tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post973588608095169261..comments2024-03-18T19:05:39.072-07:00Comments on Morphosis: J R R Tolkien, "The Fall of Gondolin" (2018)Adam Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-77057825908976795232018-09-14T14:04:09.762-07:002018-09-14T14:04:09.762-07:00John Wyndham, interestingly, shares a grim distinc...John Wyndham, interestingly, shares a grim distinction with Peake; both were in uniform (Peake as an official war artist, Wyndham in the Royal Corps of Signals) during WW2, and saw Bergen-Belsen first hand. The holcaust marks both their work, though in different ways. It is, I suppose, a different understanding of evil to the one Tolkien experienced watching his friends get ground under the wheels of industrialized war on the Western Front.Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-15162967531859584802018-09-13T15:29:36.171-07:002018-09-13T15:29:36.171-07:00I meant the whole trilogy instead of that last ref...I meant the whole trilogy instead of that last reference to _Titus Alone_.Katharinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13757727019198507620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-47887100051183913202018-09-13T15:24:02.788-07:002018-09-13T15:24:02.788-07:00Well I don't know. I think that's very rel...Well I don't know. I think that's very relevant. I think that's part of why Tolkien is an easier narrative. He gets edgy about almost-machines, though. Wroughtnesses for social control, eg rings of power, can go bad. But in a way, Titus too is forced out, by the corruption that's entered the previously inviolate city-fortress. And the tech in Titus Alone is dodgy af. There's the police-state tracking with the floating spy-orb, the death-ray that is used to kill all the zoo-animals in revenge, the horrible factory which gets exploded ... It's not that the scientists are straight-up Hollywood-friendly villains as Tolkien does it, but they're detachedly wicked in the sense of being powerful controllers of society who are indifferent to some kind of individual humanity Peake asks us to connect with in the main characters. In LOTR, the middle classes go out and return unto the middle classes, and clean out the bad guys who've occupied the wrong (ie dominant) social positions on the way. In the Fall of Gondolin though it sounds as though it's the old days when the aristos has shut itself away from evil and/or the industrial revolution, is infiltrated by wickedness, gets de-aristocratised one way or another by attractive lower classes, is overwhelmed by technology employed by organised opponents for violent social control, and drifts off into pieces. Which is sort of what happens in _Titus Alone_ too. I am so out of my depth here I'm getting nervous about the Kraken. (But John Wyndham on war is another story.)Katharinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13757727019198507620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-52227818961901807292018-09-13T14:20:22.579-07:002018-09-13T14:20:22.579-07:00That's a really interesting comparison. I wond...That's a really interesting comparison. I wonder if it's relevant that in Tolkien 'machines' are actively cast against the forces of goodness by wicked people like Saruman, whereas in Gormenghast Titus (eventually) goes out and encounters motor cars and so on, as passive entities in the world.Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-64203969157562125862018-09-13T13:34:17.296-07:002018-09-13T13:34:17.296-07:00I don't know whether it's a useful paralle...I don't know whether it's a useful parallel, but Tolkien's unexpected machinery (and the wartime context) reminds me of that uneasy transition from brooding feudalism to mechanised middle-class horror in the _Gormenghast_ trilogy. Katharinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13757727019198507620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-89797027294801778492018-09-12T01:22:13.176-07:002018-09-12T01:22:13.176-07:00Thanks Adam, I wasn’t aware of this.
Good to kn...Thanks Adam, I wasn’t aware of this. <br /><br />Good to know we can describe our politicians in Quenya if we need to. Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01146596310417716160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-81433095737970087422018-09-11T12:38:39.559-07:002018-09-11T12:38:39.559-07:00For verily, I am Phil, smartest of the commenters!...For verily, I am Phil, smartest of the commenters!Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-24914171890844587412018-09-11T10:17:09.515-07:002018-09-11T10:17:09.515-07:00That's why Christopher cut such references fro...That's why Christopher cut such references from the material he assembled into the <em>Silmarillion</em>, though such references were all over the early drafts of his father's legendarium. <a href="https://airminded.org/2011/09/30/the-dragon-will-always-get-through-ii/" rel="nofollow">This Brett Holman blogpost</a> has some interesting things in it, including the fact that during his time on the Western Front he was deeply impressed by the military balloons: "made quite an impression on him. In 1924, he recalled that 'German captive balloons hung swollen and menacing on many a horizon' ... But Tolkien's interest was philological too. After the war he speculated that the world 'blimp' was a portmanteau word deriving from 'blister' and 'lump': 'the vowel i not u was chosen because of its diminutive significance -- typical of war humour'. But more significantly, in a lexicon he worked on during the war for his invented Elvish language, Quenya, he added an entry for <em>pusulpë</em>, 'gas-bag, balloon'"Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-59386691051757755972018-09-11T10:13:11.234-07:002018-09-11T10:13:11.234-07:00Sure, Phil. Show up in my comments being funnier t...Sure, Phil. Show up in my comments being funnier than me. Go right ahead. I mean, some might consider that bad manners, but I say: go riiight ahead.Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-43426034376685448952018-09-11T08:56:30.646-07:002018-09-11T08:56:30.646-07:00The part about the eagles is interesting, and make...The part about the eagles is interesting, and makes me wonder how far Tolkien got imagining the cruel distortions Morgoth would perpetrate on the world. <br /><br />Elves – Orcs<br />Ents – Trolls<br />Dogs – Wolves<br />Eagles – SuperMelkor<br />Bees – ???<br /><br />Now you mention it, it’s a little surprising we don’t see more mechanised weaponry employed by the forces of the Enemy. Certainly JRRT loathed the stuff. I suspect it would have severely challenged the suspension of disbelief, but if I’d first encountered mecha-wargs along with the rest of the wonders of Arda - who knows? Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01146596310417716160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-61460005456990002052018-09-11T04:10:59.551-07:002018-09-11T04:10:59.551-07:00By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-...By the shores of Gitche Gumee,<br />By the shining Big-Sea-Water,.....Bill Benzonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08360044945265178991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-77950816184265392362018-09-11T03:58:45.564-07:002018-09-11T03:58:45.564-07:00Or what?
"Penlod, tallest of the Gnomes"...Or what?<br /><br />"Penlod, tallest of the Gnomes" has surely escaped from Discworld.<br /><br /><i>"Ay, verily, I am Penlod, tallest of... all right, all right, you don't need to rub it in. Penlod. Pleased to meet you."</i><br /><br />Tolkien-sceptic though I am, I couldn't help wondering if it was possible to get the back-story (or back-legends) to LOTR in a single, identifiable and - not to put too fine a point on it - readable form. (The Silmarillion is many things - and that's half the problem.) And that in turn made me wonder if George Lucas was a disappointed Tolkienophile - one of the many who seized on the Silmarillion when it came out, and put it down again soon afterwards - and he determined not to make the same mistake when he plugged in the back story to <b>his</b> Epic Fantasy Trilogy. Not sure what that would tell us, except that there are worse mistakes you can make than writing the Silmarillion.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.com