Looking for a critical work on Tolkien

February 15, 2011 4:37 PM

Looking for an essay/other view of Tolkien's Middle Earth depicting Sauron as a liberator.

It's not Epic Pooh, it wasn't written by China Mieville (I think) and I can't find it. The piece was critical of Tolkien's romanticism in his works, about how the Shire was this English country life, how the Lord of the Rings is about Kings, etc. There may have also been something about racism in there, but I'm not sure. I remember the ending being roughly about how Sauron would be a legend among the orcs, a story circulated, that one day he would return and liberate them all.

For some reason, I thought (after Moorcock and Mieville) that it might have been written by Niven. But I had no luck there, so I'm turning to you guys.

posted by Hactar to writing & language (5 answers total)

David Brin in Salon
posted by grobstein at 4:42 PM on February 15, 2011

J.R.R. Tolkien -- enemy of progress
posted by grouse at 4:45 PM on February 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed the concepts (if not the writing) in The Sundering by Jacqueline Carey, which was a "what if sauron was the good guy after all" take on LOTR
posted by rebent at 4:45 PM on February 15, 2011

And in a strange coincidence(?), this was just posted to Metafilter.
posted by grobstein at 4:53 PM on February 15, 2011

grobstein, I ran into that on Salon and went looking for the essay.
posted by Hactar at 4:58 PM on February 15, 2011