Professor Michael Drout speaks to me about his fascinating and deeply moving new literary memoir cum detailed literary analysis The Tower and the Ruin. Drout’s book, published December 2nd, analyses Tolkien from the persective of one reader, whilst also providing evidence for how Tolkien is best read in the context of his academic discipline, philology, and Tolkien’s creative response to his medieval sources.

Here, I interview author and academic Giuseppe Pezzini, who has released a new book, Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation, published by Cambridge University Press.

Unfortunately, the audio is not always great, and despite my efforts, an annoying background buzz remains. If anyone has any tips about how to deal with this I’d be most thankful.

Please enjoy.

In this episode Sridhar and I discuss the upcoming Amazon show, Rings of Power, and the prequel to Game of Thrones - House of the Dragon. The discussion turns to the variant means by which Tolkien and Martin approach morally dubious characters like Gollum, or the Lannisters. Both of us are unrepentent in our bias toward Tolkien, and as I argue throughout the podcast, much of what is said to constitute Martin’ s genius is done better elsewhere, and frequently with much greater nuance. So, if you’re a Martin fan, you will probably find a lot here to argue with.

With that said, we don’t quite *hate* Martin, and there are certainly interesting things he does with some of his characters. But in our opinion his fans often over-egg Martin’s literary/philosophical importance, and in doing so usually seek to diminish Tolkien in the process. Here, we seek to redress the balance and criticise elements of Martin’s fiction that we find unbelievable, incoherent, or less unique than fan-stans claim.

Join us as we discuss The Silmarillion (the Quenta) Chapters 1-4. We (or rather I) rant quite a lot about the nature of these early chapters as ‘myth’; not to be taken literally, but as a symbolic exploration of the diminution of primal coherence, beauty, light, etc. We touch on the role of the Valar, and discuss the efficacy of mythological vs. theological readings. I also touch on my favourite topic, Tolkien’s text as metafiction!

In this episode, scholar Brian Rosebury and I discuss tragedy in Tolkien, the role of moral judgement in Tolkien’s fiction, and the considerations of character when making judgements about the choices of key figures in Tolkien’s legendarium. Please join us.

Join Daniel Stride and I as we review The Nature of Middle-earth, published in 2021.