Audiobook Review: Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century by Nick Groom.
With weather turning nicer, I had finished listening to the Hobbit in audiobook format while walking and was seeking something else to consider while out in the fresh morning air.
I selected Nick Groom’s Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century: The Meaning of Middle-Earth Today.
The book description, I use Hoopla, noted the book reveals “how his visionary creation of Middle-Earth is more relevant now than ever before.”
He addresses core themes and pays proper attention to adaptations and their challenges, how adaptations were reflective and built on one another as much as the written story.
The section on the adaptations was well-done. There was great attention given to the script that never was produced and often ridiculed, however, in context it was an intriguing attempt and was given its proper due.
One reviewer on Goodreads compared it in intent to Why We Love Middle-Earth by Shawn Marchese and Alan Sisto, hosts of the Prancing Pony Podcast, and I have to admit it reminded me of it as well.
There are explanations of the themes and elements of the book, which are very good, but the connection to how it is more relevant today is not. The clarity of its acceptance and relevance upon release is not compared and contrasted to that of today’s world.
All in all a good book for those interested in better understanding the books and challenges of adaptation.
Ross Raymond Nunamaker 