Tolkien Events 2010

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Surely you can't buy experience (well... debatable)...

That's the thinking behind this - as it was behind the Exeter College Tolkien do a few years back which cost £695 for a 5 day conference (but that was full board, admittedly). I'll be interested to see whether this gets many takers.

After all the great thing about books is that they are essentially the same if you have a mint first edition or a tattered paperback..

My feelings exactly. I get annoyed by the antics of this academic clique that seems to have claimed 'superior' knowledge. They seem to be doing exactly what Tolkien condemned in that quote I gave earlier:

He thinks that there is now a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost.

Don't get me wrong - I've enjoyed a lot of the stuff Shippey, Flieger & Garth have produced, but what's coming out now is increasingly esoteric & obsessed with trivialities, & appears only in expensive journals & talks at these kind of conferences. Been there, done that, got the high price books (& they're all in the attic now). However, I recently bought a lovely old (1974) hardback set of LotR, (replacing a set I owned & lost in the early '80's) for £38, & am still basking in a nostalgic glow every time I look at them.