What exceptional synchronicity! Just as I hit the quote button to reply to
drigel's post about this thread jumping the shark, his post disappears! I was going to tell him that this thread just gets funnier and funnier.
Morthoron, thank you for those illuminating quotations from Dr. Johnson and that Southern Yankee who wrote about fetishes with dead bodies. We can probably find any number of authors who hold any number of positions regarding reimbursements and motivations, none which in any way discounts how other writers feel. However, I do think it is well to remember that in days long past when the darkness had not crept widely over the earth, giants reigned. They were giants because their vision and strength and honour outstripped those of other men. And as they walked the earth, other men trembled at their approach, so stern was their bearing and so noble their deportment and so pure their vision. These giants, if they were warriors, fled no battle, avoided no enemy, and feared no foe. They desired but to die nobly and with honour. A paltry remant of their code of honour survives to this day in the pitiable expression, "It is a good day to die." Yet not all these giants were warriors; some were of the noble calling yclept scop and bard and to them fell the honour and the duty to record the valorious actions of the noble warriors. In the mead hall and at the parting of the waves it was their words, pure and clean of the dross, which gave voice and vision to the warriors' laments and sacrifices. For this, the cup was raised in their honour, and many were the nights that the bards led the warriors in their cups. It was their just reward, before the evil days of publishers and agents darkened noble writ.
But on to the response of my response to
davem's plea for a name, a one name like a One Ring to rule them all. We seem to have such short memories here that I will remind anyone still reading this of his plea:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by davem
Could you please tell me who you think is going to write this 'play'? Please, ONE name, one author who you think will do a decent job.
Of course, I don't expect to get one - because whoever you name someone is going to object, & say they aren't the right person for the job. You see, the problem you have is that while in a fantasy world you can simply invent a writer of genius, in the real world you can't. Suitable writers don't just appear when you snap your fingers, or because you fancy reading a new M-e novel. Asking 'what would happen if someone wrote a 'dramatic play' (sic) based on First/Second Age events?' is a bit like asking 'What would happen if aliens landed in front of the White House & turned George Bush into a three headed chicken?' I can't prove that such an event is impossible, but before I spend time & energy speculating on how the free world would cope with a three headed chicken with its claw on The Button, I'd want some evidence its anything like a real possibility.....
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Now, the criterion here is to Name That Writer Who No One Will Object To, otherwise known as Name That Writer to Whom No One Will Object. This is important, because in this pleas from
davem there is no mention of The Estate. The sole criterion is to name a writer who is without stain.
So, I named a person from this forum who has garnered accolade after accolade for the quality of his fanfiction, the mighty Mithadan, whose Tol Eressëa
stories were held to be the highest and finest attempt to capture the elusive elements of Tolkien's writing. (I won't say anything about his REB fanfic, because he was positively scandalous there.)
And was this writer's work considered at all? Nay, suddenly cold feet seemed to sweep through the dusty, dark Barrows and in reply to my nomination, suddenly the criteria shifted, like tectonic plates grinding up against each other, but without the earth really moving.
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Originally Posted by davem
For now I'll just ask, is it worth it? Once the Estate authorises a new M-e novel the floodgates will be open. M-e will no-longer be Tolkien's creation, but a franchise. There will be a stream of novels, as with the Star Wars/Star Trek franchises, some good, some bad, accepted by some, rejected by others - & all of them, ultimately, unnecessary.
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Now it's The Estate who will authorise Mithadan. (Like
Fordim, I don't give a hoot for a legal and formal imprimatur, for stories don't survive by critics and reviewers and publishers alone. The mark of The Estate is irrelevant here.) Yet where were the naysayers who repudiated Mithadan's writing? Left speechless to deflect the topic yet again back to the enigma of Tolkien's style. Now if that isn't funny, what is?
Raynor, I had time to skim only one of your links. You aren't by any chance a fan of Georgette Heyer, are you?
The bogey of style and the bully of Estate authorisation are irrelevant. There's a clue, though, in the reception of Tolkien's work. Where once he was pooh-poohed and then cultishly embraced and then fan-adulated, he now is coming into greater and greater repute. Time does that, if you're good. Let the base imitators mimic and the imaginative writers take inspiration and somewhere down the line, as
Child has suggested, the stories that matter will take hold on the consciousness of the reading and story-telling public. After all, Milton does not sound like the Bible, and Blake does not sound like Milton. But the cauldron bubbled.
There, like the proverbial cat, I think I've caught my tale again.