Reddit reviews Letters of J R R Tolkien

I recall reading it in The Letters of JRR Tolkien several years back. It's pretty commonly mentioned and not disputed.

It's even on the Wikipedia page for ME: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arda_%28Middle-earth%29

"In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Arda is the name given to the Earth in a period of prehistory"

Sorry, but I think you couldn't be more wrong. Tolkien's extreme distaste for the proposed Zimmerman film treatment within his lifetime is fortunately preserved in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, of which this quote from a letter to Rayner Unwin is a sample:

But this document, as it stands, is sufficient to give me grave anxiety about the actual dialogue that (I suppose) will be used. I should say Zimmerman, the constructor of this storyline, is quite incapable of excerpting or adapting the 'spoken words' of the book. He is hasty, insensitive, and impertinent.
He does not read books. It seems to me evident that he has skimmed through the L.R. at a great pace, and then constructed his storyline from partly confused memories, and with the minimum of reference back to the original. ~ Letters, 207.

As for what the Prof would have made of the Jackson movies, I defer to Billy_Fish, who nailed it so well the 'ding' could probably be heard in the deepest pits of Utumno.

Edit: I would just like to add that I'd have been fascinated to hear Tolkien's reaction to the BBC radio adaptation by Brian Sibley. Most of the dialogue in this version is word-for-word the dialogue from the book (although much of the story is still, by necessity, omitted), and there are no silly 'inventions' or absurd perversions of the characters. I like to think Tolkien would have enjoyed it, on the whole.

Finn and Hengest, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and, Tree and Leaf (or my copy is B-Format and matches spine wise,, granted the HC logo is smaller but thats due more to the thinness of the book)

http://i.imgur.com/fSYbEGL.png

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0261102656

They are a worthy purchase. You really learn a lot about his thoughts behind the novels.

I am an avid fantasy reader and a lot of people who I have read have made some crude imitation of his novels. It's very interesting to understand the how of why his novels are so inspiring, beyond just a surface read of the books.

There is this book called The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, dude himself states exactly that, i.e. that the moral values and a lot of symbolism is taken from Catholicism. You might have noticed that there was no actual religion in the books, it was left out intentionally. Reader is supposed to figure that out by himself.

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien.