The Iron Dream vs the Fascists of Middle Earth

Odradek

In Spring 2002 I read The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. Amazing piece of work, just astonishing. Written at four levels: a roaring Slan-like 50s-style pulp SF yarn; the fantastical ravings of a troubled German expatriate; an accurate history of the rise of the Third Reich; and a burning indictment of Tolkien. It forever changed The Lord of the Rings for me. When I saw the Fellowship of the Ring movie later that year all I could think of was the blatant Freudian subtext, and the fascist text itself. I kept flopping between the two modes of analysis, leaving little room for anything so mundane as actually liking the movie or identifying with the characters. The whole Freudian withholding orgasm/not using the ring child/Hobbit business was surprisingly literal, what with the elf/mom actually begging for it and Gandalf prematurely "shooting off" his fireworks and little childlike Frodo "accidentally" putting his digit into the magic hole with scary adult consequences, and the hideous mutinated products of doing "it" wrong. Look what constantly playing with "it" did to Gollum! Then there's the council---any non-evil person would indeed yearn to be ruled by that bunch of hung-up bearded hereditary ding dongs.

Copypasted from here http://www.bcl.hamilton.ie/~barak/rants/Iron-Dream-LoTR.html

Obā-san

In Spring 2002 I read The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. Amazing piece of work, just astonishing.

When I saw the Fellowship of the Ring movie later that year all I could think of was the blatant Freudian subtext, and the fascist text itself.

I kept flopping between the two modes of analysis, leaving little room for anything so mundane as actually liking the movie or identifying with the characters.

Obā-san

This HowTo is to provide the common tweaks used to optimize your new SSD
for Windows 7. I would recommend checking the performance of your SSD
before and after these tweaks to see how they impact your performance. I
recommend using AS SSD Benchmark to check your performance.

Justice4243

"I kept flopping between the two modes of analysis, leaving little room for anything so mundane as actually liking the movie or identifying with the characters."

"It was this point, I realized, that I had no friends."

Obā-san

When God, endlessly disappointed, finally prepared to turn his back on the world forever, it happened that some of his angels disagreed with him and took the side of man, saying he deserved to be given another chance.

Angry at being crossed, God banished them to what was then the most terrible place on earth: Berlin.

And then he turned away.

All this happened at the time that we today call: "The end of the second world war."

Since that time, these fallen angels from "The Second Angelic Rebellion" have been imprisoned in the city, with no prospect of release, let alone of being readmitted to heaven. They are condemned to be witnesses, forever nothing but onlookers, unable to affect man in the slightest, or to intervene in the course of history, they are unable to so much as move a grain of sand.

Justice4243

Berlin is probably not so bad now. Heck, lagers, slabs of meat, sausage, curry worst.

I guess they're literally stuck and can't even do anything, but there are still worst cities to be stuck looking at.

Unknown

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Obā-san

Imipolex G

I looked for The Iron Dream when I was at the bookstore the other day. They didn't have it.

YNTKT

Salix Babylonika

Let me tell you how much I have come to analyze Tolkien since I begun to live

Odradek

ANALYZE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO ANALYZE TOLKIEN SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE ENTIRE TEXT OF LOTR, THE HOBBIT AND THE SILMARILLION WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE STUDY I HAVE MADE OF TOLKIEN AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. ANALYZE. ANALYZE.

Imipolex G

damn

Obā-san

But, in the end, when all is said and done


no1curr

Odradek

25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford 

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and 

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien