This is the first of three episodes on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to be released in the course of the next several months. Focusing here on The Fellowship of the Ring, our hosts discuss the first leg of Frodo's journey into darkness, paying special attention to Tolkien's prose style, his modernism, his commitment to a truly magical realism, and his penchant for the weird and the tragic.
Image: "Lothlorien" by Tessa Bronsky, via Wikimedia Commons.
References
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Algernon Blackwood, English writer
Weird Studies, Episode 204 on “On Fairy Stories”
Peter Jackson (dir.), The Lord of the Rings
Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Friedrich Nietzsche, History in the Service and Disservice of Life
Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives
Carl Jung, The Red Book
Lord Dunsaney, The King of Elfland’s Daughter
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram”
Steven Chow (dir.), Kung Fu Hustle
Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Lost Lakes, YouTube Channel
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