Shurely shome mishtake. Obi Wan wasn't played by Christopher Lee but by the
very much greater Alec Guiness. (And never has one seen a performance more
clearly by someone being Wise and Good for a share of the royalties).
For what it's worth I read The Hobbit to my seven year old boys a while back
and thought, yes this is greatly imagined, but oh God it's badly written.
Just count the 'suddenly's. And the whimseys are innumerable. When reading
the Narnia books aloud to them I felt every word counted, even if some of
the words had palpable designs on their souls in a way I find a bit
unpalatable; reading Tolkein I found that not only could I skip clauses,
sentences, and (yes indeed) lots of stanzas of songs, but that I KNEW in
advance which clauses were going to be skippable because of the shape of the
sentences. That all said both of my children have made serious efforts to
read Lord of the Rings for themselves, and games of animal, vegetable,
mineral always turn into games of 'can you remember the name of Frodo's
sword, or of the commander of the elves at helm's deep?'. That can't be bad,
and it may mean that the fussiness critics bring to style does fail to take
account of the fact that big fictions start before the words and go on after
the words. I haven't tried them on Spenser yet (where everyone who likes him
probably sneakingly knows that the poem is bigger than its words), but they
love Beowulf.
And no, I haven't read Beowulf to them in Anglo-Saxon, before you smirk,
Zurcher.
Colin Burrow
Reader in Renaissance and Comparative Literature and Director of Studies in
English,
Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge
CB2 1TA
01223 332483
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www.english.cam.ac.uk/faculty/cburrow/index.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Marshall Grossman
Sent: 19 February 2004 00:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Theorizing J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
I would imagine that C. Lee was chosen for both roles because of his
memorable past portrayal of another nobleman gone bad, Dracula.
At 06:09 PM 2/18/2004, Charles Butler wrote:
>Beth Quitsland wrote:
>
>But has anyone written about
> > the obvious similarities between Gandalf and Obi Wan Kenobe?
>
>They must have, surely. And in the films they were both played by British
>theatrical knights, too - what does that say about Hollywood iconography?
>Having seen the most recent *Star Wars* and *The Two Towers* films pretty
>close together I was even more struck by the characters played by
>Christopher Lee - Saruman and whatever-his-name-was in *SW*: both trusted
>and powerful Jedis/Wizards who had fallen and turned to the Dark Side/Lord.
>Curious typecasting, but it brought out the partial isomorphism of the two
>plots very neatly.
>
>And Philip K. Dick, I would argue, is a
> > science fiction/fantasy writer worth reading with close, appreciative
> > attention, as are Ursula LeGuin and Doris Lessing
>
>I believe there are many fantasy/SF writers worthy of such study (including
>the mother of a distinguished member of this list), but given that the
>fantasy/SF label effectively means automatic disqualification from the
>literary canon they tend not to receive it outside 'genre' courses, be they
>in fantasy, science fiction or children's literature. Margaret Atwood might
>qualify as another partial exception, although I understand that even she
>recently repudiated the SF label in the case of her otherwise-clearly-SF
>*Oryx and Crake*, perhaps fearing that it would be taken less seriously. As
>one who would like to think that Spenser's work was part of a living and
>respected literary heritage I find all this rather sad.
>
> > For the record, I would also poke fun at the launch of *Fletcher
Studies*
> > if its promotional materials claimed that either Giles or Phineas was a
> > "marvellous" poet.
>
>Would cousin John count?
>
>Charlie
Marshall Grossman
Professor of English
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
301 405 9651
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