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[Edmond Dantès]

On this, the 60th anniversary of the publication of Fellowship of the Ring; two of its most famous reviews

Oo, THOSE AWFUL ORCS!

By Edmund Wilson

In 1937, Dr. J. R. R. Tolkien, an Oxford don, published a children's book called The Hobbit, which had an immense success. The Hobbits are a not quite human race who inhabit an imaginary country called the Shire and who combine the characteristics of certain English animals - they live in burrows like rabbits and badgers - with the traits of English country-dwellers, ranging from rustic to tweedy (the name seems a telescoping of rabbit and Hobbs.) They have Elves, Trolls and Dwarfs as neighbours, and they are associated with a magician called Gandalph and a slimy water-creature called Gollum. Dr. Tolkien became interested in his fairy-tale country and has gone on from this little story to elaborate a long romance, which has appeared, under the general title, The Lord of the Rings, in three volumes: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. All volumes are accompanied with maps, and Dr. Tolkien, who is a philologist, professor at Merton College of English Language and Literature, has equipped the last volume with a scholarly apparatus of appendices, explaining the alphabets and grammars of the various tongues spoken by his characters, and giving full genealogies and tables of historical chronology. Dr. Tolkien has announced that this series - the hypertrophic sequel to The Hobbit - is intended for adults rather than children, and it has had a resounding reception at the hands of a number of critics who are certainly grown-up in years. Mr. Richard Hughes, for example, has written of it that nothing of the kind on such a scale has been attempted since The Faerie Queen, and that « for width of imagination it almost beggars parallel. »

« It's odd, you know, » says Miss Naomi Mitchison, « one takes it as seriously as Malory. » And Mr. C. S. Lewis, also of Oxford, is able to top them all: « If Ariosto, » he ringingly writes, « rivalled it in invention (in fact, he does not), he would still lack its heroic seriousness. » Nor has America been behind. In The Saturday Review of Literature, a Mr. Louis J. Halle, author of a book on Civilization and Foreign Policy, answers as follows a lady who - « lowering, » he says, « her pince-nez » -has inquired what he finds in Tolkien: « What, dear lady, does this invented world have to do with our own? You ask for its meaning - as you ask for the meaning of the Odyssey, of Genesis, of Faust - in a word? In a word, then, its meaning is 'heroism.' It makes our own world, once more, heroic. What higher meaning than this is to be found in any literature? »

But if one goes from these eulogies to the book itself, one is likely to be let down, astonished, baffled. The reviewer has just read the whole thing aloud to his seven-year old daughter, who has been through The Hobbit countless times, beginning it again the moment she has finished, and whose interest has been held by its more prolix successors. One is puzzled to know why the author should have supposed he was writing for adults. There are, to be sure, some details that are a little unpleasant for a children's book, but except when he is being pedantic and also boring the adult reader, there is little in The Lord of the Rings over the head of a seven-year-old child. It is essentially a children's book - a children's book which has somehow got out of hand, since, instead of directing it at the « juvenile » market, the author has indulged himself in developing the fantasy for its own sake; and it ought to be said at this point, before emphasizing its inadequacies as literature, that Dr. Tolkien makes few claims for his fairy romance. In a statement prepared for his publishers, he has explained that he began it to amuse himself, as a philological game: the invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. I should have preferred to write in 'Elvish'. » He has omitted, he says, in the printed book, a good deal of the philological part; « but there is a great deal of linguistic matter... included or mythologically expressed in the book. It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in 'linguistic esthetic,' as I sometimes say to people who ask me 'what it is all about.'... It is not 'about' anything but itself. Certainly it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political. » An overgrown fairy story, a philological curiosity - that is, then, what The Lord of The Rings really is. The pretentiousness is all on the part of Dr. Tolkien's infatuated admirers, and it is these pretensions that I would here assail.

The most distinguished of Tolkien's admirers and the most conspicuous of his defenders has been Mr. W. H. Auden. That Auden is a master of English verse and a well-equipped critic of verse, no one, as they say, will dispute. It is significant, then, that he comments on the badness of Tolkien's verse - there is a great deal of poetry in The Lord of the Rings. Mr. Auden is apparently quite insensitive - through lack of interest in the other department.- to the fact that Tolkien's prose is just as bad. Prose and verse are on the same level of professorial amateurishness. What I believe has misled Mr. Auden is his own special preoccupation with the legendary theme of the Quest. He has written a book about the literature of the Quest; he has experimented with the theme himself in a remarkable sequence of sonnets; and it is to be hoped that he will do something with it on an even larger scale. In the meantime - as sometimes happens with works that fall in with one's interests - he no doubt so overrates The Lord of the Rings because he reads into it something that he means to write himself. It is indeed the tale of a Quest, but, to the reviewer, an extremely unrewarding one. The hero has no serious temptations; is lured by no insidious enchantments, perplexed by few problems. What we get is a simple confrontation - in more or less the traditional terms of British melodrama - of the Forces of Evil with the Forces of Good, the remote and alien villain with the plucky little home-grown hero. There are streaks of imagination: the ancient tree-spirits, the Ents, with their deep eyes, twiggy beards, rumbly voices; the Elves, whose nobility and beauty is elusive and not quite human. But even these are rather clumsily handled. There is never much development in the episodes; you simply go on getting more of the same thing. Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form. The characters talk a story-book language that might have come out of Howard Pyle, and as personalities they do not impose themselves. At the end of this long romance, I had still no conception of the wizard Gandalph, who is a cardinal figure, had never been able to visualize him at all. For the most part such characterizations as Dr. Tolkien is able to contrive are perfectly stereotyped: Frodo the good little Englishman, Samwise, his dog-like servant, who talks lower-class and respectful, and never deserts his master. These characters who are no characters are involved in interminable adventures the poverty of invention displayed in which is, it seems to me, almost pathetic. On the country in which the Hobbits, the Elves, the Ents and the other Good People live, the Forces of Evil are closing in, and they have to band together to save it. The hero is the Hobbit called Frodo who has become possessed of a ring that Sauron, the King of the Enemy, wants (that learned reptilian suggestion - doesn't it give you a goosefleshy feeling?). In spite of the author's disclaimer, the struggle for the ring does seem to have some larger significance. This ring, if one continues to carry it, confers upon one special powers, but it is felt to become heavier and heavier; it exerts on one a sinister influence that one has to brace oneself to resist. The problem is for Frodo to get rid of it before he can succumb to this influence.

NOW, this situation does create interest; it does seem to have possibilities. One looks forward to a queer dilemma, a new kind of hair-breadth escape, in which Frodo, in the Enemy's kingdom, will find himself half-seduced into taking over the enemy's point of view, so that the realm of shadows and horrors will come to seem to him, once he is in it, once he is strong in the power of the ring, a plausible and pleasant place, and he will narrowly escape the danger of becoming a monster himself. But these bugaboos are not magnetic; they are feeble and rather blank; one does not feel they have any real power. The Good People simply say « Boo » to them. There are Black Riders, of whom everyone is terrified but who never seem anything but specters. There are dreadful hovering birds-think of it, horrible birds of prey! There are ogreish disgusting Orcs, who, however, rarely get to the point of committing any overt acts. There is a giant female spider - a dreadfu1 creepy-crawly spider! - who lives in a dark cave and eats people. What one misses in all these terrors is any trace of concrete reality. The preternatural, to be effective, should be given some sort of solidity, a real presence, recognizable features - like Gulliver, like Gogol, like Poe; not like those phantom horrors of Algernon Blackwood which prove so disappointing after the travel-book substantiality of the landscapes in which he evokes them. Tolkien's horrors resemble these in their lack of real contact with their victims, who dispose of them as we do of the horrors in dreams by simply pushing them or puffing them away. As for Sauron, the ruler of Mordor (doesn't the very name have a shuddery sound.) who concentrates in his person everything that is threatening the Shire, the build-up for him goes on through three volumes. He makes his first, rather promising, appearance as a terrible fire-rimmed yellow eye seen in a water-mirror. But this is as far as we ever get. Once Sauron's realm is invaded, we think we are going to meet him; but he still remains nothing but a burning eye scrutinizing all that occurs from the window of a remote dark tower. This might, of course, be made effective; but actually it is not; we never feel Sauron's power. And the climax, to which we have been working up through exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine large close-printed pages, when it comes, proves extremely flat. The ring is at last got rid of by being dropped into a fiery crater, and the kingdom of Sauron « topples » in a brief and banal earthquake that sets fire to everything and burns it up, and so releases the author from the necessity of telling the reader what exactly was so terrible there. Frodo has come to the end of his Quest, but the reader has remained untouched by the wounds and fatigues of his journey. An impotence of imagination seems to me to sap the whole story. The wars are never dynamic; the ordeals give no sense of strain; the fair ladies would not stir a heartbeat; the horrors would not hurt a fly.

Now, how is it that these long-winded volumes of what looks to this reviewer like balderdash have elicited such tributes as those above? The answer is, I believe, that certain people - especially, perhaps, in Britain - have a lifelong appetite for juvenile trash. They would not accept adult trash, but, confronted with the pre-teen-age article, they revert to the mental phase which delighted in Elsie Dinsmore and Little Lord Fauntleroy and which seems to have made of Billy Bunter, in England, almost a national figure. You can see it in the tone they fall into when they talk about Tolkien in print: they bubble, they squeal, they coo; they go on about Malory and Spenser - both of whom have a charm and a distinction that Tolkien has never touched.

As for me, if we must read about imaginary kingdoms, give me James Branch Cabell's Poictesme. He at least writes for grown-up people, and he does not present the drama of life as a showdown between Good People and Goblins. He can cover more ground in an episode that lasts only three pages than Tolkien is able to in one of this twenty-page chapters, and he can create a more disquieting impression by a reference to something that is never described than Tolkien through his whole demonology.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

The Hero Is a Hobbit,

By W. H. Auden

Seventeen years ago there appeared, without any fanfare, a book called "The Hobbit" which, in my opinion, is one of the best children's stories of this century. In "The Fellowship of the Ring," which is the first volume of a trilogy, J. R. R. Tolkien continues the imaginative history of the imaginary world to which he introduced us in his earlier book but in a manner suited to adults, to those, that is, between the ages of 12 and 70. For anyone who likes the genre to which it belongs, the Heroic Quest, I cannot imagine a more wonderful Christmas present. All Quests are concerned with some numinous Object, the Waters of Life, the Grail, buried treasure etc.; normally this is a good Object which it is the Hero's task to find or to rescue from the Enemy, but the Ring of Mr. Tolkien's story was made by the Enemy and is so dangerous that even the good cannot use it without being corrupted.

The Enemy believed that it had been lost forever, but he has just discovered that it has come providentially into the hands of the Hero and is devoting all his demonic powers to its recovery, which would give him the lordship of the world. The only way to make sure of his defeat is to destroy the Ring, but this can only be done in one way and in one place which lies in the heart of the country; the task of the Hero, therefore, is to get the Ring to the place of its unmaking without getting caught.

The hero, Frodo Baggins, belongs to a race of beings called hobbits, who may be only three feet high; have hairy feet and prefer to live in underground houses, but in their thinking and sensibility resemble very closely those arcadian rustics who inhabit so many British detective stories. I think some readers may find the opening chapter a little shy-making, nut they must not let themselves be put off, for, once the story gets moving, this initial archness disappears.

For over a thousand years the hobbits have been living a peaceful existence in a fertile district called the Shire, incurious about the world outside. Actually, the latter is rather sinister; towns have fallen to ruins, roads into disrepair, fertile fields have returned to wilderness, wild beasts and evil beings on the prowl, and travel is difficult and dangerous. In addition to the Hobbits, there are Elves who are wise and good, Dwarves who are skillful and good on the whole, and Men, some warriors, some wizards, who are good or bad. The present incarnation of the Enemy is Sauron, Lord of Barad-Dur, the Dark Tower in the Land of Mordor. Assisting him are the Orcs, wolves and other horrid creatures and, of course, such men as his power attracts or overawes. Landscape, climate and atmosphere are northern, reminiscent of the Icelandic sagas.

The first thing that one asks is that the adventure should be various and exciting; in this respect Mr. Tolkien's invention is unflagging, and, on the primitive level of wanting to know what happens next, "The Fellowship of the Ring" is at least as good as "The Thirty-Nine Steps." Of any imaginary world the reader demands that it seem real, and the standard of realism demanded today is much stricter than in the time, say, of Malory. Mr. Tolkien is fortunate in possessing an amazing gift for naming and a wonderfully exact eye for description; by the time one has finished his book one knows the histories of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves and the landscape they inhabit as well as one knows one's own childhood.

Lastly, if one is to take a tale of this kind seriously, one must feel that, however superficially unlike the world we live in its characters and events may be, it nevertheless holds up the mirror to the only nature we know, our own; in this, too, Mr. Tolkien has succeeded superbly, and what happened in the year of the Shire 1418 in the Third Age of Middle Earth is not only fascinating in A. D. 1954 but also a warning and an inspiration. No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than "The Fellowship of the Ring."

 

[Edmond Dantès]

It is interesting how many people are put off by the prose of Tolkien. Overly descriptive, annalistic in style at times, meticulously written, stiff and dry. But on the other hand highly didactic, joyful in its execution, harking back to the sagas of old.

 

[TitusGroan]

I always found it interesting how people would overlook his character work more than anything. A lot of criticism is levied at LOTR that the characters are very stiff, but if you actually look inbetween the lines, there's an awful lot of psychological stuff going on. Whether he knew it or not, Tolkien wrote at least several of the characters with very strong hallmarks of both addiction and PTSD

Spoiler

Frodo and Smeagol in particular.

I don't think I've ever read a similar fantasy saga where

Spoiler

the main character is so psychologically shattered at the end of the story that he basically has to go recover with the gods.

A very subversive approach to characterisation, in its own way, showing the devastating toll that typical 'heroics' would have an a more average person.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I always found it interesting how people would overlook his character work more than anything. A lot of criticism is levied at LOTR that the characters are very stiff, but if you actually look inbetween the lines, there's an awful lot of psychological stuff going on. Whether he knew it or not, Tolkien wrote at least several of the characters with very strong hallmarks of both addiction and PTSD

Spoiler

Frodo and Smeagol in particular.

I don't think I've ever read a similar fantasy saga where

Spoiler

the main character is so psychologically shattered at the end of the story that he basically has to go recover with the gods.

A very subversive approach to characterisation, in its own way, showing the devastating toll that typical 'heroics' would have an a more average person.

That is indeed what Tolkien intended to convey to readers; that there was no real happy ending for Frodo, that he was a victim of what in Tolkien's era was known as shell-shock, now better diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder. Further expanded upon in the poem The Sea-Bell or as Tolkien put it "Frodo's dreme". His message was clear then, and still now as relevant as ever; that know one comes back from war the same, and some never recover.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

It is interesting how many people are put off by the prose of Tolkien. Overly descriptive, annalistic in style at times, meticulously written, stiff and dry. But on the other hand highly didactic, joyful in its execution, harking back to the sagas of old.

That style of writing he utilizes one where each song, description, or seemingly meaningless conversatition is to me in reality a valuable window into a character, an event, or an object that without these detours, would be thin and narrow. It is epicness personified, and a personal favorite.

That is indeed what Tolkien intended to convey to readers; that there was no real happy ending for Frodo, that he was a victim of what in Tolkien's era was known as shell-shock, now better diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder. Further expanded upon in the poem The Sea-Bell or as Tolkien put it "Frodo's dreme". His message was clear then, and still now as relevant as ever; that know one comes back from war the same, and some never recover.

And the rest, especially Sam, are the absolute best case scenario, growing strong, assertive, and maintaining of a whole self mind body and soul.

 

[The Artful Dodger]

I always found it interesting how people would overlook his character work more than anything. A lot of criticism is levied at LOTR that the characters are very stiff, but if you actually look inbetween the lines, there's an awful lot of psychological stuff going on. Whether he knew it or not, Tolkien wrote at least several of the characters with very strong hallmarks of both addiction and PTSD

Spoiler

Frodo and Smeagol in particular.

I don't think I've ever read a similar fantasy saga where

Spoiler

the main character is so psychologically shattered at the end of the story that he basically has to go recover with the gods.

A very subversive approach to characterisation, in its own way, showing the devastating toll that typical 'heroics' would have an a more average person.

Agreed. Even Aragorn's arc is kinda him reluctantly accepting his role as a King.

Gollum is this shattered tragic being and that's emphasized.

There is a strong theme of corruption that doesn't necessarily mean that like...if you refuse temptation you're good, it's stating that once you do battle, you're never quite the same. Just look at the Scouring of the Shire chapter. Saruman explicitly states some of the damage he does will never be truly undone.

 

[cntr]

Any of you fans of Tolkien's Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin? I'm into artificial languages (even make some of my own) and linguistics; I find the Elvish languages to be the most interesting parts. I think I'll try learning Quenya sometime, in fact.

 

[Finrod]

Any of you fans of Tolkien's Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin? I'm into artificial languages (even make some of my own) and linguistics; I find the Elvish languages to be the most interesting parts. I think I'll try learning Quenya sometime, in fact.

I have tried learning a bit of Quenya in the past. There are some great courses to be found on the internet.
I never got really far though, a lack of time put me off back then. It is also not as hard a language as many might think. Might give it a try again somewhere in the near future.

As i understood Quenya is a far more complete language than Sindarin.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

The Hobbit Facsimile First Edition has been delayed numerous times; now a tentative June 2015 date is set.

It'll be nice to have in a collection, especially for Tolkien readers without privileged access to the manuscripts.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

On things that remind you of Tolkien in life:

A recent kayaking day trip from Sandbanks to Swanage Bay.


The Argonath:

Gollum's cave:

 

[Edmond Dantès]

The Black Pine - Tolkien's tree to be cut down

The Botanic Garden is planning a send-off for the iconic black pine known as 'Tolkien's tree', which needs to be removed from the Garden after two limbs fell from the tree on Saturday.

The tree, a Pinus nigra, was a favourite of J R R Tolkien during his time in Oxford and some say its twisting branches resemble the 'ents' in his The Lord of the Rings novels.

Experts at Oxford City Council and Oxford University have decided the tree needs to be cut down. The decision was unavoidable but it does mean scientists can finally solve the mystery surrounding the tree.

Dr Stephen Harris of Oxford University’s Department of Plant Sciences explained: 'The received wisdom regarding the black pine is that it was planted in 1799 from seed that was collected by the Third Sherardian Professor of Botany, John Sibthorp, in Austria. We know that Sibthorp sent considerable amounts of plant material to Oxford from the eastern Mediterranean in 1786/87 and that he was in Austria in 1785. He was also in regions of Black Pine growth in 1795 but he died in 1796.

'If the story of the Black Pine is true then it should be at least 215 years old. The pine having to be cut down means that we have the opportunity to date the tree precisely and determine whether Sibthorp is likely to have been involved. The particular subspecies of Black Pine represented by the tree has also been a point of controversy - we should now be able to settle this controversy as well.'

The Garden has rigorous safety checks in place and every tree in the Garden is inspected annually. The area around the tree was evacuated before the limbs fell.

The Garden will remain open while the work takes place, but the area around the tree will be cordoned off for the next few weeks.

Dr Alison Foster, acting director of the Garden, said: 'The black pine was a highlight of many people's visits to the Botanic Garden and we are very sad to lose such an iconic tree. We intend to propagate from this magnificent tree so that future generations will not miss out on this important link to Tolkien. We are considering using the wood from the black pine for an educational project along the lines of the One Oak project and hope to hold a celebratory event to commemorate the tree and its many associations in due course.

'I'd like to praise my staff for taking swift action to evacuate the area before the limbs fell from the tree and we assure visitors that all the trees in the Garden are subject to annual inspections by experts. The Garden will remain open over the next few weeks but the area near the tree will be inaccessible while work takes place. We apologise to visitors for the inconvenience this causes and we hope to reopen the entire Garden as soon as possible.'

Dr Stuart Lee, an English academic at Oxford University who has studied the fiction and manuscripts of Tolkien and ran the 2013 Tolkien Spring School in Oxford, said: 'Tolkien hated the wanton destruction of trees for no reason but it sounds to me like this is for all the right reasons so whilst this is sad news, it is inevitable.

'It is often said that the black pine inspired the 'ents' in Lord of the Rings, and it may be he liked the tree and saw something it in that inspired Treebeard, but in fact the ‘ents’ have many sources and ‘ent’ means giant in Old English, and Tolkien’s love of trees goes all the way back to his childhood.'

Link

The tree in its former glory:

Tolkien's final photograph with it:

Having visited the Botanic Garden on a few occasions, I'll miss the sight of it.

 

[Megalosaro]

It's certainly an odd looking tree. I can see why Tolkien was drawn to it.

 

[Loxley]

I was bored I thought I'd make an Imgur album of all of my Tolkien/LotR/Hobbit-related desktop wallpapers if anyone is interested in grabbing them. There's 64 of them in total, all 1920x1080. There's a pretty wide variety in there, some of it's screen-caps from the films, artwork from video game/table-top game adaptions, and (good) fan art. I make it a point to avoid what I call "tumblr wallpapers" - meaning half-hazard photoshop compositions featuring garish colors and copious amounts of text.

Enjoy.

Here are a few of my favorites:

On things that remind you of Tolkien in life:

A recent kayaking day trip from Sandbanks to Swanage Bay.

Man I'm jealous, I love kayaking - even have the merit badge for it

 

[Scottify]

Thanks for sharing these. I'm always on the lookout for LotR wallpapers.

I love those kayaking shots. I can totally see Gollum's cave there. Be on the lookout for eyes peering at you from the darkness though.

 

[Finrod]

Truly the mark of a Tolkien fan. To try and see parts of Arda in our world.

Sad thing about the tree, but it sounds like it is unavoidable. I see it happen here pretty often too, but they can usually get away with cutting off just a few branches.

 

[Tambini]

So last week I saw this on amazon for I shit you not, one great british pound. Lo and behold they arrived today brand new! I haven't owned these books for years so can't wait to dig in again and what a steal.

 

[Finrod]

That is a steal, you would be hard pressed to find a better way to spend that pound.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I was bored I thought I'd make an Imgur album of all of my Tolkien/LotR/Hobbit-related desktop wallpapers if anyone is interested in grabbing them. There's 64 of them in total, all 1920x1080. There's a pretty wide variety in there, some of it's screen-caps from the films, artwork from video game/table-top game adaptions, and (good) fan art. I make it a point to avoid what I call "tumblr wallpapers" - meaning half-hazard photoshop compositions featuring garish colors and copious amounts of text.

Enjoy.

Here are a few of my favorites:





Man I'm jealous, I love kayaking - even have the merit badge for it

Truly a kindred spirit. I have the same sort of award (BCU star awards). I am thinking of making a canoeing and kayaking OT.

Thanks for sharing these. I'm always on the lookout for LotR wallpapers.

I love those kayaking shots. I can totally see Gollum's cave there. Be on the lookout for eyes peering at you from the darkness though.

Felt like Gollum was creeping up behind me when I was taking the photo in the cave. It was a lot darker than the photo captures.

Truly the mark of a Tolkien fan. To try and see parts of Arda in our world.

Sad thing about the tree, but it sounds like it is unavoidable. I see it happen here pretty often too, but they can usually get away with cutting off just a few branches.

Yes, I'm always on the lookout for things that remind of Tolkien in the natural world.

So last week I saw this on amazon for I shit you not, one great british pound. Lo and behold they arrived today brand new! I haven't owned these books for years so can't wait to dig in again and what a steal.

Absolute bargain. Enjoy adventuring into Middle-earth once again.

 

[Loxley]

Continuing off our earlier discussion of adapting The Silmarillion, I just finished watching Terrence Malick's "The New World", and you know what? I think he could do wonders with "Of Beren and Lúthien". The ethereal way in which he portrays the relationship between Pocahontas and John Rolfe/John Smith reminded me so much of Tolkien's words that I couldn't stop thinking about it for the entire film.

 

[Finrod]

Great movie, one of Malicks best.
Never noticed that conection you are talking about, but the last time i saw that movie was before i ever read the Silmarillion. Might be time for a rewatch.

But now that i think of it, the first meeting between Beren and Luthien does seem pretty Malicky in its description.
Malick can also do wonders with his visual imagery, an important thing in the first meeting between Beren and Luthien.

 

[Loxley]

'Why World War I Is at the Heart of ‘Lord of the Rings’

It’s 60 years since the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Why was he so inspired by the Great War—and a group of school friends?

War runs like iron ore through the bones of Tolkien’s Middle-earth—and most of all through The Lord of the Rings, the masterpiece which first saw the light 60 years ago today.

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of three, was published on July 29, 1954, a date picked by his publisher for solely practical reasons. Yet it is a curious coincidence that it was almost exactly the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Because it was during that war that Tolkien first created Middle-earth.

Through 1914–1918 and beyond, he used his mythology to examine mortality and the hope of deathlessness, fear and courage, fellowship and loss, despair and unexpected hope. The intertwining relationship between the life and the art in these years is a subtle and fascinating one, mapped out in my biographical book Tolkien and the Great War. Since that came out, it is now widely accepted that the Great War continued to resonate through Tolkien’s work, including in the dark and desperate climax to The Hobbit, set for the big screen in the final part of Peter Jackson’s trilogy (the trailer of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was released to hungry fans yesterday).

Today, fittingly enough in the light of these anniversaries, I’m putting the finishing touches to a talk about one of the key figures in Tolkien’s life, his schoolfriend Robert Quilter Gilson. Gilson’s story is worth hearing because he wrote it himself, in a fascinating and deeply moving series of letters home from the army training camps and trenches of 1914–1916.

I was fortunate enough to track down Gilson’s relatives when I was researching my book Tolkien and the Great War, and to be shown those letters. They shed valuable light on Tolkien’s own first “Fellowship.”

This was a clique or semi-secret club that he and Gilson had formed with others at their school—a fairly typical activity for boys of that pre-war era and in an aspirational school like theirs. It was a circle of exceptionally bright teenagers who revelled equally in wit and in culture. Members made tea in the school library office—an illicit activity—and also met in the tea-drinking rooms of a department store called Barrow’s. Accordingly they called themselves the Tea Club and Barrovian Society—a name fusing hobbity comfort and grandeur (though here it is mock grandeur) in rather Tolkienian fashion. This mouthful they abbreviated to T.C.B.S.
“May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.” The T.C.B.S. started off in comfort in 1911 but were hurled into darkness from 1914. The outbreak of war drew the core members into a tight bond, sparked them into bright life, made them acutely aware that death might lie just around the corner. They dreamed of making art that would create a better world, and for Tolkien a T.C.B.S. gathering in December that year was followed by “finding a voice for all kinds of pent up things and a tremendous opening up of everything”—the beginning of Middle-earth.

One T.C.B.S. member, Geoffrey Bache Smith, facing a desperately dangerous night patrol in the trenches in early 1916, took the opportunity to write a valediction to Tolkien, urging him to publish. I can never read it without being moved by its generosity, its love, and its vision:

“I am a wild and whole-hearted admirer, and my chief consolation is, that if I am scuppered to-night—I am off on duty in a few minutes—there will still be left a member of the great T.C.B.S. to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon. For the death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve the T.C.B.S… Yes, publish…. You I am sure are chosen, like Saul among the Children of Israel. Make haste, before you come out to this orgy of death and cruelty... May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.”

Smith survived the night patrol, and met Tolkien again on the fringes of the Battle of the Somme that summer. But by that time Gilson was dead, killed as he led his men across no man’s land on the first day of the battle—just one among 20,000 British soldiers killed on that calamitous day. Smith himself outlived the five-month battle, only to be fatally hit by a stray shellburst while organising a football match four miles from the front line.

Tolkien later wrote of The Lord of the Rings: “Personally I do not think that either war ... had any influence upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding.” Yet his foreword to the book makes clear reference to the experience of the First World War and the deaths of Smith and Gilson, as if to say to critics: that was my war, and that is where you must look for an originating influence. His real objection was to the kind of reading that seeks to map plot points with real historical events; and I agree that it would be futile and reductive to try and identify, for example, each of the four hobbit heroes with the four T.C.B.S. members. Yet it is plain as a pikestaff that his own memory of the T.C.B.S. being scattered across the battlefront, cut off from each other in their worst ordeal, infuses his account of Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin as each takes his path through fear and peril.

In the Second World War, Tolkien’s sons Michael and Christopher did military service in their turn. Their father was forced to sit on the sidelines, powerless to protect but desperate to impart comfort and such wisdom he had gained from his own experiences in youth. His letters to them show how their predicament brought his own vividly back to him. He tells Christopher, in training as a fighter pilot and oppressed by military life: “Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story!”

He was working on The Lord of the Rings at the time of that letter. So the darkness of 1939–1945 combines with the memories of 1914–1918 to give the book its heart and enduring power.

And very soon after that letter to Christopher, Tolkien put the same idea about stories into the mouth of Sam Gamgee, when, on the edge of Mordor, he talks to Frodo about the ancient tale of Eärendil the star-mariner. It is significant, I think, that Eärendil was the very first character Tolkien devised for his Middle-earth mythology, in a September 1914 poem which set off the whole lifelong creative endeavour.

Sam says: “That’s a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it—and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We’ve got—you’ve got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?”

For Tolkien, the tale into which 1914 had plunged him never ended.

 

[maharg]

An interesting theory about the whole fly with the Eagles to Mordor question came up on my facebook this morning:

The rest here

 

[Megalosaro]

Doesnt work with book logic since we know gandalf s escape from orthanc was a happy chance, due to radaghast sending gwaihir to speak with gandalf. Furthmore, we also know that gwaihir dropped off gandalf in rohan, where he spoke with theoden and befriended shadowfax

 

[maharg]

True, though I think it's not impossible some alternative formulation of the same idea could work for the books as well.

I think it falls apart a bit on its own just because it assumes so strongly that they would need to travel north to meet the eagles when simply finding an alternative meeting place somehow also out of the eye of Sauron and Saruman (hell, even Rivendell could have probably worked for that -- the eagles attending the council wouldn't itself be a giveaway) would probably work just as well.

 

[Jacob]

I think the biggest weakness in the theory (aside from a general lack of evidence in the text) is that there's really no reason not to take the High Pass if you're trying to reach the Eagles' eyrie. The Beornings were still keeping it open in the book, and while this was not referenced in the movies, we know that Gimli, Legolas, and the rest of their companies (there were other dwarves at the Council of Elrond even in the films) had to have crossed the pass to get to Rivendell. Gandalf, Frodo, and whoever else could have returned through the Mountains with one of these groups, or just disguised themselves as merchants. It would be a lot easier to blend in when going through the High Pass since it lay on the Great East Road, a relatively heavily-trafficked trade route, as opposed to wandering around in an abandoned country like Hollin.

 

[jason10mm]

The eagle theory just came up for me as a friend is using it as a base for a comedy script. I kinda wonder if the eagles weren't approached by Sauron at some point and offered a treaty. Unlike Melkor, Sauron seems more focused on dominion over men (and eradication of elves) and could conceivably leave the eagles alone (or at least instill enough plausible feelings in the eagles that he MIGHT do so). Also, could the eagles evac middle-earth like the elves? Might make them less likely to intervene in a human struggle when all the elves (and eagles?) are bugging out.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I know you're fond of castles Loxley, so I thought I'd share some photos from a recent trip to Arundel Castle. And there are some Tolkienian things to be spotted:

Views of the front.

A view from the Keep.

A view of the rampart.

Doesn't need explaining really.

A view of the Chapel and church.

A view of the Southdowns countryside; very reminiscent of Tolkien's famous 'The Hill' painting.

Takes me back to the years I spent imprisoned in the Château d'If, before my escape...

Down, down, down we go.

In the gardens leading to the church.

Very tempting...

Random.


No interior photos due to the privacy policy in place. The dukedom still have residence.

 

[genjiZERO]

In case anyone is interested, UVA got a very rare Tolkien publication recently.

Here's an article on it: http://smallnotes.library.virginia.edu/2014/08/14/tolkien-black-swan/

 

[Loxley]

I know you're fond of castles Loxley, so I thought I'd share some photos from a recent trip to Arundel Castle. And there are some Tolkienian things to be spotted:

Views of the front.

A view from the Keep.

A view of the rampart.

Doesn't need explaining really.

A view of the Chapel and church.

A view of the Southdowns countryside; very reminiscent of Tolkien's famous 'The Hill' painting.

Takes me back to the years I spent imprisoned in the Château d'If, before my escape...

Down, down, down we go.

In the gardens leading to the church.

Very tempting...

Random.

No interior photos due to the privacy policy in place. The dukedom still have residence.

Awesome photos man. Some day, some how, I'm going to go in a great castle tour of the UK. Gonna make it a point to see as many cathedrals and old forts as I can as well. Though it'll probably be years before such a venture is even remotely financially feasible :lol

 

[Edmond Dantès]

In case anyone is interested, UVA got a very rare Tolkien publication recently.

Here's an article on it: http://smallnotes.library.virginia.edu/2014/08/14/tolkien-black-swan/

Thanks for sharing.

Awesome photos man. Some day, some how, I'm going to go in a great castle tour of the UK. Gonna make it a point to see as many cathedrals and old forts as I can as well. Though it'll probably be years before such a venture is even remotely financially feasible :lol

You'll be adventuring around the UK and Europe before you know it my friend. And eventually New Zealand too.

Of course, Sherwood forest should be high up on your list of places to visit.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

The physics of The Hobbit: Free fall, Gandalf and the Balrog

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-tzQahCny7TSE1ybWlpQkQtdVE/edit?pli=1

 

[Edmond Dantès]

George RR Martin on Tolkien

He’s OK with being called the American Tolkien:

I revere Lord of the Rings, I reread it every few years, it had an enormous effect on me as a kid. In some sense, when I started this saga I was replying to Tolkien, but even more to his modern imitators.

Modern fantasy certainly begins with Tolkien, who was followed in the 1970s by a legion of imitators, he explained.

But they cheapened it. The audience were being sold degraded goods. I thought: “This is not how it should be done.” Writers would take the structure of medieval times – castles, princesses, etc – but writing it from a 20th-century point of view. I wanted to combine the wonder and image of Tolkien fantasy with the gloom of historical fiction.

A writer’s worst nightmare is obscurity

The real test is what books are gonna survive. Tolkien certainly has … Will that be the case with mine? I don’t know, I think that’s every writer’s dream. What you can do is write the best characters you can. I take very well the fact that people argue about my books – a writer’s worst dream is obscurity. I had years of no one coming to my signings.

Link

 

[Edmond Dantès]

What's next for Tolkien fans? Milestones etc?

 

[Raptor]

Where exactly is Caradhras?

Exactly above Moria?

Ive been looking at the map because I want to know exactly the way they took etc.

 

[agrajag]

Agree with GRRM completely.

 

[Megalosaro]

Where exactly is Caradhras?

Exactly above Moria?

Ive been looking at the map because I want to know exactly the way they took etc.

Its a little north of moria. Look for the redhorn gate

 

[Finrod]

What's next for Tolkien fans? Milestones etc?

After the third hobbit movie it'll all simmer down quite a bit i imagine. We will still have the EE to wait for, but for the greater part Tolkien fandom might see a decline for a bit.

Of course, Tolkien fandom will remain huge but it will be a shame if we have nothing to look forward to.

Or are there any new publications planned that i know nothing about?

 

[Edmond Dantès]

After the third hobbit movie it'll all simmer down quite a bit i imagine. We will still have the EE to wait for, but for the greater part Tolkien fandom might see a decline for a bit.

Of course, Tolkien fandom will remain huge but it will be a shame if we have nothing to look forward to.

Or are there any new publications planned that i know nothing about?

Christopher has some work that he hasn't yet put forward for publishing, but that work is of a more scholarly nature relating to his father's love for Beowulf and The Kalevala.

In terms of Middle-earth, he has exhausted it, although, Christopher himself has said that the release of The Silmarillion in 1977 was a mistake and that The History of Middle-earth series is how it should have been released. Maybe, possibly a definitive edition of The Silmarillion integrating all that he himself, the most accomplished Tolkien scholar alive today, learnt while writing The History of Middle-earth.

 

[Megalosaro]

That seems like a bit much for Christopher, at this point in his life. It is too difficult of an undertaking, not particularly valuable.

He gave all the insight he could into the War of the Jewels with HoME

 

[Jacob]

In terms of Middle-earth, he has exhausted it, although, Christopher himself has said that the release of The Silmarillion in 1977 was a mistake and that The History of Middle-earth series is how it should have been released. Maybe, possibly a definitive edition of The Silmarillion integrating all that he himself, the most accomplished Tolkien scholar alive today, learnt while writing The History of Middle-earth.

While that would be really cool, I don't think it would be possible to create a version of The Silmarillion that is up to Christopher's own standards (based on his various self-critical comments in the notes to HoME) without massive amounts of re-writing. Ultimately, it's an unfinished tale, like almost all of the other First and Second Age material. I'm very grateful that we get to read so much material from throughout its history, and the 1977 Silmarillion serves a purpose as a gateway to the First Age for countless people, but I'm not sure a revised Silmarillion would be able to manage what JRRT couldn't.

 

[Finrod]

Weird to read that a book loved by so many, is essentially considered a mistake by its author?
I highly doubt we will see any sort of adjusted release by Christopher at this point. And i can't be too bothered by that, considering all he has already done.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

John Blanche images to go on sale.


The Downfall of Numenor:

The Battle of the Five Armies:

http://www.fantasyartoriginals.com/

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Interview with Terry Pratchett

Sell us on your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer.

G. K. Chesterton. These days recognized — that is if he is recognized at all — as the man who wrote the Father Brown stories. My grandmother actually knew him quite well and pointed out that she herself lived on Chesterton Green in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, here in the U.K. And the man was so well venerated that on one memorable occasion, he was late in sending a piece to The Strand Magazine and a railway train actually waited at the local station until Mr. Chesterton had finished writing his piece. When she told me that, I thought, Blimey, now that is celebrity.

Who are your favorite fantasy novelists?

O.K., I give in. J. R. R. Tolkien. I wrote a letter to him once and got a very nice reply. Just think how busy he would have been, and yet he took the time out to write to a fan.

What makes for a good fantasy novel?

The kind that isn’t fantastic. It’s just creating a new reality. Really, a good fantasy is just a mirror of our own world, but one whose reflection is subtly distorted.

Which books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

Right now I am looking at a very good book called “Feeding Nelson’s Navy,” having just browsed through another on the usage of arsenic through the ages. Mostly, my shelves are full of nonfiction with interesting titles such as “The World of Snot.” A writer never knows where he’s going to find those little gems.

What kind of reader were you as a child? And what were your favorite childhood books?

I barely read a book for pleasure when I was at junior school and got into reading only because my mother promised me a penny for every page I read to her properly. That cost her some money in the beginning, and then I found a book called “The Wind in the Willows,” by Kenneth Grahame, and I just exploded. There were rats and moles and badgers and they were all acting like humans, and I thought to myself, This is a lie, but what a fabulous lie! After that I scoured the local library and read everything. I even got myself a part-time job there so I could legitimately have multiple library cards.

Whom would you consider your literary heroes?

I would have to say that Mark Twain is up there with the gods and probably cursing it. “Life on the Mississippi” blew my mind. And, of course, reading him meant that I got to read “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” I hope it’s still read and that people read the book he wanted people to see, because I know that some editions leave out the fact that the Yankee boy killed most of the famous Knights of the Round Table using electricity. Now that is fantasy.

Which novels have had the most impact on you as a writer? Is there a particular book that made you want to write?

It has to be “The Wind in the Willows.” It fascinated me. He had toads living in great country houses and badgers and moles acting like British gentlemen. I read the pages so often they fell apart, and God bless him for leaving in the pieces called “Wayfarers All” and “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” I am sorry to say that certain publishers, who really should know better, have produced editions with those pieces cut from that wonderful book, stating they were simply too heavy for children. I scream at stuff like that. After all, “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was a book written for children. A good book, no matter its intended audience, should get people reading, and that’s what started me writing. And once I started, I never stopped.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? And the prime minister?

Well, it would have to be “The Man Who Was Thursday.” It’s a damn good read that I believe should be read by everyone in politics.

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?

Mark Twain, G. K. Chesterton and Neil Gaiman, because he’s a mate who knows how to order the most excellent sushi.

And if you could bring only three books to a desert island, which would you choose?

“Boatbuilding for Beginners,” “Poisonous Plants of the South Pacific” and a very good seafood cookery book.

What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?

Probably the first draft of the first one I ever wrote, but I think I’ve got better since then.

Link

 

[Finrod]

I`m curious what people here think of the upcoming game: Shadows of Mordor.
gameplay wise it looks good, but i am not so sold on the plot.

here is a summary copied from the wikia:
The game is set to fill the gap between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. It is a story of revenge, slaughter, and mystery set entirely in Mordor, the Land of Shadows. At its center is Talion, an ordinary man who loses everything, including his mortal life. Possessed by an immensely powerful wraith, Talion becomes a revenant, rising from the grave to avenge the murder of his family. Meanwhile, the wraith inside him, Celebrimbor, struggles to remember his forgotten past, which will allow him to increase in power.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

 

[Loxley]

I just noticed that we've finally been shifted over to the community section, suppose it was about time

 

[Edmond Dantès]

That's a shame, at least we made it to a 1000 plus posts before our banishment.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I`m curious what people here think of the upcoming game: Shadows of Mordor.
gameplay wise it looks good, but i am not so sold on the plot.

here is a summary copied from the wikia:
The game is set to fill the gap between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. It is a story of revenge, slaughter, and mystery set entirely in Mordor, the Land of Shadows. At its center is Talion, an ordinary man who loses everything, including his mortal life. Possessed by an immensely powerful wraith, Talion becomes a revenant, rising from the grave to avenge the murder of his family. Meanwhile, the wraith inside him, Celebrimbor, struggles to remember his forgotten past, which will allow him to increase in power.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

This isn't too far removed from possession; something that is little noticed in the Lord of the Rings. While in the Barrow-downs one of the hobbits remarkably makes a comment about a past event that he couldn't possibly have any knowledge of. Now we must ask ourselves, what was the cause of this? Was it the genetic memory concept Tolkien toyed with in other writings? Or was it a case of a spirit who died in the Downs taking possession of him and speaking through him?

This certainly makes the Talion plot more convincing. Also, one must think of Black Númenóreans and their dark arts.

A longer analysis of this is something I've promised and will post after this busy period that I'm currently going through is done and dusted.

 

[Finrod]

Looking forward to it.
I guess the plot isnt that far out of the realm of possibilities, but he is posessed by the spirit of Celebrimbor. should he not be in Mandos?
A human spirit would have been easier to explain i think.

 

[4444244]

The physics of The Hobbit: Free fall, Gandalf and the Balrog

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-tzQahCny7TSE1ybWlpQkQtdVE/edit?pli=1

I do like that, but if I'm honest I got buried pretty quickly. (

...

Ok, I'm going to take a side step and refer to something else, and like to see this type of analysis applied to;

When Sheridan jumps off the ledge at Z'ha'Dum, could he have reached the area where Lorien would have captured and shielded him in time, before the wave front hit him?

- and depending on the distance travelled, I understand that the shock front overtakes the fireball - so would he fare better if the capture was a specific distance away compared to the speed of the fall etc?

Also, even if he could have been protected in time, wouldn't he have been blinded by the flash?

I appreciate that this is off-topic, but there is a lot of LOTR in B5. ;o)