your own conclusions. It is just a smart alecky rant.

[Inziladun]

I don't have access to a Kindle either, so thanks for biting the bullet there, Mith. Does that guy think he's the only person in the world to ever dislike Tolkien's works? Sounds like a total waste of time.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Basically he hates middle earth and just wants an action movie. Seemingly involving drunken Lesbian gunslingers.

Don't give PJ any ideas!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

What sort of person can be moved to compose 35 pages just to prove to the world he's a sloped-forehead retard? This is the sort of 'argumentation' we remember from the high school dunderhead who called everything beyond the tiny reach of his comprehension "stoopid."

[Dilettante]

I do have a Kindle, but I don't really feel like throwing myself on an Orc-spear in the name of research. (Thank you Mithalwen for saving us all the pain.)

I do wonder at times about people like this. They think that deconstructing everything they encounter somehow makes them superior to the rest of us. In reality, it shows them for the "sloped-forehead retard" (very apt description) they are.

[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..