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Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings

lin carter

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Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings is a study of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien written by Lin Carter. It was 1st published in paper by Ballantine in 3/69 & went thru numerous additional printings. It was among the earliest full-length critical works devoted to Tolkien's fantasies, the 1st to set his writings in their proper context in the history of fantasy. It was the earliest of three studies by Carter devoted to fantasy/horror writers & the history of fantasy, being followed by Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos ('72) & Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy ('73), establishing him as an authority on the genre, indirectly leading to his editorial guidance of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Gollancz published a cloth edition updated by Adam Roberts in 8/03.
The study serves as an introduction for those unfamiliar with Tolkien's work. An introduction briefly reviews the publishing phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings & its popularity in the wake of the 1st paper editions in the '60s, after which he devotes three chapters to a short biography of the author thru the late '60s, including an account of how it was written. Four chapters explaining Middle-earth & summarizing the stories of The Hobbit & the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings follow, for the benefit of readers who may not have actually read the works. Carter next turns to the question of what the works are, a point of some confusion at the time. The then-current vogue for realistic fiction provided critics with few tools for evaluating an out-&-out fantasy on its own terms. Attempts to deconstruct it as a satire or allegory were rife. Carter firmly debunks these efforts, supporting his argument by drawing on Tolkien's own published ruminations on fantasy's functions & purposes. He then contextualizes the works by sketching the history of written fantasy from its earliest appearance in the epic poetry of the ancient world thru the heroic poetry of the Dark & the prose romances of the Middle Ages, down to the fairy tales, ghost stories & gothic novels of the early modern era & the rediscovery of the genre by writers of the 19-20th centuries prior to & contemporary with Tolkien. The origins of the modern genre are discovered in the writings of Wm Morris, Lord Dunsany & E.R. Eddison & followed thru the works of authors they influenced, including H.P. Lovecraft, Fletcher Pratt, L. Sprague de Camp & Mervyn Peake. Carter next highlights some of Tolkien's particular debts to his predecessors, tracing the motifs & names he utilizes back to their beginnings in Norse mythology & highlighting other echoes in his work deriving from legend & history. Finally noted is Tolkien's influence on contemporary fantasy, which was just beginning to make itself felt, primarily in the juvenile fantasies of Carol Kendall, Alan Garner & Lloyd Alexander.

211 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1,1969

This edition

Format
211 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
August 12, 1972 by Ballantine Books (NY)
ISBN
9780345215505
ASIN
0345215508
Language
English

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About the author

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lin carter

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Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H.P. Lowcraft (for an H.P. Lovecraft parody) and Grail Undwin.

Carter had a marked tendency toward self-promotion in his work, frequently citing his own writings in his nonfiction to illustrate points and almost always including at least one of his own pieces in the anthologies he edited. The most extreme instance is his novel Lankar of Callisto, which features Carter himself as the protagonist.

As an author, he was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers. Carter himself was the model for the Mario Gonzalo character. He was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose work he anthologized in the Flashing Swords! series. Carter is most closely associated with fellow author L. Sprague de Camp, who served as a mentor and collaborator and was a fellow member of both the Trap Door Spiders and SAGA.

Carter served in Korea, after which he attended Columbia University. He was a copywriter for some years before writing full-time. Carter resided in East Orange, New Jersey, in his later years, and drank and smoked heavily. It may have been his smoking that gave him oral cancer in 1985. Only his status as a Korean War veteran enabled him to receive extensive surgery. However, it failed to cure the cancer and left him disfigured.

In the last year before his death, he had begun to reappear in print with a new book in his Terra Magica series, a long-promised Prince Zarkon pulp hero pastiche, Horror Wears Blue, and a regular column for the magazine Crypt of Cthulhu. Despite these successes, Carter increased his alcohol intake, becoming a borderline alcoholic and further weakening his body. His cancer resurfaced, spreading to his throat and leading to his death in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1988.

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 70 votes)
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70 reviews All reviews
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mrzoup
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I really enjoyed this book. Nice read to get a little more into the origin of Tolkien's writing and see some cool connections. Keep in mind that this was written before works like the silmarillion and the histories of middle earth had been released so some things are speculative when it comes to history inside middle earth. On it being written that early it is cool to see the speculation of what the silmarillion could entail when it is eventually released.
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Strawberry82
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Es por eso que en mi regreso a A Librería, y analizando la obra de Lin Carter, escritor del libro llamado El Origen de El Señor de los Anillos, voy a diseccionar una de las novelas más imprescindibles de todos los tiempos. Y es que pocos escritores han conseguido suscitar tanta atención en vida como lo hizo J. R. R. Tolkien, y tras descartar varias obras analíticas del universo de Tolkien, me he querido apoyar finalmente en la primera obra que se atrevió a explicarnos los orígenes de la obra cumbre de Tolkien, y como esta se relaciona con una enorme lista de sagas épicas de la que es, a su vez, un ejemplo vivo.

Crítica completa en: https://alibreria.wordpress.com/2017/...
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Cinda2020
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Sci -Fi writer Lin Carter wrote this brief, breezy review of sources and influences behind JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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amos4516
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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El Origen de El Señor de los Anillos es, en resumen, un estudio de las sagas épicas –desde la mitología grecorromana hasta la mitología nórdica, incluyendo grandes relatos conocidos– que, a través de los tiempos, se convirtieron en la inspiración de la obra más grande de uno de los mayores narradores del siglo XX. Tanto los fans más acérrimos a El Señor de los Anillos como los que deseen descubrir sus secretos más bien escondidos, deben intentar hacerse con un ejemplar de la obra de Lin Carter que complemente su lectura y, en caso de no poder, ¡deberéis tener paciencia! A Librería os irá trayendo sus secretos poco a poco.
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SolsticeWhisper
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Good account of the fantasy novels, myths, etc. that came before and influence the writing of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit books. It made me want to read some of those, but I have not read all of them.

I really enjoy Tolkien, but I did not like what was done with the Hobbit movies, expanding a single charming book into a trilogy of films, with a lot added. I mostly liked the LOTR trilogy of films though, even with some things changed.
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gusterbomb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Intento de explicar el origen y la composición de la obra de Tolkien. Interesante, aunque no aporta "claves cerradas", y tiene conclusiones cuando menos discutibles.
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profilian
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Immerhin ein recht solides Sachbuch, das man bequem dritteln kann. Zunächst gibt es einen kurzen Zusammenschnitt von Tolkiens Biographie (die sich mitunter etwas ungewohnt liest, da Tolkien, als Carter dieses Buch schrieb, noch lebte und ich diese Perspektive nicht gewohnt bin), gefolgt von einer Zusammenfassung des Hobbits und des Herrn der Ringe. Der zweite Teil ist eher ein Abriss über die Geschichte der phantastischen Literatur und erst im letzten Drittel widmet sich der Autor seinem eigentlichen Thema: Tolkiens Quellen. Ich denke kaum, dass jemand zuerst zu so einem Buch greifen wird, um sich in Tolkiens Werke einzulesen, sondern gleich zur Primärliteratur greifen wird. Daher halte ich die Zusammenfassung für ziemlich unnötig; ich hatte sie größtenteils auch überblättert. Der literaturgeschichtliche Teil war zwar durchaus informativ, hatte aber herzlich wenig mit dem Kernthema zu tun, das erst zum Schluss zu Wort kommt. Dort jedoch sprich Carter kaum neue Sachen an und kratzt eher an der Oberfläche, als dass er tiefer geht. Er nennt vor allem die Edda als Tolkiens Quelle und erwähnt anderes kaum bis gar nicht. Vieles von dem, was er ansprach, kannte ich bereits, und da ich hoffte, durch dieses Buch Neues zu erfahren, war ich doch recht enttäuscht. Nun muss man natürlich dazu sagen, dass zu diesem Zeitpunkt das Silmarillion sowie viele andere Werke noch gar nicht veröffentlicht waren, dennoch geben aber auch die Anhänge des Herrn der Ringe schon mehr dazu her als nur eine Auflistung von Namen, die Tolkien hier und dort entlehnt hat. Ich denke aber, dass dieses Buch für Leute, die bisher selbst nur an der Oberfläche des Legendariums kratzten, noch einige neue Dinge beinhaltet.


Mehr von mir auf meinem Blog: http://buchdrache.blogspot.de/
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Mahikodo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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It is so strange to read a book written at the birth of a new genre (before so much of what we now almost take for granted), before The Simarillion...a lot of good points and some interesting new reads...
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