cum am suparat pe multa lume cind am zis ca filmul The Hobbit este o prostie (imi mentin afirmatia, chiar daca ma reneaga prietenii mei de sex masculin 🙂 ), m-am tot intrebat zilele astea (cind polemizam cu prietenii) ce ceva din copilaria lui Tolkien l-a facut sa scrie o asemenea poveste.

am gasit citeva interviuri cu Tolkien care a murit in 1973, dar si ceva care mi-a asezat in tabelul meu uman tipologia lui Tolkien: a crescut fara tata, intr-o tara care nu era a lui, cu o mama care – dupa moartea sotului – a trecut la catolicism si si-a prierdut sprijinul familiei (evrei) si care a murit, cind Tolkien era adolescent, de … epuizare.

‘I was brought up in considerable poverty but I was happy running about in that country. I took the idea of the hobbits from the village people and children. They rather despised me because my mother liked me to be pretty. I went about with long hair and a Little Lord Fauntleroy costume.

‘The hobbits are just what I should like to have been but never was – an entirely unmilitary people who always came up to scratch in a clinch.

Behind all this hobbit stuff lay a sense of insecurity. I always knew it would go – and it did.’

mai tirziu s-a casatorit cu o fata pe care a cunoscut-o la orfelinat.

iata ce spune jurnalistul care a facut primul interviu din viata lui Tolkien (n-are sens sa va atrag atentia asupra documentarii alora de la the guardian care au acest articol genial , din 1991 , cu domnul scriitor. autorul e John Ezard)

The interview, his first with a newspaper journalist, was a considerable kindness. When it was over, he asked me to go to the area and write a story which might start a campaign to save any shred that suburbia might have left of the village. I couldn’t – my then paper the Oxford Mail’s coverage area didn’t quite stretch to Birmingham.

Not that Tolkien complained. He befriended me, as he did several journalists and other young people in those final years before his death in 1973. He gloried in companionship. He was a shy but clubbable man of lightly-carried learning and huge relish – ‘every morning I wake up and think good, another 24 hours’ pipe-smoking,’ he would say.

In 1967 he sent me a carbon of his last story, Smith of Wootton Major: ‘An old man’s story filled with the presage of bereavement,’ as he put it. The opening sentence read: ‘There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories nor very far away for those with long legs.’ It was, unmistakably, his imaginative farewell to Sarehole.

intregul text aici. cadou de la mine pentru fanii Hobbit 🙂

si un mic interviu de la BBC