A New (communist) Lord of the Rings Book?

[Revolutionair]

I am sorry that I don't have an English source, but I will translate some pieces from this site:
http://www.depers.nl/cultuur/568833/Ring-die-alle-ringen-bindt-blijkt-een-groot-verzinsel.html



En, zo blijkt, dat wist Gandalf ook, de tovenaar die het verhaal rond de ring handig gebruikt om verschillende volkeren achter zijn strijd met Mordor te krijgen. Realpolitiker Gandalf voorziet namelijk dat de industriële revolutie die Mordor doormaakt op den duur het magisch denken van de feodale plattelandsbevolkingen van Gondor, Rohan en andere koninkrijkjes zal aantasten, en daarmee zijn machtsbasis als tovenaar.
And it appears that Gandalf, the wizard who uses the myth of the ring to rally the forces for his own gain. Gandalfs realpolitiks make him realize that the industrial revolution in Mordor will destroy the magical thinking of the peasantry in the feudal kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan. This would make him lose his powerbase as a wizard.The book, I think, is available here:
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html

edit:
I haven't read it myself yet, so I am not sure whether it really is communist or not, but the Dutch review sounds promising.

[DDR]

I read it, a really good book indeed, but more than communist I would say is more tecnocrat. The book is told by the perspective of two orks after the defeat of Sauron, putting in their view the struggle. The story of the book is more industrialism (the forges and mines of Isengard and Mordor) vs. primitivism (the feudal societies of the humans and the tree hugging stuff of the elves).

[Revolutionair]

Ah thanks comrade. I'll start reading it this Friday.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

If this is a pro-communist revision of LotR, I think this is a disgrace.
Tolkien put no left or right politic analogies in his books, although you could argue Sauron is a fascist.

The whole work of the Tolkien mythos is a masterpiece, and should not be destroyed by some idiot.

[Tablo]

If this is a pro-communist revision of LotR, I think this is a disgrace.
Tolkien put no left or right politic analogies in his books, although you could argue Sauron is a fascist.

The whole work of the Tolkien mythos is a masterpiece, and should not be destroyed by some idiot.
This new creation is like a tribute to Tolkien so I don't see the big deal. I won't read it, but I think stuff like this sounds like fun.

[VeritablyV]

Tolkiens mythos is a masterpiece and it should remain with him and not be capitalized, so to speak, off of.

[charley63]

I've been a Tolkien fan since like 6th grade, but I do think good fantasy can withstand some deconstruction. I just watched the first extended DVD last weekend, and am working my way through them again.

I would find this new take pretty amusing and perhaps thought-provoking. I don't get why people fetishize literature, or any cultural product, into some sort of sancrosanct entity. It's a damn novel, written for profit.

I gave up treating any text like scripture over a decade ago.

[Rufio]

If this is a pro-communist revision of LotR, I think this is a disgrace.
Tolkien put no left or right politic analogies in his books, although you could argue Sauron is a fascist.

The whole work of the Tolkien mythos is a masterpiece, and should not be destroyed by some idiot.
Man, I still like the books a lot but Tolkein was a very conservative, Catholic, anti-industrialisation - basically hugely reactionary, and it's all there in the books.

This just seems to be a critique of those values (while probably still have a fondness for the books despite this). Not the first by any means to go down this line either.

[Agent Ducky]

My brother said at the end of the last book Saruman goes into the Shire and starts redistributing stuff or something making some sort of pseudo-failed communist state? I haven't actually read it, but that's kinda how he described it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've been a Tolkien fan since like 6th grade, but I do think good fantasy can withstand some deconstruction. I just watched the first extended DVD last weekend, and am working my way through them again.

I would find this new take pretty amusing and perhaps thought-provoking. I don't get why people fetishize literature, or any cultural product, into some sort of sancrosanct entity. It's a damn novel, written for profit.

I gave up treating any text like scripture over a decade ago.

I've always had this kind of fantasy that fan-fiction would develop a sort of conscious left-wing where people would take these kind of popular works and do political riffs on them or things like this story seems to try to do.

Of course the mainstream sees things like this as a threat and a transgression against art like someone tagging their name over the ceiling of the Sistine chapel or something... but then if you "own the rights" then it's all fair to sell the novel to a movie company to re-interpret or hire some hack to take a Dickens novel and throw in some zombies or monsters and re-sell it.

Good art outlives poor misrepresentations or distorted iterations of it - irregardless if these versions are illegal-fan-produced tributes or a legal mega-blockbuster remake by Hollywood. Shakespeare or any play doesn't have an original "aura" so Shakespeare has been reworked, redone, remade, ripped-off and everthing else you can do to it and people still get something out of the primary text anyway.

I say there's nothing wrong with reboots, remakes, and even knock-offs, the real questions is why is an art-word being reworked or redone. Is it our reboot or theirs:lol:?

[Blake's Baby]

Well, given that LotR was written by a horrible old reactionary, Catholic and monarchy-loving squirarchist and racist (and I say that as a huge fan of Tolkien's work) then I think this sounds awesome, except that it meansd the version that I've been working on from a similar pro-orc, anti-western-warmonger perspective will now look like a rip off of this. Damn.

EDIT: this is the last thread about how reactionary LotR is... http://www.revleft.com/vb/lord-rings-reactionaryi-t150008/index.html

[Tablo]

Yeah, Tolkien was a reactionary, but he was one fucking awesome storyteller! :thumbup1:

[Os Cangaceiros]

Y'know, out of all the threads about how incredibly reactionary Tolkein and LOTR supposedly is, the only things that I've found to be conclusively against Tolkein are 1) he was a Catholic, 2) he supported the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War (because he heard the reports that Catholic priests were being executed), and 3) he was a nostalgist of some sort. That's pretty much it.


I read it, a really good book indeed, but more than communist I would say is more tecnocrat. The book is told by the perspective of two orks after the defeat of Sauron, putting in their view the struggle. The story of the book is more industrialism (the forges and mines of Isengard and Mordor) vs. primitivism (the feudal societies of the humans and the tree hugging stuff of the elves).

The dwarves (part of the allied coalition against Sauron) were involved in mining, too.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, and the Dwarves because they work with their hands and are impressed by making things are corruptable. In the many and varied amounts of backstory, the Dwarves are accused of sometimes siding with Melkor and Sauron. When Sauron gives them the Seven Rings, they are further corrupted (unlike the Elves with the Three Rings). Not as much as Men, true. Furthermore, Dwarves are also 'on the way out'. Their greatest city - Moria - is a tomb inhabited by demons, their own attempts to take doomed to failure. They play little part in the action of the War of the Ring, except for some notes that Dain fought bravely in defence of Erebor. The Dwarves are also traditionalists and monarchists - all Dwarves have a king. Furthermore, the Dwarves are not even part of Illuvater's creation - they were created independently by Aule the Smith-God (in his creative pride), who was also the 'big heavenly boss' of both Sauron and Saruman. If the Orcs are the rebellious lower orders (yes, the Orcs represent the fearful power of the industrial working class) then the Dwarves represent the more 'noble' traditionalist workers, even the petty-bourgeoisie (artizan classes and whatnot).

Read the Lord of the Rings. Think about what the chaeracters represent. Frodo - lives in a big house with inherited wealth. Aristocrat. Pippin - son of the Thain (lord). Aristocrat. Merry - son of the Master of Buckland. Aristocrat. Sam - son of a gardener. Salt of the Earth type fellow who's as bright as a potato and twice as useful. Aragorn - an exiled king. Aristocrat. Boromir - son of a hereditary ruler. Aristocrat, but not a proper one so he dies. Legolas - son of a king. Aristocrat. Gimli - son of a king's cousin. Minor aristocrat, who doesn't make anything even though that's what Dwarves 'do'.

Baddies - mostly work in factories, and talk with rough, common voices. And they're ugly, foreign, black, and have slanty eyes. They also have little courage for fighting the men of the west. They even (oh, the horror) discuss deserting from the armies they're conscripted into.

Women - well, mostly the women are dead. Frodo's mother - dead. Bilbo's mother similarly in the Hobbit - dead. Aragorn's mother - dead. Boromir's mother - dead. Legolas & Gimli's mothers - never even mentioned. Arwen - hardly appears, turns up as Aragorn's prize near the end. Her mother (Celebrian) is dead too. Galadriel is alive but her daughter is dead. There are no mothers-and-daughters in Tolkien's works, because women are sinful. He can't let that Catholic thing go.

Anyway I'm bored of this. Hobbits like books full of things they already know. That's why there are no communist hobbits.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Good god more of this bullshit....I for one cannot imagine Tolkein sitting down and consciously going,"Okay,the orc will represent black people,and I will have all my characters be allegories for rich people-except the poor ones,they can be buffoons!" and so on ad so forth...honestly,its just over-thinking a master work of fantasy by people who have way too much free time on their hands.

[Tim Finnegan]

My brother said at the end of the last book Saruman goes into the Shire and starts redistributing stuff or something making some sort of pseudo-failed communist state? I haven't actually read it, but that's kinda how he described it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Quite the opposite, actually- he develops industry, buys up half the land, and binds all the Hobbits in wage slavery. Saruman is a bourgeois wizard (and there's a phrase that you really couldn't use in any other context... ;)).


Well, given that LotR was written by a horrible old reactionary, Catholic and monarchy-loving squirarchist and racist
Tolkien's politic are actually more nuanced than he's often given credit for. If you don't take the obvious route of assuming his work as a heartfelt paean to feudal monarchy, he appears to have held some sort of stateless or near-stateless distributism up as an ideal, albeit with a bit of a fetish for sacral kingship. Reactionary, sure, but in a sort of romantic, middle-class-Luddite way, rather than the white nationalist quasi-fascism that people are all too quick too attribute to him.


I've always had this kind of fantasy that fan-fiction would develop a sort of conscious left-wing where people would take these kind of popular works and do political riffs on them or things like this story seems to try to do.
Yeah, but this sounds a lot like a heavy-handed iconoclastic tract than a nuanced look at the politics contained within the book. "The goodies become the baddies" is a trope so well worn as to be a cliché, especially in regards to TLotR.

[Blake's Baby]

Good god more of this bullshit....I for one cannot imagine Tolkein sitting down and consciously going,"Okay,the orc will represent black people,and I will have all my characters be allegories for rich people-except the poor ones,they can be buffoons!" and so on ad so forth...honestly,its just over-thinking a master work of fantasy by people who have way too much free time on their hands.

No it's just recognising that someone can tell a good story while having shit politics, and not being so embarrased about that that they have to pretend it's not true.

[Blake's Baby]

...If you don't take the obvious route of assuming his work as a heartfelt peon to feudal monarchy, he appears to have held some sort of stateless or near-stateless distributism up as an ideal, albeit with a bit of a fetish for sacral kingship...

You mean, if you ignore what he wrote, and project your own fantasies onto him?

All his major characters are aristocrats, his hero lives in a fucking country mansion and has a servant FFS. It's as socialist as Jeeves and Wooster. IE, not socialist at all, but great literature nevertheless. Why people have to pretend that great art can only be made by people with progressive views is totally beyond me.

[Tim Finnegan]

You mean, if you ignore what he wrote, and project your own fantasies onto him?
Have I given any particular indication that I'm a distributist? :confused:


All his major characters are aristocrats...Some of them, yes, but he was writing a self-concious mythology, not a utopia. The closest you get to that in the book is the Shire itself, where there's really no aristocracy to speak of.


...his hero lives in a fucking country mansion...I don't recall Bag End ever being described as a mansion, as such.


...and has a servant FFS.A gardener, who is explicitly mentioned to attend to multiple properties. Granted, there's still a class differentiation there reflecting of a conservative mind-set, but there's still a distinction between hired artisans and servants.


It's as socialist as Jeeves and Wooster. IE, not socialist at all, but great literature nevertheless.Distributism isn't socialism. You can tell by the fact that it's spelled "d-i-s-t-r-i-b-u-t-i-s-m", rather than "s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m".


Why people have to pretend that great art can only be made by people with progressive views is totally beyond me.
I explicitly said that his politics were reactionary, I just pointed out that the strain of reactionaryism they represent isn't particularly similar to the quasi-fascism people assume. His utopia sits far closer to Proudhon's than it does to Hitler's.

[Rooster]

Good god more of this bullshit....I for one cannot imagine Tolkein sitting down and consciously going,"Okay,the orc will represent black people,and I will have all my characters be allegories for rich people-except the poor ones,they can be buffoons!" and so on ad so forth...honestly,its just over-thinking a master work of fantasy by people who have way too much free time on their hands.

Actually, I imagine that's exactly how it happened. You don't just sit down and start writing a book, let alone a whole series of books, making it up as you go along. You have to sit down and plan it first. And in that regard, I don't think it's over thinking.

[Tim Finnegan]

Actually, I imagine that's exactly how it happened. You don't just sit down and start writing a book, let alone a whole series of books, making it up as you go along. You have to sit down and plan it first. And in that regard, I don't think it's over thinking.
Even when the writer has notoriously contemptuous of allegory, regarding it as the distasteful "purposed domination of the author"? There's no doubt that a good many of his own cultural and ethnic prejudices manifest themselves in the book, but to claim that there was this sort of concious A-is-B-ing about it is to take it entirely out of context of the man and his work.

And, again, I'm not defending the Distributist Manifesto, I'm just observing the facts as they stand.

[Rooster]

Even when the writer has notoriously contemptuous of allegory, regarding it as the distasteful "purposed domination of the author"? There's no doubt that a good many of his own cultural and ethnic prejudices manifest themselves in the book, but to claim that there was this sort of concious A-is-B-ing about it is to take it entirely out of context of the man and his work.

And, again, I'm not defending the Distributist Manifesto, I'm just observing the facts as they stand.

I'm just saying that's how you write a novel. You sit down and plan it first, the characters, the races, the setting, the overall story arc and what not. I'm not saying what he thought or wrote about in the novels as I haven't read them.

[Tim Finnegan]

I'm just saying that's how you write a novel. You sit down and plan it first, the characters, the races, the setting, the overall story arc and what not. I'm not saying what he thought or wrote about in the novels as I haven't read them.
Fair enough, I was just observing that Revolution:Perfect is quite likely correct in that Tolkien intended none of the perceived allegorical content. (I suspect because scrounging allegories left, right and centre is mostly how they teach English Lit. in secondary/high school, so it tends to stick in people's heads.)

[Reznov]

If this is a pro-communist revision of LotR, I think this is a disgrace.
Tolkien put no left or right politic analogies in his books, although you could argue Sauron is a fascist.

The whole work of the Tolkien mythos is a masterpiece, and should not be destroyed by some idiot.

Agreed, I see way to many Leftists try to connect things like this and while you certainly might be able to and if you want, you have to understand that you shouldn't try to discourage people from reading the books because you think it inspires something you do not agree with or do not think Leftists should. Which, relating back to the lotr, is complete bullshit.

However, I am interested in reading this, plot seems a little cool and unique.

[Reznov]

I'm just saying that's how you write a novel. You sit down and plan it first, the characters, the races, the setting, the overall story arc and what not. I'm not saying what he thought or wrote about in the novels as I haven't read them.

As a student who has taken two courses of Creative Writing, this is most often not the case. It usually starts out with a small idea or a character in your head, and as you begin writing more and more ideas pop in your head and you start putting them down on paper and connecting them to your expanding story.

Honestly, Tolkien wasn't writing a Fascist/racist propaganda piece, he was writing a story allusioned to WWII.

[Rooster]

As a student who has taken two courses of Creative Writing, this is most often not the case. It usually starts out with a small idea or a character in your head, and as you begin writing more and more ideas pop in your head and you start putting them down on paper and connecting them to your expanding story.[quote]

I used to write for a living. I don't think you can write a whole series of books just based on what you come up with as you go along. If he did then I imagine that there would be endless early drafts of work. Initially you may have an idea in your head but you need to expand on that. So in a way, you're agreeing with me.

[quote]Honestly, Tolkien wasn't writing a Fascist/racist propaganda piece, he was writing a story allusioned to WWII.

I'm not sure but I think if you were to read that into his Lord of the Ring novels then you're probably taking the man out of context.

[Le Socialiste]

I don't necessarily understand the point of this. If it's good literature, great, but so is Tolkien's work. Besides, wasn't Tolkien more of a sympathizer for feudal-style lifestyles? He wasn't a capitalist, exactly. Regardless of TLOTR's possible meanings on class, race, and culture (which I didn't notice while reading - then again, I was only twelve), the books remain a great read. If I have time, I'll consider reading this other version, provided it's written well.

[Summerspeaker]

With regards to World War II, the author provide a biting critique of allegorical claims as well modern military conflict:


The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Bara-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied. Sarumon, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links to his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-Earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

Tolkien's writings resonate more with primitivism than fascism. Tim's political analysis hits spot on.

[Tim Finnegan]

Besides, wasn't Tolkien more of a sympathizer for feudal-style lifestyles? He wasn't a capitalist, exactly.
Sort of. He was essentially a distributist (with, as Summerspeaker mentioned, certain primitivist sympathies), an originally Roman Catholic movement which advocates a decentralised society of small producers, almost like a mutualism in which property rights are retained. His only real "feudal" tendency was an affection for sacral kingships, and he was quite specific about regarding this only as a cultural-spiritual position, and not one of legitimate political power; kingship but not monarchy, you might say.

The feudal societies in the book depicted are consciously presented as mythology, viable only in context, while the Shire embodies what Tolkiens considers to be an ideal society- and the Hobbits his idealised Englishmen. (And Scots, I suppose, given how the Tooks are portrayed. ;)) The only permanent government office they have is the Postmaster of Hobbiton, who mostly acts as a functionary and occasional dignitary, and some ceremonial regent position- I forget the name, it only ever comes up once in the Appendixes- who acts as the stand-in for the King of Arnor, fulfilling Tolkien's kingship-fetish. Grand kings and lords and so forth are, Tolkien seems to think, all well and good in history, mythology, and distant lands, but at home he supports nothing much grander than a parish council. Not a particularly sturdy body of politics, nor one I'm overly inclined to defend, but a good long distance from either feudalism or fascism. Tolkien's main political motive, as far as I can tell, seemed to be the pursuit of a quiet life for everyone, which both military-aristocratic feudalism and fascism reject by necessity.

[Blake's Baby]

They have the offices of Mayor and Sherriffs. There are also aristocrats, the Thain (who is the chief Took) and the Master of Buckland. These latter two are aristocratic positions inherited through families. Pippin and Merry are the heirs to these aristocracies, so it's complete crap to say that aristocracy as such is unimportant. Sam becomes Mayor, ther only elected (popular) office in the Shire, because he is not from an aristocratic family. Oh look how inclusive the Shire is, even potato-people can acheive high office. Of the 4 main characters in the story, 2 are aristocrats and one is a country squire (Frodo). The fact that Bag End isn't described by the specific term 'mansion' is totally irrelevent - it is obviously many times bigger than any of the other Hobbit-holes in the vicinity, and Bilbo's sprawling and (nouveau-)riche family is specifically mentioned as being one of the district's most important.

He idolises the country house and the squirarchy. I think the 'redistributist' idea is a red herring, and Proudhonism is a whitewash. He wants, as I've already said, a society where everyone knows their place, and that place is either the Master of a country house, or some horrny-handed son of the soil who doffs his cap. It's an idyll of England before the Civil War, when the King ruled in London (Annuminas) in harmony with Minas Tirith (Rome) and stout (Warwick-)Shire yeomen got on with the business of looking after the grandees in the Big House. It's a fantasy of a pre-lapsarian England where capitalism and industrialisation are specifically seen as 'the Fall'.

Compare Tolkien to Blake. Seriously. Blake's Orc is, like Tolkien's, a destructive power 'inimical to established order' as Randall Helms puts it. But because Blake is a rebel, and Tolkien a reactionary, Blake's Orc is a spirit of liberation, while Tolkien's represents the threat to the cosy status quo of the Shire. Blake's Orc represents both sexual and political liberation; Tolkien's Orcs represent both sexual and political threat (their constant spawning, miscegination with humans to create 'half-orcs and goblin-men', their violence and warmaking).

Their hairiness (Orc's shoulders, where his strength is, are hairy; the orcs' long strong arms are hairy); their living places (in a dark abode of dark death, in deep caverns and dark cloud, for Orc; in ashen ruin swathed in cloud, a vast shadow, ruinous and dead, for the orcs); Tolkien is re-writing Blake to make the revolutionary impulses of Orc into something hideous, alien and threatening. Why? Because he supports the very essence of the society that Blake is condemning - conformity, class privilege, tradition.

Blake sees the industrial revolution as being a deadening thing that conversely produces a vital force in opposition to it; it's not reading too much into Blake to say that Orc is the gravedigger of the negative side of the industrial revolution - he represents the proletariat in other words. The story of Orc is a myth of the proletarian revolution (see also, Prometheus Unbound, etc), 60 years before Marx. Tolkien however sees no such redemption in the proletariat; for him all that is good for the slaves of industry is extermination or at very best, ethnic cleansing and restricting to their own blasted land round the poisoned see of Nurn.

It's true that there's no militarisation of the Shire; but there's an understanding that the Rangers protect the Shire (and Bree), that the security of the Shire is bought by warfare in far off lands; and this is alright, and normal, and as it should be, because men you don't see killing foreigners in far-off lands is how war is meant to be fought; it's just terribly terribly upsetting if you find it on your own doorstep. How, you know, ghastly.

Anyway. There's none so blind as them that will not see, and I'm not going to think less of Tolkien's literary output because some people misread him as a Proudhonist. I'm not even going to think less of Proudhon.

[Tim Finnegan]

You're arguing about the cultural character of the Shire, not its economic or political composition. Country gents and clan patriarchs do not a feudal system make.

Again, I've never denied that Tolkien's ideal is essentially reactionary, I'm just suggesting that it owes more to the distributist school (not "redistributism", whatever that is), which was quite strong among contemporary Roman Catholics of a very vaguely anarchistic bent, which Tolkien himself professed to be. Certainly, it was tinged with a wistful Jacobitism, as one might expect from a Roman Catholic of his class, but that contributed more to the illustration of his politics than to their content. The comparisons to Proudhonism were merely by way of illustration, noting a shared affection for country life, rather than the proclamation of ideological unity that you seemed to read.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

I think many here are making the mistake of calling Tolkien's works socio-economic commentaries, when they never were intended to be this.
Tolkien passed his time in the Great War by inventing languages. Then he began creating the world where the speakers of the languages lived.
He was in essence creating his own mythology of England, because he deemed the Arthurian legends unworthy, because they were mainly french in origin.

Reactionary maybe, but certainly romantic. Tolkien longed for a simpler time, when the King ruled his Lords, and the Lords ruled their realms. In other words the chivalric past of England.
But Tolkien certainly didn't see Middle-Earthian society has static. One could surely rise in class, and this is shown clearly with the Hobbits, who save the world and are made knights of Gondor.