Tolkien's 'poor' prose

[Ranes]

Now I don't take much issue with this but I post the link because I suspect others may be interested.

JRR Tolkien's Nobel prize chances dashed by 'poor prose' | Books | guardian.co.uk

The comments below the article are worth a read, too, I think.

 

[Jack7]

Tolkien, Forster, Greene, Frost, even Ivo Andrić will long outlive Österling.

An incompetent critic does not an Artist make, or unmake.

 

[jonesy]

The part about Robert Frost was a lot more interesting. A poet can be too old to win a Nobel? That's crazy.

 

[Mark CMG]

He seems to have found an audience anyway.

 

[jonesy]

He seems to have found an audience anyway.

Funny, but are there any who've gotten a Nobel without first having an audience?

 

[Mark CMG]

Funny, but are there any who've gotten a Nobel without first having an audience?

Check the wiki of Nobel winners and then google a few names you think to be obscure. It's an interesting question.

 

[jonesy]

Check the wiki of Nobel winners and then google a few names you think to be obscure. It's an interesting question.

Hmm. The pure scientists can all be excluded, I think. You have to get through peer review to even be considered. Which means you have to be published and read.

At least, ideally:
Nobel Prize controversies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Which leaves Economics, Peace, and Literature. Economists receive Nobels very late after their work has been through critique, so they're out. You can't get a Peace prize without affecting a large quantity of people, so they're out too.

But the only requirements of the Literature prize are that the nominators are Nobel Committee qualified, and the Committee thinks the nominated worthy.

So I guess technically you could get a Literature Nobel without having sold a single article of your work. You just need the nominators to notice you. But looking at the winners list I don't think that fits anyone.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've never been a big fan of JRRT's prose, but I love his stories.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Yes, very poor prose:


"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will, but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

 

[Elf Witch]

I know I will be in the minority here but I kind of agree that a lot of the prose was second rate.

Some of it especially the songs and poems were fantastic but a lot of the dialogue was just so so.

I admire his creation and what it contributed to the genre but I found the books tedious to get through in a lot of places. I read them because I thought I should not because I enjoyed them.