Maius!

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, 

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. 

It's the merry month of May, or "Thrimidge" according to the Shire Calendar. The influence of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is difficult to reckon. It can be argued with some confidence that an entire publishing sector owes its existence to the saga, one which redefined fantasy. I fell into the clutches of Tolkien's imagination when I was still a very young man and was eager to expand my reading from the masses of comics I had consumed and the few bits of science fiction I'd enjoyed. I wanted to step up and take on something with a bit more rigor and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was just the ticket. I first got a glimpse at Tolkien's classic fantasy when I spied it in my high school library, three attractive black books in a slipcase tucked high and up out of reach behind the librarian's desk. They were presented almost like totems of worship. I was fascinated but never asked to see them. (She was that kind of librarian.) And then I went to college. 

It was 1975 and the publishing world was enjoying a boom of sorts with fantasy catching on with younger folks. In addition to TLotR, there were the Earthea trilogy from LeGuin, the Deryni Cycle from Kurtz, the grim weird Gormenghast trilogy from Peake, and copious amounts of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Ballantine Books had a whole division advised by Lin Carter dedicated to putting back into print obscure fantastic and weird novels of decades gone. For a glimpse check out this link. I gobbled them up. But there always seemed to be something special about Tolkien's Middle-Earth, it seemed richer and more completely realized than many of the other places I visited. I'd learn that Tolkien had spent decades refining it with a special care which was not available to the whipsaw pulp creations of the Hyborian Age or ERB's myriad landscapes, worlds produced at the prodigious speed needed to produce income. Tolkien didn't work like that. He was a professor, and his Middle-Earth was a thing he fashioned first to entertain his children and himself. It was his hobby and his passion. He produced the books in those times that life allowed.  

I revisit these tomes from time to time. Certainly, they have gotten a great deal of notoriety since the Peter Jackson adaptations have made cash cows out of them to an even greater degree. (The trilogy is being exhibited in theaters again after over two decades.) I want to go there again, in Middle-Earth's many guises. I want to read the source material found in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and even The Unfinished Tales, and more. I want to view and enjoy these animated adaptations from Ralph Bakshi and the Rankin-Bass outfit. And I want to plum again the Jackson versions in all their sometimes, overwrought glory. And if time allows, I'd like to explore some of the tales that inspired Tolkien's imagination. We might even get around to the music, the art, and satire inspired by Tolkien's creation. So, expect everything this month to be either Tolkien related or Tolkien adjacent, with only a few exceptions. And it's a lot for a tiny month which I'm making tinier still. 

The blog will take a break early in the month but expect wall-to-wall Tolkien when it gets fired back up to full heat. Back tomorrow though with a little something from Atlas-Seaboard Comics. 

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Frodo Lives!

I wish I had these ACE paperbacks. They were published without permission back in the 60's when Tolkien's popularity was beginning to crest. I've long thought that Jack Gaughan's artwork on these was vivid and compelling.

For my own part, I first read of Middle Earth under these "official" Ballantine covers by artist Barbara Remington. Here's an interview with Remington about how these peculiar but rather strangely pretty covers came to exist. My first trip there and back again was pretty lush and like most folks I suspect, I like to revisit from time to time.




For the record, I first became aware of something called "Lord of the Rings" in high school, where the beautiful slipcase hardback trilogy rested atop some bookshelves. Alas this was a zone from which this treasure could not be retrieved to be actually read, but had to be seen only from afar or with the assistance of the librarian. I remember that classic eye symbol staring out at me, but it would be a few years before I could answer that call.

This week, with only a few more precious days left before I have to confront the rigors of the high school student mind again, I'm taking some time to luxuriate in Peter Jackson's epic films, viewing the extended DVD versions.

Seeing this work on the big screen was a big thrill of course, but getting to see it in the comfort of my home is exquisite. The extended story in these adds to the understanding of the whole significantly.

There are weaknesses in the movies of course, that's inevitable, but overall I find this translation of the epic to pretty darned impressive, capturing the scope of the original pretty well.

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