Let It Go

Filed under:Tolkien — posted by Anwyn on September 5, 2007 @ 2:30 pm

It’s just a house, and not even the house where he wrote, at that. Although this is just rude:

James Dean, director of Cranbrook Homes said he was not aware of the building’s history.

He said: “It’s going to be replaced with two superb contemporary houses. In the light of what you’ve just told me, perhaps one of them should be called Tolkien.”

According to the article, the house in question that will be demolished is where Tolkien and his wife moved after his retirement and lived until her death, whereupon he moved back to Oxford–about four years later. Let’s get a grip, people: This isn’t the Kilns, quirky and unusual home of C.S. Lewis. This is not Tolkien’s Headington house that W.H. Auden presumed to call “hideous.”

A few commenters in the linked article have it right: If it hasn’t been a “pilgrimage” site up till now, why should it be preserved in case anybody suddenly wants to make it so? There are only so many of his presumably rather ordinary houses I can look at when I finally travel to England.

WWTD? He was continuously angry at scenes of his personal history being pulled down and/or modernized, and personally I think he tended toward “overboard” in his preservationist tendencies. But in his preferences, he seemed largely interested in unique or old or natural scenes and buildings. I can’t imagine even he would think it worthwhile to fuss over the replacement of one modernish suburban house with two more modern others, other than a grumble at being too crowded, which is a separate issue. Let it go.

H/t TheOneRing.net.

one comment so far »

  1. Nor is it as important as the house from “A Christmas Story!” :)

    Comment by Chuck Bell — September 6, 2007 @ 6:40 am

Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)




image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace