Sorry to be the guy to do this, but LOTR is actually 6 books that were paired to form the three novels that we're familiar with, and also grouped into one big book in read lether with box, which I'm happy to mention that I have as a First Edition... Chris
From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Possible answer Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:37:01 -0800 To: [email protected] On Dec 21, 2011, at 8:38 PM, Jamila Rose wrote: And that is exactly what JK was going for.. the anti hero.. I think that’s why so many kids love the books.. because lets face it.. Harry is average.. for a wizard at least. Another reason the books reach a wider audience, is it doesn’t require you to create a whole other world with your imagination.. because its built within our reality. A kid can quite easily sit in school and daydream that the Hogwarts express is on its way to Hogwarts or that that owl is delivery post. I think that’s why you find that the books from the Narnia series, that are the most popular are the ones where the pevensie children are focused on. Personally I know both Ray and JK are classified as fantasy writers, but the worlds they work in are completely different so I can’t compare them. I will however say this.. I know Ray you are a big fan of Tolkien.. however I much prefer to read your books over and over again.. then to tackle LOR again.. love the Hobbit.. but I much prefer how you space out your facts and history over multiples and multiples of books.. and not jam pack everything into 3... Don’t get me wrong Tolkien was a master.. but I've never quite forgiven him for his criticisms of his good friend C S Lewis! ' Actually, you're almost right. Harry is a prodigy, and turns out to be THE wizard. What he is at the start of the first book is the nerdy kid who's bullied. Rowling grabs your sympathy by having him be the kid confined to living under the stairs and a bratty cousin who's almost a cliche of bratty cousins. The genius of that bit was the uncle and aunt were motivated, ultimately, by a mix of concern for Harry's (and their own) welfare, rather than any dislike of him. He was an unwelcome burden, and where Rowling made it work was that they didn't hate him; they just didn't love him. So, he was a boy alone and in the first book he finds his world and the people in it who (figuratively and literally) become his family. It's not just friends, but eventually it's mentors, father figures, the ultimate grandpa, and finally a wife. So the linkage is that every kid feels like an outcast, at least some of the time. Even the most social kids often are that way for fear of feeling like an outcast. Or if they're the "in kids" most of them look at the outcasts and secretly feel sorry for them, even if they never show it. It's a magnificent trope for reeling kids in, and reminding adults of what it used to be like. And it played all over the world, because being a kid, well, it kind of sucks most of the time. Tolkien on the other hand is from another world. At least another time. His teachers were all 19th Century Oxford Dons and the like, and he had the classic British upper class Public School and University Education. He revered the classics, and took a great deal of his inspiration from Goth-Germanic lore and especially the Elder Eddas. He wrote what he did for two reasons, to approach myth as a linguist and predicate his cultures on language (which is why you've got galloping great batches of information on the various elven dialects). He also wanted to create a "Myth for Britain" which was a bit of a brag, as they already had a perfectly good one in King Arthur. Tolkien grew up in a literary culture that had no mass media, except for the city newspaper,and weekly/monthly magazines. He probably saw some silent films as a boy in his early teens. There were no radio; the BBC was formed when he was 30. He was pushing 60 when TV arrived. So he learned his craft at a time when readers wanted lush detail and lots of background. Read him the way you would read Sir Walter Scott. Me, I'm a modern writer and know that my readers want dialogue, narrative, and description in that order, and if I don't get on with the bloody damn story in a couple of pages putting down the book and checking their Facebook pages or Twitter. Best,R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
