Why J.R.R. Tolkien’s Enduring Popularity Is a Cause for Hope in Our Popular Culture
Peter Jackson’s first of three “Hobbit” films took a thrashing from the critics, who disliked the effect produced by the new 48-frames-per-second projection system. This makes everything a bit too clear, a bit too smooth, such that sets and costumes seemed artificial to some. It is off-putting at first. Halfway through the film, though, I suddenly thought, “This is the way I saw the world when I was a child!” There are many wonderful things about Jackson’s film, of which the choice of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins stands at the top of my list; unlike the listless Elijah Wood, a boy playing the role of the middle-aged Frodo in the “Rings” trilogy, Freeman is a grown-up. He is a master of English understatement but also an actor of great range, and he carries the film brilliantly. As in the “Rings” trilogy, the sets and settings are marvelous. Especially gratifying was the inclusion of many of Tolkien’s poems with affecting settings by Howard Shore.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s enduring popularity is cause for hope in popular culture. He did not write fantasy so much as roman à clef about the past and future of the West. His Hobbits are the English standing against totalitarian aggression — the two towers of Berlin and Moscow — with decency and courage. “Alone among 20th century novelists, J.R.R. Tolkien concerned himself with the mortality not of individuals but of peoples. The young soldier-scholar of World War I viewed the uncertain fate of European nations through the mirror of the Dark Ages, when the life of small peoples hung by a thread. In the midst of today’s Great Extinction of cultures, and at the onset of civilizational war, Tolkien evokes an uncanny resonance among today’s readers,” I wrote when the first of the Rings films appeared. I am no maven where Christian literature is concerned, but Tolkien’s theological depth impressed me:
Tolkien is a writer of greater theological depth than his Oxford colleague C S Lewis, in my judgment. Lewis is a felicitous writer and a diligent apologist, but mere allegory along the lines of the Narnia series can do no more than restate Christian doctrine; it cannot really expand our experience of it. Tolkien takes us to the dark frontier of a world that is not yet Christian, and therefore is tragic, but has the capacity to become Christian. It is the world of the Dark Ages, in which barbarians first encounter the light. It is not fantasy, but rather a distillation of the spiritual history of the West. Whereas C S Lewis tries to make us comfortable in what we already believe by dressing up the story as a children’s masquerade, Tolkien makes us profoundly uncomfortable. Our people, our culture, our language, our toehold upon this shifting and uncertain Earth are no more secure than those of a thousand extinct tribes of the Dark Ages; and a greater hope than that of the work of our hands and the hone of our swords must avail us.
The heart of the story is the game of riddles played by Bilbo and Gollum deep inside the Misty Mountains. Tolkien is the anti-Wagner, and his “Rings” novels (a trilogy with a prologue) re-write Richard Wagner’s insidious Ring Cycle (trilogy with prologue). Readers who listen to Wagner should be aware, first, that there are many bad reasons to like it, and that they can be cured of this harmful habit by reading this article. Tolkien has a lark with the riddles game played by the dwarf Mime and the god Wotan at the end of the second act of Siegfried; their pompous mythologizing becomes the hilarious, frightening banter of Gollum and Bilbo. Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis, assisted by Jackson’s special effects, do brilliantly. That single sequence is worth the price of admission.
Jackson had a difficult task at hand: The Hobbit is a children’s tale that nonetheless sets up the events leading to the later novels. Jackson and his colleagues effectively integrated background from Tolkien’s Middle Earth histories to establish context and continuity, and in some cases added inventions of their own. Some of these, for example the appearance of the wizard Radagast, work quite well (and are consistent with Tolkien’s story). And the Three Stooges routine performed by the three trolls was a permissible aside, much in the spirit of the book. Others, notably the entirely invented character of an Orc leader with a grudge against the dwarves, are generic Hollywood claptrap. Those are not minor flaws in a work that for the most part is brilliantly conceived and executed. Nonetheless the film should help keep Tolkien’s wonderful story in the mind of the public. Considering all the other stories we have to hear, that is a comfort.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Tolkien himself characterized The Lord of the Rings as a thoroughly Catholic novel. (He explicitly rejected all claims that it was an allegory for World War II or any other war among men.) However, I don’t know if he made any similar statement about The Hobbit.
It amused me to read left-wing critics’ statements that Jackson’s movies (and by implication, Tolkien’s books) were inherently racist because all the Elves were good and all the Orcs were evil.
If the lefties had read the Silmarilian then they’d know the Orcs were once Elves who were tortured and corrupted by Melkor – the original bad guy, to whome Saurin (sp) was just a weak servant to.
Morgoth is Satan (aka Allah)
Sauron is Mohammad
Orcs are Muslims/Arabs
Mordor is Arabia
The Ring is the Quran
1400 years of Christians vs. Muslims meets the epic time scale as well
Bingo! And the Elves are the Greeks and Jews, the remnants of the West’s pre-cursors.
Tolkien’s works have replaced the bible’s stories in the popular mind. Up to the WWI, people “knew” the bible stories, they knew all about David and Goliath and the Wine into Water story and Jeremiah at the Battlements, and Josiah: all of these memes were in the air.
Well, now in our time, we have references to Galadriel and Frodo and Mount Doom, and Sauron and the Orcs. And Tolkien’s deep theological knowledge is just strong enough to bear the weight of our needs.
For example, Gandalf’s relative powerlessness: he does not become the all powerful Gandalf the White until after his death and resurrection. But consider, he was sent from Valinor to help and advise the peoples of Middle Earth. He was inherently much more powerful than any of the Elves. Yet, he could only help and advise. Why? Well, because of ‘free will.’ God gave humans ‘free will’ and we must live our time within that reality.
We are very lucky that Peter Jackson et al are pure Tolkien fans and geeks. Just think: he might take on the Silmarillion! We will then get to see a bad and weak Galadrial and Elrond!
I could go on. However, I want to second your admiration for Martin Freeman. He does an excellent job, too in the BBC’s “Sherlock Holmes.”
and as Tim in the BBC office
spoiler alert
doesn’t get the beeb Pam
J.R.R. Tolkien’s enduring popularity is cause for hope in popular culture.
Yes I thought so too, until it turned out 52% of the voters are orcs.
Tolkien is a writer of greater theological depth than his Oxford colleague C S Lewis, in my judgment.
OMG no, Tolkien is rewriting the Norse legends, the Ottoman Empire, British myths and whimsy, a whiff of current events leading to WWII, and only then gets around to Christian theology. You’ve misunderstood even the Narnia chronicles to say this, and try reading Lewis’ more adult books, I hope you’ve read “That Hideous Strength” and the preceding and rather psychodelic “Perelandra”, but I guess you haven’t.
It was William Morris who first wrote “heroic fantasy”, using Norse mythology as his starting point. Unfortunate his novels have been out of print for decades, but they were re-issued in paperback in the early 1970′s, partly because Tolkien’s Ring Trilogy was enjoying renewed popularity at the time.
Tolkien truly surpassed Morris by creating an entire world, and even created the Elvish language.
I leave it to others to find the Christian themes in Tolkien. Not sure the epic battle between Good and Evil is the bastion of any religion.
Not sure why Peter Jackson had to turn The Hobbit into three long films, and am glad the local theatre added the option to view the digital version. I refuse to watch 3-D.
And, thanks to heathermc, now I know who Freeman is – best Dr. Watson ever (sorry, Lucy Liu is no Watson in the USA tv series that re-invents Sherlock Holmes)
Great casting of Bilbo, I agree.
I much prefer the new Sherlock on PBS to Elementary which is still better than most shows on the boob tube. But still Jeremy Brett and Daavid Burke are a tough act to follow.
Oh – I quite agree! Three films for the Hobbit is just TOO much! It’s a short book and I can see perhaps 2 films (to give the Battle of the Five Armies with a dragon a good showing. Something the book gave short shrift to) – but not three!
Based on bits of information, it appears that The Hobbit proper is only covered in two films (whether 1 and 2, or 1 and 3, remains to be seen). Film 1 (so I’ve heard) ends after Chapter XI, where Bilbo is under Misty Mountains, and the confrontations with the goblins and Gollum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series) says that film 3 “would make extensive use of the appendices” at the end of LOTR.
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/07/30/59780-peter-jackson-confirms-third-film/ quotes Peter Jackson as saying that without the expansion, ” much of the tale of Bilbo Baggins, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Don Guldur would remain untold,” implying those events will be included somewhere. Don Guldur, was the home of the Necromancer, an earlier name for Sauron, and was the same dungeon Thorin’s father died in. Gandalf disappears in the middle of The Hobbit, presumably to participate in the expulsion of the Necromancer from Don Guldur.
“The Battle of Don Guldur” belongs chronologically in film 2, which leaves the “Battle of the Five Armies” for the final film. Do note that film 2 is called “The Desolation of Smaug,” which would appear to make the Lonely Mountain its central “geographical” focus.
That is the justification for 3 films. Time will tell whether it holds us–although Mr. Goldman’s review bodes well.
The Necromancer has already been cast: Benedict Cumberbatch. He is “Sherlock” to Martin Freeman’s Watson in the BBC series. He also provides Smaug’s voice in The Hobbit. So, your timeline makes sense.
Ive been seeing this guy all over the place, since becoming familiar with him in the new PBS series Sherlock.
He is also in the new Star Trek movie.
“Narnia” wasn’t really an allegory, it was a “supposal”. Lewis wrote them supposing there was another world that fell into sin like ours. What would the Son Of God be like there, what would He do to save that world, and what can that tell us about Jesus in our world? I think the Chronicles are brilliant in their own way since you can read them as a kid, then later as an adult, you find new meaning because you know Aslan is Christ in another form.
The recent book Song of the Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown discusses the Norse mythology Tolkien borrowed. Excerpt: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/13/nancy-marie-brown-the-norse-origins-of-bilbo-baggins/
To learn how to look at the LOTR from a slightly different perspective, seee Joseph Campbell’s work on monomyth, including “The Hero’s Journey,” and “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”
The Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings wasn’t bad either.
I loved Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’ myself. My children love the Narnia stories. I think people should have a firm foundation in Christianity before they start reading symbolic literature like LOTR.
“The heart of the story is the game of riddles played by Bilbo and Gollum deep inside the Misty Mountains. Tolkien is the anti-Wagner, and his “Rings” novels (a trilogy with a prologue) re-write Richard Wagner’s insidious Ring Cycle (trilogy with prologue).”
Except as that linked article notes, Tolkien himself was clear that:
“Tolkien himself despised Wagner (whom he knew thoroughly) and rejected comparisons between his Ring and Wagner’s cycle (“Both rings are round,” is the extent of his published comment).”
Only by calling Tolkien a liar, to himself at least, if not openly to others, and conflating random factoids into a melange worthy of JFK, Moon Landing, Area 51, and similar conspiracy theories.
Such comparisons, and references to such comparisons, prove more about an inability to take the content and their author at face value than proof of any grand subtext.
Indeed at that rate, they do more to demonstrate why we have wound up with the Kiwi twit’s hackjob on the epic story rather than a faithful adaptation where the values actually present are given a fair presentation.
Right, if, as you say, “Tolkien despised Wagner,” then it’s perfectly reasonable to read LotR as anti-Wagnerian, isn’t it?
It would be, but . . .
Tolkien explicitly said there was no relationship between the two.
Tolkien further explicitly wrote his version of the underlying Siegfried/Sigurd tale that was the basis of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
So if you want a story that is a direct contrast you can just look at that story rather than try and twist the LotR into a negative allegory in direct opposition to the author’s declared intent.
Not many black faces at the afternoon showing of The Hobbit today. Not many Mexicans either, but this isnt a heavily Mexican colonized area. Charleston SC does have a large number of Black Americans though. Id say this movie isnt appealing to Black Americans very much.
And? I am more than tired of leftist racialism. Racialism is not an issue in these books, and I frankly don’t care who reads them.
More White Supremacy? The Lord of the Rings as Pro-American Imperialism
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327892mcp0704_9
That article is written by an African American Studies professor at Berkeley. Are you surprised that is the meaning he reads into LotR? And isn’t it rather odd to accuse a Brit of propagandizing for America?
It’s important to know what the hatefilled Leftists are writing about your culture and cultural inheritance, because it is being taught to kids and is aimed at destruction of said culture.
Myself, I think it is important for White Europeans to embrace their culture and cultural inheritance, which is why I agree with Spengler, it is good news the enduring popularity of these Tolkien books.
I was just pointing out that Black Americans arent really into it, and probably not to the same degree, but also Latinos….shunning not European mythology but rather Anglo. So from that standpoint, it’s rather less heartening as America is forcibly browned, that they obviously do not to a large degree embrace the full Anglo-European heritage as their own.
It was also heartening to read the demographic breakdown, which shows that all whites of every demographic voted majority for Romney, including white females under 30.
There is hope that White Europeans will not go quietly to the trains and will fight to maintain their culture and societies and nations as going concerns.
Please take your racist comments elsewhere.
Sorry bubs, that doesnt work anymore. It’s OK for White European to value and celebrate their genetic and cultural heritage….not racist or xenophobic. White is beautiful.
Thank you! I’m sick to death of these “hate-whitey” freaks. We have a culture and history to be proud of.
Seems nothing will satisfy them until the entire white race (and with it the works of all the master artists) is wiped off the planet.
“mere allegory along the lines of the Narnia series can do no more than restate Christian doctrine; it cannot really expand our experience of it.”
Narnia is not allegory. Narnia is a fictitious story of Christ and His work in a fictitious world. Aslan does not represent Christ, He is Christ. To us, Christ came as a man, to Narnia, a world full of animals, He came as an animal.
I would suggest Lewis’ Space Trilogy, set on Mars and Venus. He employs a similar paradigm. The trilogy is essentially a critique of modernity and post-modernity. (The story is not told very neatly, but with much ret-conning in the two later books).
Seconded. And Lucy is the perfect image of a believer: She trusts him from the very beginning. It’s all about trust and courage.
The trilogy is exclusively for adults, dealing with natural believer again.
I myself consider Lewis the superior writer. He attracted the attention of American writer Helen Joy Davidman, who was blessed with an IQ of 150 and who had converted to Christianity and later became his wife. Funnily enough her second son David reconverted to Judaism after her death while living with Lewis. Both, Lewis and Joy were highly intelligent and besides, they had this fine and clear image of God. They are one of the best examples on earth that belief, love and intelligence/science can go well together.
The movie “The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe” is just not good enough.
1 Tolkien’s novels are pure fantasy and have no sub-text. “He explicitly rejected all claims that it was an allegory for World War II or any other war among men.
2 Tolkien’s novels are not popular. Today’s 80% illiterate teenagers don’t read.
3 It is a movie that is popular and with it the subjective interpretation of the filmmaker.
4 The measure for popularity is entertainment value and not content. Rambo was popular too.
5 To derive hope from a movie, for our culture or anything else, is beyond nonsense…
Why are the Tolkien movies entertaining? Because they show a sharp distinction between good and evil and presume a calling for the good to combat the evil. The fact that these are still attractive ideals in our society is a good sign, and reason for hope.
Now, if Tarantino’s Django is anything like Inglorious Basterds, in terms of content and popularity, then we might be misinterpreting the Tolkien movies’ popularity. Perhaps that sharp and obvious line between good and evil only serves to legitimize violence to the audience. I hope we choose to enjoy the Hobbit because we celebrate the defeat of evil, not because we need a paper-thin excuse to enjoy gross violence.
If you want to believe that popularity has anything to do with the triumph of good over evil, that’s your choice. A choice that is completely divorced from reality. 99% of all popular computer-games are extremely violent and so are most blockbuster action movies.
I’m speaking from personal experience. The battle scenes of the Tolkien movies (and those same violent video games) are a lot more meaningful to me if the characters are fighting for something.
I’ve mentioned Inglourious Basterds in this thread, and I hate it because of its nihilistic violence and apathy to any meaning behind triumph beyond personal revenge.
You have to look for a positive note wherever you can find it, or else there’s nothing. I’m given to enough cynical nihilism just like any other modern person, but you have to try and beat it back. Otherwise, stop being human……..
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis
And your cappuccino will still cost you $4.50…..’>…….
macchiato….
Thank you for your intellectual and moral leadership in these unsettled times. You are doing Hashem’s work and I pray that He rewards you for it. Also, the Wagner critique (in the link) is superb.
I echo Josh’s endorsement of That Hideous Strength (“a fairy-tale for adults”). It is a devastating attack on reductionism/logical positivism.
Good writing as always, Mr. Goldman.
I imagine that JRR Tolkien fans everywhere will most likely enjoy Peter Jackson’s efforts in bringing “The Hobbit” to the big screen… even if he took a few liberties with the tale and streched it out into three parts.
We also made sure that we saw it in 2-D, and were glad that we did. Once the story began to unfold, we were again treated to and caught up in themes that resonate deeply and are truly timeless.
This was also a stark reminder that our culture desperately needs new writers, producers, directors and people who will invest in projects like these… and especially those that will reach and influence our children.
Loved the article but I have to pick on a pet peeve of mine. C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Series is not, and never has been a Christian Allegory. That was not Lewis’ intent and his work should not be judged on that basis. Not only does the tale fail to fit logically into specific Christian paradigms, as an allegory should, an allegory falls apart if at any moment the writer breaks the analogy deliberately to reveal a hidden truth, which Lewis did, intentionally and repeatedly. Rather, it is a piece of speculative Christian fantasy. Aslan does not stand in for Jesus or exist as a metaphor or symbol of Christ, he IS Christ, as is plain in several revealing scenes, most particularly in the Magician’s Nephew, the Last Battle and The Horse and his Boy. Aslan nearly lets the veil slip and reveals he is the same and exact person as Christ to several characters, the solider from Carlumen, the original Cabbie from the Magician’s Nephew, etc. The context makes this clear. They recognize that he is the same divinity they know and they are shocked by it. We should be shocked too. That makes this work more than just a fable, it makes it a rather edgy, and frankly, borderline heretical work. C.S. Lewis did nothing less than imagine what Christ might be like in a parallel universe.
“Tolkien’s novels are not popular.”
Yeah, they are. around 250,000,000 copies of the Hobbit and LOTR have been sold.
They’re two of the biggest selling novels of all time.
You quote this: “Tolkien takes us to the dark frontier of a world that is not yet Christian, and therefore is tragic, but has the capacity to become Christian.”
A bit much don’t you think? I mean, what about the Buddhists and the Hindus? Are they living in a pre-saved world that is somehow not yet complete?
From a Christian perspective, the Buddhist and Hindu worlds are certainly “pre-saved.” Christianity proclaims eternal salvation is possible–salvation from judgment and into the “kingdom of God,” the “new Jerusalem,” eternal life with God.
Hinduism and Buddhism seek an end to existence. Karma (the consequences of our actions) result in samsara (an endless round of existences, of “lives”). Both religions in somewhat different ways seek release from this samsaric “wheel”–the perpetual state of coming into being and passing away. Hindus call this release “moksha,” lit. “liberation”; Buddhists call it “nibbana”/”nirvana”, lit. “extinguishment,” “the blowing out” (as one might extinguish a candle).
So neither religion reaches the point Christianity (and Judaism in a somewhat different way) assumes as a starting point: a single life, on which one’s eternal destiny depends. What Christianity calls “salvation” is neither desired nor possible in a karmic religion.
Actually, I’m sorry to say but you’re glossing a bit over huge chunks of theology there. First of all, altough I put them there as examples Buddhism and HInduism do not have the same conception about the afterlife. The nirvana of the buddhist is more like negative description of a state beyond samsara, the cycle of birth and death; nir-out vana-forest, meaning “going out of the forest of the cycle of birth and death”. What happens there? There’s not too much detail about that. That’s where Hinduism comes in.
In Hinduism, more specifically in Vaishnavism (the personalist teistic school to which more than two thirds of Hindus pertain) based on the tradition of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, Liberation leads one to the spiritual world called in many names, such as Vaikuntha (The place of no anxiety) or Haridhama (The abode of the Supreme) where the liberated souls, possess spiritual bodies with which they interact with God (Vishnu or Krishna) in eternity. And, just like in Christianity, God descends on Earth in the form of various avatars to englighten people and show them ways to go back to Him.
So, there is salvation in the East, you just have to know how to recognize it.
Respectfully,
L
Needs to be said again and again; thank you, Mr Tolkien.
“A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!”
Thanks for this excellent review; I will certainly be going to see it now. Although Protestant myself, and therefore biased towards the inestimable Lewis, I must admit that his friend, the Catholic Tolkien, was the superior writer and poet.
Great to see Martin Freeman doing so well as an actor; he was brilliant in the original British version of The Office and the interviews with the actors on the DVD were rather poignant, as the actors were selected especially because they were unknown (mainly theatre actors) so as not to disturb the documentary conceit of the series. Martin was quite philosophical about his brief stint on national TV; that if he did nothing else of note it would be enough for a career. And now he is a major film actor.
“Others, notably the entirely invented character of an Orc leader with a grudge against the dwarves, are generic Hollywood claptrap.”
Azog is actually a character Tolkien invented, and the battle outside of Moria against him and his orcs did happen. Look at the appendicies of the Lord of the Rings for the actual story. Azog had his head cut off, so he was confirmed dead in Tolkien’s story, whereas the movie has him survive to hunt Thorin. That part of Jackson’s movie is the invention, not the character himself.
Azog in the movie is actually his son from the book, Bolg. I think Jackson wisely decided to combine the characters rather than confuse viewers with an unnecessary proliferation of characters. Azog/Bolg has an expanded role in the movie, but I see him as the personification of Orcishness, so for the movie, I’m OK with that.
From a movie-making standpoint, it certainly makes sense not to have the main orc villain just appear from nowhere in the final film. And giving the audience less characters to follow also makes sense. Those are decisions in translating a book to film that I’m okay with as well, particularly since most of the movie was fairly faithful to the original story. I was pleasantly surprised.
Not sure I agree. With a work of fantasy, it’s possible for anyone to cast himself as the hero and his ideological enemy as the villain. I’m sure some atheist liberal out there takes great pleasure in imagining the Democrats as the Fellowship and the Republicans as a horde of orcs.
The problem with something like the Lord of the Rings is that is embodies concepts that they disagree with, even if they cast themselves in the hero’s role. Atheist liberals have their own fantasy literature – check out Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy for an example of how uplifting and true to the human spirit a story like that is.
I don’t agree with comparing Tolkien to Lewis. Did Tolkien write literary criticisms? Did Tolkien write anything to compare with “The Abolition of Man?”
I don’t think Tolkien wrote literary criticism. He didn’t care much for critics anyway, and didn’t like allegory, either, which is why he once said something like, some critics don’t like his work, but then he doesn’t like the works they prefer, either, so he felt they were even. I think that’s as close to literary criticism as he ever got.
Conservatives and Republicans make statments like that on an almost daily basis…and then you can’t understand why the left thinks you’re stupid and ignorant?
GMAFB.
You can get a basic bio of Tolkien at Wiki. He wasn’t an ignorant man. In fact, he was one of the greatest scholars of the last one hundred years. He wasn’t a socialist. He was a christian. He was also a Veteran of WWI.
Really? I usually have to go to Huffington Post to get my daily dose of stupidity.
What’s with the dig on Republican intelligence? My experience is that the so-called intellectually superior liberals are just as muddled by allegory, metaphor, simile, satire, parable, allusion, parody, irony, etc., etc., as any Republican. Maybe you still think the right answer is always the one the teacher gave you?
IMO, a liberal is far more likely to be concerned about who said something rather than what was said, and a Republican is more likely to consider the merit of the argument than the source. Of course, to some people, being smart is parroting what your professors tell you. Others of us have learned to reason on our own and have figured out that academics are as apt to be persuaded by bias and dogma as any argumentative proof.
Tolkien was not one of the greatest scholars of this or any century. He was competent. He was a tweedy Oxford philologist who specialized Northern European languages – a very limited field of study of little interest to anyone other than other tweedy university types. He had some interesting thoughts about Christianity, good and evil, mythology, and other things which he wrote books about, some of which became popular. He was NOT Roger Freakin’ Bacon.
True. He did write three books that will likely be read for hundreds of years, which is something.
That makes him a popular author, not a great scholar.
Ok then who’s a scholar? James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Heller, George Orwell? These are all names I’ve heard bantied around as the greatest authors of the 20th century, yet I wouldn’t say any of them were scholars. I think creating multiple languages and alphabets, establishing a mythology that for the most part is consistent with itself, and basically putting serious fantasy on map to be pretty scholarly.
As for Francis Bacon, sure he was the Father of Experimental Science, but did he create tall and thin and unbearably beautiful elves? Did he invent orcs and hobbits and balrogs? Was he the impetus for Dungeons and Dragons and a zillion RPG games and a zillion lost weekends? Did he sent send a million nerds down the path of geekdom never to return? Just a popular author, indeed!
So you count the critic of greater merit than the artist? Can’t go there with you. As intelligent and interesting a man as Lewis was, Tolkien was the greater creator and left behind the greater achievement. I don’t doubt that Tolkien will still be reasonably popular a hundred years hence and perhaps two hundred years hence–in the unlikely event western civilization survives Obama that long.
I agree that comparing the two as writers or scholars is comparing apples and oranges, but Tolkien most certainly did write literary criticism. He just didn’t write it about contemporary novels. His 1937 lecture on Beowulf, since published as “The Monsters and the Critics”, was a watershed in English literary scholarship. It’s no exaggeration to say that Tolkien is the reason “everybody” now knows that English literature began with Beowulf. Prior to his analysis, it wasn’t even considered a proper poem, much less part of the canon, and was mainly regarded as a cultural artifact. He translated “Pearl” & “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and was a scholar of early medieval literatures and languages; he was fluent in Norse and Gothic, as well as Early & Middle English, and he wrote and lectured on these subjects his entire adult life. (Interestingly, Tolkien believed that the study of literature was inseparable from the study of language, an approach to teaching English that he fought for his entire career and which more or less died with him.)
Anyone interested in seeing Tolkien’s literary criticism in action should check out the posthumous publication “The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun”, Tolkien’s verse rendition of the Volsunga Saga. Included are notes in which he discussed some of the problems associated with the traditional sources and offered his own resolution. Plus it’s an amazing story, though quite grim & definitely not for the fainthearted. The book also includes some of his lecture notes on the Elder Edda (interesting to note that the poet W.H. Auden, a former pupil, dedicated his own translation of the the Edda poems to Tolkien).
Excuse me for nit-picking, but Elijah Wood was about the right age for the Frodo character. Frodo was 33 at Bilbo’s 111th birthday party, which was considered coming of age for Hobbits. In the movie they took off right away for Mordor, so by the movie timeline, Frodo would have been very young indeed and Wood’s age would have been right on the money.
In the books, Frodo was about 50 when he took off with the Fellowship. By Hobbit standards, that would still make him more like 30 in human years. Elijah Wood was about 20 when the first movie was made. So even if the movie had followed the book timeline (which it did not), Wood was not far off agewise to play Frodo.
I think Frodo as a Hobbit was closer to human middle age than you might think. Tolkien mentions that he was beginning to settle into Bag End and was becoming sedentary and comfortable, and was a bit overweight (not unusual for Hobbits)by the time he set out with the ring. He was about the same age as when Bilbo set out on his adventure, and at the time, Bilbo was the picture of comfortable Hobbit middle age. It may be true that Hobbits decline more slowly than do humans from middle age onwards, but I did feel at the time that Frodo (Elijah Wood) was far too young, where as Pippin, Merry, and Sam were about right.
well, I’m glad it’s in three parts. I’ve got two boys. One just hit teenager. They like movies, big, heroic, amazing, awesome movies. Since I don’t hear of any more Indiana Jones movies coming down the pike, I think I’m good knowing that there are three Christmases in the movie theatre ahead of us that are really entertaining.
btw, they just bailed out on the Santa Clause for the rhird time. It’s opening is too painful: divorce, despair, malice, second-boyfriends. They literally could not take it.
Why was this book and the trilogy so popular with hippies and New Agers during the “Age of Aquarius.”
Did they just misread it?
They were attracted to the Pagan elements.
The Enemy, in both Lewis and Tolkien, is godless materialism, aka technology – even Feanor’s palantirs caused more trouble than they were worth. Well, I guess the good guys are allowed enough technology to make their own armor and stuff. Anyway, especially Tolkien’s view is a romantic reaction to and rejection of technology, which seemed like modernity in the mid-twentieth century.
Of course today no hippy could be happy without an iPhone, so I dunno.
Although well-meaning, this article is way off-base. When SPECIFICALLY asked if the orcs were the nazis, Tolkien answered in the negative. Denethor represented the German’s depressive sado-masochism.
Wagner didn’t invent the Rings cycle; the stories of Odin and his Ring pre-date him and his operas.
Quite simply, the ORCS ARE TURKS, AND THE ENEMY IS ISLAM.
Tolkien was a great linguistics scholar and a churchman, and as such, he was privileged to be allowed to work on the translations of the DEAD SEA SCROLLS.
As such, he wanted to expose islam, but not directly insult his Turkish hosts.
Unlike the self-fulfilling, violent prophecies of the bandit-king of the moslems, his enduring literary works prove Tolkien was a REAL Prophet.