A perceptive review of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
by Tom Shippey – it points out some of Tolkein’s skills but also skilfully dissects the authors weaknesses (some of which I remarked on myself after viewing the film). In particular, “If one is to regard The Lord of the Rings as a book for adults, what disturbs is not so much the absence of women, perhaps explicable in an adventure story of this kind, as the absence of desire. In this work that presents itself as the representation of a whole world, there is hardly any awareness that we are sexual beings.”
Archive forFebruary 7th, 2002 | back to home
7 February 2002
