OldTobyTook

I enjoyed this post. I have yet to read any of Murakami’s work, but now I am interested and motivated. I wonder why novels that end without “closure” are popular? I would have guessed the opposite. This is worth exploring in more depth, I think.

There is a tremendous amount of information in this article, and a pretty good “works cited” list as well. The author moves in and out of the discussion, advancing the thesis while playing off of other experts. My main problem with the article is not the content so much as the framing device–the notion/thesis that Middle Earth is “real.” It’s not a very effective hook, and whether one believes in “real” or not, the information in the body of the article is still interesting, except when it’s a little off the mark. For example, the politics of Middle Earth are quite recognizable–it is a world that believes in the “divine right of kings,” and celebrates the traditions–Medieval as they are–as something much better than English democracy. Who wouldn’t want to serve under the god-like king, Aragorn? There is a clear racial and gender hierarchy in LOTR as well that would be very familiar to conservative readers. Further, the work plays out as a Crusade Tale: the White versus the swarthy dark-skinned evil southerners/Orcs who inhabit the land of Mordo–i.e., Mordor. Far from unrecognizable, LOTR is very recognizable as symbol and metaphor for Tolkien’s longing for an age where the world worked much more simply than it does today. But the question remains: is there a mythological past that somewhere lost in the mists of time where evil is evil and good is good?

The Awakening is one of my favorite late nineteenth-century novels by women. Kate Chopin’s book is, I think, more subtle and complicated than this review suggests; many of the observations made in this article are not entirely supported by the characters and action in the novel. And what of Edna’s end and how Chopin concludes the novel? I think the summary here is a bit too pat.