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Dec. 8th, 2007 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusA quiet day in the office. As always when I work on Saturdays, I'm listening to CBC, and contemplating campaigning for a memorial statue dedicated to the victims of Brent Bambury's Go.
I'm reading Children of Húrin right now. You have to admire J.R.R. Tolkien -- I hope I have the stamina to keep writing thirty-four years after my death.
As a fantasy novel overall, it's okay so far, but the racism has really astonished me. Not that it's there -- anyone who's read Lord of the Rings as an adult can't miss it -- but as the book was ghostwritten by his son in 2007 from his father's manuscripts, you'd think someone would've pointed out during the editing process that parts of it read like British National Party propaganda.
It's not even just a moral issue but also an artistic one -- it really detracts from the unfolding of a story to predict how good a person is going to be by how pale they are (dark skin = evil, dark hair but white = imperfect or unstable, blond = good).
On the other hand, the way some of the scenes are written, I have to wonder if Christopher Tolkien is playing to a slash-writing audience. I may post some of these another day.
I'm reading Children of Húrin right now. You have to admire J.R.R. Tolkien -- I hope I have the stamina to keep writing thirty-four years after my death.
As a fantasy novel overall, it's okay so far, but the racism has really astonished me. Not that it's there -- anyone who's read Lord of the Rings as an adult can't miss it -- but as the book was ghostwritten by his son in 2007 from his father's manuscripts, you'd think someone would've pointed out during the editing process that parts of it read like British National Party propaganda.
It's not even just a moral issue but also an artistic one -- it really detracts from the unfolding of a story to predict how good a person is going to be by how pale they are (dark skin = evil, dark hair but white = imperfect or unstable, blond = good).
On the other hand, the way some of the scenes are written, I have to wonder if Christopher Tolkien is playing to a slash-writing audience. I may post some of these another day.