The Power of Tolkien's Prose (PDF)

STEVE C. WALKER is Professor of English at Brigham Young University, USA and author of Seven Ways of Looking at Susanna, A Book of Mormons, and Mourning with Those who Mourn.

"Walker has read both widely and deeply in Tolkien's fiction, essays, and published letters, and uses all of these . . .There are many other worthwhile discussions of Tolkien's love of resuscitating dead metaphor, and his use of religion, coincidence, luck, prefiguring, and much else . . . The Power of Tolkien's Prose therefore helps to fill a gap in Tolkien scholarship. It is essentially a survey of the varieties of Tolkien's prose, an overview touching on a wide range of stylistic components, occasionally delving deep into particular sections." - Tolkien Studies

"Behind the beloved stories, Walker unveils Tolkien's mastery of language, symbol, and style. With scholarly rigor and a vivid style of his own, Walker finds in Tolkien's fiction every important attribute his detractors have declared that it lacked. From now on, you cannot speak intelligently about Tolkien's writing without taking into account all the arguments in Walker's book. Walker takes his place beside Tom Shippey in the vanguard of serious Tolkien scholarship." - Orson Scott Card, New York Times best-selling author of over sixty such novels as Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead

"Walker's groundbreaking contribution is to show how Tolkien's style makes meaning by involving readers in that meaning-making. Full of original insights that are likely to prove illuminating for all serious readers of Tolkien, The Power of Tolkien's Prose makes sense of the sea of conflicting opinion about Tolkien's work." - Jonathan Langford, author of Pathways into Maturity: Coming-of-Age among Hobbits

"In spectacularly effective criticism firmly grounded in Tolkien's texts, Walker mediates between contradictory readings by revealing heretofore unnoticed nuances in the style. He demonstrates the consistent effect of 'vivid ambiguity': an intensity of vision, both understated and packed with implications, that invites a variety of responses and opens readers' eyes