Quote:
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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
If there was a writer capable, and if you had your choice, which kind of Tolkienian book would you want the writer to write? Like...
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Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. I have a big problem with this entire idea. Yeah, me, the RPGer. Yup.
I wouldn't want any other writer to write any kind of Tolkienian book. Why? Because it wouldn't be Tolkien and it wouldn't be that other writer. It would represent that writer trying to get into the imaginative space of another writer. Now, that might be a useful exercise for some writers, might be a way to explore the craft of writing and might be a way for fans to extend their experience of the ur=writer (ie, of Middle-earth in our case). Even a way for a writer to explore some of the inconsistencies and unexplored terrain of the ur-writer. Which is all find and good and nuffin' bad 'bout that at all. But I'm not sure it would lead to the kind of original experience of art which Tollers gives us and which
lmp seems to imply with his qualification of "writer capable".
Every writer has his or her own imaginative space and to conform it to another writer's, well, that's fanfiction methinks rather than original art. It is true that we stand on the shoulders of giants to see farther, but ultimately that vision for a writer of Toller's calibre becomes a new vision. But maybe the question here isn't about creating art of the standard and originality of The Professor.
Perhaps our intrepid threader
lmp merely wants to know which of Tolkien's books we want more of? Now, that is a different kettle of story. Maybe
lmp wants more RPGs arising out of The Silm and Tolkien's other work and less out of LotR and this is his way of getting us to talk about it? Clever RPG mod, that boy.
