"New" interview of Tolkien is available

[Noldolantë]

<h3 ="r"="" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; overflow-x: ; overflow-y: ; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; : rgb255, 255, 255; ">
</h3>Greetings to all the fellows from the plaza..
I have found this interview of Tolkien, still not published in book form<h3 ="r"="" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; overflow-x: ; overflow-y: ; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; : rgb255, 255, 255; ">Lars Gustafsson's Blog: An Interview withJ R R<em style="font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; ">Tolkien[/i]from OXFORD</h3>
It seems interesting. Still waiting the promissed book compiling the hard to find interviews of JRRT.





Edited by: Noldolantë

[geordie]

Noldolante, welcome to the Plaza.

thanks for the link - though the pedant in me raises an eyebrow at a couple of places in the article (the idea of Tolkien as a professor of Celtic, for instance; and the date of 1939 for Tolkien's 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics).

[Lord of the Rings]

One of the things that really strikes me reading this (and other writings from maybe around the 50's to the 70's) is how different the vocabulary and context for talking about fantasy were. The interviewer really seems to be struggling to convey the effect of 'secondary reality': 'long epic fairy tale', 'convoluted giant labyrinth', 'bizarre', 'alien and fascinating [beings]', and my favourite 'portrayed with . . . hallucinatory clarity'. It's like the only way the interviewer felt he could convey the story was through a mishmash of the Brothers Grimm, 'weird tales', and a drug trip. Nowadays he might just say 'fantasy' and save himself a lot of words.

[Morgan]

As co-editor of the forthcoming publication of this (and another) interview conducted in the same year, I should say that the version appearing on Gustafsson's blog is a draft I sent him for review, "published" on the blog without me knowing.



As geordie says, the article contains several factual errors -- these are commented in the editors' footnotes.
An introduction and English translation of the two interviews will be appear in the bilingual journal Hither Shore (published by Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft), in April 2013.






Edited by: Morgan_TG

[geordie]

Thanks for the information, Morgan. In a way, it's a shame the draft was 'leaked' in this way; before the official publication as it were (no disrespect intended to the o/p).

Could you give us a reminder of the publication, nearer the date? thanks.

[Morgan]

Certainly, I'll post a reminder, and make a proper announcement, when it's getting closer to publication. Thanks for the interest!
@Lord of the Rings: since this draft was not the final one by translator John-Henri Holmberg (who kindly volunteered), I will try not to engage too much in discussion before the official publication. But I find your perceptive comment interesting -- how the text in many ways is influenced by the cultural context of the 1960s. The visual counterpart would be the BBC 2 interview from 1968.