Of course, most genre SF and fantasy authors, Michael Moorcock included, should be so lucky as to have their work achieve the status and power of "nursery rhymes."

Patrick: Have to agree with you there. Much of what Moorcock complains about regarding Tolkien could also be said of Shakespeare, Dickens or Tennyson.

It's easy to appear controversial and of superior tastes by criticizing anything that achieves massive mainstream popularity, critical acclaim, and iconic status. Oldest trick in the book.

Michael Moorcock writes crap, as I think needs to be noted here. I'll take a good nursery rhyme over his broodingly Byronic cutouts any old day.

Edited by author 12-23-2002 10:59 AM
from the article:
"...it is remarkable how frequently he will draw back from the implications of the subject matter"

of course if the Lord of the Rings had been written by the estimable Mr. Moorcock we would not have this problem, Mr. Moorcock will never draw back from these implications which are, to summarize, that the eternal hero Frodo Baggins and his assistant to heroes Samwise Gamgee are in fact examples of two recurring archetypes throughout the history, not just of the earth, but of the whole MULTIVERSE!!

Mr. Baggins, who is irresistibly attractive to big-breasted human women, is unfortunately cursed to bear the ONE RING the name of which is iurtuq, or something suitably unpronounceable. Due to his attractiveness to big-breasted human women Mr. Baggins has an active romantic life but iurtug, the One Ring, has on numerous occasions with a malicious will caused these women to fall into the clutches of RingWraiths who then devour the mortal souls of these human women with the big’uns. This is very worrisome to Mr. Baggins and has left him, understandably, melancholic.

Despite his melancholic nature Mr. Baggins still presses on in the thirty-something books of the Lord of the Eldritch Rings series, with many adventures wherein he becomes made aware of his own nature as a heroic archetype, by meeting and interacting with similar melancholic incarnations of himself from various Universes, fighting against the local representatives of evil, and brooding on the many boobalicious babes they have lost through all the aeons of eternity. In several scenes written with Mr. Moorcock’s usual flair Mr. Baggins actually joins with various incarnations of himself to make an ultimate hero having something like twenty arms, ten heads, a bunch of really kick-ass weaponry and basically looking somewhat silly. Samwise Gamgee also interacts in a similar manner with various assistants to heroes across the MULTIVERSE.

The eventual goal of Mr. Baggins in this series is to meet the all-powerful Lord Sauron, a local incarnation of the Lord of Chaos known as Arioch, in single battle and kick his ass through the means of the One Ring which, ironically enough Arioch/Sauron gave to him at some point through the use of one of his avatars, named Gollum whom Mr. Baggins, shortly after receiving iurtug kills and feeds his soul, measly as it is, to a RingWraith!

Along the way, obsessed with vengeance against Sauron for the loss of many well-endowed females of the human species, Mr. Baggins is forced to sacrifice Samwise Gamgee to protect himself in an encounter with one of Lord Sauron’s RingWraith’s. This is in book 28, of the series, but Mr. Baggins meets with a Samwise Gamgee from an alternate universe in book 34 and together they go to fight Sauron. This meeting is especially bitter for Mr. Baggins as it forces him to reflect on how his inhuman lust for vengeance has caused him to betray his friend. But in the end Mr. Baggins triumphs, though it costs him his own life and soul in the process he manages to defeat Sauron and feed Sauron's soul to a RingWraith, just as throughout the MULTIVERSE the other incarnations of Mr. Baggins manage to defeat their local incarnations of Arioch.

It should also be noted that if these books had been written by Mr. Moorcock, we would have surpassing brilliant illustrations of the muscular Mr. Baggins, wearing a chainmail loincloth with an impressive bulge, in combat with various unearthly beasts to hang on our walls.

Finally I must apologise if my post seems barely literate, I thought it a good bit of post-modernism to affect the voice of Mr. Moorcock here.

As far as I know LOR was written for children {his grand children},so this guy is just stating facts and trying to make them sound like inspired criticism.By the way I read the book when I was 15 and never had a clue what it was about until I saw the movie.

Not to split hairs, but while "The Hobbit" was aimed at kids, "Lord of the Rings" was not. It was intended to be a mature work of fantasy, something Tolkien saw a total lack of on the market. And I would hope that seeing the films will inspire folks to return to the books; Peter Jackson's done a brilliant job of visualizing the story, but the richness of detail can only be explored in the source...they're not THAT hard to decipher, honestly.

Ah, critics.

Thanks Blotter I wasn't exactly sure of my facts.I would say that the movie makes a great companion to the books.Let's all look forward to the next one!

I just got home from seeing The Two Towers, and I was blown away. Not by Tolkien's story, but by Peter Jackson's artistry.
I'm a fan of Moorcock's books, particularly the Jerry Cornelius stories. As an author who has written extensively in what is an often reactionary genre, Moorcock has proven himself to be an exceptional presence: rereading his Oswald Bastable stories and even the Elric stories, in light of the real two towers events, helped me make sense of contemporary historical events.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, however, is clearly the product of a somewhat reactionary sort of fellow pining for the olden days. That Tolkien's fantasies of a better, simpler world that he imagined had existed before the Industrial revolution and, most notably, suburbanisation, have been rendered on the movie screen using advanced computer technology would offend him terribly.
And Tolkien's reactionary politics are clearly spoken in the Two Towers. I doubt that Peter Jackson believes in them himself.
But the thing is, I think Celine was a great author, and he was a Nazi sympathiser. I don't agree with Tolkien's politics - I'd side with Moorcock. To discount any experience because the organisers behind it don't share my own peculiar and particular beliefs would be stupid.
I can see how the Two Towers could be used as an argument for the War on Sadddam. Maybe it will be. Perhaps it is always dangerous to think that there are such clearly defined categories as good and evil. I think that Michael Moorcock understands the difference, while Tolkien didn't. But in the context of Peter Jackson's film (hell, I'd love to see him film Elric, but pigeonholing PJ as a fantasy director would be terribly unfair), I don't care. PJ's film version of the LOTR will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary and ambitious projects ever undertaken in the world of film.
I can't think of any better reason to make sure that I don't kick the bucket in the next twelve months than getting to see the final installment of the series.
But like Moorcock, I still don't agree with the politics.