Twenty-First-Century Tolkien: What Middle-Earth Means To Us Today

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

Ever since The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was first published in 1937 the popularity of the vast, imaginative world he created has only increased over time. What is about Middle-Earth and the characters which populate it that has captured the imaginations of millions of people around the world Today, there is a vast and growing Tolkien industry, including books, films, games and a highly anticipated forthcoming TV series, which is being billed as the most expensive ever made.

Twenty-First Century Tolkien explores this phenomenon and investigates why Tolkien's works still inspire people fifty years after his death. Taking in surprisingly prescient episodes from the original books and later reworkings, and covering such topics as friendship, failure, uncertainty, the environment, the weird and eerie - as well as Tolkien in a post-Covid age - Nick Groom explains his striking relevance for some of the most pressing issues that now confront us, and ultimately reveals why the Tolkien moment really is now.

Reviews

Fascinating... Wonderfully exhilarating... In a rousing finale, Groom suggests that Tolkien is exactly the writer we need at this particularly perilous moment, as we emerge, Hobbit-like, from our holes and try to imagine a new kind of life in this post-pandemic age. * Mail on Sunday *
Each chapter displays a mastery of both the works in question - whether books or adaptations - and of the vast corpus of Tolkien scholarship. Narratives of literary production or of Hollywood bureaucratic processes rarely come as absorbing as Groom's... Illuminating... Groom's explorations of Tolkien's sources... are always provocative and often ingenious. * Literary Review *

Groom's enthusiasm is hard to resist, and his garnering of folklore and customs that, for centuries, guided life through the changing seasons bulges with fascination.

-- John Carey * Sunday Times on The Seasons *
It's no exaggeration to say that this is a volume I have been waiting for all my life... This is a rich celebration of traditions and a plea for them not to be forgotten. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail on The Seasons *
Wonderful and timely. -- Philip Hoare * Independent on The Seasons *

Author Bio

Nick Groom is currently Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau, having previously held positions at the universities of Bristol, Chicago, Stanford and Exeter, where he holds an Honorary Professorship. His previous books include The Forger's Shadow, The Union Jack, The Seasons, The Gothic and The Vampire.