Fingolfin’s Findings LXVI: One of Tolkien’s greatest critics, Michael Moorcock, has never really read “The Lord of the Rings”

Fans all over the world will have heard of two influential critical pieces: “Oo, those awful orcs!” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) by Edmund Wilson (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and “Epic Pooh” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [pdf] by Michael Moorcock (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (revised edition, British Fantasy Society, 1978).

What I did not know until recently is - Moorcock never read LotR in full.

Well.

How did you find out, Marcel?

Thanks have to go out to the excellent Tom Hillman. I can only highly suggest you subscribe to his blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) or get a copy of his book, Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Blackwell’s]

We often cross social media paths ever since we met personally in 2019 - at the New York Tolkien Conference (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and I appreciate his insights into Tolkien and many other things.

I am not sure how we came across this particular item but he had mentioned to me that in the years he had been online he had also read the following:

“What I haven’t read, is the Tolkien, though I believe he began the Silmarillion earlier than parts of the Lord of the Rings, at least. I have to admit here, too, that I haven’t read large chunks of Lord of the Rings. I realised this after attending the final movie and realising I had no clear idea what was going to happen, though I remember skipping through the books looking for references to Golem (sic!), who could be said to be a much closer to Elric’s precurser than any bloody fair-haired elf or other…”

He then goes on to say:

“(…) One thing I’m pretty sure of, I was not in any way directly influence by Prof. T I’m not familiar with arguments between Torky fans, either. But then they probably don’t talk much about Jung, who would tell us all this stuff is from the common race memory, anyway. Early enthusiasm for The White Goddess and The Golden Bough must have had a good deal to do with it, too.”

It is rather ironic that the website this was posted with multiverse.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) now links to a so-called AI project which took over on July 14th, 2022 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). You can it find it its ‘original spot’ thanks to the Internet Archive (first in January, 1999 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)). Luckily for fans, Moorcock transferred all of this to MichaelMoorcock.net.

The post was from June 2004 - if I am reading this right, it would be June 8th (?) - and written by himself.

And you can still read it - it is online while you are reading this (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

I love that he has an insult for the whole community: Torkies.

Talking about Children of Húrin this is what he had to say (Öffnet in neuem Fenster):

You don't have to tell me. Torky fans hate me for what I've said about their hero's work. Turgid, as far as I'm concerned, though I don't begrudge anyone else's enjoyment and got Children in the hope I could zip through it with pleasure. So far, no luck...

In another post from 2001 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) he made clear where he ‘came from’:

A friend of mine came back from Montreal, by the way, the other day. He'd been on a panel which had mentioned Cornelius. Apparently some of the panelists complained that I had an 'agenda'. They're damned right. Like H.G.Wells and Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, Philip Wylie, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Spinrad and, by god, R. Heinlein had agendas -- otherwise is there any point in doing it ? My agenda is, among other things, to break down cultural presumptions and stereotypes, to point out where and how our money comes from and to point the finger at imperialism wherever it pops up. It was the reason I got into this. I thought tht was what you were supposed to do. That is not, of course, the agenda of the majority of ff fans, who reflect that culture and proliferate its comforts. Any mass market success must do the same, from Ayn Rand to Torky. Too expensive a habit for me. The first hobbit's always free.

Which is kind of funny, to put Rand and “Torky” in the same room as one of my favourites is this:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Atlas Shrugged (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. [John Rogers, source (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Now, at the end of the day Moorcock’s words did have and still have an influence on Tolkien’s reception. Nothing can change that, but we can always change the ways we respond to the past.

So, here we are. Moorcock really is the pretentious prick I have considered him for many years - he did not even need to read a book in order to pass ‘judgement’.

UPDATE Feb 2026. When I first wrote this Moorcock had restored his old forums - but they have disappeared, again. Including his own website.

Unfortunately, the Web Archive did not save all of the threads - you can only get to the top tier on Elric/ Turambar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Good, that I did the screenshot at the time.