How I Defeated the Tolkien Estate | Hacker News Reader

How I Defeated the Tolkien Estate

the-toast.net

66 pointssaryant16 comments

Can someone who is a little more into Lord of the Rings comment on this? This guy didn't really get a lawsuit dropped by claiming that Tolkeins books were actually written 5000 years ago did he?

Or is there something here whooshing over my head?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch

Edit: this is a work of fiction 'blog post' in a pretty fictional-oriented 'blog'

It's a satire piece that suggests that authors who pretend to write translations of fictional books (such as Tolkien with LotR and Goldman with The Princess Bride) may actually be opening up their stories to plagiarists who claim to be "translating" the same source material. Or at least, that's my reading of it.

In a world where the Red Book of Westmarch actually existed, this other translation would be legal.

The latter. Had anyone actually written a supposed translation of the "Red Book" I'm pretty sure the Tolkein estate has enough movie money to fund an orc army of lawyers who would march to court thumping their shields, or, rather briefcases with swords, or, rather, umbrellas, chanting "We are the Triple Eagles, sons of BC High!"

I suspect that if the book were written as described -- foul-mouthed Galadriel, hobbit sex, diarrhea in Moria -- it would end up a parody.

That's pretty much what Harvard Lampoon did back in 1969:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings

Am I the only one who read this thinking it was truth, only to feel lied to after finding out it's fiction?

Is the-toast.net doing the same thing as The Onion, or was it just this one story?

If I was Tolkien, I'd be a bit peeved about being portrayed as a dick (lawsuit over public domain works), especially since this appears to be depicted as truth. (Maybe LoTR fans could spot that it's fiction, but I'm not at that level in the fan club yet)

There were a lot of flags. Maybe you didn't read it carefully?

  Tolkien refers to Quendi people as “elves,” a common term in his time, but considered highly offensive today.

  When I entered the Hobbit Studies program at the University of Chicago in 2003, I wasn’t planning to write my own translation. Like most of my peers, I was content to lead a quiet scholarly life, writing my dissertation on Adûni phonology and having friendly debates over second brunch about whether or not Balrogs have wings

Or the changing of the college the author wants to work at from Franciscan to Jesuit.

  referring to Pippin’s brain as “blunter than an orc’s dick,” gone is the Fellowship’s graphic struggle with dysentery in the Mines of Moria.

There were a lot of signs.

Yeah I missed the signs. I'm still perplexed by the the whole thing

It was pretty obvious fiction, and I assumed it was satire, but I still can't work out what exactly it was satirising.

It has the feel of being a satirical allegory of something; a ridiculous premise and lots of details about it.

I registered some domains a couple of years ago that contained the word 'hobbit', and almost immediately got a letter from the lawyers of Tolkien Enterprises, demanding that I turn them over to them.

I hadn't even put a site up on the domains, and probably would have turned them over, but a lawyer friend of my said that I hadn't done anything wrong, and if I didn't plan to violate their copyright of the 'hobbit' that I didn't have too.

I decided to keep the domains (still haven't launched a site on them) on principle and wrote a nice legally worded letter courtesy of lawyer friend back to them. I told them I wouldn't be turning them over, and didn't hear back from them :)

I'm sure they are waiting for me to put up a site and violate the copyright somehow, but they can keep waiting.

Incidentally, if you're interested in an actual alternate account of LoTR, The Last Ringbearer is quite good. It's not an alternative translation, but rather a retelling from the perspective of the other side of the war.

I've read The Last Ringbearer twice. It's totally awesome and gives, perhaps, even more plausible story than the original LOTR series.

The Last Ringbearer in English http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.html

The Last Ringbearer in Russian http://www.lib.ru/PROZA/ESKOV_K/last.txt

Reviews at GoodReads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10329770-the-last-ringbea...

This is the best take on literary academia I've read in a long time.

Is this satire? I don't get it.

yes

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