Category: Rants

The vision of books and films

A commentary on “Concerning Christopher”

n January 7th, 2013, TheOneRing.Net author JPB published an essay titled Concerning Christopher – An Essay on Tolkien’s Son’s Decision to Not Allow Further Cinematic Licensing of His Work. I was amazed at the...

Tolkien Reading Day

75 reasons: Thomas Honegger

ell, I would actually recommend to listen to a good recording, such as the unabridged reading by Rob Inglis who takes you through Tolkien’s tale within eleven hours (– the same goes for...

Bench at Wolvercote Cemetery (c) Marcel Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Michael Drout

The Heroic World and the Bourgeois World Each Have Something to Offer n important structural dynamic in The Hobbit is the interaction of the bourgeois world with the heroic.[1] Bilbo, with his pocket...

The Randolph, Oxford (c) Marcel Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Dimitra Fimi

hy should one read The Hobbit before watching the film? Because, judging by the trailers and interviews, the Hobbit film adaptation will be presented as a coherent ‘prequel’ to The Lord of the...

The Bird & Baby, Oxford, at night (c) Marcel Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Douglas A. Anderson

n my view, when a work exists in a form that has been popular enough to precipitate a film being made of it, I’ve usually tried to experience the original before the adaptation....

Bridge of Sighs, Oxford. (c) Marcel Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Jonathan Fruoco

“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.” This sentence is without any doubt the best reason why one should read The Hobbit, and the simple fact of quoting these magical...

Just take a seat (c) Marcel R. Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Guglielmo Spirito

n the entrance hallway of that sumptuous home there was an enormous mirror, very old; acquired at least eighty years ago.   A strikingly beautiful boy, a tailor’s assistant, (on Sunday afternoon, an...

Exam Schools, Oxford

75 reasons: Colin Duriez

75 shades of Hobbit hitherto unknown species was introduced into the world in 1937, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s opening sentence of 10 words, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” A...

75 reasons: Tom Shippey

BILBO’S HEROIC PROGRESS hen I used to teach a course on Tolkien, one of the essay questions which my students answered consistently well was the one which asked them how, in The Hobbit,...

The Old Sheldonian (c) Marcel R. Aubron-Bülles

75 reasons: Chris Seeman

nlike the soon-to-be-released Peter Jackson films, Tolkien’s Hobbit is NOT a “prequel” to The Lord of the Rings. By this I mean that Tolkien did not write it to be an introduction to...