NP "the ring does in no way represent the bomb"

[jbor]

It's noteworthy that, commenting in the mid-1960s, Tolkien isn't talking
about "authorial intent" either. He's talking about the text. And,
fortunately for him and the work, most readers since that claim was first
made still agree that the text doesn't represent WWII and the bomb: they
still don't receive _TLOTR_ as an allegory, nor do they find the argument
that it should (or must) be received as an allegory a persuasive one.

Likewise with the absurd "racism" claim. Considering the hype and popularity
surrounding the movie at present, Dr Whatsisname's press release (no "work"
in sight) has caused barely a ripple. It was picked up by a couple of
journalists here and there to sell copy, or to see whether it would float,
but it hasn't and it doesn't. Michael Moorcock is a former sci fi author
with a back catalogue (and fantasy trilogy) of his own to move, so it
probably comes as no real surprise to see him endorsing the claim. Apart
from him, most others remain unconvinced. Which, all things considered, is
fair enough too.

"Tolkien claimed not to have invented Middle Earth but to have rediscovered
it, an oft-reported remark. He didn't, in other words, paint the world
around us with a magic brush, he reminded us of the actual magic already
there, against which, happily, the frail bark of symbol seekers will always
founder."

best


> New York Times
> December 30, 2002 
> Middle Earth Enchants a Returning Pilgrim
> By KATHRYN KRAMER
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/30/books/30KRAM.html
> 
> "[...] When I was 13 I read about the trilogy in The
> New York Times, and I was mesmerized, experiencing the
> same astonishment one would on finding a family
> member's name in a newspaper headline. How did they
> know about those books? I read with growing
> incredulity the analysis of the books as an allegory
> in which Sauron's ring represented the bomb, and
> wondered how a reputable paper like The Times could
> sanction such evident absurdity.
> 
> Outraged, as if someone I loved had been accused of
> committing a crime of which I knew he was incapable, I
> sought assurance. It couldn't be true, could it? What
> a cheap, ungentlemanly thing to do. To write about one
> thing but intend another? Tolkien wouldn't do such a
> thing ‹ not this chronicler of hobbits with the
> Elvishlike spelling to his surname and the mysterious
> extra R preceding it ‹ not my Tolkien. So I wrote to
> him again. This time a publishing assistant replied
> that Professor Tolkien had asked him to tell me "most
> positively that the ring does in no way represent the
> bomb."
> I was gratified and perhaps repudiated symbolism
> longer in my literary career than I might otherwise
> have done (though I still haven't disabused myself of
> the conviction that there's something fundamentally
> unsavory about it). As is well known by now, Tolkien
> rejected the notion that anything in his Middle Earth
> represented anything else, and although it's evident
> that the book couldn't have come into existence
> without the two World Wars Tolkien experienced, in the
> first as a participant and in the second as the father
> of one, or without his love of a rural England that
> was being swallowed by suburbs, it may not tell us
> that much about the books or his creation of them to
> know that. We might just as well think of the World
> Wars and industrial pollution as symbolic of the
> battle between the forces of good and evil in Middle
> Earth and the overrunning of the Shire. [...] "
>