Quote:
Originally Posted by jackhammer
His son was on a documentary and stated that his father used WW1 as a basis for the book although it wasn't DIRECTLY based upon that. I should have also mentioned that it was also a lament for the pre industrial revolution days of England and his longing for a more genteel, serene period of history.
Why get sick of it? Virtually every artist derives influence from something and it's no coincidence that he began to write while he was serving in WW1. Whether consciously or sub-consciously it must have affected his writing and on that basis, parallels have and always be drawn on this premise whether true or not.
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Exactly, his son is the one that claims all of this stuff. Not Tolkien himself. There were lots of leftover bits and pieces of writing from Tolkien that his son went on to own and put together and publish but everything he says about his father using WWI as a basis etc is just assumptions, not fact.
And, yes, I said that every artist derives influence from something, whether they are aware of it or not. And that is why I get sick of it. Because every work of art has influence from history or past fictions, whether it is subconscious or not. It can be easily seen that LOTR has influences from all over the place - biblical, historical, fictional. But I like taking the fiction for what it is in relation to Tolkien's other works, and for the world that it is that he created, rather than obsessing over what it is mimicking.
I don't know, it is interesting analysing the different influences that novels/artworks have but after a while it just personally gets tiring for me when everybody claims to know what Tolkien's artistic intentions were. It's fine to enjoy knowing where the idea came from but with LOTR fans especially it tends to get a little bit obsessive at times and it just irks me.