This is an example of creative, derived work that should be enriching the public commons, when the original is quite old, by a long dead author, yet is still troubled by potential copyright claims.
And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards. The reason it wasn't is probably the reason it's at risk: marketing.
Although I'm not against the idea of people writing in other peoples' universes, ie. fan fiction. In fact I hate the snotty attitude (seemingly) almost everyone takes towards fan-fiction: it's a win for everyone, like the literary equivalent of forking open-source software, but it's never encouraged.
"Literal" retellings of stories can be jarring; everything needs to sync up or you get stuck on the details that are wrong (like, apparently, "no hobbits"). And, especially with nerd fiction, figuring out who the characters are can be fun.
Slight tangent: Here's a secret about forking. When you fork a project, you anger the loyalists. A lot of large open source projects fork because of deep disagreements / polarization within the team. For minor stuff, it usually just gets settled internally. If the project does get forked, it usually ends with either the original project dying or the fork dying. I can't recall any projects off the top of my head that were forked and both the fork and original remained successful.
I think the trend is shifting at least when it comes to projects hosted on Github. Forking there is less of a divergent path, but more of a way to tinker and make changes and push them back to the main code source. At least that is what most people do, and I think it is better for it.
Regarding XBMC / Plex and Emacs / xemacs, instead of a fork it looks like it's more of adding feature X that the original devs didn't want (not being derogatory here, it's substantial work). I'm sure that they merge in new code continuously and the codebases haven't diverged so much as to be independent. It doesn't look much like a fork in that sense.
I'd argue that KHTML is fairly dead. No one really uses Konqueror (I worked for a shop that developed a KDE based distro and even there everyone used Firefox / Chrome), which is probably KHTML's largest user apart from some internal KDE stuff. Hell, even Konqueror has had webkit mode since about a year ago. Qt supports webkit. Tons of other browsers, mobile and otherwise, use webkit.
I see the same downward trend for Debian, from being all over the place to being reduced to mostly a server distro. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is coming up with its own server version with pre-made virtualization images and stuff.
So, maybe the "weaker" forks just didn't die fast? Of course, this whole idea isn't a law or anything and I can't expect it to apply to everything, but that's the general trend I see anyway.
Also, I guess another thing I could claim is selection bias: You've probably never even heard of most of the forks that died. Of course, I don't have the data to prove it either.
There are two activities that can change a nerdy fourteen-year old's life: reading The Lord of the Rings and learning emacs. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable inaccessibility, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Is Ubuntu a fork of Debian or a polished package based on Debian? I ask because the Ubuntu update schedule is based around the Debian update schedule in such a way that new Ubuntu releases remain synchronized with new Debian releases.
The book probably couldn't stand on its own. But it was quite interesting as sort-of commentary on Tolkien - even with Tolkien characters completely shifted, it needed to have Tolkien characters to be worth anything. And suppressing that kind of speech is problematic.
>And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards.
I'd not heard of a roman a clef before, a story with a key to translate the characters/figures/places to refer to something else.
I don't think this would help - if you provide me with the parts to make a copyrighted work and you know that is what they are to be used for or you designed them specifically for that use then you are committing contributory infringement (YMMV depending on specifics of copyright law in your country, save to say that legislatures aren't idiots).
In the same way you can't sell your cover of a pop song by encoding the song as an MP3 ("it's not a song it's just bits").
No, you really don't. You just have to be modestly creative.
Fiction is full of allusions and references and expies of older works' characters and settings. Rather a few stories have been written as answers or counter-arguments to other works without having to use the same names or be explicitly set in the same setting.
Um, because the original work is still being sold and is making money for its owners--specifically, the direct relatives of the original author, including one who continued his father's work and released The Silmarillion.
The question is not if the Tolkien estate makes less money.
The question is if the Tolkien estate has the freedom to decide what derived works they want to allow.
Copyright is not about 'if it makes money for the rights holder, it should be allowed'. It's about the freedom of the holder to decide what they think is the 'best', be it in monetary form, or artistic integrity, or whatever.
Let's say I'm an author and I feel that my work is best served with no derivatives like fan fiction or translations. That I feel that my novel is a work of art that only be appreciated in its original language. Should I have the right to prohibit translations? I think so. It's about the freedom and the rights of the author (or creator of other sorts), not about the supposed entitlements of others.
I see no public good served by an author being allowed to decide what other people do with their characters. Should Tolkien have the right to constrain what people imagine with his characters? The right to constrain what stories I tell my friend? Never mind physical possibility - if Tolkien had left a note saying that nobody was ever allowed to imagine Legolas/Eowyn, would you obey that note in the privacy of your imagination, because you thought it was his right?
IMO copyrights, like patents, should have a mandatory licensing rule - it should not be possible to say "you can't do that", only ever "I get a cut of the profits." (This wouldn't fix either system, which allow for copyright and patent of many things that just shouldn't be patented, but it'd be an incremental improvement.)
Not everything is about 'the public good being served'. That was my point. Individual freedom usually trumps the public good, imo. Thinking about things has never been under (serious) discussion. The line is roughly at the point where 'public performances' or 'reproduction for the public' is done. Of course you can argue about where things are exactly 'public', but you can do that with anything.
Individual freedom against the public good isn't entirely what's at stake here. What's at stake is the individual freedom of the original author against the individual freedom of other authors who want to use similar characters, and the individual freedoms of the potential consumers of the derivative work. It's nice to talk about "individual freedom", but you're obscuring the truth in cases like this. It's not about the rights of individuals against some faceless collective. It's about freedoms for one person trumping freedoms of the other.
If you restrict the use of any ideas from an original work by anyone else, you're severely restricting the speech of others. If I need your permission before I can write about the characters in your book, what's to stop you from disallowing anyone to write bad reviews of your book? This is an important issue, especially when the laws are vague and you have a massive legal war chest. Your expensive lawyers can argue about where things become "public", too, so me telling my friends about how much your book sucks could get me sued.
Overly strict copyright laws have serious chilling effects on free speech. Free speech may be a collective good, but it is also an individual freedom, too, and I think my freedom to speak is more important than anyone else's freedom to silence that speech. Everything can be cast in terms of individual freedom, but more often than not, increasing one person's freedom means decreasing someone else's. That's why you can't just say that individual freedom is necessarily more important than the public good.
Nonsense, because the supposed 'freedoms' of the others (anyone except the author) hinge on the author creating it in the first place. They're all derived from the work of the original author, giving that author ownership of his creations, and therefore the right to determine what happens to his property.
I'm not sure where your 'free speech' argument is coming from. Reproducing the words (or music or whatever) of someone else is not free speech. Free speech is about ideas, copyright about a specific incarnation of ideas.
I don't see what creating something has to do with owning it. If I have kids, they are not my property, even though their existence entirely depends on me.
The whole point of copyright is that the government decided that people would be more willing to create works of value if they economically protected the creators of those works. This was designed specifically to benefit the public good at the expense of individual freedom. Copyright does nothing but restrict freedom, but it does it so that people will have an incentive to create things of public value.
The free speech argument comes in whenever a content creator has the power to keep other people from saying certain things because he doesn't like them, rather than because he deserves to capitalize on the use of his content. The ideas you create don't belong to you; only the right to make money from them does.
Not everything, but the public good is in fact what copyright is about: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8)
Humorously enough, the "Individual freedom" you desire consists entirely of the freedom to prevent others from doing things (translate works, create derivative things).
Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals...
This is just phrasing it in a disingenuous way. My 'freedom' to own my car consists of the my right to 'restrict' others from taking it as they see fit. My 'freedom' to walk around consists of preventing others from beating and locking me up. The whole concept of ownership means that you can restrict others from doing things that infringe upon that freedom.
So yes of course law exists to regulate what individuals can do to each other or each others' property.
>Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals...
Did you stop to think about the repercussions of your last statement? Should you be allowed to stop me taking your things, parking on your land or living in your home?
Copyright is not about 'if it makes money for the rights holder, it should be allowed'. It's about the freedom of the holder to decide what they think is the 'best', be it in monetary form, or artistic integrity, or whatever.
I disagree. Copyrights (and patents for that matter) are a temporary monopoly we grant to a creator to give the incentive for people to create new things.
We believe that the cost of taking away the rights of other people to reproduce those ideas for a limited time is worth the benefit of the new works that are being created as a result.
Should I have the right to prohibit translations? I think so.
I think not. Especially 30 years after your death. When does it end? If Shakespeare had left a note asking that his work never be translated into other languages, and never performed outside of England, should we continue to honor that today?
We do not have an inherent right to the ideas we express and the words we pen such that we can always control what other people will do with them. We've merely decided as a society to temporarily create such a right because the tradeoff is worth it.
I really need to get around to reading this. The original LOTR did have a rather "western" bent to it. Looking at things in another way would be pretty fun.
Being non-white myself, I like to jokingly explain to anyone who will listen about how LOTR is all about racial purity and the perils of rampant immigration of brown folk. I certainly can't think of anyone good in it who is 'non-white'. I grew up on the books and I still have a soft spot for them, but I do like to make fun of this aspect of them.
My other hobby is outlining the racial stereotypes in sci-fi shows/movies...
You're presupposing (jokingly, of course) allegorical meaning behind the work, which Tolkien explicitly rejected.
Middle Earth was meant as a foundational myth of the British Isles. A sort of stand-in for the real history. A modern-day Beowulf.
If you're looking for parallels with The Real World, you might be better off comparing the war in LoTR to WWI, in which Tolkien served in combat and witnessed some of the most horrific combat in human history, caused mostly by industrial advances. It's a lot easier to see why his nostalgia might be piqued when you think of most of his peers getting mustard gassed, shelled, shot, stabbed, or otherwise dying horrific deaths.
Exactly. Just compare the map of the Middle Earth to Europe and you will see how well it fits in WWI setup.
Good Little Hobbits (Britain), some humans (France, Italy), a dwarf (maybe a Scandinavian?), some Elves (Russians?) form the Good Alliance (of Christianity?) and fight against the Evil (muslim?) Empire of Mordor (Ottoman Empire) and its allies (Germany and Austria = Saruman's army?) who are traitors.
And also, the good Elves of Eastern Europe migrate to America after the war, because "the world has changed".
I think its actually pretty clear, given the geography, that Mordor is Germany. Depictions of Germans in WWI propaganda posters are very similar to how orcs are described.
As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism: how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree.
I realize that it is written in the Norse epic style, and Norse mythology is naturally pretty racist, but it still escapes me why an academic linguistic experiment got such a wide audience.
Another motif, about a small guy doing things greater than himself, is nice though.
As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism
It isn't: if you have to pick a political/social philosophy to define the novel, pick one closer to non-conformist libertarianism. Do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn't impose on others.
The "racism" probably comes from description of the black riders, but black describes their clothes; on Weathertop, for example, when Frodo can briefly see the other side because he's wearing the ring, they're described as white. White and black are chiefly used as synonyms for light and dark, as in the day and the night.
how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree.
Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Saruman, Sauron, Boromir), while those of low birth (all the hobbits) often do quite well. Notice too that Aragorn and the other characters are scrupulous about the limits to their power. I actually wrote a paper on this called "The Paradox of Power and Defining Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings."
> The "racism" probably comes from description of the black riders, but black describes their clothes; [...]
I think you're hung up on the wrong idea for 'racism' here -- I don't believe that Tolkien was necessarily drawing explicit parallels to skin color, and I don't think that's the right place to look for racism.
I do, however, believe that the single trait which is most fully described any given character is that of their race (as in 'hobbit/orc/human/elf'). It's usually the first thing you learn about them, often before their name. When an important character acts, the author nearly always takes care to point out their action as (a)typical of their racial tendencies. And so on.
In other words, LoTR is deeply racist in the simple sense that the author prioritised race above individuality.
>I do, however, believe that the single trait which is most fully described any given character is that of their race (as in 'hobbit/orc/human/elf'). It's usually the first thing you learn about them, often before their name. When an important character acts, the author nearly always takes care to point out their action as (a)typical of their racial tendencies. And so on.
Funny but I assume that the different character groups are species and not races of one species. Species tend to have specific traits that define them.
But in a fictional world where different races have various magical powers and vastly different anatomies, a character's race (or rather species) rather does define a lot about them from the reader's perspective.
I mean do episodes of Star Trek go 'this is Bob, the sentient space nebula - he has two kids and likes to drink with his friends at the weekend' ?
LoTR no doubt does have some collectivist/nationalist/whaterverist trappings, but I find it completely unfair the way people call Tolkien racist by juxtaposing some modern and inanalagous ethnicity debate onto his fictional world.
I think you can fairly call Tolkien racist without bringing an external debate into it -- the fact is that as an author he spent an inordinate number of pages establishing racial heritage, and his characters are deeply straitjacketed by their race.
> Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Saruman, Sauron, Boromir), while those of low birth (all the hobbits) often do quite well. Notice too that Aragorn and the other characters are scrupulous about the limits to their power. I actually wrote a paper on this called "The Paradox of Power and Defining Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings."
Tolkein grew up largely in and around Birmingham, which likely gave him a mix of good decent country folk (farmers) and the powerfully rich city folk (given Birmingham has largely been Englands second biggest city and for a long time - IIRC the 70's is when this ended - it had the highest household income, even exceeding London).
He likely got a first hand look at the corruption of the powerful and the earnestness of country folk.
I think he's refering to all the 'lesser men' especially all the men who allied with Sauron. Basically, the book discribes them all as short and with darker skin.
Not just the Haradrim (who basically equate to Africans, geographically speaking), although there is a wonderful description of them as "black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues." The Easterlings are also evil.
And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty.
And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood.
And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption.
And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity.
The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)
lord. you're welcome to your interpretation of Tolkien's racism, but since you reference the Maiar, I'm going to assume you're being purposefully reductive to make your point.
> And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty.
He's basically the archetypal benevolent dictator. He may get his claim to rule from his heritage, but he has practically the world's crappiest life until Sauron is destroyed, not out of circumstance but out of a sense of duty. He clearly believes that a king is in service to his subjects.
> And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood.
a) Denethor had royal blood b) he was considered very wise and a great king of Gondor. It was only when he took up the tools of the enemy that he had his fall
> And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption.
you reference the Maiar but you say this. have you read the silmarillion?? (perusing the wikipedia article will suffice)
> And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity.
Will they are a fictional race specifically constructed to be a defilement of life. no, there's not a whole lot of subtle moral ambiguity there, but that's why it's good that there's more than one author ever.
> The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)
This is the dumbest part. Look at the inherent contradictions of the numenoreans: benevolent and exploitive, generous but envious, and -- the ultimate sin in tolkien's universe -- so very proud. the dwarves often fought for good, but just as often did so for vengeful or petty reasons. the elves were just totally fucked, and even when they finally grew wise to the morgoths and the saurons of the world, they could find no peace in it, only weariness. the maiar, as you note, were often tempted to evil ways. and who caused all this? The ainur, the highest order of beings. And I don't just mean Melkor, though he of course sewed evil into every living thing. The Ainur were selfish with the elves, they were petty with Feanor and his sons, and they were cruel to humans. They might have wisdom "now," but, like the elves, they screwed everything up in the process.
The point isn't which attributes the different races have, it's that their race defines them as a person -- not their upbringing, their experiences or their values. Their race.
Given that they mostly appear to grow up in racially homogeneous surroundings, can you really tell which attributes are genetic and which are environmental?
It's not just the races, but the geographical descriptions as well which seem to be grounded in reality.
*Middle Earth* - Europe
*Numenor* (island to the west of ME) - Great Britain
*Valinor* (distant land of the 'fair' elves, west of ME) - North America viz. USA
*Mordor* (south of ME) - Area around Turkey
*Harad Desert* (south-east of ME) - Middle East
A quick look at the map of middle earth in LOTR and the Silmarillion kind of confirms this suspicion
If you really want to analyze things like that (which I don't think is very wise) I'm pretty sure The Shire had to map to a Merry Olde England that probably never was.
Having said that, I always wondered if Tolkien traveled by train through North East Scotland and the Tap o' Noth influenced Weathertop... but that is just me being silly.
> As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism: how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree.
It's not just LOTR & fantasy; SF has problems of its own. I mean, there's obviously _The Iron Swastika_, which everyone knows was written explicitly as a parody.
But Frank Herbert says over and over again in interviews and whatever* that in _Dune_, Paul was a terrible horrible no good thing to happen to the human race and we were not supposed to be rooting for him - but fans do anyway. Paul is supposed to be a deconstruction of the superhero myth, but instead, even the fans swallow it hook line & sinker. It's no surprise that _Dune Messiah_, which really rubs our nose in this, is one of the least popular Dune books.
* He says this explicitly in 2 or 3 interviews, and repeats himself in the mini-essays on the backs of the vinyl LPs of him reading excerpts from the Dune books (which I saw today in the SF public library)
I just finished reading the original Dune two weeks ago, so allow me to digress for a moment...
How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel?
The Harkonnens were portrayed as selfish plotters who nearly bankrupted themselves to murder Paul's father. The Space Guild was mysterious and were shown as being utterly dependent on their prescience. The Bene Gesserit were complete manipulators, to the point where they created religions across the galaxy to further their political points. House Corrino was scheming with the Harkonnens.
It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters).
Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats? Or the Queen/Concubine? Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"?
No, I'm with you. I think Herbert's point was not that Paul was bad -- we wanted him to succeed -- but how naturally seductive the idea of a messiah or superhero is to us. Characters even explicitly say that a real messiah is about the worst thing a people can get.
I think Dune Messiah (which is rather disappointing even outside of how marginalized Paul becomes after focusing so much on him) is more about how the artifice built up around him becomes evil and does just fine without his actual presence.
i think the original plan for Dune was that it would encompass the events of the first three novels, but there was some scope creep that prevented this. Therefore, the long-term impression/memory of Paul is probably a lot different than it would have been if the original Dune had contained all these events. It's a 'rise and fall' kind of thing and Herbert himself was mostly interested in the 'fall' part, philosophically.
> How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel?
If I may, that you think that is an example of the problem. When you read _The Iron Dream_ (I realize now I gave the wrong title, but I can't edit my original comment, grr.), how can you not root for Feric Jaggar (Adolf Hitler)?
How can a German not root for Hitler, trying to restore Germany to greatness and hold back the tide of communism? (Let's not forget how the body count of Stalin and Mao run into the dozens of millions, as opposed to 'only' the 6 million or so of the Holocaust. The Nazis were right about one thing - Communism was awfully evil.)
> Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"?
Maybe we should have! Sometimes no one is right. The Atreides are noble and everything, but their nobility consists pretty much of not murderously mistreating their slaves - I mean, serfs.
> Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats?
You could make a good case for Idaho, given how central he is to the later books.
> It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters).
Paul is not cackling evil like the Baron. He is evil, even in _Dune_, like the Nuremberg Trials, an evil that is more passive than active - he knows how hideous the Jihad will be, he has seen all the futures. He knows what he is later told:
> "Very good, Stil." Paul glanced at the reels in Korba's hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since -- "
Paul's evil is one of cowardice and a refusal to do the right thing. He knows all he has to do is die or vanish into the desert, or even just go into exile on Tupile (paying with the family atomics). But he selfishly tries to stay alive and stay with Chani, and the only path prescience reveals that does that is the one that also unleashes the Jihad and makes him Emperor.
(Note how deep his cowardice or selfishness runs; we see it again in _Children of Dune_, where Paul refuses to do the sandworm transformation even to save all humanity because he would lose his own humanity. Some hero!)
There's a deaded comment by nostromo here that I thought was good and don't see why it was killed. The interpretation of LotR as a book about the domination of non-white peoples is really not that much of a stretch.
>I'm not saying the books are racists, but it's not a stretch to think of these people as indian and black respectively given the book's description.
It's a stretch because Indians and other people live on this Earth and not in some fantasy reality created by an author.
Sure if you want to imagine that one species/race in the book is visually akin to a race/group/country of real humans that's fine, why would it matter.
This sort of argument to me is like saying that the books stereotype elephants because the great war beast Mamulik (sp?) are elephantine.
In short I think you're over analysing it, it's just a yarn.
This is a really interesting idea but the text itself really needs to be adapted by a native English speaker. I really wanted to plunge into the book, but it's barely readable. Here are the first two sentences of the second paragraph, a typical example of the book's style:
> It was at such a midnight hour that two men moved like gray shadows along the gravelly inner edge of a sickle-shaped gap between two low dunes, and the distance between them was exactly that prescribed by the Field Manual for such occasions. However, contrary to the rules, the one bearing the largest load was not the rear ‘main force’ private, but rather the ‘forward recon’ one, but there were good reasons for that.
It's probably brilliant in Russian, but an English speaker has to unravel and reconstruct each sentence. It makes for heavy going.
I say this not to negatively criticise, but simply to warn readers hoping to discover a fantastic interpretation of an epic tale. A future translation, I am sure, will make for brilliant reading.
an English speaker has to unravel and reconstruct each sentence. It makes for heavy going.
Although according to Guardian, the translator spent "a few dozen lunch hours" on this, I strongly disagree with your point. I've only looked at the first couple of paragraphs so far, but, especially taking into consideration the miniscule amount of time spent, he did quite an admirable job. The reason you find it 'barely readable' and have 'to unravel and reconstruct each sentence' is that this translation strives to emulate the literary style of a 19th century novel. Whether it does it successfully is another question, however, I'm sure you'd be of different opinion, had you spent more time reading Dickens, Hardy and the like.
It's not brilliant, but it's certainly valid, albeit stylized, English prose. Compare the paragraph above to the following.
It was at such a midnight hour of darkness and unwonted danger that they of whom I write sprang to arms. It were as though an Hannibal were on our borders and thus viewed; it was a nobler and braver deed than that for which Leonidas and his brave followers are renowned through all historic ages. They were trained soldiers -- their trade was war -- stationed at the gateway of Thermopylae expressly for its defence, but these men, used only to the arts of peace, from the highest motives of patriotism and duty take arms and go forth into the dunnest clouds and storms of war to meet a triumphant foe and face mortal peril. Nor were inroads made upon the foe or successes attained in the East or the West till the Northern armies felt the impulse of these opportune auxiliaries and the Confederacy under their conjoined forces began to yield along the lower Mississippi and in the far away Department of the Gulf.
Sir Walter Scott wrote more than Ivanhoe - his stuff is pretty flowery
Lord Dunsany wrote early, early, early fantasy. His stuff is absurdly purple.
Tolkein's writings are on the flowery side too.
The (Anti-)?Federalist papers also have some fairly involved and technical prose.
The characteristic of the above writing is that it flows. Also notable is that they were native English speakers not translating.
Most modern writing and reading is locked into a school of thought that elevates concision, smaller words, fewer clauses and smaller sentences.
There was some pivot around the time of Hemingway to this form of writing, I haven't looked up what happened.
At any rate, the snippet the grandfather posted didn't really work in a language sense. Lunch is over so I can't really spend the time to take it apart. :-)
That reads a lot like a NaNoWriMo novel. Many many word padding and abuse of the 'the'.
However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures.
For example:
> That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to silver and glass, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.
> However, one should not that the original LOTR was written by a linguist. As such it tended to be pretty wordy and often full of horribly complex sentence structures.
This is exactly what delighted me in Tolkien (LOTR; Silmarillion was over the top for me) or Maria Semyonova (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/880518.Maria_Semyonova_ , translator, Russian fantasy writer, bad film, no English translations that I know of) I was disappointed to discover that many other fantasy and fiction writers don't share the love or skill for such flowery language. It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it.
When I was reading some of the acclaimed fiction writers e.g. Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep" not once did I think "Heck, I bet I could write better than this!" I have no illusions of my chances of being a writer in English, when I haven't been one in my native Russian yet, but still. I would not think that thought when I was reading Tolkien or Semenova.
> It never occured to me that some readers might not enjoy it.
Well that depends, maybe I just got a bad taste in my mouth having had read the book early in high school as a foreigner. It took me literally 6 months of nearly daily reading to get through. My personal pet peeve was that Tolkien apparently hated the comma, which made sentences particularly difficult for me to parse.
But I should admit, having read a lot of Austen and Dickens ... Tolkien was pretty damn unflowery ... but then you compare him to King and you think "What the hell was Tolkien smoking!"
Then again, King is known for a very direct style, which results in 500 page books one can read in a week. Being very busy I kind of like that :)
Mervyn Peake writes very nice English prose that I think you might enjoy. See his Gormenghast series (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone). It's sort-of-fantasy but not really (no magic, no non-humans).
Omg, yes. I think that Titus Groan has got the most beautiful prose I've ever encountered. Well, that's what I thought when I read it years ago. I must revisit it.
The difference is that Tolkein's words flow naturally, while the ones here are more forced - the translation appears to mangle the English to fit exactly what is said in the source text, leaving it feeling rather awkward.
Tolkein's sentences, regardless of how complex, just "work" in English - A similar "transliteration" of Tolkein into Russian or whatever would likely feel as obtuse as this does.
Being a slav I can attest that it's a pretty common slavic error. Took me years to get it somewhat under control and I used to take english writing as a pretty serious hobby. (nowadays I'm just a english nerd more so than a writer)
It's unlikely they'd infringe on Tolkien's copyrights, at least in the US:
Tolkien was re-editing because in that year, Ace Books in the
United States published an unauthorised edition. The Fellowship
came out in May 1965, the other two volumes in July. 150,000 copies
were printed of each volume! The main text was reset, and introduced
new errors, but the appendices were reproduced photographically, and
thus contained only the errors already there. Ace Books were exploiting
a copyright loophole which meant they did not have to pay Tolkien or his
publishers any royalties. Houghton Mifflin appears to have imported too
many copies, and the notice they contain, 'Printed in Great Britain'
meant that the texts were deemed to be in the public domain in the
United States.
So, instead of a bourgeois tale of an epic fight against evil forces threatening a dubiously idealized analogue of a society that no longer exists, it's a socialist tale of an epic fight against evil forces threatening a dubiously idealized analogue of a society that no longer exists?
For whatever reason, Tolkien had a huge following in Russia.
At least one fantasy writer [1] made a career writing LOTR sequels. Eskov himself is actively blogging on Livejournal [2].
One of the most important factors in popularity of a foreign work in Russia is a good translation which does not try to be too literal. Muraviev and Kistyakovsky did a great job with LOTR.
Another reason is that this translation was published in late 80s, when the Russian public was particularly receptive to anything spiritual and/or capable of carrying them away from the grim reality of a collapsing country.
This sort of thing is fun, but it sounds more simplistic than Tolkien's universe and philosophies. I will read it with interest. Can someone comment as to the quality of the Russian version?
It's absolutely brilliant. I especially like that it doesn't try to simply re-tell the LOTR from a different point of view, but changes aesthetics of the story as well. While LOTR is 'an epic saga', 'The Last Ringbearer' reads more like an historical account.
The problem with this book, of course, is that it ignores the lore Tolkien shares in the Silmarillion, his letters, and other books regarding the origin of Sauron and Orcs.
Maybe the idea of the new book was to point out that you can read LotR and Silmarillion as myths and histories written in-universe, instead of an objective and reliable narrative. Suddenly all sorts of things might be slanted to make the winners of the war look good and noble and paint those who opposed them as beastly savages.
If you enjoy the retelling of popular stories from a different perspective, one of the best I've read is Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar. Superman lands in the USSR, is raised as a communist, becomes the villain, Lex Luthor is the hero in America trying to outwit the communist supervillian, Batman is a freedom fighter... I shall say no more, but check it out if you're a nerd like me.
