I promised no more mention of LotR. -- I lied.
More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about? The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of "The Last Ring-bearer" - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Which has now been translated (however roughly) into English by livejournal user "ymarkov": http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html. Tolkien would have hated or loved this - hard to know which. Have a look and comment here!
More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about? The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of "The Last Ring-bearer" - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Which has now been translated (however roughly) into English by livejournal user "ymarkov": http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html. Tolkien would have hated or loved this - hard to know which. Have a look and comment here!
RSS Feed
