Most overrated author of all time whose shortcomings and excesses (simplistic morals, obvious dichotomy between good and evil, wafer thin characterizations) continue to haunt the genre
Don't sweat it, when you write your world changing, genre defining masterwork, you can make it as deep and morally ambiguous as you please.
I hate this criticism. The idea that unless you are an author of similar calibre, you are not fit to critique is a dangerous one.
I haven't written an operating system, but I can still tell you that Windows 10 has numerous flaws. Should I STFU until I write my own?
If you started your critique of Windows 10 by calling Microsoft "Most overrated software shop of all time" and then proceeded with a few subjective, shallow criticisms with no detail, you might indeed be told that.
And I'd wager Microsoft has nowhere near the adoration that Tolkien has among HN readers.
How about saying "those are subjective, shallow criticisms with no detail" instead of "STFU and write your own operating system"?
One of these criticisms actually has some bearing on the criticism it's criticizing. One does not.
What criticism isn't subjective?
I'd vouch that Tolkien is massively overrated as a writer. Perhaps not of all time, but up there along with Stephen King. I like Lord of the Rings just fine but it's not even close to my favorite work of written fantasy. His worlds are huge and beautiful, yes, especially his invented languages. But as works of readable fiction, they just fall so flat. My favorite part of the books are the indices because that's Tolkien's wheelhouse.
No, he really didn't. Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, Jack Vance, there plenty of writers and entire magazines devoted to fantasy.
>Don't sweat it, when you write your world changing, genre defining masterwork, you can make it as deep and morally ambiguous as you please.
Projecting much?
"plenty" perhaps oversells the genre pre-Tolkien, and also afaik Jack Vance didn't start writing until well after The Hobbit was published, so I'm not sure he belongs on your list - William Morris would have been a much better example as a direct precursor to both Tolkien and Lewis.
Here are some pre-Tolkien authors people may be interested in: * Dunsany * Mirrlees * Hodgson * Eddison * Howard * Lovecraft * and there are more, just google them, these are just the ones that come to mind
"In Yeskov’s retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor ... He’s in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become “masters of the world,” and turn Middle-earth into a “bad copy” of their magical homeland across the sea. ...the remnants of Mordor’s civilization fight a rear-guard guerrilla campaign to sustain the “green shoots of reason and progress,” in opposition to the “static” and “tidy” pseudo-paradise of Middle-earth under the elven regime."
People seem to miss that Tolkien's rejection of moral ambiguity was not just some lacuna. It was the point. In his world it is usually not hard to know what it is the right thing to do, bit it can be very hard to do it.
Tolkien, the Catholic, wants us to forgive others (e.g. Gollum) when they fail this difficult moral test, but still resolve to pass it ourselves rather than evade it by making excuses about complexity and ambiguity.
You might not agree with that philosophy, but it is still a serious message that pervades the story, and lends it much of its beauty.
Yes, that is indeed one of the major themes of the book. Related to that, I love how Gandalf says (quoting from memory here, might not be word-perfect): "We cannot choose which times we live in, but we can choose what do with the times that are given us."
This is part of the seductive power theme in LotR, which in general I consider something of a counterpoint to GGP's complaints about "simplistic morals" and "obvious dichotomy".
As it was with Boromir (who wanted it for good) or Gandalf when he denies taking the ring. They could've ended doing evil with initial noble intentions, that's how the ring would've exploited them.
Saruman, Denethor, Boromir, Theoden, the elves choosing to largely stay out of the war...these are people facing hard decisions with limited information and no expectation that victory is possible.
How many of us would make choices in the face of the end of the world that an outside observer would call unambiguously good and wise?
In the books, Denethor is a rational character who is recognized for his wisdom and insight. Gandalf has immense respect for him (though they are not friendly) and at some level they are peers - not at a fundamental level, obviously, Gandalf being Maia.
Denethor is the character who is using reason to get through the day. He isn't operating on faith like Gandalf. He's used the palantir, out of necessity, so he understands the situation better than anyone else. He's stood up to Sauron himself in one-on-one mental battle time and again. He thinks, quite rightly, that Gandalf's plan to send the Ring into Mordor is insane: if the Enemy gets the Ring, everything is over. The most rational thing to do is to hide the Ring away in the most secure place possible (Minas Tirith), and, in the event that they have no other choice, to use the Ring to defeat Sauron. Of course, he accepts that that choice is already out of their hands. Frodo is already gone.
But Denethor has known, all this time, that Gondor (and therefore the West) cannot hope to defeat Sauron. They are ultimately doomed. Gandalf affirms this even after Denethor dies, when he proposes the march to Mordor. Even after their victory at Pelennor, they are doomed. They have defeated only a tiny fraction of Sauron's forces. The last straw for Denethor, of course, is losing both his sons on top of knowing they are all doomed (after a last consultation with Sauron.) But when you look at Denethor through this lens, he looks a lot different than his portrayal as a crazy madman. What distinguishes him and Gandalf is Gandalf's faith that everything will work out.
You probably haven't read a line from him if you say this. Do not mistake the author for the movies from Hollywood.
This is different to the original complaint about a dichotomy - belief that some things are ultimately good and some other things are ultimately evil is not the same as dividing everything into rigid categories of only good or only evil.
Calling it a pilgrim's progress tale is a bit unwarranted, or at least overly reductionist - it's not that simplistic and that's only one aspect of LotR anyway.
A few grey areas off the top of my head: various elven decisions, Denethor, Frodo, Smeagol/Gollum, Saruman's initial study of ringlore. In Tolkien's writing, individuals do clearly good things, clearly bad things, difficult to judge things, and and things that are some combination of the previous three. All this happens within the framework of the very traditional overarching light v. dark theme (which is also the source of the association between evil and 'dark' and 'twisted' characterisations that some like to complain about).
A lot of it boils down to taste.
It's much more subtle than that. LOTR has characters who are deeply ambiguous, and do not fall clearly into Evil or Good in a traditional sense. Folks like Denethor, Gollum, and even Boromir have multiple facets. Even Frodo is tempted to use the Ring multiple times even though he is aware of the implications.
And let's not forget that, in the book (not the movies, which missed the point of that part completely), the Shire is ultimately destroyed even though Frodo was successful in destroying the Ring. That is clearly not your typical, regular fairy tale ending.
In this scheme, we mortals are not able to save ourselves, only God can do that. In Frodo's case, Gollum turned out to be Gods instrument. But first Frodo had climb the mountain before that could happen.
I think its an example of how the focal characters are imperfect, but I don't think it shows that there isn't a simple good v. evil dichotomy in the books; I mean, there's no ambiguity that destroying the ring was the one correct course of action and that Frodo was falling short of it.
Funnily enough, before the Da Vinci code, the last book I read that I couldn't put down was The Hobbit.