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MAG.E 6
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MAG.E 6 (Disk 1 of 2).adf
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Fantasy
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6
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1977-12-31
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@3THE VILLAGE STORY
@2=================
@1
I first read LOTR when I was about 16, and I remember that I skipped a
lot, because, it had a lot more description than I needed. I took it
as a straight, although unusual, action story. Then, maybe five years
later, I read it again when I was quite ill with viral pneumonia,
which makes you quite weak, and I lapped up the descriptive passages.
In fact it was one of the best reads I've ever had; I can recommend
reading when weakened by a debilitating but non-threatening disease.
In the books, you'll notice that even the most powerful magicians
can't make things happen instantly. They have to act through physical
agents, and the fastest they can travel is with birds, which take some
time to get about and can only carry one person. Most travel is on
foot, or by horse. Much of what they do involves slowly gaining dominion
over groups of men or beasts, who then physically carry out the plan.
For one of the elves to destroy the ring, they would have had to take it to
Mount Orodruin. They could only have done this by gaining physical access
to it- there are no teleports or helicopters available, so that would have
meant mastering Sauron to the extent of crossing Mordor, either on land or
by eagle, both of which are open to interception by Sauron's minions. So
they would first have to use the ring to gain the power to defeat Sauron.
And they all say at great length that they would have been enslaved by the
ring by the time they had got that far.
Tolkien wasn't writing science fiction, or even sorcery tales. He was
reworking the Norse sagas, which were his academic life's work and
obsession, and they are involved with great themes of creation and human
passion and experience. Tolkien's particular slant was the belief in
English rural values- it all becomes very explicit at the end of 'The
Return of the King' and the battle at Hobbiton; although almost a child's
game by comparison with what has happened before, he clearly cares about it
a great deal. And anybody living in Oxford at a time when it was being
transformed from a rural University town to the manufacturing centre for
Morris Motors would have seen all this happening on his doorstep. LOTR was
in part Tolkien's response to that.. He simply wasn't interested in a quick
destruction of the ring, and he makes it clear in the book why that wasn't
on.
And that's why he chooses the simple rural Frodo, and most especially Sam,
to bear the ring. Their power of resistance, in his eyes, is greater than
that of the lords and wizards *because* they are simple and rural. It's the
whole point of the book.
I think that he was, in that respect, a wild phantasist, but it doesn't
spoil the book.
@3Peter Ceresole