Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Tolkien

Hubert is thinking about adventures

I'm not going to say much about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. If you're the sort of person who's going to like them, you already know about them. I didn't actually read the much-read and battered copy of the trilogy in the photo. My parents gave me that one for Christmas in 1977 and I can't bear to get rid of it, but I have a newer copy for reading.

My booklog tells me I last read it through in 2012, a pretty long time for me between readings. When I was a graduate student one of my fellow students told me he was afraid to reread it--he'd liked it so much in high school, but was worried it wouldn't hold up. I was rereading it at the time. That struck me as foolish for several reasons: one, even if it wasn't that good, if he had such a strong reaction to it at one time, it's interesting to look back at who you were; but mostly two, it is that good, and he wasn't wrong to like the book in high school. There are things to be said against it, of course: the female characters are thin, the prose is sometimes archaicizing. Still, it's great. If you have any susceptibility to epic tales of fantasy, it's one of the best.

But what I will particularly mention is E. A. Wyke-Smith's The Marvelous Land of Snergs. I found out about it via Michael Dirda at the Washington Post. On the cover of the Dover Reprint (shown) is a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien, "I should like to record my own love and my children's love of E. A. Wyke-Smith's Marvellous Land of Snergs." Unwanted children are removed to a mysterious land by  Miss Watkyns, leader of the benevolent Society for the Removal of Superfluous Children. Sylvia and Joe find the controlling benevolence of Miss Watkyns a little too much and set off in search of adventures.

It's pretty clear that Tolkien did love the book: Snergs are about eighty percent hobbit and twenty percent dwarf, but Snergs precede both. If you don't know Wyke-Smith, but love Tolkien, you should hunt it up, especially if you're one of those who prefer The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings. It has The Hobbit sense of humor. Unfortunately it seems to be out of print, but my library had that Dover reprint of 2006.

And so while I still intend to read the Decameron, I'm going to call this as a Very Long Classic for Karen's Back to the Classics challenge. It's definitely long and I say it's a classic.


And remember, as (the possibly imaginary) Ernesto says, (on his blog!) Don't settle for any watered-down, derivative Tolking...




8 comments:

  1. I've never even heard of The Marvellous Land of Snergs! But I love that Tolkien loved this book. Makes me want to find a copy and read it for myself. :)

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  2. Ooo. this one sounds like a treasure. Thanks for the introduction; I'm certainly going to keep my eye out for it!

    Ah yes, The Decameron! When are you planning to read it. I still would like to do a read-along of it. Perhaps 2020 ...????

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    1. The Decameron in 2020 could be the answer! I don't think I'll get to it before then in any case.

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  3. i read the trilogy twice in the fifties; it's time for a revisit... i'll look up Snergs: something to look forward to!! tx!

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    1. The Snergs was definitely fun. A bit surprising it's fallen off the radar.

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  4. I had (have maybe still?) that paperback boxed set of LotR. I think, however, it may have gotten lost or borrowed permanently by my younger brother. I now have a hardcover with all three parts bound in one volume, as Tolkien intended. But I have no urge to reread it. I just take it off the shelf and dust it from time to time. If I did ever want to tackle it again, I would borrow it from the library in ebook or audio book form.

    I DO prefer the Hobbit. That I have re-read and I can attest, it does hold up in opinion. Alas my library does not have a copy of The Marvellous Land of Snergs but you never know…sometimes books find their way serendipitously to me. :D

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    1. As for preferring the Hobbit to LOTR, I know they're out there--the Other Reader is actually one, too. ;-) At this point I don't ever read one without the other--I tend to sink in and read all four volumes in order.

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