Matt Stott

My name is Matthew Stott, and I am currently studying English at Murdoch University, Western Australia.

I'm one of those tedious and irritating people who manage to read LotR at least once a year (so I'm not a big fan of Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Two Towers--but I know I'm in the minority there), having first picked it up at school when I was 16. Actually I was holidaying up north with some cousins at the time, and one of them had just purchased Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magic and was playing it ad infinitum. Don't get me wrong--I love that album. It just means that every time I read certain chapters of LotR--"Three is Company," for example, or "The Riders of Rohan"--I hear the Chilli Peppers playing in my head (and vice versa). It could be worse, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm more of a LotR enthusiast than a Tolkien-enthusiast, and I'm much more interested in the peoples and events of the ThirdAge than anything else, so please excuse me if my contributions seem a little heavily-weighted towards this area. I also have an interest in some thornier academic and political questions that Tolkien's work raises. My honours thesis tackled the "thorniest" question of all--the nature of the relationship between Frodo and Sam. But I won't bore you with the details here; ask me about it sometime.

I remember reading an article by a writer named Marc Angenot on the semiotics of SF. He suggested that when a writer of SF or fantasy provides a map of an imagined place or world, or gives an account of its history, we as readers derive pleasure from what is not told, what is not shown--he calls this "the absent paradigm"--such that the practice of reading this kind of fiction involves filling in the gaps, or wondering about what belongs there. I have the impression that it is this kind of pleasure--the pleasure of the absent paradigm--that drives the TolkienWiki.

But enough from me. I'm still a "newbie" here, so if I make a few mistakes here and there, please don't hesitate to point me in the right direction. Oh, and my email is MAIL fwnietzsche (AT) hotmail.com

Message Box

Thanks!! (And apologies--I visit these pages far too seldom these days)

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Happy Birthday, Matt --Walter

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Good Morning, Matt! I am glad there is another fan of Michael Martinez's writings !!! I like very much his style and read his essays with great pleasure... whenever I have the time to do it! Do you interact with him anyhow? If yes - where...and how?... I used to ecxchange a couple of e-mails with him some time ago.

BTW, I would love to read your opinion on the Tolkien Wiki Forum which is under construction at the moment. The Forum has its own MB, so why don't you drop a line or two? --LR

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Hello and welcome here, Matt, please make yourself comfortable at our humble Wiki. This part of the page - as you will have noticed by now - can serve as your personal Message Box, feel free to delete messages you don't need any longer.

Your contributions so far have been very well done and are much appreciated. If you need help or have any questions, please feel free to drop a note in my Message-Box. Please don't mind when I at times meddle some with pages you created or edited, I do that mostly in order to establish links to already existing pages, or to make changes in the layout, etc.. Regarding your work on the nature of the relationship between Frodo and Sam feel free to put it up here as an essay (if you want so), I am sure some - including myself - will be interested to read it. -- Walter

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