The Return of "Tolkienian Gloom"

So, today I was skimming a piece about the NEW YORK TIMES' apparent fixation of using 'shadow' or 'cloud' when describing Mrs. Clinton's campaign when I came across an unexpected Tolkien reference in it. There's the link to the whole piece (which, as I said, I've only skimmed") below, but here's the salient passage:

"Like many people, I've been bothered by an ominous, insinuating tone in the NYT's Clinton coverage. HRC always seems to be inhabiting a gloomy, almost Tolkienesque realm of cloud and shadow .  . .  I went searching for instances of "cloud(s)" and "shadow(s)" in stories from the past few months."

The piece goes on to say that the writer "found 20 articles since early May using 'clouds' or 'shadows' as the de rigueur metaphor of choice. (To be fair, three of the examples are Associated Press stories the Times ran.)" and then goes on to cite specific examples. Here's the link:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-cloud-shadow-clinton-coverage



Now, this reminded me right away of a similar usage that drew Tolkien's attention and resulted in him writing a letter to the newspaper, just a year before he died, to protest association of his name with gloom. The original letter to the editor can be found at Tolkien Gateway (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_339), which reproduces an image of it as it appeared in the paper; for just the text itself, see LETTERS p. 419-420.

So, while I think it's often specious to say what a writer would or would not have liked, here we're on pretty solid ground to feel that Tolkien wd not have been best pleased by the association of his name and work with clouds and shadows, however metaphoric.

--John R.
current reading: LONGITUDE: THE TRUE STORY OF A LONE GENIUS WHO SOLVED THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF HIS TIME, by Dava Sobel (1995/96).