Tag Archives: J. R. R. Tolkien

Apprenticing with the Dead – Reading Tolkien 35 Years Late (The Beautiful Endgame and the Bones of Plot)

Posted on June 25, 2013 by epbeaumont

A week or two ago, I finished reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. As a pro writer, there was a whole extra layer of enjoyment in the endgame, with its gorgeous structure and its alternating notes of triumph and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Writing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The real face of evil looks a lot like a garden slug, or why J. R. R. Tolkien kept the Big Bad off stage

Posted on January 28, 2013 by epbeaumont

I’m two-thirds of the way through The Two Towers, where the point-of-view swings back to Tolkien’s unlikely hobbit-hero Frodo and his faithful sidekick Sam, several days into some seriously uninviting territory. There’s a lot of rather foreboding and on occasion actively … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Apprenticing with the Dead: Reading Tolkien 35 Years Late

Posted on January 19, 2013 by epbeaumont

When I was in high school in the late 1970s, everybody was reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. I resisted, for reasons I didn’t fully understand at the time. I think if you’d asked me then, I would have … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments