ALT Excerpt of Isaac Asimov's essay “Concerning Tolkien” (1991), as republished in ‘Magic’ (1996). Part reads as follows: «Well, one day, Janet and I were driving along the New Jersey Turnpike, and we passed a section given over to oil refineries. It was a blasted region in which nothing was growing and which was filled with ugly, pipelike structures, which refineries must have. Waste oil was burning at the top of tall chimneys and the smell of petroleum products filled the air. Janet looked at the prospect with troubled eyes and said, “There’s Mordor.” And, of course, it was. And that was what had to be in Tolkien’s mind. The ring was industrial technology, which uprooted the green land and replaced it with ugly structures under a pall of chemical pollution.»
