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JRR Tolkien: 'I Never Expected a Money Success'

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday October 28 2015, @10:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-ring-to-rule-them-all dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

"I never expected a money success," said Tolkien, pacing the room, as he does constantly when he speaks. "In fact, I never even thought of commercial publication when I wrote The Hobbit back in the Thirties.

"It all began when I was reading exam papers to earn a bit of extra money. That was agony. One of the tragedies of the underpaid professor is that he has to do menial jobs. He is expected to maintain a certain position and to send his children to good schools. Well, one day I came to a blank page in an exam book and I scribbled on it. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

The piece is a pleasant read about the greatest fantasy writer of all time.

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  • (Score: 1) by Oakenshield on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:36PM

    by Oakenshield (4900) on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:36PM (#256038)

    Unfortunately, I believe you are exactly correct. The west has suckled at the teat of "free trade" to help business who has in turn driven costs down by offshoring and importing from regions with cheap labor. Now we are reaping the consequences: job stagnation, flat wages, and dim prospects. We have willingly handed over our manufacturing base for cheap trinkets and goods. Now, the only remaining value we have to offer is our "intellectual property." We use copyright enforcement to bludgeon others from competing while we were too weak-kneed to use other kinds of protectionism to save our more valuable industries.

  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:58PM

    by isostatic (365) on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:58PM (#256052) Journal

    Move the worlds reserve currency/oil currency from dollars to euros, or yuan, or groats, coupled with a USA that has a military competitor at least in regional theatres (China + guerrilla/terrorism), and the rest of the world ignoring US IP rights, and you're really screwed.

    Like it or not people that proposed things like the TPP, or invaded Iraq, also acknowledge this, and are trying to stave this day off.