Focus 580; J.R.R. Tolkien

Well perhaps the biggest and for a lot of people most anticipated movie of the holiday season will open at theaters around the country today. It's a film that is based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord Of The Rings. And we thought this would be a good opportunity to spend some time talking about talking about who he was about how it is he came to create this place that he called Middle Earth and why it is that for so many people his books have continued to be so popular for such a long time. We have this morning as our guest Vernon Pfleger. She's professor of English at University of Maryland at College Park or she teaches comparative mythology. She's the author of several books about talking and his work. And as we explore the subject if you have questions or comments to share you can certainly call in and do that. The only thing we ask of callers is people just try to be brief so that we can get in as many people as possible and keep things moving along. The phone number if you're here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4

5 5. We do also have a toll free line that means that it would be a long distance call for you. You can use that number and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and again if you match the numbers in the letters you get w i l l three three three W I L L and toll free 800 1:58 WLM. Professor Pfleger Hello. Hello. Thank you for talking with us. My pleasure. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly by the way. You are OK. Correct. Thank God I have in front of me a review of the first book and the trilogy The Fellowship of the ring that was published in The New York Times in 1954 when I was on holiday and as a matter of fact written by no less than W.H. Auden who I believe it was Auden who said something like when it comes to the Lord Of The Rings there's no middle ground either you love them or you hate them. And he was a great champion of Tolkien so he loved the books and this was a very enthusiastic review. And

what is the thing that I thought about here is he begins by making a reference to The Hobbit. And he writes in this review Auden writes The Hobbit is one of the best children's stories of this century and then goes on to say that this book Fellowship of the ring is is a different kind of a story and it's something that's told in a way which he says is is suited to adults or at least older readers. But having said all that I guess what I wonder is why it is that in a lot of people's minds Tolkien is something that seems to be you know we seem to think about as if not for children then for young adult readers where somehow the idea that adults would be reading these things. Somehow seems difficult. Why is it that you think that these these get assigned to younger readers. Well I think the word hobbit as well as the book The Hobbit has a great deal to do with it. Hobbits are little people. There are only

about three between three and four feet tall and the original hobbits were in a book for children. Where they had adventures which gradually became more serious as the book went on but really stayed within the genre of children's fiction. And while the Lord Of The Rings is much more serious than that it did carry over the figure of The Hobbit from the earlier book. And I think that's given a great many people the impression that it's for children that it's kind of cute. And that it's not anything that adults would take seriously although you picked the right person when you chose to read the sort of pickle. Your discussion also struck me here. I read also and this was actually an interview with Tolkien that was published also in The Times this was in 1967. So it would have been at that time when there was this

great upsurge in interest and readership here in the United States. But he he said that he even says in this that The Hobbit wasn't written for children. And he said he goes on and says quoting him here The Hobbit was written in what I should now regard as bad style as if one were talking to children. He goes on says there's nothing my children loathe more that taught me a lesson anything that in any way marked the hobbit as for children instead of just for people they disliked instinctively and then he goes on to say I did too and now that I think about it. So even he had said about that book The Hobbit that it really wasn't. It may have started out as being the stories that he told his children but he seems to be saying here that. He thought even that book really wasn't exclusively for Joe. Well I don't think any children's book move worth its salt should be exclusively for children that's very much limiting the authorship and all the really great children's books are books that can be enjoyed by

children and enjoyed even more and on deeper levels by adults like the wind in the Willows. So I think that's true of The Hobbit and I think what Tolkien says is probably correct. He's the man and he should know what he was talking about. I'm sure that he told the story to his children. I'm sure that also he wrote a book for himself and to please an audience that he felt would like this kind of thing whether it was a child audience or an adult audience or both. I just recently and I guess it was because this this movie was coming out and there was already a lot of discussion hype about it I took down my extremely battered paperback copies of these books and probably been more than 20 years since I read them last and I thought well I would I would reread them and read The Hobbit and then went on and started reading The Fellowship of the ring which is that the first of the trilogy. And I was I guess I was really struck by and I guess I hadn't recalled this from reading

before. The difference in tone between them and I think like a lot and I as I was reading The Hobbit I did think well this is a children's book. But but the fellowship of the ring is different. It's very different. Did he do you think you intend to do something else or to tell a different kind of a story when he got around to writing starting to write the trilogy. When he started. No I don't think he did intend to because he began it at the behest of it. Publisher Stanley N1 who asked for more Hobbit The Hobbit the children's book The Hobbit had already been a great success and the publisher said readers are going to be asking for more about hobbits. So could you give us a sequel and if you read the first the first page really of the Lord Of The Rings. It's trying to replicate the kind of jolly tone with which the hobbit opens.

Tolkien found I think very very quickly that the book itself or the story itself was moving forward much more serious material partly because of the things that he chose to carry over from the other books which were the hobbit themselves and the ring. Which immediately took on a much darker and more serious tone here in Carpenters biography of Tolkien which is an authorized biography I guess that's thought of as being the official talking about giving. It is but it's also very very good one. Well that's that's that's good to know so people are interested by the way and reading about the life of talk and that's it's a book it's been out about 20 years now so they certainly should be able to find it in the library. It's recently come out in the new paperback edition. Well they're what you would expect Now if any time now people there would be people wanting to read about talking. And he I guess when when he was looking for a publisher there was some you know controversy or in his

mind and whether the publisher of The Hobbit would publish this or whether he would look for something else and I think he maybe he was interested in trying to discourage Allen and Unwin but he in in 1950 he wrote to them about The Lord Of The Rings sea. He writes My work has escaped from my control and I have produced a monster and immensely long complex rather bitter and rather terrifying romance quite unfit for children which he says parents radically if fit for anybody. And he writes it is not really a sequel to The Hobbit but to another work that he wrote The Silmarillion. Which actually he hoped to have published after the hobbit and I think I remember the story right the folks at Allen and Unwin they didn't want to publish it they didn't like it that the didn't think that it would sell. And that really wasn't what they wanted and it really upset and angered Tolkien very much. I gather largely from my reading of the biography that it did upset him. He very definitely did want the two books The Silmarillion and The Lord Of The Rings to be

published together because the Silmarillion is the the whole background cosmology of Middle Earth. But that would have been a huge undertaking really and was eventually published but that was after the Lord Of The Rings was published and turned out to I think probably to many people surprise particularly to the publishers. A a significant success and certainly a success in Britain but then a runaway success in the United States when it was published in the 60s. Yes it was and if it had not been for the success of The Lord Of The Rings or the Silmarillion would never have been published. I'm That's it. What a sweeping statement but I'll stand by it. Talking to people as time online and people read the book and perhaps it had a lot to do with what was going on at the time that people read it. People wanted to assign larger meanings to the story because it it was written in the years around World War 2. Some people seem to think well really what this was about was World War 2 and during the Cold

War people at that time said well this is really kind of about the cold war isn't it and some people even said that the ring which is at the heart of all of this represented the bomb. So it seemed like any at any particular time particularly if there's some big battle going on that seems to be about good and evil people said well that's what this is about. Yet he himself said no since this is not an allegory I don't like allegories. He claimed that really what he was wanted to do was just tell a good story. Well that's what any writer really wants to do. I think you use of the word allegory is kind of the key to it because allegory suggests that there's a one to one correlation between the surface narrative and another narrative which is really the more important one in which everything stands for something other than itself. And in that respect no the Lord Of The Rings is certainly not an allegory of World War 2 or of any war but it was bound to be informed by the time or the Times

in which it was written because it took a long time to write and that was a time of great turmoil and struggle in Western Europe and in Britain. Tolkien himself had been through World War One. And then I saw the approach of World War 2 as a kind of horrible repeat performance and it would be surprising if his feelings about that had not worked their way into the story. The ring couldn't possibly have represented the bomb since the ring was part of the story from the time he first began it in 1938 when nobody except a very few scientists had any idea that such a thing was even contemplated So that's that's out of the running altogether. But it certainly is about conflict. It is about strife. It is about how to choose between

what's right and what's wrong when you don't have all the information that you need and how. How little people that struggle with big events and that's that seems to be a classic fairy tale and or a myth motif and perhaps explains part of the reason for its appeal for its continued appeal now for over a period of you know 50 years I guess. Oh I would agree. Also the fact that it is about war. It is a book about a war and any war can stand for all the wars because they all come down to the same thing. But both the Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit this presumed children's book turn out to be books about very very serious conflicts between people. The Hobbit ends with with a kind of coalition. The battle of Five

Armies in which there are three. Three representatives of polities. Let's call it on one side and two on the other. So it really does reflect the sort of troubled 20th century in which it first came to light. We have a caller in rather than make them wait we'll get right to them bring them into the conversation other people who are listening by the way certainly are welcome to call with questions comments. Our guest Berlin Pfleger is a professor of English at University of Maryland at College Park she teaches comparative mythology there and has written several books about Tolkien and his work and we thought since this was the day that the big movie was opening it would be a good opportunity to talk a little bit about Tolkien and questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 his caller on our toll free line line for help. Yes I have never ridden a dog in an article about him or about The

Hobbit. It's said that he had invented to use own language and that I was willing to make that every Shakespeare but not for somebody else. And so I know nothing about it I wondered if you could dare maybe get. I mean you're you're you're talking your conversation so far has been about people who know about The Lord Of The Rings Could you give some kind of a sharp rocks and not to say something for those of us who are completely you know Imus is back to upholding and hang up and listen OK. I imagine we could do that I suppose one could do it very quickly or at at greater length. I guess maybe the easiest way to to do it is to say well at the center of this story is a ring of great power that it one time had belonged to a magician or a magician a sorcerer a wizard of great power but also an evil man. The ring was lost.

It was found and that story is told in The Hobbit. And as the fellowship of the Rings begins we learn that the Wizard has learned that the ring has been found and he wants it back. And this coalition of people. Are determined that he not get it because they realize that if that happened that would be the end of the world as they know it. And so that I suppose inch inch I would say in short that's really what the story is about. You could probably go on it at greater length about what it is about past that you know I think that's pretty good. The rest of the story is simply the journey to take the ring to where it can be destroyed. I think that's a good synopsis. And I think that you know that it's there are a lot of things going on in the story I think though one of the kind of interesting questions that the story poses is if you could become the most powerful person on the earth.

But that you also knew that having that power would corrupt you. Would you be brave enough and wise enough to say no I want it. And that's really what you what happens here with the character of the the evil wizard who wants his ring back obviously wants that power and the people who have the ring and want to see it destroyed and know that they actually could have the ring and use it themselves. But they know what the consequences would be. And so they decide no one should have the ring. And so that's it seems like in part at least it's the choice of you know do you what do you do. Do you do you take the power or do you say this is too much for anybody. Yes I think that's I think that's correct but the choice is not an easy one. Tolkien has a couple of figures in the book who are visibly

tempted by the ring and and vehemently put it away from themselves almost in fear. Gandalf rejects the ring. The lead reel the elephant queen seems to succumb to the temptation she seriously considers it. And then she says No I've thought it over. I won't do it. The most interesting character in the book from my perspective is one of the fellowship of the ring. A man named Boromir a warrior who says Aren't we being a little foolish. If we were given this wonderful weapon and we know that a war is planned shouldn't we be using it it seems only reasonable and practical and has a very good point. There isn't a point beyond that an ultimate point which is that all power is corrupting. But Tolkien means for us to understand.

That what Boromir is thinking about at first before he succumbs to the lure of the ring is is a good practical question. If you have a weapon and you're facing a war shouldn't you use it. Boromir is a good person and when he finally and only momentarily succumb to the power of the ring and tries to take it away from Frodo what's happened to him is the dreadful thing that could happen to anyone. Faced with an overwhelming temptation the the caller makes reference to language and I think that this is an interesting. Yes I got that point too because Tolkien was a scholar of the English language who specialized in old and Middle English and taught at Oxford and he was somebody who at a young age displayed a gift for language. He and for making up languages and

he invented the several languages for the people that populate these books and the it's my understanding actually that the languages came first and that he created the stories for the languages and not the other way around right. I would reverse your statement he didn't invent the languages with the people you invented the people for the languages. Yes yes indeed indeed. And. In fact I think I read somewhere that Tolkien said if he could have written the book in Elvish he would have. Yes but that would have cut down on the readership a great many poems and all that. So it was and it seems very obvious and this might indeed be why some people would have a hard time with the books. His his love of languages and of creating these languages and creating people and place names and and a large rather complicated history of this place that he created. He even made maps of it so obviously in his mind he had a picture of what it was like. He created

this very large and complex world filled it with these people gave them myths and history and tradition and culture and gave them their own languages. Well but that's what gives the book its wonderful feeling of verisimilitude. It's the fact that there are there are languages that underlie it. There is a whole mythology a cosmologist that is behind the story and that indeed came first before the Lord Of The Rings was even contemplated. So it's as if he had as any sort of real world historian would have a whole history of background to draw on. In writing his his narrative in that sense you could think of him as a Middle Earth historian rather than as a writer of fiction. He started with the languages when he was very young he was as you know from reading the biography he invented

languages from a very early age but he realized I think during World War One. If I'm not mistaken that you can't have a language without the people who speak it languages don't exist in a vacuum. They exist to express a culture a worldview a national character so he had to give his languages a world to describe and that's how the whole cosmology came into being. I'm glad you got me straight out there because I guess that's what I was trying to say. I thought that the idea that the languages came first and that he created the people to go with them. And this very elaborate world that that they lived in he in in addition to being very extremely inventive himself he did have it was very familiar with the the myth and literature of. The Ancient the ancient well

of ancient Europe. Yeah. And so he did in. He did indeed have a base on which to build so in. It wasn't completely invented out of whole cloth. He did. Did he not draw on the existing myth and literary traditions. Oh indeed he certainly did. Of course nothing is really made out of whole cloth. Even Shakespeare re-used the plot and told Keene drew on his immense knowledge of the languages and the mythologies of all of northern Europe. He called it the leaf mold of the mind kind of a gardening image like compost. That's the fertile soil out of which new growth arises. And his leaf mold was mostly language and the fallen tree. Well in what way or how can you draw

comparisons between this story that he made and the kind of stories that people had been telling for who knows how long before that. Well in what ways does it echo classic themes. Oh well. It echoes the classic scene. I guess you might call them of of and national defense in the sense which is what Beowulf is about. Of wars between conflicting cultures of the quest. Although in The Lord Of The Rings it is kind of an antique quest because it's not to find something but throw something away. Those are all. And the interaction of human beings with the world of the supernatural I guess is one of the major ideas in most northern European mythology. Heroism bravery under fire

all of those. It's seems certainly to be a classic sort of a story about and perhaps it's not an accident that the hobbits the people who were at the center of the story are smaller than humans and smaller than just about everybody else around them so it's a tale of a a person trying to make their way in the world that is filled with people who are much bigger than they are. Who would take on a challenge that initially they might thought they might have thought was much too big for them that discover that they have resources and ability and courage and managed to triumph in the end and it seems that that's it. That sort of motif runs through so many stories going back so long that it's a standard sort of narrative and again perhaps the root the way reason people respond to it particularly younger people is that that's it's a classic fairy tale sort of idea.

Well it is a fairy tale idea. It is not particularly a myth idea which tends to look at the human condition much more realistically and to show a kind of darker picture. It is certainly the story of the little man. If you want to use a sort of 20th century or modern term taking on a burden that is that he thinks is too heavy for him and trying to trying to carry it. But the fact is it is too heavy for him and he doesn't succeed. He doesn't try and you fail. Did you when you were re reading it. Did you get to read the mother too. I have no I'm still I'm still in the first book so I guess I don't have a clear memory of. Well in the of the end other than ultimately good good triumphs.

But but almost well you could call it accident you could call it Providence. Frodo gets to the place where the ring is to be destroyed. But having carried it for so long and having been under its terrific influence so unrelentingly when he gets there he decides to keep it. That's the that's the thing about the ring. That's the way it gets it's it gets its clutches on whoever has it. And that's the tragedy of the book is that this wonderful person who has carried this extremely heavy burden for so long much longer than anybody else and has sacrificed his whole life in the doing of it when he gets to the point. Cannot cannot withstand it. And succumbs it's a terrible tragedy. The fact that then is rescued from that by his nemesis Gollum. Is one of the supreme and wonderful ironies of the book. It's

probably the most brilliant moment in 20th century literature I think. But I like Tolkien that the moment at the Cracks of Doom where the whole story sort of turns on itself. Well then I guess I'm also glad we got at this point because it it makes me think and perhaps what would encourage people to think that the story is is is bigger more complicated more difficult. And in it that it's not to say that it was a fairy fairy tale would be wrong would be under under estimating really what what it is and that it's much bigger as you say and much more complex than that. We're a little bit past the midpoint I guess I should introduce Again our guest We're speaking with Roland Pfleger. She's professor of English at University of Maryland she teaches comparative mythology there and has written several books about Tolkien and about his work and we're talking about JR. Are talking the man who created The Lord Of The Rings. And we thought this since this is the day the

big movie opens it would be a good time to talk a little bit about this story in this man who created it and questions are welcome we have a couple of people who are ready to talk with us. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 the Champaign-Urbana number toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5. We have caller on line one right here. Hello hello. Yes. Would you spell the name of the guest please. When you're not sure how to pronounce a name it's very likely that the listeners want to how does one know how to spell it well yes I certainly will her first name is spelled v e r l y n. Kind of like it sounds. And her last name spelled f l i e g e r Flieger. OK thanks a lot. Ok well and we go another. Well OK that was me with WELCOME TO LIE number two for another Caller Hello. Oh yes. This is great in a longtime fan of token it was one of my dreams that some would actually do the live action movie and they have it. I was

just going to add I would submit and I would like to get back to guest comments about the fact that not so much Miss Ali but modern fantasy from like the better word seems to get short shrift by many and many of the quote unquote. Critics or literary experts or professors of of me literature or fiction or whatever and I think do you think that would have contributed to the sort of lack of acclaim for Tolkien's work when it first came out and then of course once it became hugely popular with the people who do most of the reading in the world then people are like well maybe maybe it's not so bad because there's plenty of people plenty of fantastic authors who work in fantasy but they just kind of get booed and people think that you know you read that when you're a kid and maybe when you're a teenager and you grow up and you start reading The Shipping News assimilate that you know not to take anything away from the shipping news but but fantasy high fantasy whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of creative talent and ability in many ways more so than mainstream literature in terms of worldbuilding I mean look at token what he did

he created not only did he create languages for all of his races he created entire histories and genealogies geography for me. The kind of effort involved and time I think dwarfs much of the work put into other books. So you know there's a Canadian author named Guy Gabriel K who worked on the Silmarillion and I heard him say one time in defense of his genre that you know people who are poor but it's really amazing and prefer the book shelf space in the book story out of every other genre out there. So I'll just be interested to get your comments and I think just a net that probably call him carry the ring for longer than Frodo. But I had to point that out. All right thanks for the go. Your thoughts on what the caller had say. Well yes if I understand it's really not a question he just would like me to comment on the place of modern fantasy in what's

usually called mainstream literature and probably both of those terms are not entirely accurate. Because a lot of mainstream literature has elements of the fantastic in it Animal Farm for example which is George Orwell. It's a story about it's a it's a big fable in which all the people are barnyard animals. That's fantasy but it certainly is about some very serious subject. Such is the nature of revolutions and how they go wrong. So I think some mainstream literature is bound to have the components of fantasy. And I think that fantasy itself can be extremely realistic which is one of the one of the characteristics of what's called mainstream literature. I think both terms are probably a little too complying of the enormous variety of books that we all love to

read. All right. Let's talk with someone else on their line number four right here. Hello. Yeah I just wanted to try to support the lecturer there concerning the role of the audience for half of the book. When I was in graduate school a long time ago we started there Gawain and the Green Knight. I mean J R R Tolkien stuck with me. When I was teaching in Scotland I ran across the ring trilogy and I've now read it in a week. Thought it was great writing in the story and after that I came to the Hobbit and was disappointed like that. But it did not have the flavor still that certainly supports your difference of the tone. It interested me also that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were good friends at Oxford and I missed them with a couple of other songs. There were or are we drinking buddies in a

pub evening. But the name stayed with me and the trilogy was just tremendous. I had your experience because I read The Lord Of The Rings first and then went to the Hobbit and was a little let down. I think often I think people read in the other way around as when they think of in today's terms we think of The Hobbit as a prequel. Because it introduces the it introduces the the world some of the characters and also that that's the backstory on the ring or some of the backstory on the right is the back story on the ring course it's much more that in the second edition than it was in the first and in between the two. Tolkien had begun working on The Lord Of The Rings so he realized having carried over the character and the ring that he needed to do a little a little adjusting there. But the hobbit is an extremely important book in this whole area because think about it if it weren't for the Hobbit

neither the Lord Of The Rings nor the Silmarillion would ever have seen the light of day. The. As I mentioned there when the Hobbit when the trilogy on Lord Of The Rings was published in Britain it certainly sold better than the publisher expected. Yeah. And given the you know they were hoping for something the Hobbit had done well and the publisher had gone to Tolkien and said what they wanted was more Hobbit and he wrote this other book and they weren't really sure how that would how that would go and did better than they thought. But nothing like what happened when it was published in the United States in that the mid 60s it made Tolkien a cult figure. It made him some significant money. And one wonders why it is that was has been much more popular I think in this country than in Britain. Why it is that Americans or maybe it had something to do with the time.

Well the book so much had something to do with the time. I think it's quite a popular book in Britain every bookstore that I walked into in Britain and I've been over there several times and let's say the last 10 years has had an entire shelf devoted to Tolkien. But there is a there's a marketing aspect that people tend to overlook and that is that what put it really on the map in the United States was the paperback came out in paperback for the first time because of its sort of illegal bootleg publishing by a paperback. Which did not have the permission of the publishers to do it but it was the fact that the book came out in a form that was readily and cheaply available. I think that made it so popular not to say that it wouldn't have been popular anyway I think it is a wonderful book. I think it's a work of genius but it is a work of genius that became readily available to a lot of people with not a lot of money to spend on books.

Well go and talk with some other folks next is line number one. Hello. Good morning. Well I'll ask the obvious question was Tolkien influenced in any way by an early mythological ring mainly Wagner. No that's a crit. The ring that I think probably did it and Sam was the one that influenced Wagner and that is the ring from the much much earlier voce in that saga. The Norwegian story of the ring of the vault songs which in a later medieval version became the ring of the Nibelung and which Wagner then used as the basis for his Ring Cycle. But to jump all of those intermediary steps and equate told king's ring with Wagners ring would be would just forgive me be incorrect.

Tolkien was asked about that himself and he said both rings were round and there the resemblance and right will go to next line number two. Q That's a great line to talk you never acknowledge any the thing that influenced the language she later called Elvish. Human is knowledge a sort of existing real world language you know. Did he ever claim an inspiration cause it is. It is rather amazing it's of there's actually a little dictionary out there for people who like myself or generations of fantasy readers got into this game Dungeons and Dragons and of course Tolkien if it wasn't for him I don't think the rest of it would have been happening or is profitable and I'm just kind of curious if you ever see acknowledged as it influenced by anything like Old English. Sure. Well he did say that phonological e that is in

terms of the sound not necessarily of the grammar that his two major languages in Cinderella were modeled on to existing real world languages crania was modeled on a logically on Finnish because talking was tremendously taken with the Finnish epic call of Allah and tried to learn Finnish so he could read it in the original and cinder in the other elven language which is much more in use in the Lord Of The Rings which was modeled on a logically on Welsh. Cool because it isn't imaginative but I don't mean to knock down but it's an amazing conglomeration of very soft consonants and sounds. The other thing I just wanted to ask. It does have as great literature it actually has a great spoof of it which I'm just curious how you might feel about Harvard.

Lord Of The Rings Yes. And thank you. I can't say that I really like it. I can acknowledge that it is a spoof and that it is a very skilled and sophisticated one but it's making fun of a book that is very dear to my heart and every semester some student comes up to me and says Have you read this. And I always have to say Will. Yeah but I didn't enjoy it. All right let's go to line number three next. Hello. Hello. Yes I guess I was wondering how you felt about using human beings in the movie. I voiced imagine the hobbit type people you know as I don't know semi rabbits or something. So I just wondered how you felt about that.

You think it will take away from the story or the hobbits are human beings. They're not meant to be a different species. Tolkien said quite explicitly they are simply little human beings. I think in that respect the film is probably going to be very accurate. Oh ok I guess I don't know why I I always had a sixth sense of the name I'm sure. Rabbit. Well OK good. Thank you Dalin we're just seeing the movie as well. I suppose that here again you know it we have the great challenge of anybody who tries to make a movie out of a beloved book is that people are going to have an idea in their head about what everything looks like. Yeah. You know they may or may not be amenable to somebody else's vision they may say Well that may be what you think a Hobbit looks like but is not what I think the Hobbit looks like. Oh I think that's bound to happen. And there is also the big it was something like this the for a movie maker the big challenge is to make a movie that would appeal both to people who have read the books and maybe have strong feelings about them and also people who have not read the books

and like an earlier caller said you know I don't even have any idea what the story is. Yeah well that's the challenge and I think that Peter Jackson was very much aware of that challenge and had to had to keep his balance in very difficult circumstances. Thinking about at least two audiences. Have you seen the film. No I haven't. I didn't and now I've read and I've read a fair amount about and I've read two reviews just today one that was in the Times and one that was in the Chicago Tribune both of them very very positive. So I guess will remains to be seen. We got some other callers want to try to get at least one more we're getting pretty short on time we'll go here. For Hello hello. Yes my comment actually fits in right with the discussion where you were at. I was wondering if you'd care to comment on what Tolkien that attitude was toward film I've heard something to the effect that Christopher Tolkien went so far as to disown one of his sons for supporting that the film being made because Gerrard Tolkien really didn't like

movies and was wondering if you had any information on that and I'll let you comment on that and that's OK. Well I certainly can't comment except that I'm quite sure that Mr Tolkien has not disowned anybody. J R R Tolkien had mixed feelings about film treatments and did see one that was pretty bad and didn't like it. So his experience. I mean then they called Elvin way bread for example a food supplement so he didn't seem to understand what it was all about. That was many many years ago so I don't know. I really can't comment on what he would say about the film. He did sell the rights. Well I guess each reader will have to judge it for himself or herself. I think so go to the Line 1 0 0 0. Yes I don't have one. The full back to the ring of the Nibelung.

There are more similarities if you go back to the original end of the book. Based on Eragon and his sword are actually you know very similar to that Broken Sword of the Sigmund and of course there are other which you would know throughout all the it isn't those things were you talking there about the attic material which was at anything at is our high mediæval but the material that they're talking about is very very early and overlaps that of the vaults in the rock. Yeah I don't go to those sources. Yeah if you read the list of the dwarves that's pretty much the list of the doors from The Hobbit. I'm not it yes it is. And when I was in time courses in introduction to a north office unlike some of the other people to search out the older ones too little to very enjoyable as well. Sure. Well that's And again I think we're talking about that little bit earlier and I don't think that under that undercuts at all that the achievement of the ring to know that he was very familiar

with earlier myth. Can literary traditions and draw on them. Oh no all myths build on one another and pull things does the same. Well you know I think about at this point we're going to have to stop because we used the time and I would say to you oppressor. Thanks very much for spending some time chatting with us when it 33 Malcolm I've enjoyed it and I guess I would I would suggest for people who are interested in reading more about Tolkien in addition to looking at some of the books that I guessed what is the. For a lot of people I think the authoritative at least its authorized biography is a book titled Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter that was published I think in the 70s 77 I believe. Right and it is still I think is still available. Yes we we said he's has actually been re issued so there are new that he created and it's available in paperback but it's extremely good. You know a lot of work on that are under. Well again thanks very much for the time. You personally welcome thank you.

Our guest Carolyn Pfleger She is professor of English at the University of Maryland at College Park and as I say is the author of several books about Tolkien and his work.