January 9, 2002

Recently, I have read a number of newspaper writers who have made a connection between the events of September 11, a president who cast the events as a war "between good and evil", and the fact that "The Lord of Rings" is doing smashingly well at the box-office.

Each time I would read this, I would snort out loud in an annoyed-bemusement-kind-of snort. The movie of the Lord of the Rings was planned years in advance of 2001. That connection is but a sad coincidence. 

But what is more than a sad coincidence is that J.R.R. Tolkien was a survivor of the Battle of the Somme. Lest we forget the madness of World War One: almost 20,000 British soldiers died in the Battle of the Somme... on the first day of battle.

Some links relating the Tolkien's work and his experiences in World War One:

Tolkien as Post World War I Novelist

Journey through the Dead Marshes

Mordor, he wrote...  

 

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