Links - articles of interest (Tolkien)

[meridian_rose]

There and Back Again... Again: The Hobbit Reread
"Tor.com is delighted to present There and Back Again... Again, a reread of the entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit by Kate Nepveu, the same insightful voice behind Tor.com's epic Lord of the Rings reread. She'll be revisiting the book with an eye towards the unfolding movie trilogy and in consideration to how Tolkien's classic tale reads to children and adults alike."
Index page: http://www.tor.com/features/series/the-hobbit-reread

How JRR Tolkien Pulled A George Lucas On THE HOBBIT
"A look at the revisions made to THE HOBBIT to match it up with LORD OF THE RINGS." Notable for this section:

After Lord of the Rings Tolkien decided to revise The Hobbit one more time. This time around he intended to change the whole thing, to bring the narrative and tone more in line with the darkness of Lord of the Rings. He made it a few chapters in before everybody sensibly stopped him and told him he was ruining the original work. Those chapters have been published in a massive two volume set called The History of the Hobbit.

Link: http://badassdigest.com/2012/12/13/how-jrr-tolkien-pulled-a-george-lucas-on-the-hobbit/

The Hobbit: Why Are There No Women in Tolkien’s World?
"Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth. I suppose it’s understandable that a story in which the primary activity seems to be chopping off each other’s body parts for no particular reason might be a little heavy on male characters — although it’s not as though Tolkien had to hew to historical accuracy when he created his fantastical world. "
Lots of mansplaining in the comments.
Link: http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/31/the-hobbit-why-are-there-no-women-in-tolkiens-world/

Where are the women in Tolkien?

There are some female characters in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, but in The Hobbit, there are … none. This is not a good start, so let’s think imaginatively. Belladonna Took, Bilbo’s dead mother, is mentioned, to be sure. Perhaps one of the trolls was female: they’re not easy to distinguish from male trolls, according to Terry Pratchett, but a male name never stopped ovulation yet. The spiders were probably female. Laketown and the King of Mirkwood’s palace, and Rivendell were undoubtedly inhabited by female humans and elves, but without being told in the story, we can’t know. Dwarf females are also hard to distinguish, but I’m going to assume that there were some dwarf women in King Dain’s army. I really don’t want to start sexing goblins. So, for The Hobbit, all we have for gender equality are suppositions.

Link: http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/where-are-the-women-in-tolkien-part-1/

The Ladies of the Ring
"Despite its immense popularity, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has long been criticized by feminists who say that there are too few female characters and that those who do exist are most notable for their conventionality. The first charge is irrefutable: there are only three major and six minor feminine roles in the three fat volumes that comprise Rings. Even the numerous horses in the story all seem to be male!" Suggests that Tolkien then overdoes his few female characters as virtuous beyond belief, and that conventionality is their destiny.
Link: http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/smiesel_ladiesring_jan05.asp

I just finished reading Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories." And feel the need to share
Link: http://capriuni.dreamwidth.org/677279.html

A merrier world: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Proposes that it's a different world to LOTR, being for children, less certain chronologically and geographically, but it has it's charms. Also on the subject of the lack of women, that the writer found it easy to identify with Bilbo as

ambiguously gendered. He’s always referred to as “he,” but he keeps house and cooks, he isn’t brave except at a pinch—he’s brave without being at all macho, nor is his lack of machismo deprecated by the text, even when contrasted with the martial dwarves. Bilbo’s allowed to be afraid. He has whole rooms full of clothes. There’s a lot of the conventionally feminine in Bilbo, and there’s a reading here in which Bilbo is a timid houseproud cooking hostess who discovers more facets on an adventure. (I’m sure I could do something with the buttons popping off too if I tried hard enough.) Unlike most heroes, it really wouldn’t change Bilbo at all if you changed his pronoun. Now isn’t that an interesting thought to go rushing off behind without even a pocket handkerchief?

Link: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/09/a-merrier-world-jrr-tolkiens-the-hobbit