And Finally…
In this week’s quick-fire episode of London Calling, James Delingpole and I talk Omicron parties, shooting parties and, evidently, the drug parties taking place in the Palace of Westminster. All this and a pass-the-sick-bag review of the execrable Wheel of Time in Culture Corner.
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“All this and the execrable Wheel of Time in Culture Corner.” Delingpole I think missed out on a treat with Wheel of Time, though understandably, I think. The beginning does seem very Lord of the Rings, and it takes time for the majestic scope, originality and solid plotting and characterisation to become apparent. It would be easy to dismiss it early, never get far into it and come away as dismissive as Delingpole is here. It is in fact justly classed as one of the greats of modern fantasy writing. Far from being sub-Tolkien (which the first book can easily give the impression of), in fact it is almost completely different from any of Tolkien’s work, except in some superficial plot details, and a great complement to Tolkien, in being written from a thoroughly western conservative base without Tolkien’s Christian theology. Not that there’s anything wrong with Christian theology as a basis for art, but Jordan’s classic covers a whole separate area of western conservatism, and is much more American (in a good way). But the Amazon interpretation is, indeed execrable. Unsurprisingly so, given that they have taken a profoundly conservative work and rendered it into a vehicle for modern woke… Read more »
Surrealist art was “reinterpreted” into advertising – there’s no “as if” about it – and the term “surreal” was “reinterpreted” as a synonym for “zany”, or, in the parlance of the especially intellectually challenged among the middle classes, as a synonym for “weird”, “nonsensical”, or “unexpectedly self-contradictory”.
But who watches film version of books anyway? Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was a superb literary achievement. I’ve stayed away from the films.
“Surrealist art was “reinterpreted” into advertising – there’s no “as if” about it“
And the artists involved would doubtless be figuratively spinning in their graves. Which is roughly the point I made.
“But who watches film version of books anyway? Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was a superb literary achievement. I’ve stayed away from the films.”
With some regrettable lapses, the LotR films were reasonable adaptations.
The overriding point is that an adaptation of a great work of writing is made into a film, by and large, by a no better than average film maker, so as you imply, it’s rash to have high expectations.
But the kind of intentional ideologically motivated, manipulative vandalism we are dealing with in the case of Wheel of Time is a rather different thing.
The Lord of the Rings trillogy was good.
The Hobbit trilogy was two movies too long. In fact, even the one movie could have been a few years shorter.
Yes, I pretty much agree with this guy:
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings – I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This
FIVE SEASONS?????
Shove that right in there beside your vaccine mandate!
Got to have plenty of space for the strong empowered women to develop their characters while helping the pathetic men-children to find their inner homo….
Never been more grateful that I have boxed sets of Breaking Bad and Westworld to fall back on. Not to mention the early seasons of Route 66.
Binged the first 5 on Saturday. Usually any anti male, pc bs will turn me right off immediately. Didn’t find this so far.
I don’t mind strong women and long as it’s not women good man bad. The glass cannon spell casters need strong skilful male fighters or they are useless. Some Aisha whatever dislike men, some don’t. It took 3/4 of them to overcome one male spellcaster… etc.
Having never read the books and not knowing anything about it prior to watching it I quite enjoyed it. It was a bit formulaic D&D, 1 archer, 1 barbarian, 1 thief, 1 healer, 1 assassin in the party, but it works for a reason I guess. And the troll-orcs or trollocks was a bit unoriginal 🙂
I think your woke bullshit detector might need recalibrating. I’d prescribe a diet of pre-1950s films and literature only, for as long as it takes. The “glass cannon” nature built into the idea of female magic users was difficult to avoid entirely, but even there they managed to transform the famously stoic and battle hardened warders into a bunch of cry babies. There are certainly formulaic fantasy tropes built in, but they (in the books at any rate) are used as building blocks for a genuinely original work of huge scope and real depth. But that’s part of the reason why it’s easy to dismiss as mere sub-Tolkien rehash unless you persist with it through at least the end of the first book. Jordan I believe openly acknowledged a debt to Tolkien, but then again that’s the case (the debt, acknowledged or not) for most fantasy writers from the second half of the C20th onwards, The D&D formulaic party construction aspect you mention is definitely a function of the TV series, not the book. In the book the characters are very young (about 17, at a guess) when they leave their village, and extremely naive. That’s vital to their development… Read more »
I can’t speak to the book comparison ‘Having never read the books’. What’s really in your face wokey about it so far 5 in?
The whole thing is one long sjw lecture about race, gender roles, religious politics and sexual behaviour that the book story is twisted beyond breaking to fit. As I noted, it bears at best occasional, superficial relationship to the books, and in many significant aspects is diametrically opposite to the books’ approach to key issues.
If you can’t see it, it’s most likely because you don’t have any particular problem with the sjw world view, so its unlikely anything I write will mean much to you. If it doesn’t trouble you that a remote, isolated backwater village is portrayed as a more racially diverse place than a US port city, or that supposedly battle hardened, veteran, stoic warriors are portrayed as shrieking and crying in hysterical emotiveness over battle deaths, that men are systematically portrayed as emotionally incontinent and rarely even minimally competent, compared to the women characters, then you are watching it from a very different cultural place from mine. We would probably be speaking different languages. I can only suggest finding some of the many negative reviews out there and trying to read or view them with an open mind.
The animated version, The Lord of the Rings (1978) Directed by Ralph Bakshi was excellent, the others you didn’t miss much.
And don’t laugh at this, but I would say another animated film i’d consider a classic work of art, is Bambi (1942), not so much the story, but the artwork had incredible ambience in parts, it was clearly a labour of love, & beautiful animation.
Actually the film made me read the book
Ironically ‘evil cannot create only corrupt’ was a Tolkien theme.
I see the irony of which you speak – nice connection 🙂
There is little doubt now that the regime intends to murder the majority of the population
Yup.
Discreetly of course.
They’ve been killing over 20% of the UK population for years now, it was always likely to be extended, especially with the demographic crisis of an ageing population (caused by said measure).
Sorry, but it just was.
According to a recent London Calling it’s pronounced Oh-Micron.
Does the French President’s wife pronounce it ‘Ohhh, Macron….”?
O mi cron?
You should disassociate yourselves from James Dellingpole in order to retain your integrity. N Kirkpatrick
The plan is to kill us
They needed some sort of a solution…
(First they came for people who need an organ donor).
The War on Drugs – Bill Hicks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knq49PqsMLc
Bill is sorely missed and we need his commentary today more than ever.
Still cant get over the BBC RADIO FIVE documentary I heard about drug gangs in Bradford with a central character called Meggy – true life story – which basically spilled the beans on how many main drug dealers are informants, assets, they work with impunity, they get help to launder the money through the police and they tip off dealers who they supply who get busted by the police to make it look like they are doing their job.
‘Police informant and rival drug dealer who set up Yassar Yaqub’ – the claims about Meggy before he was jailed for murder
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/police-informant-rival-drug-dealer-16212313