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Tolkien Continued . . .

OK, I dug into the question of whether or not Tolkien was an anti-Semite and it appears to be a more complicated question to answer than I thought. There is an interesting article about Tolkien in Salon by Andrew OHair which only confuses the matter.

http://dir.salon.com/topics/jrr_tolkien/index.html

On the one hand, the article points out that in an interview with BBC in 1971 BBC radio (two years before he died), Tolkien was asked if the different races in The Lord of the Rings represent specific characteristics, the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsman-ship, men husbandry and battle, and so forth?

Tolkien's response was,

I didn't intend it, but when you've got these people on your hands you've got to make them different, haven't you? The dwarves of course are quite obviously — wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic. The Hobbits are just rustic English people.

If Tolkien were alive today and he made a comment like that he would be in very hot water -- seriously, he was stone cold sober on the radio at the time not sitting on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway getting picked up on a DUI.

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