The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

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- The Books (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9)

- - Verlyn Flieger (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=13836)

Has anyone here read any of her books on Tolkien?

'Splintered Light' not only changed the way I think about Tolkien's work but the way I think about all mythology and philosophy...Amazing book.

She also whote 'A Question of Time:J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Fearie' ( a little harder to get through) , 'Interrupted Music and the introduction to the new edition of 'Smith of Wooton Major'. She has an amazing instght into her subject

Love her work. I've read A Question of Time, Splintered Light & Interrupted Music a couple of times. She's incredibly insightful, & the recent edition of Smith, which she edited, is amazing.

Lal & I, along with Esty, heard her speak at Tolkien 2005 in Birmingham.

I second everything Davem said, though I didn't hear her speak I was drinking the pub dry.

I havn't read 'Interrupted music' yet, it's next on my list.How does it compare to the other two?

I'd love to hear her speak , youre so lucky! I wish filmakers would talk to her when they make documentaries of Tolkien, some of them get it so wrong! ;-)

I have the highest respect for Verlyn Flieger; her talks at Tolkien 2005 were excellent, and her way of handling questions (even stupid or off-topic!) was very kind and gracious. I was also able to have her sign two of her three books; they're excellent, though I haven't managed to read them from beginning to end yet. I usually dip in to whatever interests me at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadyMidnight

She did take part in the documentary JRRT A Film Portrait of JRR Tolkien (along with Tom Shippey & Christopher Tolkien himself. Unfortunately it was only put out on video & hasn't been available to buy for about 10 years.

Nice piece on Professor F here
\http://media.www.diamondbackonline.c...-2325215.shtml

I like her comment:

Quote:

"Lord of the Rings is not my favorite book, this is part of my DNA," she said. "I've been so close to the book for so long. The word 'favorite' isn't even in the ballpark."

Quote:

Originally Posted by davem

Nice piece on Professor F here
\http://media.www.diamondbackonline.c...-2325215.shtml

I like her comment:

Hehe! Nice1 Thats how I feel!
:D

THought you might be interested on Ms Flieger's latest published words - she's commented on a Sunday Times article I linked to yesterday http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle1613657.ece

Quote:

This is a well-intentioned review, and the comparison of Tolkien's aims with those of Joyce and Eliot is perceptive and right on the money, but in other ways the writer is unfortunately misinformed on several counts. The influence is Finnish, not Wagnerian, as Turin is drawn from a specific section of the Finnish Kalevala, including the dark tone and (specifically) the talking sword. To cite A.N. Wilson's dictum that Tolkien was "not really a writer" because he created a larger mythological back story (all of it written, by the way), is for both the reviewer and Wilson to put writers into a very small pigeon-hole. To accuse Tolkien of not worrying about style but simply charging in with sub-William Morris prose is (again for both Wilson and the reviewer) to ignore the carefully-drawn distinctions among various characters' speech patterns from kings to orcs (and has either of these guys read the Gollum passages?) and dramatic the use of contrasting high and low styles.
Enough said

And as the thread you posted it on is currently being, em, spring-cleaned, can I just say that I really enjoyed reading it, thanks for posting it. Very interesting...I actually think Flieger's being a bit harsh to Bryan Appleyard, who went as far in praising Tolkien in that article as any British academic would dare... :rolleyes:

EDIT: Here's the original AN Wilson article from which Appleyard lifted a lot of the stuff in his piece...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...w24.xml&page=1

Well, it's not Flieger but here's another response to the Appleyard review of Children of Hurin...this one not nearlyso polite as Flieger's. :D Michael Drout doubts whether most "modernistic aesthetic theories" can deal with Tolkien. Check it out here.

I actually have an assignment to read Hurin for one of my classes later this month. Yeah!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regin Hardhammer

Interesting article, cheers!

I have to say that what takes Drout so many words to say simply boils down to the fact that modern critics are a part of the literary establishment and are often writers themselves and I think they simply feel threatened by the power of the whole 'Tolkien machine'. So they must then 'justify' in an intellectual way their prejudice and simple dislike.

It's true what Drout says that Tolkien's work actually does fulfill all the 'requirements' of modern fiction, but rather than pick up on methods of criticism he's going up the wrong alley as it's not the methods that are to blame but the critics and their cliques themselves.

Drout also misses that Tolkien's work does have irony in it, and it does have humour and some fantastic satire too, and what's more, it can also be very 'knowing'.

Anyway, what Appleyard said about Tolkien's work was just wrong:

Quote:

The Wilson charge that Tolkien was not really a writer will horrify millions, but he had a point. Tolkien’s style — indeed, his entire approach — was derived from English narrative poems such as Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight, from the Norse sagas and, especially in the case of this latest book, from Wagner. These were tales of heroism and magic, of absolute values, of the last things. The obvious approach for a contemporary writer who wishes to retrieve such forms is to update their style and, perhaps, set them in a contemporary context.

Not only is that wrong about contemporary writers taking old values and setting them in a contemporary setting (has he heard of John Fowles? AS Byatt?), it is also wrong that the old sagas and poems were 'black and white' (has he read any of these or did he merely crib from his lecture notes?). Erm, and didn't Tolkien write about some incredibly modern issues in his work? Also yet again, a consignment of poor Tolkien to the dusty cupboard of the antiquarians, depsite him playing a full part in the modern world and being as modern as anyone. Yet another pointer to me that it's time we brought him out of that dark Gothic little cupboard we've all put him in. ;)

Flieger is 'on the money' as she says, when she points out that Tolkien's style and characterisation is to be found in his contrasting uses of language, including how he had his characters speak. What could be more modern than trying a new way of characterisation?