2. H.G. Wells & Henry James were friends once, even talked about collaborating on a novel about a voyage to Mars, but feuded. Their personal rift was emblematic of a larger split between genre & literary fiction.
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13. But the National Review rightists weren't the only ones interested in Tolkien. The pirated Ace edition (published using a loophole in copyright law) carried an introduction by Peter Beagle which claimed Lord of the Rings for countercultural environmentalism.
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14. The thing with allegories is that they can be read in different ways, and its easy for competing factions to repurpose them for different ends. Were orcs evil reds or rapacious industrialists?
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15. All of which is to say that it's natural to use fantastika to describe the world, so
@paulkrugman &@mattyglesias reference Asimov's Foundation, resistance liberals Harry Potter, feminists Handmaid's Tale, Bernie supporters Dune, & NR types Tolkien.Show this thread -
16. I should add, of course, that these political readings are not the only way into s.f. & fantasy. Guy Davenport also wrote a beautiful essay about Tolkien as a teacher and also what he might have gleaned from a Kentucky friend:https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/23/archives/hobbits-in-kentucky.html …
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no paperback version... at the time, right? Because I swear the copy of LotR that I read was paperback, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't pirated...
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Ballantine published the first authorized US softcover in 1965
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