Unbound college review
Tolkien at Exeter College will be welcomed by any reader who can never get enough of Tolkien. Rather, they can enjoy learning more about Tolkien’s personality–he really more sociable, and more wild, than the famous photo of him smoking a pipe in his older years might suggest. But readers should not hope to find much about Middle-earth or Hobbits here. Notable is his account of a meeting that he recounts in a satirical manner, as if it were an epic battle. The focus here is not really on Tolkien’s authorial development, although some of his sketches, as well as some of his writings for his school’s clubs are included. However, for those who already know a good deal about Tolkien’s life, but always wondered more about his early days, Tolkien at Exeter College is a treasure indeed. They may want to start with a book like Humphrey Carpenter’s biography, which attempts to cover Tolkien’s entire life, or with Garth’s own Tolkien and the Great War, which combines biography with astute literary analysis. The stories of Tolkien’s undergrad social life are amusing, but the wealth of images, including sketches by Tolkien, will be the key attraction for many Tolkien fans.īecause Tolkien at Exeter College focuses on only a few year’s in the author’s life, the book admittedly may not be for casual Tolkien fans. It works as a supplement to John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, which focuses on how WWI shaped Tolkien’s literary works, and so does not dwell at length on Tolkien’s time in school. Tolkien’s undergrad years, perfect for those readers who always long to know more about one of their literary heroes. At 64 pages and bound more like a brochure than a book, Tolkien at Exeter College is a concise overview of J.