500 words
“I am in fact a Hobbit.”—J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a favorite author of New Left “hippies” and New Right nationalists, and for pretty much the same reasons. Tolkien deeply distrusted modernization and industrialization, which replace organic reciprocity between man and nature with technological dominion of man over nature, a relationship that deforms and devalues both poles. (more…)
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Defending the Sampo, 1896.
1,641 words
I grew up reading fantasy books. Throughout my teenage years, fantasy books gave me countless hours of entertainment. Yet with any form of entertainment that has a predominantly white male audience, (more…)
There’s a lot going on in this cover.
2,467 words
Rainbow Albrecht
Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
Smashwords, 2018
“Think of how well things have been going for America over the last two decades. So by 2008, unemployment and poverty surely will exist only in history books. With all the money available for research budgets by then, we’ll probably get technological miracles like antigravity propulsion sooner than expected.” (more…)
1,480 words
Tolkien world experienced two huge events this month.
Amazon announced last week the diverse cast for its new Lord of the Rings series. Shortly thereafter, Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien’s editor and the guardian of his father’s legacy, died. (Hopefully, there was no connection between the events.) (more…)
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“Few now remember them . . . yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folks that are heedless.” (Tom Bombadil, “Fog on the Barrow Downs,” The Fellowship of the Ring)
In memory of Christopher Tolkien (more…)
Christopher Tolkien
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J. R. R. Tolkien’s youngest son, Christopher, died on January 15 at the age of 95. Even in old age, Christopher cut a striking scholarly figure, sitting as he did in a green cardigan before a log fire. His reedy voice, occasionally crackling like the dry wood in the stone hearth at his feet, carrying with it subtle wisps of academic gravitas, as smoky shadows curled like grey-blue snakes around a towering bookcase filled with leather-bound tomes (more…)
Arthur Rackham, Alberich and the Rhine Maidens, 1910-1911
1,323 words
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
— Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass (more…)
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“Tolkien knows more about Chaucer than any living man.” — John Masefield, Poet Laureate (1930-67)
John M. Bowers’ book Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer (Oxford 2019) finally puts paid to the recently concocted mythology propagated in spurious articles like The Telegraph’s September 2009 piece “J.R.R. Tolkien Trained as a British Spy” and Elansea’s J.R.R. Tolkien: Codemaker, Spy-Master, Hero: An Un-Authorized Biography (2015), that the creator of Middle-Earth was some kind of tweed-jacketed Indiana Jones, (more…)
488 words
“I am in fact a Hobbit.”—J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a favorite author of New Left “hippies” and New Right nationalists, and for pretty much the same reasons. Tolkien deeply distrusted modernization and industrialization, which replace organic reciprocity between man and nature with technological dominion of man over nature, a relationship that deforms and devalues both poles. (more…)
1,592 words
Ash Donaldson
A Race for the North: Another Fairy Tale for Children of European Descent
Self-published, 2019
What better way to inoculate young minds against the degeneracy of the modern world than by telling new stories and making these stories look old? Young white kids need a past they can hold on to and be proud of; such a thing is crucial for the development of a positive identity. (more…)
2,026 words
Warning: contains spoilers.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is an incredible artistic achievement and one of the most ambitious puppet productions ever made. A prequel to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal (1982) consisting of ten hour-long episodes, the show is faithful to the spirit of its predecessor and explores the universe of Thra in breathtaking detail. (more…)
Geoffrey Bache Smith
1,432 words
Dark is the world our fathers left us,
Wearily, greyly the long years flow,
Almost the gloom has hope bereft us,
Far is the high gods’ song and low:
Sombre the crests of mountains lonely,
Leafless, wind-ridden, moan the trees;
Down in the valleys is twilight only.
Twilight over the mourning sea;
Time was when earth was always golden,
Time was when skies were always clear;
Spirits and souls of the heroes olden,
Faint are cries from the darkness, hear!
2,225 words
I loved the Game of Thrones series when it first got started. I watched it on the recommendation of Greg Hood’s Counter-Currents reviews of Season One and Season Two. I was so taken with it that, when I ran out of episodes, I actually picked up George R. R. Martin’s books to see how the stories continued, (more…)
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One of the advantages of reading biographies is that even if they’re not very good, there remains the consolation of having learned something. Sadly, this is one of the few positive things that can be said about the recent biopic Tolkien.
Biographies can be tricky to adapt for the screen. Filmmakers will want to adhere to the truth as much as possible while still being able to tell a coherent and thematic story. How much artistic license is too much? (more…)
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In the latest Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord is joined by Greg Johnson, John Morgan, and RAMZPAUL to discuss the very last episode of Game of Thrones, (more…)
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The final episode of Game of Thrones had an important message about the nature of modern politics. It was almost surely unintended.
The writing of the final episode, of the final season in general, was atrocious. Balerion the Black Dread could fly through the plot holes showrunners David Beinoff and D.B. Weiss created. (more…)
135 words / 29:05
In the latest Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord and John Morgan discuss the current, penultimate episode of Game of Thrones (the fifth episode of the eighth season), which saw the resolution of many of the plotlines that have been developing from the beginning of the series — as well as new questions. (Spoilers ahead!) (more…)
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In the latest Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord and John Morgan discuss the current episode of Game of Thrones (the fourth episode of the eighth season), which begins with cringey hookups at a drunken celebration. (more…)
119 words / 16:38
In the latest Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord and John Morgan discuss the current episode of Game of Thrones, which saw the long-awaited battle between the good guys (or, at least, the living ones) and the Army of the Dead. (more…)
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“[T]hey fight for the ‘emancipation of women’ because it is under the form of a generous activity, under the banner of ‘For others,’ that they can most prudently forward their own little private separatism.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
As Fróði and John pointed out on Guide to Kulchur, it was superfluous for Game of Thrones’ writers to include multiple scenes of little girls displaying their bravery in a recent episode. (more…)
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In this Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord and John Morgan discuss the latest (the second episode of the eighth season) episode of Game of Thrones, which marks Westeros’ entry into The Current Year as the series decides to go full SJW in nearly every scene. (more…)
1,489 words
Richard Corben, Robert Ervin Howard, & John Jakes
Bloodstar
Leawood, Kan.: Morning Star Press, 1976
Bloodstar is a post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery graphic novel based on a short story by Robert E. Howard (“The Valley of the Worm,” from the February 1934 issue of Weird Tales) about a warrior who must defeat a giant worm-like creature that threatens to destroy his race. (more…)
5,550 words
David Lynch’s third feature film is his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic Dune. Herbert’s Dune is widely hailed as a masterpiece, while Lynch’s Dune has a much more mixed reputation, tending toward the negative. When I first saw Lynch’s Dune, I was deeply disappointed. Herbert’s novel had left a powerful and vivid impression on me, and Lynch’s vision was not my vision. (more…)
93 words / 24:54
In this Guide to Kulchur, Fróði Midjord and John Morgan inaugurate a new series of programs in which they will will briefly discuss the episodes of the new (eighth) season of Game of Thrones as they are broadcast. In this installment, after discussing their impression of the series as a whole so far, they analyze the implications of the events of the first episode, particularly in light of the show’s increasing gravitation towards Social Justice Warrior themes and depictions over the years. (more…)
2,563 words
The late British novelist Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) was mainly known for his Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, of which one of the most popular, Hogfather, was made into a BBC miniseries in 2006. Pratchett was a secular humanist, but did not share the unfortunate belief of some atheists that there is something shameful about faith itself. Instead, with Hogfather, he valorizes the struggle between belief and fantasy – which he casts as necessary parts of being human – and a cold, mechanical, and unimaginative worldview. (more…)
471 words
“I am in fact a Hobbit.”—J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a favorite author of New Left “hippies” and New Right nationalists, and for pretty much the same reasons. Tolkien deeply distrusted modernization and industrialization, which replace organic reciprocity between man and nature with technological dominion of man over nature, a relationship that deforms and devalues both poles. (more…)
1,290 words
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the latest installment in the ever-expanding Wizarding World franchise and the second film of the Fantastic Beasts series. Much like Peter Jackson’s bloated Hobbit trilogy, the Fantastic Beasts franchise is an unapologetic cash grab and will sprawl across five films, approaching the length of the original Harry Potter series.
1,567 words
Ash Donaldson
Blut and Boden: A Fairy Tale for Children of European Descent
CreateSpace, 2018
Mythology has always been the tie that binds. Familiar stories from long ago featuring archetypal characters and illustrating universal themes, as well as those specific to a particular race, nation, or tribe, provide common reference points among extended kin. (more…)
1,085 words
J. R. R. Tolkien (Christopher Tolkien, ed.)
The Fall of Gondolin
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018
The Fall of Gondolin is Tolkien’s final posthumous publication and the third of his “Great Tales,” alongside The Children of Húrin and Beren and Lúthien. It was compiled and edited by his son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, and contains multiple versions of the story, (more…)
1,550 words
Among the vast array of sources that influenced Tolkien in the creation of his legendarium was the Kalevala, a collection of Finnish folk poetry compiled and edited by the Finnish physician and philologist Elias Lönnrot. Much scholarship exists on Tolkien’s Norse, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon influences, but his interest in the Kalevala is not as often discussed. (more…)