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'Inferior' writing cost Tolkien Nobel prize

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Newtown-Fella
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« on: January 07, 2012, 12:41:08 pm »

just because its become a blockbuster film doesnt mean the writing was ok ....

the books were rewritten for the films anyway ....

ive never read the books or intend to so cant comment on the good or the bad ....

One of the world's best-loved writers was rejected for the Nobel prize because his storytelling was not up to scratch.

JRR Tolkien, writer of cult classics The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, was rejected for a Nobel prize in literature in 1961 after being nominated by his friend and fellow fantasy author CS Lewis, writer of the Narnia books.

A jury member for the Nobel panel said Tolkien "has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality".

The rejection was made public 50 years after Tolkien was turned down, when the archive for the Nobel committee's 1961 deliberations was opened this week.

Nobel decisions remain classified for 50 years, at which stage the archive for that year is opened in the Nobel library in the Swedish capital of Stockholm.

That year the jury also passed over names including Robert Frost, Graham Greene, EM Forster and Lawrence Durrell. The eventual winner was Yugoslav writer Ivo Andric.

Victoria University literature professor Harry Ricketts said it was telling that Tolkien had become so celebrated, while Andric was relatively unknown to most.

"Tolkien is still very much a prominent writer, but what people sometimes object to is that he writes in such an old-fashioned or pastiche sort of way."

But despite Tolkien's style of prose, how well his stories had been adapted for film showed the strength of his storytelling, Prof Ricketts said. "The fact that he has converted so successfully to film is an argument in favour of Tolkien's ability to tell a story."

However, there was an undercurrent of thought that writers who were popular with adolescents were not suitable Nobel prize winners, he said.

"I think that one of the objections to Tolkien is the idea that he wasn't quite an adult writer. The concept was that he wasn't properly grown up and that a taste for him wasn't a grown-up taste."

The literary world had become far more accepting since then. "Provided it is well done, adults can read so-called adolescent writing with as much engagement and reward as any other form of writing. Tolkien's legacy is a clear example of that."

Snubbed by Nobel

Tolkien is in good company. Other leading writers who never won a Nobel prize for literature include:

Jorge Luis Borges

Graham Greene

Anthony Powell

Marcel Proust

James Joyce

Robertson Davies

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/6223932/Inferior-writing-cost-Tolkien-Nobel-prize

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guest49
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« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2012, 12:57:21 pm »

I have read The Hobbit and the Lord Of The Rings a number of times - they are a magnificent effort and always were, decades before the films.

The Hobbit was written as a bedtime story for his children as I recall - the Lord of the Rings as a sequel, during and immediately after WWII.
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AnFaolchudubh
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2012, 05:02:59 pm »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings

not that you can believe everything in wikipedia
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Stupid people are not an endangered species so why are we protecting them
R. S. OhAllmurain
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« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2012, 05:33:14 pm »

I suspect that anything readable by the general public or worse still children would not have won a Nobel prize at that point in time.

In otherwords the arts community can be really up themselves at times. Being commercially viable is almost a no no.
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The way politicians run this country a small white cat should have no problem http://sally4mp.blogspot.com/

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