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Produktinformation
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The book is discursive, and the opening theoretical chapters may seem heavy going, but have patience: they provide necessary context. Shippey has Tolkien's measure in full throughout. He explains what was important to Tolkien, what Tolkien thought he was doing, and - no less vitally - why it is necessary to understand this if one is not to bash Tolkien in annoyance for not accomplishing something totally different.
If you read Shippey, will you necessarily understand Tolkien? No. But if you don't read Shippey, and if you also don't have his insight and knowledge, you will not fully understand Tolkien.
As long as people keep an open mind, however, The Road to Middle-earth sheds light on some of the most obscure details and references in Tolkien's work. Shippey admits in the foreword he may be stepping across the line, since Tolkien himself warned the author against reading too much into anything. But the ride is fun and in Shippey's whirlwind fashion the reader is treated to a torrent of near-mystical adulation for one of the 20th century's greatest authors.
The writing is straight-forward and well within the reach of most readers. One of the pitfalls of literary scholarship which Shippey avoids is an overdependence upon jargon. He knows his audience wants to read more about Middle-earth and less about what fancy words critics are most apt to use.
And despite Shippey's own tendency to accuse Tolkien of deception, he pounces with delightful vengeance and righteous anger upon many a critic who has sought to lay low the immensity of Tolkien's creation. One needn't agree with everything Shippey writes in order to appreciate the passion he has for Middle-earth, or the intense loyalty the writer feels toward Tolkien himself.
Of all the Tolkien commentators who have ever dared put pen to paper, T. A. Shippey is most probably the best qualified (after Christopher Tolkien) to say anything at all concerning how Tolkien may have viewed his creation, or what Tolkien might have intended to say between the lines.
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