of sublime moments.

I’m right in the thick of it. Re-reading The Return of the King, I’m on Chapter III of Book II. The title? Mount Doom.

Of course I hadn’t read the books more than once when I watched the movies. But re-reading them now, after having watched the sublime on screen over a hundred times (not even slightly exaggerating) – I’m astonished at how perfectly some moment were captured. The Ride of the Rohirrim, their final charge on Pelennor was almost perfectly taken from text to screen, giving us living, breathing visions of words. It could not have been more perfect. Or, for another example, take Eowyn and Merry’s destruction of the Lord of the Ringwraiths. I cannot distinguish between the vision in my head, when I read the words on the page, or that of the sublime, terrifying beauty of the scene in front of me on screen.

People are wrong when they say it is a simple battle between Good and Evil. It is a battle between freedom and enslavement; between light and darkness; between knowledge and propaganda; it pits love, valour, honour against bondage, coercion and hatred. Of small, independent courage versus a vast, narcissistic subjugation of everything under one Dark Power. Is that so very different from everything we speak of and vouch for today?

The Hobbit on stage?

It was with great excitement that I set off this evening to the Festival Theatre down the road. The reason? I was going to watch The Hobbit on stage!

If you’re reading this blog, I’m sure it’s smack-in-the-face obvious that I’m obsessed with Middle-Earth. To such a person, every single adaptation is an occasion to analyse, criticise and moan about the inadequacy of any attempt to tamper with J.R.R Tolkien’s masterpiece. So, when the theatre darkened and the curtain rose, I found myself in the prickly position of being a) a person accustomed to the sophisticated visual realm of Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth b) a person who, having been delving deep into Tolkien’s own thoughts on his work, was inherently prone to guard his work as jealously as he might have himself.

First of all, in light of the fact that Middle-Earth is a place many, many people have their own subjective versions of, it must be horribly daunting for anyone to attempt to visualise it in the most pleasing manner. Add to that the constraints of portraying an entire world on a single stage, and you’ve got yourself a hell of a problem. Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves,Trolls, Orcs, Wizards, skin-changers, giant spiders, complicated battle scenes are only a part of the problem. Bilbo’s ring makes him invisible. In the book, that’s easy enough for the solitary reader to imagine, but how do you make a theatre audience understand? And of course, Smaug. A dragon on stage? Ha!

So, with that being said, I must say that in the end, I left the Festival Theatre a happy person. Sure, I thought the dancing (dwarves dancing?!) was out of place, the battle-scenes a bit blasé (fake arrows!) and Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug (my favourite bit of The Hobbit) was a big let-down. But I was very appreciative of the dwarves, all of whom were extremely, uncharacteristically good-looking. And sure, if I was a young kid, I’d have enjoyed the dancing (though the fact that there was a rather hot man dancing bare-chested made me happy).

But I think what matters in any adaptation is whether it has remained true to the spirit of the book or not. And in this case, Tolkien’s tongue-in-cheek humour, gentle mockery of the reader’s expectations and the comic incongruity of Bilbo’s presence are all very much there. I just wish it had been a bigger stage!

I can’t wait for the Hobbit movie(s)! To spend and evening in going there and back again is, after all, nothing short of perfection for me.

he may be moving slow, but that don’t mean he’s going nowhere

[Broken - Norah Jones]

The sun’s shining brightly outside today. I’m 1000 words down on my first 4000 word essay, and in the hubris of such exceptional accomplishment (the deadline is only next Thursday after all), I’ve been wasting most of today. I had the most vivid dream, full of adventure and running and jumping off cliffs and meeting mysterious men but I don’t remember any of it. It’s a funny thing: one of the biggest reasons I can’t wake up when I mean to is because I’m having such a good dream that I don’t want to get up. I want to see where the dream goes, but, as you know, dreams never really go anywhere so I suppose it’s a wonder I’m ever able to wake up at all!

OOH, I emailed the author of a book on Tolkien I was reading – in a truly geeky manner, I told him all about my thesis and thanked him for writing his book – and he replied! I was utterly shocked. I’ve never had a reply from a real live author before. Yay.

I’ve had a KFC lunch, a nice skype chat with Shilpa, a trip down memory lane (sort of) and laughed my ass off at AIESEC videos on youtube. It all seems so long ago!

AND, tonight, I’m going to watch THE HOBBIT on stage! I’m so excited, as you can tell by the excessive use of capital letters and exclamation marks. Eeee!

ARGH, rant.

So I was super pissed off earlier this evening, comforted myself with finishing my book on Tolkien, and then irritated myself again by reading a review of a collection of essays on Tolkien, which castigated some of the contributors for being idiotic enough to say things like his work needs “intelligent reading but not passionate attention”. Statements like that make me want to throw something, scream or punch someone — none of which, you’ll agree is a rational method of resolving an argument.

It escapes my comprehension though, that in the 21st century, there should still be critics who are self-important and pompous enough not to have read the very text they’re commenting on closely enough to realise that all their accusations are completely and utterly unfounded – a fact they would realise if they would only take the trouble to let the text speak to them, rather than impose their own half-baked, pre-determined notions of what it seeks to say on it!

BAH.

i will go there and back again

Well, after a perfectly horrible meeting with my core course organiser (I’m sure I sounded perfectly moronic), I’ve been at home all afternoon, reading. Okay that’s a lie, I did also watch some One Tree Hill and eat way too much chocolate in the process. But anyway, I’ve been reading the next book on my super long dissertation reading list. This one is Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity by Patrick Curry. As of now–and I’ve only just got done with Chapter 2 — it has been wonderfully written, with a strong critical and theoretical base and a genuine desire, on the author’s part, to do Tolkien justice. Thus far, I’ve read about The Lord of the Rings having inspired ecological protesters, including the founder of Greenpeace; I’ve also read an extract written by a Russian woman, talking about the book’s immense power and popularity in the post-Stalin era.

It struck me that the first (and only) thing I have ever unabashedly, constantly adored, only and wholly for myself alone, is Middle-Earth. Every other thing I’ve done has always been coloured, consciously or subconsciously, by a concern for my personality and its boundaries and reflections. But, and I hate to use a religious analogy, I have been entirely unswerving in my devotion to Tolkien’s work. In moments of clarity, it occurs to me that no one will ever be able to enter into it with me, on equal terms; it is mine.

There is nothing between the text and my self.