JRR Tolkien was rejected by the Nobel Prize committee because he wrote about hobbits, dwarves and orcs, it has emerged.
Recently released documents from the Nobel Academy showed the judges of the literature prize thought Tolkien’s writing was ‘excellent’ but his choice of subject was ‘weird’.
One document states: “His grammar, punctuation and spelling are all superb and there’s very little use of Tippex. Certainly good enough to deserve a Nobel Prize.
“Unfortunately the story is a load of bonged-up drivel about goblins and stuff. Bin it.”
Another document states: “Lovely penmanship, but what a waste of time.”
A Nobel spokesman said: “Previous laureates have included George Bernard Shaw, TS Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre and Toni Morrison. Their styles are diverse, but the one thing their work has in common is a total lack of mystical proto-progrock bollocks.”
He added: “This is the Nobel Academy, not Forbidden Planet.”
But Tolkien fans were quick to defend their hero on messageboards and web forums, with one fan, faramir762, insisting: “If they’d given Tolkien the Nobel prize, its power would have corrupted him, and he’d have ended up jealously guarding it in the Misty Mountains, and referring to it as his ‘Precious’.
“For ’tis written.”
