the ever-renewed imagination of JRR Tolkien delights the writer’s fans

One could imagine them stamping with impatience. But no, not quite. It is a particular universe that of fans of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, or more simply JRR Tolkien. Series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was released on Friday September 2 all over the world on Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming platform: a considerable event for the entire community of the universe created by the British writer, but not necessarily welcomed in the same way by everyone. Because if this group does share a common interest, it is by no means homogeneous. And that is perhaps also the beauty of this work.

Read our review: “The Rings of Power”: a grandiose series in the tradition of “Lord of the Rings” despite some sprains from Tolkien’s universe

Everyone finds indeed in the universe of the Hobbits, imagined by Tolkien in the 1920s, what he wants to find there. The linguist Edouard Kloczko, who devoted years of research to Tolkien and several books, such as High Elvish for Beginners, he does not want to hear about the Amazon series. For him, the essential is the original text: “Tolkien’s work is mainly based on a linguistic conception, on the creation of languages. Not simple and easy to learn languages, as he says in one of his rare interviews: ‘I didn’t create these languages ​​to have tea and speak Elvish with my friends.’

Funny, therefore, that it is for this sociability that Nicolas Sausseau organizes an annual convention in costumes in the Côtes-d’Armor, in Plouha, in mid-September. “I like this possibility of seeing something which, in any case in the real world, is inaccessible. There is little chance that we will come across an orca at the corner of the street..., he jokes. This year I’m working on a full Gondor soldier armor [l’un des royaumes fictifs inventé par J.R.R Tolkien, NDLR]. I hope to present it without incident for the next conventions.“

Not at all the kind of Lucius, the administrator of the French reference website Tolkiendrim: “No, I don’t have a sword hanging on the wall, as we often see! I’m much more attached to the books on my Tolkien shelf, which is starting to run out of space unfortunately”, he smiles. And he is not surprised that there are so many profiles of admirers of the work of fantasy: “Tolkien wrote his text knowing that his readers would be able to inject their culture, their experience, into the readings. He always encouraged the fact that readers could include themselves in his stories. is why, gradually, the text applies to new people“, he deciphers.

This new billion dollar series is based on dry footnotes published at the end of the third book of the Lord of the Ringscompleted in 1955. Patrick McKay and JD Payne, the creators, portray heroes and their enemies who are barely (if at all) sketched in the trilogy and its appendices and appendices: The Rings of Power takes place during Tolkien’s “Second Age”, in Middle-earth, thousands of years before the events of Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

With Amazon, which intends to capitalize on the still very strong appeal of the books, regularly elected among the most popular novels of all time, and the Oscar-winning films that Peter Jackson has drawn from them, a new generation of fans is therefore arriving, with an imagination still renewed.