Commenting «The Book of the Century» (Английская Литература)

The article under review is “The Book of the Century” by Andrew O’Hehir.

It dwells on the secret of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series of books. The main purpose of the article is to discover and reveal the secret of the masterpiece.

The article is divided into several parts. The author starts by telling the readers that in 1997 the book had been voted the greatest book of the century in a reader’s poll. Furthermore, he compares the book’s popularity in Great Britain and America, saying that the book was deeply ingrained in the America’s mass culture. Though the book received a lot of criticism, Tolkien was not even bothered by the critics, as the author states. Additionally, the success of the book is connected with Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism, as the author explains, the world was not invented from scratch, it was rather a reconstruction of entirely new concepts like hobbits and the past, real one.

The author briefly touches upon the linguistic expertise of Tolkien’s masterpiece, mentioning that he was absorbed in the creation of languages for his world. The article ends with thoughts about the realness of the world created by J.R.R Tolkien.

I find the article worthy attention and would definitely recommend anyone to read it just because “The lord of the Rings” has deeply ingrained even in our culture. It was interesting to know the story behind the scenes of Tolkien’s creation as books with such scale of elaboration of the world require a lot effort.