Why Tolkien?

[davem]

Philip Pullman
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com...ew-.5204531.jp

The success of The Lord Of The Rings movies and the Harry Potter franchise – and, to a lesser extent, The Golden Compass with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig – suggests there is a large public appetite for pure escapism. Pullman makes no overt criticism of the JK Rowling books ("When people read Harry Potter presumably they like to escape into the fantasy of an English boarding school with magic things happening," he says. "I don't want to disparage Harry Potter"), but he has little time for Tolkien. "When they read Tolkien, they want to take refuge in Little Englandism, the sense that the hobbits – which are us – are menaced by the nasty people who are somewhere else, but we're jolly brave and we'll fight through. It's a Churchillian vision of fighting on the beaches."

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But doesn't His Dark Materials play to the same desire for escapism? "Well, it would be escapist if you just go there to have a lovely time," he says. "If you go there and find it's bloody horrible, you've got a terrible deed to do and it's dangerous and frightening, then maybe the real escapism is in the realistic novel that talks about being a publisher in London and having an adulterous affair."

I'd venture to suggest that Pullman is contradicting himeself here - within the space of two paragraphs & that finding "it's bloody horrible, you've got a terrible deed to do and it's dangerous and frightening" is a fair despription of Frodo & Sam in LotR. Hence, the Literati's dislike of Tolkien has nothing to do with 'Northernness' (look at the praise heaped on Heaney's tranlation of Beowulf), or a hatred of courage & sacrifice, or of 'Religion'. Its not even down to a hatred of fantasy (Peake garnered praise for Gormenghast at the same time as Tolkien was being attacked & in many cases it was the same people handing out the brickbats to Tolkien & the Kudos to Peake. Plus, let's not indulge in the fantasy that all the critics hated LotR - many praised it to the skies from its first appearance.

Some people hate it - for many reasons, & many of those who hate it love Northern epics, & tales of courage & sacrifice - they just don't like Tolkien. Of course, some hate it because they can't get past the Hobbits & Elves - but then I've attempted to read plenty of fantasy novels filled with Elves & Dwarves, with courageous, self-sacrifycing heroes & ended up hating them with a passion.

As an aside - out of all those who looked forward to the LotR movies (whether they were please with what they saw or not) how many book lovers wanted to see a movie about "Thievery and hooliganism" , "greed" "cronyism", "unbridled lust for power" ," runaway egos" ,"depression" ,"prejudice" ," excess", "jealousy" "corruption" etc (let alone the supposed 'underlying christianity' of Tolkien's story), & how many went to see the Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Black Riders, the Shire, Minas Tirith, Orthanc & the epic battles at Helm's Deep & the Pelennor?