Jasper Nicolaisen:
'One Book To Rule Them All Out':
The popular reception of J.R.R Tolkien's work and the nightmare of normalization
In the popular reception of J.R.R Tolkien's work, a strong reluctance can be found to deal with certain ways of reading and interpreting.His texts are read in quasi-romantic terms of uniqueness, completeness and coherency with a strong sense of author-authority, while attempts to link them to other discourses such as race, gender and the history of the 20th century are ruled out from the very beginning.The paper tries to describe that dominant way of reading Tolkien against the background of late 60s American popular culture and to figure out how readers construct themselves and the text when employing that mode of reading.
It argues that the texts are kept undefined and uncategorized as regards to their status as 'high' or 'popular' art and genre conventions as a refusal of normative pressure on the reader side.
Tolkien´s imaginary world becomes a 'u-topia', which does not allow for escapism, because any foreign element in it would spoil its perfect otherness, which in turn guarantees for the otherness of the reader.
The paper closes with a short look on the movie, and the possible effects of a 'second version' on the popular discourse on Tolkien.
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