July 1st – Unlike the Star Wars franchise, the Mr.
Tolkien batch of books-into-films: hang on…were the Star Wars movies books
first? I feel sure someone out there will tell me, probably alongside a
bollocking for not knowing in the first place; can get a bit precious can Star Wars
folk… Anyway, I’m on safer ground with the Mr. Tolkien stuff. I read the The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (LOTR) in the correct order, not because I was
some kind of purist but because that’s how I discovered them, back in 1970. I
have absolutely no idea what it is about either that made them un-put-down-able,
that made them resonate with me but, pound-for-pound I can honestly say they
are amongst the most enjoyable and stimulating novels I have ever read; they’re
also the last two novels I read. It was round about then that I began writing
seriously, factual stuff for magazines, newspapers and scientific publications.
That meant reading up on factual stuff to augment my own miserable efforts and
that left little or no time for what I call recreational reading…shame, eh?
Altogether now; ‘Ahhhhhhhhh’.
Anyway, it wasn’t long after that I began to scribble some
fiction too. I’d done bits at school and after I left, short stories and the
like, but I sort of began to take the genre seriously around then and I
figured, rightly or wrongly, that if I was going to write fiction then I’d best
stop reading other people’s or I’d get polluted with stories already told; that
was my reasoning anyhow and I’ve not read a work of fiction (full length novel
or short story) since finishing LOTR in, probably, 1971/2? All my reading since
then has been factual, research stuff (this is probably why I’m such a boring
old fart in conversation) and this knowledge I use in my own efforts at storytelling.
Sorry; this is all by the by.
It was a revelation to me when the first rumours came out
about how this horror director, Mr. Jackson, was going to make the trilogy of
books by Mr. Tolkien into three movies. I, like most I figure, thought;
“What?”
Did any of you guys or gals…(don’t you just hate Mr. Savile
for ruining a really nice phrase that sits comfortably in a real friendly way
when you’re talking to groups of people you may not have met personally but
feel an affinity with? It’s the same as the word gay. In its true meaning it’s a lovely descriptive word for the
exuberance of youth, for untrammelled behaviour and a freedom from inhibitions;
now it just describes a sexual preference…old, you see; curmudgeonly, sorry)…did
any of you guys or gals see the first, cartoony effort at telling the story;
when was that? Late 1970’s? Anyhow, all they got was into the end of the first
book with a promise to finalise the second and third very soon. Still waiting.
Even then they ran out of money…for a cartoon series and the die-hards were on
it like an on it thing from the get-go;
‘Not a true telling’.
‘Chunks of the story
missing, important characters glossed over’.
and my favourite I
read around the time:
‘The character
realisation wasn’t realistic enough’.
Of course it wasn’t, you tosser, it was a cartoon! Clue in
the word. No film of a book you’ve read will ever match up to the story and
characters in your imagination, in your head, that’s what makes reading a book
such an exciting, exhilarating experience (and it also makes writing one the
same too). So, when Mr. Jackson made the announcement the nay-sayers were
lining up to condemn it, him and the whole idea. What folk aren’t prepared to
allow is someone else putting a picture to their dream. Instead of accepting
another person’s viewpoint and saying;
‘Well that’s how he/she sees it’.
they say;
‘That’s not what it looks like at all’.
and the enjoyment level stalls right there. But that’s film
discussion (a whole new area that I might just tackle next year…I also want to
spend a year dissecting song lyrics…and I’m supposed to be writing a series of
twelve novels…) No matter how the director visualised the landscape of
middle-earth or Rivendell, the dress or horse colours of the Rohirim or the
speaking appendage of Wormtongue, the dialogue remains the same. And it’s this
dialogue coming from the mouths and minds of those on the side of right that
creates the characters you would be prepared to fight and die alongside. From
their words and deeds you know, you just know they would never, ever let you
down, never fail you and that their word is indeed their bond. Maybe that’s
what I couldn’t latch onto earlier, about what it was that made them
un-put-down-able, that made them resonate with me…like sharing real danger with
true friends.
Liv Tyler is one character in LOTR that has one of these
enduring lines. There she is as Arwen, a woman on her own, pursued by the four
horsemen of the Apocalypse and, after a number of close calls winds up in a
river bed, mid-stream, with her pursuers
wielding certain death just yards from her and her steed on the river’s
bank. Alone she could run, lose them by the sheer speed and agility of her
horse but she can’t because she’s not alone. She has with her an injured, helpless
small person; a Hobbit. And because of this she’s slower and so becomes vulnerable.
Unable to go any further she halts, draws her sword and, though outnumbered in
combatants, and outplayed by their cruelty and power, she is prepared to die
protecting the injured, the sick, those of lesser stature and place in the
world and she utters that line:
“If you want him, come and claim him.”
Now, I know I’m a strange beast but just writing that line
sends shivers down my back and brings a lump to my throat; it’s a gasp moment
for me. That’s the ultimate in bravery and sacrifice for me right there; that’s
it.
On this day in 1977, Liv Tyler was born and, given the
uncertainty of her start in life (mother a notorious groupie, Bebe Buell, euphemistically
referred to as a model and singer,
and not knowing who her real father was – Steve Tyler, who had his own demons
to cope with – until she was 11) has risen above it all to fight for the causes
she believes in. UNICEF…aka ‘the world’s guardian of the small people of this
world’.
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