winner wins movie memorabilia!!

[Master Peregrin]

:)

Hello. How are you? I'm brain-storming ideas for an essay. It's about uses made of landscape in LORD, and in film, art and music responses to the book. Any ideas? Any sweeping panoramic statements (with elaborations and examples)? :p The owner of the idea that most affects me wins a ticket to the opening day screening of The Two Towers in Brisbane, Australia on January 18, 2003! It's in reasonably good condition (several creases).

Thank-you so much for your time. :)

[Master Peregrin]

If you have a completely random observation to make about the use of landscapes in Lord of the Rings please feel free to jot it down for me. Anything at all. Even just one word.

[Master Peregrin]

there are mountains everywhere in the book. Why?

[Eledhwen]

I have read several 'fantasy' style books, complete with map in the front, but only when reading Tolkien's do I get a real feel for the country. The height of the mountains, the flow of the rivers and the distant lands are all skilfully played into the story and into my imagination. For instance, Raymond Feist uses landscape, but describes it pitifully, so I get no feel for anywhere other than the immediate scene. This is part of the greatness of Tolkien's storytelling - that he can give this impression, so much that if I was parachuted into Middle Earth, I feel I would soon recognise where I was and be able to find my way to other places that I feel I already know.

I have been told that the Dead Marshes were probably built from horrific post-battle recollections from the Somme, where Tolkien fought in WWI. And I know (because Tolkien said it) that his beautiful ravenhaired wife danced around a woodland glade near Roos in Yorkshire, and inspired him to write the tale of Luthien. The Shire was inspired by the England that was fast disappearing while Tolkien was a boy in Sarehole, Birmingham (where the inspiration for Sandyman's mill still stands).

The most obvious landscape responses to the book (apart from PJ's offering and Howard Shore's music) is in the Warhammer games. There are several websites where people are happy to share how they make their Warhammer LotR terrains, though I don't see much that resembles Middle Earth to me; my vision of it is too big I think! try www.cthulhu52.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk for one (scenarios).

[Master Peregrin]

Very impressed with your reply. I like the idea that:

"...if I was parachuted into Middle Earth, I feel I would soon recognise where I was..."

It confirms Tolkien's success in making a world that really exists. The landscapes I see when out driving or hiking remind me of places in Middle-Earth. Any place where the land looks like its undergone a bit of enchantment seems to me like a relic Tolkien's ancient world. If I want to describe a landscape to someone, I can say something like: "it looked like the Shire, with touches of Rohan, and was surrounded by Mordor-like peaks" and they will form a satisfactory image of the place.

[Eledhwen]

"it looked like the Shire, with touches of Rohan, and was surrounded by Mordor-like peaks" and they will form a satisfactory image of the place.I usually say this sort of thing to people who haven't a clue what I'm on about :rolleyes: - would you believe that my own brothers and sisters haven't read Tolkien or seen the film? We're all over 40, so they have no excuse.

I have worked out that (given that Oxford is Hobbiton) I live near the border between the South and West Farthings, south of Michael Delving.

"There are mountains everywhere in the book. Why?"Mountains are beautiful. Tolkien appreciated beauty. He also loved trees. A snow-capped mountain peeking out from behind a forest with the sunset tinting the snowy peaks pink, and the whole scene reflected in the still waters of a lake. Where else would you want to be?

If you can get hold of a copy of the Letters of JRR Tolkien, a careful search of the index (if you don't want to read the book through) can tell you a lot about the reasons Tolkien wrote what he did.

BTW, I don't collect Tolkien movie memorabilia ;)

[Master Peregrin]

I'd like to get the Letters of JRR. I would particularly like to see what he says about mountains. I heard his first experience of mountains was a trip to Switzerland after he'd finished high school. He and his companions were caught out on a high ridge somewhere and nearly perished, which probably imprinted mountains deeply into his imagination. It has been suggested that this experience was the basis for the drama on Caradhras. I'm reading LOTR now with mountains in mind and find them mentioned with a kind of fanatical frequency. From Underhill to Mt Doom, by way of Weathertop, Moria, The Haunted mountain, mountains are a constant frame for the story. And Bilbo right at the beggining of the book tells Gandalf how he wants to see "real mountains" again, like his old friend The Lonely Mountain.

I understand the story as an epic needs epic-scale obstacles for the heros to surmount and mountains are an obvious choice, but Tolkien really likes them, you can see it in the way they are focused on and lingered over.
I was told he uses them as a recurring symbol of the story's theme of little people winning against far larger powers, but I think the man really just wanted readers to feel what he felt about mountains.


Just as well, I think I've lost the memorabilia anyway. :(