Lin Carter, Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings (Ballantine, 1969)
availability: out of print

Forget the title. Carter's book has about as much to do with Lord of the Rings as Silence of the Lambs actually has to do with lambs. They get mentioned now and again, but are really quite unnecessary to what's going on.

Carter's interesting little tome is actually more of an encapsulated history of fantasy literature up to the time of Tolkien-- the sources from which Tolkien got his ideas. LOTR serves as a convenient linchpin and a good jumping-off point, but Carter is truly in his own when he's discussing the Elder Edda or the epics of Homer and his contemporaries, and tracing how the stories got from the ancient texts into Tolkien's hands. It leaves behind a wealth of wonderful reading material for the interested fantasy reader to track down (assuming most of it can be found; Carter laments that many of the works of which he speaks have been lost to the ages), and this is its chief strength. As for weaknesses... well, there really aren't any. Carter spends too much time summing up LOTR when he could be telling us about Egyptian legends, and he makes a number of guesses about things in LOTR, since The Silmarillion hadn't been published yet (and for all its annoyances, The Silmarillion did answer a whole lot of questions about the First Age), but it's impossible to count that against Carter and still remain fair. I'd just liked to have seen more of the old stuff, and less of the new. ***

This book is a fascinating inquiry into the process of making of the greatest fantasy epic of our time. Along with the analyses of Middle Earth's different trends you will find a wealth of fantasy lore about other authors of the time and their works. This is an enchanting book that will make you see fantasy in a completely different light.

It may be difficult to diggest if your are not into Tolkien, and more specifically, if you are not a die-hard fan of The Lord of the Rings. But if you are a fan, not only you will find this book very informative, but you will devour it from cover to cover!

Hobbits, Elves and Wizards is a broad over-view of the Lord of the Rings. In it, Stanton goes over the trilogy, and analyses the patterns in Tolkien's writing, historical relevence, Tolkien's life, and his writing.
The book is divided into two parts, and each cover different things. The first half covers the trilogy itself. There are six chapters, one for each of the books in the Lord of the Rings. In each chapter, he points out similarities between scenes, how the characters are progressing, and the geography.
The second half covers the races of Middle Earth, Languges, and Good and Evil, and how they play a role in the story.

Overall, this is a fairly good read, if you are not a die-hard Tolkien fan. Stanton was a UVM (University of Vermont) professor, and taught LOTR for a long time. This is his reactions and conclusions from the books, presented in a book form. It reads like he's there talking in front of you.
But if you are familiar with the Lord of the Rings, this book will just be a reiteration of what you can get out of the books yourself.
The only gripes I had about the book are the signifagance of the Gray Havens, for I would have liked to know more, The Hobbit. This book does not cover it, but it would be good to see in included. Some of Stanton's conclusions are a little off. At one point in the trilogy, Gollum is fantasizing at taking over the world, while Stanton says that he is not ambitious. He could have explained that more.
Also, the hardcover edition was released before the Fellowship of the Ring movie was released. The paperback version has his own comments on the movie, but not in the hardcover.

Even for Tolkien or Lord of the Rings fans, this in a good read about the style and writings of Tolkien.

Informative for the novice only. If you've read LOTR more than twice, pass on this, as you likely will learn little.

This book comes across as the ultimate college English term paper on Tolkien: all the basic lit-class analysis you could possibly want. Prof. Stanton has been teaching Tolkien to undergraduates for many years, and the voice of this book is that of the competent but uninspired freshman-lit teacher, analytically keen but prone to overgeneralization, and hazier than he thinks in his grasp of the facts in a complex novel.
Normally I'd be the last person to object to intelligent scholarly analysis. But this well-meaning book shows the harm it can do. Stanton is so diligent in ferreting out the subtlest threads and connections from =LotR= and laying them out clearly that he sucks all the life out of them, leaving them drab and dead on the page, and denying readers the joy and the vividness of discovering them for themselves.
Stanton makes several good points, and has observed many obscure connections and even loose ends in =LotR=, but that doesn't keep him from stating questionable facts, often through overgeneralization, or highly doubtful interpretations, on almost every page. A good example is his statement that mellifluous languages are spoken by good people and harsh, guttural languages are spoken by bad people. This claim is usually made with the intent (which is not Stanton's) of denigrating Tolkien, and it's not true anyway (what about Dwarvish?).
This book, despite its good points, should on no account be read by anyone who's just finished =LotR= for the first or even second time, and the true newcomer shouldn't even glance in its direction. It should only be read by those with a deep experience and knowledge of =LotR=, who won't be spoiled by it but might still learn something; and, perhaps, by English lit students desperate for term paper topics the night before the deadline.

I confess-- I have something in common with most of the Rt. Rev. Spong's fans. Like them, I've read very little of what he's written. (For example, "Can A Bishop Be Wrong" has two five-star reviews from Spong fans who are under the impression that Spong wrote this book-- apparently, they feel comfortable praising Spong's work sight-unseen).
Don't get me wrong. I've tried to read Spong for a seminary class. But, alas, the Rt. Rev. S. is a ghastly writer. After a while, the charms of Spong's writing-- his relentless self-congratulation, his presenting of hackneyed 19th-century pop-biblical-criticism as his own daring innovation, his use of the passive voice to hide sweeping and questionable assertions ("...there is surprise at how insignificant were the theological issues dividing the two sides [of the Reformation]"), his utter lack of a sense of humor, his unforgivably poor skill with words-- begin to pall. I haven't yet met someone who can read an entire chapter of Spong at one sitting.

That's where another book comes in handy- "Can a Bishop Be Wrong?". The authors don't exhaustively categorize the intellectual sins of the Rt. Rev. Spong-- such a task could never be worth the trees killed. But they provide a good survey of his looking-glass kingdom. "Can A Bishop Be Wrong" isn't a work of Christian apologetics, because it doesn't have to be. Spong's main contention-- the foundation of all his work-- is his claim that no intelligent person of the twentieth century can be an orthodox Christian. To respond, one doesn't have to prove Christianity-- one just has to provide a counterexample. This book categorizes his errors and logical lapses with admirable thoroughness. Not an exhaustive thoroughness, to be sure, but sufficient to the silly task at hand.

This book has its flaws. As others have noted, it is a collection of essays, and they repeat some of the same points over and over. The authors sometimes let Spong goad them into anger. And they don't argue much against Spong's theological outlook-- but since Spong's outlook is just rehashed nineteenth-century "modernism", you can find plenty of orthodox arguments against heavier intellectual forces than Spong. (Try Chesterton's _The_Everlasting_Man_, for starters.)

This book has a limited market. Spong's fans will not be moved by what they read here, if they were inclined to try reading it. But to the traditional theist of whatever religion, who wonders whether he ought to read Spong and find out what all the fuss is about, this book offers a strong and well-reasoned answer: "Nope."

Another thought provoking book. Over the years I have faced the questions I have had about the myth vs the reality of the man people call Jesus Christ.

Like Bishop Spong I believe most of the message that Jesus taught, which was philosophical and not religious has been totally lost and in fact the very things that Jesus warned against have in fact become a reality. He warned people, or at least tried to warn people, to use their own brains and not rely on power hungry leaders be they secular or religious. That G-d and only G-d is our source and that all things work for good to those who love G-d. He never ever taught that there was a trinity. He never ever taught that some people G-d loved and some he did not.

The Jesus Bishop Spong discovered and who many of the rest of us have discovered is a fully human, passionate, and evolved person. Who respected women, who wasn't afraid of being with people that the pious types considered unworthy. The Jesus who said "What you do to the least of them you do to me".

It would be nice if the closed minded or fearful types would read the book and simply have their beliefs tested.

Anyone holding to an orthodox Christian faith should read this to understand the prevailing post-modern thinking about Jesus Christ, which Spong embodies so well as he follows in the tradition of Bultmann, Tillich and, more recently, John A.T. Robinson.

His thesis is basically that Christ makes one "free to be, free to live, free to love." Spong's bibliography includes "I'm OK, You're OK." While most clergy desire to grow up to be like Luther or Augustine or St. Paul, my guess is that Spong wishes he would have been born as Copernicus, Darwin, or Freud, three men whom he seems to regard higher than any Christian thinker.

Spong fails in several areas. He misuses the whole notion of Jewish midrash (read Jacob Neusner's "Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism"); he relies heavily on the theology of a man (Robinson) who mistranslates the Greek New Testament; and he makes some simply incredible statements (I won't spoil the surprises for you).

What serious Christians need to take away from this book is this: post-modernists think that the New Testament is a Jewish, apocalyptic vision/midrashic construct, and that Jesus of Nazareth was an incredibly self-actualized man (but merely a man, mind you) who lived out what he "thought" was his Messianic mission (Spong never does quite address how Jesus manages to get himself crucified between two criminals as prophecy predicted).

Read this book, then read II Peter 2, and then go out into the world and make disciples of all nations. Spong won't slow you down any.

i tried and TRIED to get interested in this book but to no avail. could not hold my interest. too shallow.

This book follows along with the storyline of the Lord of the Rings and is helpful in pointing out both + and - virtues within characters and/or their development of those characteristics. It might be esp. helpful to those who want to teach the books in a scholastic setting, including home schooling, so that children can see virtue in action. I would recommend it also for the person who simply wants to enjoy the epic more and see some of the thematic elements he/she might be missing.

This is quite light reading; it isn't a major philosophical treatise. However, even with that being true, it draws the readers' attention to choices made by characters in novels, to choices that people may need to make in their own lives, (and these are realistically balanced against frequent occurrence in day-to-day life), and virtues that Tolkien included in his novels. The Lord of the Rings is considered sensu lato, (including the Hobbit). Some of these virtues may even have been included by Tolkien unconsciously, but this is a useful perspective on virtue.

Someone used the word snippet to describe what is included in this production; it is a good term. So, snippet it is; but what has been included gives no introduction, no explanation, no explication, no nothing. The tape is of different bits of Shakespeare's plays which run rapidly into each other. To get any fair use out of this work the listener needs to sit with a printed copy of the complete works sitting on his or her lap otherwise the whole exercise is meaningless. Shakespeare requires understanding what is being said in context. This tape would be better served if it included a brief introduction regarding which play the snippet came from and how the dialog ties in with the action. Without this information only those who have read all the plays will not be lost. There are not many who can claim that background. So, as a stand-alone audio, for most of us, this tape is a sad waste.

I want buy this produce and i curiositied how it?

I own this on cassette, and hope that it will soon be released on CD.

I play it almost every 3 months or so especially as I search for new audition monologues.
It is a great way to hear various interpretations of speeches, snippets from some of the more less performed plays (Henry VIII and Coriolanus are two examples), and some of the theater's best actors in their finest roles.

Highly recommend

Most of us know Tolkien was a Christian, and some of us Tolkien-ites know that he didn't want allegories in his book...he wanted them to be more subtle. But he just couldn't help it, and some good stuff got put in there anyway!

Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware's book attempts to highlight some of the positive attributes of Tolkien's Rings trilogy, but sadly fall short, in my opinion. There's discussion of happiness, contentedness, loyalty, all that stuff. But the book ends there, having discussed only these "nice" qualities.

In my opinion, God can be found in much deeper ways in LotR than just the positive human goodness. One of the analogies that I've heard brought out of the books is the fact that Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn constitute the Priest, Prophet and King, the three offices of Christ. (Frodo bears the Sin [Ring] away from the others, Gandalf can obviously be thought of as a prophet, and Aragorn as the King)

There are many other analogies that one can find, if one examines closely, the works of Tolkien, and this book only scratches the surface. I sure hope someone else writes a more in-depth look at the books so everybody doesn't lump The Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia in with Harry Potter and stuff like that...there is a difference!

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote THE LORD OF THE RINGS because he wanted to write a good story. That's a huge generalization, but it's true. Now, Tolkien said time and again that THE LORD OF THE RINGS was not an allegory of any kind, but he never denied that his beliefs and values played a part in the saga's creation. Tolkien was a devout Christian (Catholic in denomination) and his faith was very real and was the essence of who he was. Therefore, though THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not an allegory, it is full of Christian images and ideals.

FINDING GOD IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS attempts to illuminate some of those Christian values found in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Unfortunately, the book never dives far enough into Tolkien's writing. There are many images, characters, and events that the author's could have examined concerning the Christian faith, but didn't. It's also really short, I read the whole book in about an hour. Therefore, it works best as a devotional for any Tolkien fan. It also works well as an introduction for any parent or other adult concerned about the goodness of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

This is one of the best books on the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien ever written. Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware show with great skill and integrity how a Biblical and Christ-centered perspective helps to illuminate literary works such as Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. This book is a more than adequate demonstration that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise...That no flesh should glory in his presence" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). For all who have read and enjoyed such "foolish things" as Tolkien's fiction and for all who are leery of the fantasy genre I thoroughly recommend this book. May this book be a means of leading one to the recognition that the Bible is the word of God and that it is only through Jesus Christ that we can find true and everlasting happiness.

What can be better than reading the three greatest books--"The Fellowship of the Ring," "The Two Towers," and "The Return of the King"--ever written? Having a leather-bound volume with all three together is better. If you are a fan of the books or you have a loved one that is, this is the best edition to own. It has a big fold-out map in the back for reference, all the references you can think of, and a really neat red leather cover. I have had this edition for 20 years and it's still in excellent condition. Well worth the cost.

Outside of The Bible, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is simply the best book written in all of time. On a scale of 1 - 10 it is a 100. Nothing in any genre has ever been written better. Originally designed as a six-book, three-volume work, the wonderful people at Houghton Mifflin Company have published the books in an awesome one-volume, leather-bound collector's edition for easy reading (and many re-readings). I am only sixteen, but I am constantly reading, and let me tell you now that nobody beats Tolkien; and nothing beats The Lord of the Rings! Read this book and join the largest group of fans to ever walk the earth.

The story is just as beautiful as it was years ago when I read it for the first time. It needs no further review.

For those who are looking for an attractive, permanent edition, this is it. The fifty Alan Lee paintings are gorgeous, and the more you look at them the more you realize how carefully Lee put them together to remain faithful to the vision and the detail of the text. It's obvious he loved the books as much as the rest of us do. A keeper.

Arthur C. Clarke is most well-known for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey; Lord Dunsany for his fantastic The King of Elfland's Daughter and serving as a primary influence for H.P. Lovecraft. For such gifted writers, this correspondance is remarkably dull - mostly an eager, young, as-yet-unpublished Clarke fawning to his hero, who seems grateful for the attention. This collection is well-meaning but almost completely meritless.

Fenbug needs to get hir facts straight. Arthur C. Clarke was already a published author when he began to correspond with Lord Dunsany in 1944, and by 1956 -- the last year of their correspondence -- Clarke had published some of his best classic fiction, most notably Childhood's End (1953).

If engaging in reasoned dialogue on topics as fascinating as space exploration and imaginative literature is "fawning," then so be it.

This book is a valuable resource for literary scholars, fans of Clarke and/or Dunsany, and anyone with an interest in the early years of the Space Age. Keith Allen Daniels is to be commended for his editorial and publishing acumen, and for his understanding of the importance of these letters.

Lord Acton (1834-1902), usually regarded as one of the most eminent Victorians, has largely eluded thorough analysis because of the formidable problems facing the biographer. Any definitive study must involve examination of the vast pile of Acton miscellany gathered at the Cambridge University Library, travel to several European archives (and concomitant facility in French, German and Italian) and an understanding of some fairly arcane problems of 19th century Catholic dogma. Roland Hill contends successfully with all these factors in this excellent study.

Still, students of Church history, or of 19th century Britain may well wonder if Hill's efforts were justified. Acton was born into the English Catholic aristocracy; he had all the advantages of social standing, money (for most of his life), connections and education. Yet, he failed to capitalize on any of these factors to leave a lasting mark on his age.

As a Catholic polemicist, Acton mounted campaigns against the temporal power of the Pope and the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, topics of little interest during the last 150 years. A man of undeniable erudition and learning, Acton assembled an immense private library and conducted research in dozens of Continental archives, but never published a book. A member of Parliament, Acton spoke only three times in the House in more than six years. Although appointed Regius Professor of History at Cambridge (1895), he neither started nor influenced any school of historians and his participation in the "Cambridge Modern History" was too short-lived to have had any effect. As a fairly close friend of Gladstone, Acton might have had some influence on the policies of the great Prime Minister, but if he did, even Hill's assiduous research has failed to disclose any direct link between Acton's ideas and Gladstone's actions.

Even after a careful and charitable reading, it is difficult to agree with Hill's assessment that "it is not paradoxical to admire [Acton] for books he never wrote or for what he tried to do rather than for what he succeeded in achieving." (p. 410). One can, though, admire Hill's thorough, careful and thoughtful study, and still conclude that his talents as a biographer would have been better expended on a more suitable subject.

This is the first major biography of Lord Acton since mid-century. This remarkable historian, Catholic dissident, and philosopher of freedom was in many ways the very epitome of the erudite Victorian scholar. That is, he was _so_ learned, that the present-day reader should distrust any reviewer, including the present one, who presumes to encapsulate and classify him in a few easy paragraphs.

There's little danger of that from me. This book tells the story of Acton's life and career, and I must admit that, so far as judging the work of author and subject, my hat's simply off to them. It is interesting reading about things like Acton's near-excommunication from the Catholic Church, because of his opposition in 1870 to the new doctrine of papal infallibility, and then his continued devotion to the Church. His private correspondence with contemporaries, debating the great issues of the day, particulary freedom, make for bracing reading.

His ideas in private circulation, rather than his parliamentary career or written output, carry his fame today. His magnum opus, _History of Liberty_, was never written. The only bits of it that made it to completion were two lectures, "The History of Freedom in Antiquity", and "The History of Freedom in Christianity." Disappointingly, these and a couple of other short writings are only excerpted here--they are brief enough to have been put in an appendix of this big book. Fortunately, they can be read at the Acton Institute's website.

By the way, it was Acton who coined the phrase, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

John Kerr was a Judge and later Governor General of Australia. He is famous as he was Governor General during Australias Constitutinal crisis of 1975. On that occasion there was a deadlock between the conservative controlled senate and the labour controlled house of representatives. The Labour party lead by Gough Whitlam had just been forced to an election the previous year by the conservatives and were not keen to go again especially as the economy was not in good shape.

Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Government installed the conservative leader Fraser and called an election. The decision was controversial at the time as it was thought by some that the conservatives would give in and in dismissing Whitlam when he did Kerr handed the conservaties a massive electoral advantage.

More recently Kelly in his book 1975 has critized Kerr on other grounds. That is in his view the failure to comunicate with Whitlam was a serious error.

After teh events Whitlam put out a book attacking Kerr not only for his decision but attacking him as a person suggesting that he was a drunk and a social crawler. This is Kerr's response.

Unfortunately Kerr did not have the gift of the light quip or even the light anything. The book is written in leaden prose and in a tone that is hard to like. It probably now would only be of interest to historians or people who have a high boredom tolerance.

Following the writing of this book, Kerr who had a slight problem with alcohol and who gave a speech at the Melbourne Cup obviously very drunk went into exile moving to Europe.

The social damage done by this episode in Australia's history was repared by the success of the Hawke Labour government and by the parties electoral success in Queensland.

This is not a review, I would simply point out that this book should be linked with the former Australian PM, Gough Whitlam, as the author of Matters for Judgement is the one who dismissed Whitlam.