A word or two about Tolkein

May 10, 2019

10 things you might not know about Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkein: 

1) The Beatles wanted to make a Lord of the Rings movie starring themselves, to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, but the director declined and Tolkien sold the rights to Universal Pictures.
Their adaption would have starred Paul McCartney as Frodo Baggins, John Lennon as Gollum, Ringo Starr as Sam Gamgee and George Harrison as Gandalf.

2) Tolkien was a terrible driver who used to plow through crowded intersections, trusting everyone else would get out of the way of a charging vehicle. Fortunately for him, people tend to do just that!

3) He hated allegory, which caused a lot of heartburn since everyone seems to believe there is so much of it included in his work. So no, Orcs are not really Communists.

4) In a letter to his son, he called Hitler a "ruddy little ignoramus."

5) He was a 'hunt-and-peck' typist, which may have been one reason
it took him 14 years to write Lord of the Rings. You can only do so much with two fingers!

6) He wasn't born in England, but what is now South Africa.

7) He spoke over a dozen languages and was familiar with many more, and even invented a few of his own. Elvish, anyone?

8) While fighting in the trenches during WWI, he inserted a secret code in letters to his wife that circumvented the censorship of the British Army to let her know he was okay.

9) Ten Israeli prisoners of war created one of the very first Hebrew adaptations of The Hobbit while in an Egyptian jail. It was published after their release.

10) A British medical journal published a paper that diagnosed Gollum with schizoid personality disorder. I wonder what the diagnosis is for diagnosing fictional characters?


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