XPost: rec.arts.books.childrens, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: dstevens@OBSTACLESuiuc.edu   
      
   In <7hxlgtDKNW$$Ew4P@purkiss.demon.co.uk> Jane Lumley  writes:   
      
   >In article , G. M. Watson   
   > writes   
   >>>In what way were they stuffy with Tolkien that they were not with Wodehouse?   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >Who are 'they'?  I'm always entertained by the repeated tendency to   
   >overstate the opposition faced by successful novelists.   
      
   Ooh, me too :-).   
      
   When it comes to Honours as opposed to honors, though, it may not be just   
   a question of critical opposition.  Most literary types would probably   
   come from the Prime Minister's list.  I confess to being a bit unfamiliar   
   with the various steps, but I presume that that would mean approval by the   
   PM's office as well as the initial recommendation (otherwise what would   
   be the point of the people who refused it under one Prime Minister and   
   accepted under another?), and the name would also have to be approved by   
   the Sovereign.  I suspect not all nominees are quite suiting the image   
   that the administration du jour is hoping to project with the list.   
   (Perhaps Pullman but not Rowling is an example of this as well?)   
      
   Actually, it'd be interesting to see a list of children's authors and   
   illustrators who *have* received an honor and when they did.  It strikes   
   me as plausible that Tolkien simply had the fortune to live into a time when   
   writing for children was starting to be considered worthy of that kind of   
   note, and "that kind of note" had its own independent considerations that   
   didn't completely correlate with larger cultural changes.   
      
      
   --   
   Deborah Stevenson   
   dstevens@OBSTACLESuiuc.edu   
   [eliminate OBSTACLES to email me]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)