"Both White and Tolkien began writing their series in the late 1930s, as the real world became unavoidably grave." I wonder if one day someone will say this about two writers of the 2020s? And if yes about whom? McCarthy with The Passenger and Stella Maris could qualify, but he conveniently died. Any others?
Oh, it'll be everywhere, in popular culture as well as more thoughtful art. Just the fact that both the TV adaptations of Handmaid's Tale and Man In A High Castle debuted just around the beginning of the first Trump presidency seems significant now.
Of course both Tolkien and White were writing their more serious developments of their children's books in the aftermath - after the Second World War. For White this became an elegy for a lost time (tbf, this is essential to the Arthur myth) while Tolkien writes it as the birth of a new promising world from the ashes of the old.
Thank you for this. I'm a huge fan but haven't read the books in years, and am getting ready to start reading The Hobbit aloud to the kids. I can't wait to share the magic with them.
I’ve never read The Hobbit, although I am familiar with the story and, as an adult, read LOTR. As a child, and even now, I have always enjoyed my books more grounded in reality. I do like the parallels you draw here to real life though. Frequently these essays make me reappraise what I think I know.
Thank you! Its often hard to find something new(ish) to say about something as well trodden as The Hobbit, so that's very pleasing that it might have prompted a reappraisal. I do think that that taste for the fantastical interesting - definitely a thing that some people have a some people don't. I definitely have to - the extent, for instance, that I tend to find even 'grounded' superhero movies like Nolan's Batman dull as compared to the more fantastical Burton take on the character.
It is interesting. And I am the exact opposite. I think perhaps I don’t have patience with the whole world - building aspect but there are probably many examples of things I love which contradict that idea.
Oh yeah - tbf I don't actually like much high fantasy beyond Tolkien and LeGuin (certainly couldn't get anywhere with Game of Thrones - maybe even that was too grounded for me, dragons n'all)
"Both White and Tolkien began writing their series in the late 1930s, as the real world became unavoidably grave." I wonder if one day someone will say this about two writers of the 2020s? And if yes about whom? McCarthy with The Passenger and Stella Maris could qualify, but he conveniently died. Any others?
Oh, it'll be everywhere, in popular culture as well as more thoughtful art. Just the fact that both the TV adaptations of Handmaid's Tale and Man In A High Castle debuted just around the beginning of the first Trump presidency seems significant now.
Of course both Tolkien and White were writing their more serious developments of their children's books in the aftermath - after the Second World War. For White this became an elegy for a lost time (tbf, this is essential to the Arthur myth) while Tolkien writes it as the birth of a new promising world from the ashes of the old.
Thank you for this. I'm a huge fan but haven't read the books in years, and am getting ready to start reading The Hobbit aloud to the kids. I can't wait to share the magic with them.
I’ve never read The Hobbit, although I am familiar with the story and, as an adult, read LOTR. As a child, and even now, I have always enjoyed my books more grounded in reality. I do like the parallels you draw here to real life though. Frequently these essays make me reappraise what I think I know.
Thank you! Its often hard to find something new(ish) to say about something as well trodden as The Hobbit, so that's very pleasing that it might have prompted a reappraisal. I do think that that taste for the fantastical interesting - definitely a thing that some people have a some people don't. I definitely have to - the extent, for instance, that I tend to find even 'grounded' superhero movies like Nolan's Batman dull as compared to the more fantastical Burton take on the character.
It is interesting. And I am the exact opposite. I think perhaps I don’t have patience with the whole world - building aspect but there are probably many examples of things I love which contradict that idea.
Oh yeah - tbf I don't actually like much high fantasy beyond Tolkien and LeGuin (certainly couldn't get anywhere with Game of Thrones - maybe even that was too grounded for me, dragons n'all)