Customer Reviews

A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Flieger is one of the most respected Tolkien scholars, having written extensively in the field. This particular book concerns how time is perceived in the professor's works, not just Lord of the Rings, but also the incomplete The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, both of which explore time travel, as well as the shorter bits of poetry, including "The Sea-Bell" which is attributed to Frodo's dark dreams after he returns from the Quest. It's a very interesting book and has made me want to read the incomplete stories and undoubtedly mourn the fact that so much of his work was left undone when he was called home. It also has separate chapters on Frodo's dreams, the sense of time not passing in Lothlorien and the remark of Frodo's that returning home would be like falling asleep instead of waking from a dream. There is much food for thought in this book and recommended for anyone interested in Prof. Tolkien's works, not just the ones that made him most famous.

J.R.R Tolkien is not just a writer and the Legendarium is not just a creation. Like Dante's Devine comedy or Homer's Odyssey - the Legendarium is a whole world that contains a lot of themes and ideas.
Anyone that read Shippey or Pearce can recite by heart the known themes that exist in LOTR: mythology (Norse, German or even Celtic), Christian, Linguistic or Philosophical theme (Aristo or Neo Renaissance influence etc.). But after you had learned those themes, you are spending a lot of time and effort to find some new themes or new ideas. There are a lot of books about Tolkien and most of them discussing the known themes.
If you want book about those themes, A Question of Time is not the book for you. If you are a novice Tolkien researcher, you should read Shippey, Pearce or Anderson and don't start with this book.
This book contains different themes and ideas. The main theme in this book is about time and dreams, an idea that I never thought about or read it elsewhere. Flieger shows us that LOTR and other Tolkien's creations have a grain of time and time travel inside of them. She backs her theories with powerful examples from LOTR drafts (History of Middle Earth vol. 6-9) and from Tolkien's time travel story (Vol. 5 and 9).
Flieger does convince me that Tolkien thought about time and incorporated his thoughts in LOTR. I was amazed that after reading and researching Tolkien for such a long time, she actually told me something new, something that made me read LOTR and the Legendarium in a different perspective. I had the same feeling after I read Shippey's book and I am sorry to say that few of Tolkien criticism books are giving me the same sense.
To summarize my words: Read Shippey, Pierce, and Hammond & Scull and of course Anderson's annotated Hobbit first. But If you have read those already and you are searching for a new theme - READ THIS BOOK!

This is a scholarly, highly readable and emjoyable work examining J.R.R. Tolkien's writings in light of his known interest in dreams and in time. This work is particularly fascinating in that Flieger does not merely study Tolkien's published works but also analyzes his unpublished but still intriguing writings like The Lost Road. I enjoyed the scholarly analysis, and I found particularly interesting the chapter on some of Tolkien's influences in this area, including some hitherto unsuspected works like the writings of George Du Maurier, J.W. Dunne's theories, and the famous Trianon Ghosts case.

If you are just discovering the world of Tolkien criticism you should probably begin with T.A. Shippey's works instead of this one, but Flieger's work will eventually add to your understanding and appreciation of Tolkien immeasurably.

This book was given to me as a gift and I was pleased to get it because I know Prof. Flieger's reputation is high among academics. I'm a Tolkien fan and have read a number of other scholarly books about Tolkien. I don't think I'm a particularly dense person, I graduated from college, but just could not follow any of the arguments in this book. I've tried twice to read it but finally had to give up. I guess if you're breathing rarified air of Tolkien academia it might make some sense, but mostly it just struck me as words piled on words. I ddidn't come away with any new insights - just a sense of... HUH? I give this book two stars for effort - she obviously knows a lot about her subject, but this reads like an obscure doctoral dissertation. I just couldn't stick it out. Sorry.

I have been curious about our relation to time for many years now. It may seem like a bit of a fringe topic, but how one views time affects how one views God, others, our memories, and our dreams.

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien frequently discussed the issue of time during their years of friendship, and both wrote about their view of time in their books, usually in the form of stories.

Verlyn Flieger has studied this issue in depth as it relates to the writings of JRR Tolkien, and so I wanted to see what Flieger had learned.

I ended up with a better understanding of Tolkien's view of time, especially as it relates to memory and dreams. Tolkien seems to have believed in a form of higher consciousness that could freely move over the field of time. Also, he seems to have believed in a form of ancestral memory, through which we gain some of the memories from our ancestors.

This book talks about some of this, and how Tolkien used his writings to explore the issue of time and time-travel through dreams and memory.

The book is somewhat difficult to read in parts, and so I only recommend reading it if you are interested in learning more about what Tolkien though about time.

I think the author's understanding of time and its fluid quality is very perceptive and I found the book highly readable due to this exploration of Tolkien's writing.

Certainly not a book for the novice, but if you are interested in some of the ideas that must have fed Tolkien's fertile imagination then you will enjoy this book.

This book presents an excellent interpretation of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein. It adds an interesting prespective on his stories, as well as his life. This is a must have for any true Tolien fan! Peace.