Reviewers seldom get it right!

Lewis, in talking about reviews of both his and Tolkiens work at University in the 1950s, noted that he couldn't think of one reviewer that got it right when talking about why he, or his collegues, did said or wrote what they did. He reminded his audience about the predicatability of those who look back and know so much more - the historic criticsm movements and the revisionists.The critics even got his lion and someelse's tiger concepts mixed up in their own stories , for example .


The evidence from the snobbishness and reactionary nature of views about great greeks or the role of "fads "like that in Bacon tested any supposed integrity of the revisionsits - whether the subject was Homer or Shakespeare.let alone their lack of respect for dialogue ( hard to refute the issue if the author is dead!)

Lewis pointed out that the big deal at that time was a claim by ignorant reviewersabout Tolkiens work. Much was made of the rings being an allegory of the atom bomb .Stupid reactionaries with their own ideas in mind .unwilling to let us make up our own !

Both english authors and Jackson and others who now give us access to their work deserve high praise - about time. What great stories they have now told and retold