Christian Novelists: J.R.R. Tolkien
I dislike Lord of the Rings. I dislike the books and I have grave reservations about the films.
What do I dislike about them? Let's tackle the books first. The first thing is the prose. I want to make it clear that this mostly applies to The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The badness of the writing there is sometimes almost beyond belief. Too much dialogue like "Evil is afoot in Mordor" and "He lives now in terror of the shadow of Mordor, and yet he still dreams of riding the storm." One or two of these lines might not spoil the book, but, simply put, no sensitive reader can take this kind of continuous bombast for 1500 pages. I am sad to say that The Two Towers and The Return of the King are, without doubt, the worst written books I have ever had the misfortune to read.
Which, brings me to my second complaint, the shallowness, which afflicts the book almost from the beginning. Tolkien said that LOTR had no meaning, that there was no allegory to the book. I am afraid that he was all too right about his creation. It is one of the emptiest books I have ever read. Not that the plot does not create opportunities to express meaning. One longs for the narrator or the characters to comment on the nature of friendship, on overcoming hardship, on the nature of temptation. But then . . . they don’t. The books admirers always say that the book is about heroism, but I confess that I could not find even one interesting observation on that topic in the whole book.
Of course, lots of critics are willing to admit Tolkien's failings, but then tell us to go read him for the plot. But what if you don’t primarily read for plot? What if you read for insight? Furthermore, if all there is is the plot, why exactly should a book exist as a book? Why do you need words at all? Won’t a movie or ballet convey its essence just as well? When it comes to books, there is no use talking about "the whole." Books are written sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and great sentences and great paragraphs are individually memorable and insightful. Great books have things worth quoting. Of course, even in the greatest works there have to be transitions and even the best sentences sometimes need buildup, but eventually you have to come to the meat. A book cannot be all transition and all buildup. Alas, even at its best (as in The Fellowship of the Ring), Tolkien's writing is merely inoffensive.
The fact is that as far as literature is concerned, story is secondary; insight and observation are what make a book worthy of being a book. When I think of the books I’ve read, I only secondarily remember their plots. What I do remember are Margret Atwood's remark that stupidity and evil are the same, if you go by the results, or E.M. Forster telling us that while death destroys man, the thought of death saves him, or Milton telling us it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, or Balzac that you are always welcome, but you will never be missed. Those things are what makes a book worth reading, and the best books are studded with them. I dare anyone to find anything so memorable in the last thousand or so pages of The Lord of the Rings. There are couple of memorably humorous moments at the start in the Shire and Gandalf makes a pretty impressive speech on pity, also near the beginning, but after that it is all downhill. A handful of such things cannot sustain literary interest over a full thousand pages. If this is all he had to say, I am afraid that Mr. Tolkien should have spared himself (and the reader) such a mammoth undertaking, and given us a short story.
(Of course, if you do read primarily for the plot, then perhaps The Lord of the Rings is your kind of book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes in his book on Creativity that for many writers, reading bad prose is actually painful. That was my experience of reading Lord of the Rings. Physical pain. But, as the ability to appreciate good storytelling is much more universal than the ability to to appreciate good prose, if you don't happen to be one of those few people particularly sensitive to bad writing, you doubtless will not notice these faults and be able to enjoy the book. My experience of the book, however, was so bad that I cannot approach anything like that equanimity.
I suspect also that I came to the book too late in life. If you read Lord of the Rings as a teenager it may seem to reveal all the world to you. The Derelict has a superb post up on why our childhood tastes are often so different from those as an adult. Lord of the Rings would seem to fall precisely under his analysis. It does seem to be one of those books you have to read before you turn 25. If you don't read it by then, its appeal may be irrecoverable. One of the saddest parts of developing an adult taste is letting go of childhood favourites. This can mean giving up truly deep attachments, and the entire process can be horribly wrenching. Some people simply cannot do it. So, perhaps for some LOTR brings up memories of their long lost youth, when it seemed the book would reveal all the mysteries of reality. They cannot let go. One should have some compassion for this. Letting go is painful. But compassion cannot be allowed to usurp the judgment. We owe a duty to the truth as we see it.)
That is my last word on the books. I am happy to report that the movies are considerably better. After all, as even its detractors have had to admit, LOTR does have a fairly good plot, and the movies, much more efficiently than the books, deliver that plot to the audience. Salman Rushdie, comparing the books and the movies, almost goes so far as to imply that you might as well skip the books altogether. But even this will only take you so far. The fact is that Peter Jackson has made three rather cheezy horror flicks, complete with buckets of slime and a bombastic musical score that feels it necessary every so often to announce that "THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT MOMENT!" The acting is often very good, but even that is not without its problems. Ian McKellan’s Gandalf lends some dignity to the proceedings (though the silliness of the cave scenes made me want to call out “Run, little wizard, run”), and Andy Serkis is superb as Smeagol (what's up with the whispy combover though). But Viggo Mortenson’s dialogue is so “horribly stuffed with bombast” that no one could do much with it; he inevitably sounds like a parody of a hero instead of the real thing. And the Hobbits, with the partial exception of Ian Holm’s Bilbo, are some of the least likeable characters on film: Merry and Pippin are dumber than a couple of high school potheads and about as interesting, Frodo has no personality to speak of, and Sam is just about the most cloying character in all film; by the middle of the third film I wanted to throw him off the cliff. In general, Jackson's lack of taste is matched only by his lack of personal hygiene. He is a man who obviously doesn't care much for appearances. This might not matter quite so much in a novelist or composer, but in a film director it more than matters. Appearances are what the movies are. Lets fact it, drenched in slime, stuffed with bombast, unevenly acted, Jackson's Lord of the Rings is the epitome of the slob aesthetic.
That may be a bit harsh, but I don't mean to entirely dismiss the films. As far as cheezy horror films go, these ones are all eminently watchable, and you can't say that about many 3 hour movies, let alone 3 of them. (Though the last film does go on a bit too long. My sister remarked that it should have stopped with the crowning of Aragorn. After all, the film is called Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, not Lord of the Rings: Sam Marries a Fat Hobbit.) But, while the films are not without their merits, they are decidedly not anywhere near great art, and unfortunately represent the culmination of a long and disturbing trend in the movies. LOTR is a movie of, by and for geeks and is more concerned concerned about being "neat" than being art. I have come to appreciate the virtues of nerds and geeks; they are an underappreciated and much maligned segment of society. They frequently do not deserve the contempt they receive. But geekiness does have its definite downsides and nowhere is that more apparent than in the arts. Now, if this were some modest sci-fi/fantasy production, I would doubtless be content to pass on by in silence. There is a bit of the unshowered geek in all of us, and it enjoys the occasional LOTR type fantasy film. But LOTR isn't just a geek movie, it is the biggest, sloppiest, most over-the-top geek movie ever made. Its triumph represents the total geekification of the movies, something which has made the prospect of going to the theatre such a depressing experience lately. It demands a response.
However, what most disturbed me about the reception of The Lord of the Rings films was not their immense popularity among the general public (bad art will always be more popular than good), but instead its rather uncritical embrace by the Christian community. I can understand the reasons. Christians consume a lot of popular culture. They are human beings, and they enjoy a lot of the same things other people do. But most producers of that popular culture want nothing to do with Christianity. It’s not cool. It’s a niche market. It appeals to squares. Worst of all, its stringent moral code prevents full enjoyment of all the multitudinous sexual opportunities available in the entertainment industry. So, as much as they consume its products, Christians have an uneasy relationship with the entertainment industry. They feel its rejection. For them Christianity is the greatest thing in the world. It should be right at the centre of everything. It should be able to inspire great art. (And it has!) Consequently, whenever some piece of quasi-Christian pop culture comes along and isn’t terrible, they tend to be a bit overeager in their embrace of it. Imagine the exstasy many felt when Jackson’s films were lauded to the sky. Finally, they felt, we too get to be cool. Well, I have news for my fellow Christians: Christianity will never be cool. It will never be sexy. Christianity has its aesthetic appeal, but the kinds of things Hollywood specializes in (not always unworthy) are not really part of it. Stop whoring after every pathetic little tidbit the Hollywood machine deigns to throws you. Lord of the Rings, for all its critical acclaim, is actually a pretty mediocre movie. In the long term, Christianity will not gain by association with it. Its popularity will doubtless go on for a while, but will eventually evaporate. It is not for all time. Ask yourself, do you really want to hold up something this mediocre as an exemplar of Christian art in the 20th century? That is, if it even really is Christian art. Tolkien the man was a conservative Catholic, but Lord of the Rings the book, much less the movie, doesn’t really seem to me particularly Christian at all. It doesn’t really seem to me even religious. Its not even pagan. You will probably find more spiritual content in the Iliad, and that's saying alot. So, my plea to my fellow Christians is, please be more careful in embracing supposedly Christian products of the popular culture. Enjoy them sure, but don’t hold them up to be more than they are. Otherwise you will only hurt what you profess to love.
What do I dislike about them? Let's tackle the books first. The first thing is the prose. I want to make it clear that this mostly applies to The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The badness of the writing there is sometimes almost beyond belief. Too much dialogue like "Evil is afoot in Mordor" and "He lives now in terror of the shadow of Mordor, and yet he still dreams of riding the storm." One or two of these lines might not spoil the book, but, simply put, no sensitive reader can take this kind of continuous bombast for 1500 pages. I am sad to say that The Two Towers and The Return of the King are, without doubt, the worst written books I have ever had the misfortune to read.
Which, brings me to my second complaint, the shallowness, which afflicts the book almost from the beginning. Tolkien said that LOTR had no meaning, that there was no allegory to the book. I am afraid that he was all too right about his creation. It is one of the emptiest books I have ever read. Not that the plot does not create opportunities to express meaning. One longs for the narrator or the characters to comment on the nature of friendship, on overcoming hardship, on the nature of temptation. But then . . . they don’t. The books admirers always say that the book is about heroism, but I confess that I could not find even one interesting observation on that topic in the whole book.
Of course, lots of critics are willing to admit Tolkien's failings, but then tell us to go read him for the plot. But what if you don’t primarily read for plot? What if you read for insight? Furthermore, if all there is is the plot, why exactly should a book exist as a book? Why do you need words at all? Won’t a movie or ballet convey its essence just as well? When it comes to books, there is no use talking about "the whole." Books are written sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and great sentences and great paragraphs are individually memorable and insightful. Great books have things worth quoting. Of course, even in the greatest works there have to be transitions and even the best sentences sometimes need buildup, but eventually you have to come to the meat. A book cannot be all transition and all buildup. Alas, even at its best (as in The Fellowship of the Ring), Tolkien's writing is merely inoffensive.
The fact is that as far as literature is concerned, story is secondary; insight and observation are what make a book worthy of being a book. When I think of the books I’ve read, I only secondarily remember their plots. What I do remember are Margret Atwood's remark that stupidity and evil are the same, if you go by the results, or E.M. Forster telling us that while death destroys man, the thought of death saves him, or Milton telling us it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, or Balzac that you are always welcome, but you will never be missed. Those things are what makes a book worth reading, and the best books are studded with them. I dare anyone to find anything so memorable in the last thousand or so pages of The Lord of the Rings. There are couple of memorably humorous moments at the start in the Shire and Gandalf makes a pretty impressive speech on pity, also near the beginning, but after that it is all downhill. A handful of such things cannot sustain literary interest over a full thousand pages. If this is all he had to say, I am afraid that Mr. Tolkien should have spared himself (and the reader) such a mammoth undertaking, and given us a short story.
(Of course, if you do read primarily for the plot, then perhaps The Lord of the Rings is your kind of book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes in his book on Creativity that for many writers, reading bad prose is actually painful. That was my experience of reading Lord of the Rings. Physical pain. But, as the ability to appreciate good storytelling is much more universal than the ability to to appreciate good prose, if you don't happen to be one of those few people particularly sensitive to bad writing, you doubtless will not notice these faults and be able to enjoy the book. My experience of the book, however, was so bad that I cannot approach anything like that equanimity.
I suspect also that I came to the book too late in life. If you read Lord of the Rings as a teenager it may seem to reveal all the world to you. The Derelict has a superb post up on why our childhood tastes are often so different from those as an adult. Lord of the Rings would seem to fall precisely under his analysis. It does seem to be one of those books you have to read before you turn 25. If you don't read it by then, its appeal may be irrecoverable. One of the saddest parts of developing an adult taste is letting go of childhood favourites. This can mean giving up truly deep attachments, and the entire process can be horribly wrenching. Some people simply cannot do it. So, perhaps for some LOTR brings up memories of their long lost youth, when it seemed the book would reveal all the mysteries of reality. They cannot let go. One should have some compassion for this. Letting go is painful. But compassion cannot be allowed to usurp the judgment. We owe a duty to the truth as we see it.)
That is my last word on the books. I am happy to report that the movies are considerably better. After all, as even its detractors have had to admit, LOTR does have a fairly good plot, and the movies, much more efficiently than the books, deliver that plot to the audience. Salman Rushdie, comparing the books and the movies, almost goes so far as to imply that you might as well skip the books altogether. But even this will only take you so far. The fact is that Peter Jackson has made three rather cheezy horror flicks, complete with buckets of slime and a bombastic musical score that feels it necessary every so often to announce that "THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT MOMENT!" The acting is often very good, but even that is not without its problems. Ian McKellan’s Gandalf lends some dignity to the proceedings (though the silliness of the cave scenes made me want to call out “Run, little wizard, run”), and Andy Serkis is superb as Smeagol (what's up with the whispy combover though). But Viggo Mortenson’s dialogue is so “horribly stuffed with bombast” that no one could do much with it; he inevitably sounds like a parody of a hero instead of the real thing. And the Hobbits, with the partial exception of Ian Holm’s Bilbo, are some of the least likeable characters on film: Merry and Pippin are dumber than a couple of high school potheads and about as interesting, Frodo has no personality to speak of, and Sam is just about the most cloying character in all film; by the middle of the third film I wanted to throw him off the cliff. In general, Jackson's lack of taste is matched only by his lack of personal hygiene. He is a man who obviously doesn't care much for appearances. This might not matter quite so much in a novelist or composer, but in a film director it more than matters. Appearances are what the movies are. Lets fact it, drenched in slime, stuffed with bombast, unevenly acted, Jackson's Lord of the Rings is the epitome of the slob aesthetic.
That may be a bit harsh, but I don't mean to entirely dismiss the films. As far as cheezy horror films go, these ones are all eminently watchable, and you can't say that about many 3 hour movies, let alone 3 of them. (Though the last film does go on a bit too long. My sister remarked that it should have stopped with the crowning of Aragorn. After all, the film is called Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, not Lord of the Rings: Sam Marries a Fat Hobbit.) But, while the films are not without their merits, they are decidedly not anywhere near great art, and unfortunately represent the culmination of a long and disturbing trend in the movies. LOTR is a movie of, by and for geeks and is more concerned concerned about being "neat" than being art. I have come to appreciate the virtues of nerds and geeks; they are an underappreciated and much maligned segment of society. They frequently do not deserve the contempt they receive. But geekiness does have its definite downsides and nowhere is that more apparent than in the arts. Now, if this were some modest sci-fi/fantasy production, I would doubtless be content to pass on by in silence. There is a bit of the unshowered geek in all of us, and it enjoys the occasional LOTR type fantasy film. But LOTR isn't just a geek movie, it is the biggest, sloppiest, most over-the-top geek movie ever made. Its triumph represents the total geekification of the movies, something which has made the prospect of going to the theatre such a depressing experience lately. It demands a response.
However, what most disturbed me about the reception of The Lord of the Rings films was not their immense popularity among the general public (bad art will always be more popular than good), but instead its rather uncritical embrace by the Christian community. I can understand the reasons. Christians consume a lot of popular culture. They are human beings, and they enjoy a lot of the same things other people do. But most producers of that popular culture want nothing to do with Christianity. It’s not cool. It’s a niche market. It appeals to squares. Worst of all, its stringent moral code prevents full enjoyment of all the multitudinous sexual opportunities available in the entertainment industry. So, as much as they consume its products, Christians have an uneasy relationship with the entertainment industry. They feel its rejection. For them Christianity is the greatest thing in the world. It should be right at the centre of everything. It should be able to inspire great art. (And it has!) Consequently, whenever some piece of quasi-Christian pop culture comes along and isn’t terrible, they tend to be a bit overeager in their embrace of it. Imagine the exstasy many felt when Jackson’s films were lauded to the sky. Finally, they felt, we too get to be cool. Well, I have news for my fellow Christians: Christianity will never be cool. It will never be sexy. Christianity has its aesthetic appeal, but the kinds of things Hollywood specializes in (not always unworthy) are not really part of it. Stop whoring after every pathetic little tidbit the Hollywood machine deigns to throws you. Lord of the Rings, for all its critical acclaim, is actually a pretty mediocre movie. In the long term, Christianity will not gain by association with it. Its popularity will doubtless go on for a while, but will eventually evaporate. It is not for all time. Ask yourself, do you really want to hold up something this mediocre as an exemplar of Christian art in the 20th century? That is, if it even really is Christian art. Tolkien the man was a conservative Catholic, but Lord of the Rings the book, much less the movie, doesn’t really seem to me particularly Christian at all. It doesn’t really seem to me even religious. Its not even pagan. You will probably find more spiritual content in the Iliad, and that's saying alot. So, my plea to my fellow Christians is, please be more careful in embracing supposedly Christian products of the popular culture. Enjoy them sure, but don’t hold them up to be more than they are. Otherwise you will only hurt what you profess to love.
posted by Thursday at
12:57 AM
21 Comments:
I agree in your estimation of the books, and, alas, the movies. The books were so horrible that as a child I stopped a quarter way through "The Two Towers" and never went back. Dreadfully dull, utterly lacking in genuine humor or wit, incredibly pompous pieces of crap. And such was my indifference that for the next few decades I so successfully insulated myself from the whole wretched saga that when I was waiting for the movie version of "The Return of the King" to come out, I genuinely wondered who the king might be. I thought it might turn out to be Frodo...
The movies I liked when I saw them in the theater, and was almost tempted to take up the LOTR texts again. Fortunately, I repressed the impulse. As for the movies, I saw them again on cable a couple of weeks ago, and alas their charm is already much diminished -- they're tinny and hollow, with much of the same portentous dialogue and interminable narrow escapes in each one. Possibly they are simply less effective on the small screen, but I think the real killer was seeing all three one after the other -- I had only seen them originally after yearly intervals, when I couldn't fully remember the plot and dialogue of the previous one.
What, worse prose than Harry Potter? Either you have a blind spot here, or my tastes are even more degraded than I suspect.
As someone who reads over a million words a year aloud to my kids, I find the Lord of the Rings to be rather well written - despite occasional patches of bombast, especially in the Return of the King. I think Tolkien - who was pretty much estranged from 20th century literature - developed a style that suited his purposes, though guaranteed to grate on the sensibilities of many modern readers.
If you can stomach a book-length analysis, Tom Shippey makes a case for LOTR as a pretty good piece literature in The Road to Middle-earth.
To me, the films have a horror-movie sensibility that takes them a few steps down from the books.
Foose - Funny, the first half the The Two Towers is my favourite section of the trilogy.
- intellectual pariah
Hmm. Liked Tolkien at 15, haven't had any interest in revisiting him, had even less interest in seeing the movies. So no quarrel with you about any of that.
But your comments about plot are fightin' words.
I'm not sure how you can assert that plot/story is unimportant. First, prose narrative is narrative. You can downplay that, or dodge it, but most people are going to find themselves involved in the story to one extent or another.
Second, there are maybe 15 things a novel can foreground: prose is one of them, and plot is another. (Character, atmosphere, theme, etc...) I'm not sure why one of these things should be automatically valued over any of the others. A given author has a set of talents and skills, and has a certain something in mind for a given project. "Ulyseses" foregrounds wordplay and symbolism -- its plotting is pretty negligeable. But the storytelling in "Red Harvest" is quite something, is certainly in the foreground of that particular experience, and is quite an achievement in its own right.
Where books and plots go, there's also a practical matter. Yes, movies do a great job of telling stories, or can anyway. But it takes zillions of dollars, and endless committee meetings and ego-clashes to get those stories onto a screen. Which means that many stories will never make it there, and many will be of a kind that the movie business doesn't want to or isn't set up to tell. So who's gonna tell them? Why not novel-writers?
But as always, a fun posting.
The Lord of the Rings is brilliant, a true classic. The only book I read and reread. Beautiful, organic writing, great characters, timeless values. This post is quite astonishing. LOTR moved me, pushed every pleasure button in my brain imaginable - that makes it great art. In fact, I prefer LOTR to Virgil. Like most of the Tolkien-bashing set, you dislike the fact that nerds like it. In this world anything that nerds like must, a priori, be bad. This is a complete non-argument. The fact that you would quote Salman Rushdie, who writes indecipherable modernist trash, says it all.
Cuchulkhan:
There are a lot of really good things about nerds: they make good husbands, they tend not to power hungry assholes, and they are responsible, economically productive citizens. These are not minor virtues.
And yet, and yet, and yet, nerds do have their definite downsides. They often a) dress badly, b) lack social skills, and c) have terrible, terrible taste in the arts. Like it or not, these things matter. They make life at least somewhat less pleasant for others, especially if you happen to care enough about things artistic. Therefore, respectfully, I cannot retract my harsh opinion of nerd oriented art.
I think that the big problem thet nerds have is that the arts, even novels, are at least to some degree related to in-the-moment perception, something nerds tend to be terrible at. Poor perception usually equals terrible taste. As I said before though, the ability to appreciate a good story appears to be almost universal. Nerds shouldn't be any worse off in this respect. Perhaps that's why you liked Dryden's Aeneid. I'd have to agree, he probably is the best at propelling the narrative along, and as Michael Blowhard has pointed out here pure storytelling should not be entirely despised.
BTW for a great example of an arty nerd who also deplores the influence of nerd culture I would recommend that everyone take a look the writings of Agnostic. He's the best of both worlds and a really nice guy.
So what about that other great Christian children's author, Enid Blyton?
ok, my first response was a tad emotional, t'felt like somebody attacking a part of myself. in the cool light of morning i now see that you're probably correct about the influence of adolescence - which is when i read it. i probably can't give an objective verdict. probably how religious people feel when you attack their sacred book, oy.
i liked dryden's aeneid for both the narrative and the astonishing imagery. eg, in book vii, these are some of the best lines I've ever read:
"In the midst of Italy, well known to fame,
There lies a lake (Amsanctus is the name),
Below the lofty mounts: on either side
Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide.
Full in the centre of the sacred wood
An arm arises of the Stygian flood,
Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing sound,
Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around.
Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell;
And opens wide the grinning jaws of hell.
To this infernal lake the Fury flies,
Here hides her hated head, and frees the labouring skies."
Cuchulkhan:
I've already mentioned that the story is pretty decent, but I think most people really get into Tolkien because of the whole world he created. In fact, I believe he once said the that he created the book in order to serve the world, not the other way round. Perhaps that is why he didn't put as much care into the writing as he perhaps should have. (Tolkien could write. LOTR starts off well enough and I did like The Hobbit. He also wrote a very good essay on Beowulf.)
However, unfortunately, if you care enough about good writing, and I do, then the last 2/3 is a pretty awful experience. I can't really qualify that. I don't suppose though that there is any reason for a fan to give up on the LOTR universe, simply because the book isn't well written. Tolkien's book may, in fact, be a kind of achievement, but perhaps not a truly literary one.
I loved Tolkien, I still love Tolkien, but I agree that it's a world rather than a novel. It's told through words rather than with words. I suspect the reason for the clumsiness of the writing is that he was too caught up in the creation of languages and legends for his world to pay attention to character creation and so forth. Certainly he always maintained that he created the world of LOTR to find a place for the languages he had invented.
I think his greatest piece of non-fiction writing was the remarkable essay, "On Fairy Stories".
Alias Clio
I hope my readers' will indulge my rather bitchy tone in the original post. Please don't take what I have to say there too seriously. My bitchiness grew out of my frustration with the extravagent claims being made on behalf of the book. If you care enough, it can become very annoying to hear such a work constantly described as Best.Novel.(and now Best.Film.)Ever. I do think, however, that a much more modest case for the books, one which did not emphasize the their overwhelming profundity and strong writing, could well be made. Furthermore, it is undeniable that such wonderful works as George Lucas' first two Star Wars movies and Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy would have been inconcievable without the example of Tolkien's work. There are merits to the books. Too extravagent claims for the either the books or the films, however, are only likely to provoke extravagent rebuttals, such as mine here. Once again, I ask my readers' indulgence for that extravagence.
John Dolan's review of Peter Jackson's movies is a good read.
Also, Spengler's ideas about the cristian content of Tolien's works are interesting.
You had me, grudgingly, until you invoked Margaret Atwood. I first learned that ignorance and evil were the same when I was eight years old from a condensed version of Black Beauty. I don’t think that Margaret Atwood has had an original thought in her life.
I have no comments about Tolkien, having never read him. There--I said it. Now I must go turn in my nerd card.
Now, that's a post that's just asking for anger!
Well, needless to say, I disagree, but I don't care to say any more; attitudes such as yours merely cause one to shrug ones shoulders and move on, perplexed by the inexplicable.
LOTR was one of the defining books of my childhood. From age 12 -14 or so, I read it over and over. I even read The Silmarillion multiple times, and if you think the prose in LOTR is bad, you ain't seen nothing! (And let's not even start on his poetry.)
So, yes, these are definitely books for the young, or to appeal to the young elements of the adult personality. The story may be awkwardly told, but it is powerful and deeply imagined. As a child, I was overwhelmed by the completeness of the universe Tolkien imagined. LOTR is just one story within the long history of Middle Earth, a history Tolkien worked on for decades before he wrote this novel. I think children find a lot of room for imaginative flight inside such an environment. (The same is true for Harry Potter's universe.)
I didn't particularly like the movie. Hollywood is lazy: be it LOTR, the Iliad, the Crusades, or the battle of Thermopylae, they are unwilling to attempt to portray a culture or mindset that varies from the modern. The LOTR turned Aragorn into a reluctant hero, Gimli into comic relief, and Legolas into teen eye candy. Tolkien weaved his academic interest in old Norse and Anglo-Saxon epic poetry into the tone of Middle Earth, and it disappointed me that Peter Jackson didn't even attempt to convey the tone of the heroic warrior culture. (I wonder what the upcoming Beowulf will be like?)
I don't disagree with you, Thursday, but I also think there is a place (but not a word?) for literature that is deeply affecting without being particularly deep.
Alias Clio links to you and as she is a woman of good taste, I thought I would have a look. You write very well; I hope you don't mind a complete stranger saying that.
My mother read me the trilogy right after The Hobbit, and I think that might be the secret. Perhaps LOTR is really meant to be an oral text. Tolkien read it aloud to the Inklings as he wrote it (and never listened to their criticism). Also, of course, I think there is much in what you say of having to read it (or have it read to you) before a certain age. I cried when my mother got to the end of The Return of the King; I believe I was 9 or 10 at the time. I was spellbound, and begged for The Simarillion, which disappointed the heck out of me. However, I ate up all Tolkien's poetry, which to me (at 10) was the cat's pyjamas.
The Fellowship of the Ring is my "comfort food" of the brain. I don't understand those readers who are annoyed by the Shire scenes. I dote upon them.
There is an industry in finding a Catholic subtext to LOTR, but I have avoided it for the most part.
The Hobbit is better than LOTR maniacs give it credit for, and in some scenes Tolkien seems to be mimicking Anglo-Saxon poetry. (I got quite excited when I noticed that.) Oh, that reminds me, shouldn't we read LOTR as if it were a Norse Saga for the English? At any rate, Tolkien called it a "fairy story" and was certainly not trying to be a Great Novellist.
Gabriel:
Its true, the original post was a bit bitchy.
Seraphic Single:
Thanks for the compliment on my writing. Glad to have you as a reader. I too like The Hobbit, and think it is a bit underrated compared to the later books.
In general, Jackson's lack of taste is matched only by his lack of personal hygiene (and, it must be said, his lack of exercise)."
Ahem!
Try to find a recent picture of him. He's lost about a hundred pounds, and he even looks... er, handsome!
Books are often for plot. At the end of the day, exciting stories are something that are joyful. Something that have been here since campfire days of our ancestors.
Did you like Watership Down?
Treasure Island?
Robinson Crusoe?
Kidnapped?
I have removed my rather mean spirited crack about Jackson's weight. It was below the belt.
Most people today are familiar with the works of JRR Tolkien due to the popularity of Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, released by New Line Cinema from 2001 to 2003. I am a huge fan of these films also, but they only skim the surface of the world created by Tolkien. There are volumes upon volumes of work created not only by the senior Tolkien, but also by his son, Christopher, who was appointed as Tolkien’s literary executor.
These works are about an imaginary world called Arda and include the saga of “middle earth”. This group of expansive works includes maps, poems, fictional histories, and invented languages. First published in 1954-55, the paperback version of The Lord of the Rings, became so popular in the United States, it lead to a resurgence of the genre and caused Tolkien to become known as the “Father” of modern fantasy. Not that he was the first to write fantasy, it became popular due to his writings.
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To fully appreciate the depth of Tolkien’s works, I believe that you need to start with his credentials. Just after World War I, Tolkien took a job with Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mostly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin.
In 1920, he took the post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds and made professor there in 1924.
From 1925 to 1944, he was a Rawlingson and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon English at the University of Oxford with a fellowship at Pembroke College. Then he spent another fifteen years as Merton Professor of English Language and Literature.
Then after his retirement, in 1959, he also helped translate the Jerusalem Bible, which was published in 1966.
Also to fully appreciate the depth of his works, we should look at some of his influences. The influences on Tolkien’s writings started at an early age and continued for most of his life. He and his brother, Hilary, were tutored in botany by their mother. She also taught them the basics of Latin and by the age of four, Tolkien could read and write fluently.
Several places that Tolkien loved to visit and play as a child also showed up in his works to some extent, such as his aunts farm of Bag End, and Moseley Bog. At the age of 19, Tolkien and eleven of his friends hiked across the mountains and passes of Switzerland, which would later become the Misty Mountains of Bilbo’s adventures in The Hobbit.
Another influence of Tolkien’s works was “The Inklings”, which was an informal gathering of literary enthusiasts, who once a week met to read aloud and discuss unfinished works by its members. Among its member was CS Lewis who wrote The Chronicles of Naria. This group of friends and colleagues met for almost two decades.
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Probably, the greatest influence on his writings was his love for literature, poetry, and mythology, especially Anglo-Saxon which was his chosen field of expertise. One of his favorites was the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, which Tolkien wrote an essay on arguing against the general consensus, that the poem was childish for dealing with monsters instead of tribal combat. The poem of Beowulf used alliteration verse that Tolkien adapted into his works. Alliteration verse is the use of a repetition of the first consonant sound in a phrase to unify the lines of poetry as opposed to rhyme. This is found in the oldest of Germanic languages.
There were so many other influences on Tolkien’s works that it could take a whole book just to cover them, such as his dislike of industrialization, his views on religion and politics and the admiration he felt for his wife and children.
The creation of the “middle earth” saga began with The Book of Lost Tales, which Tolkien wrote while recovering from trench fever, a disease carried by lice, that he contracted during his service as a signal officer during World War I.
The book that prompted Tolkien’s fame was The Hobbit, which was never intended for publication. Tolkien wrote this during his time at Pembroke College, and some years later it found its way into the hands of a London based publishing firm, who suggested he submit it for publication. The Hobbit was originally a children’s book. Tolkien was a devoted father and enjoyed writing fantasy pieces for his children’s entertainment.
After its publication, The Hobbit soon became so popular with adults that the publishing firm requested a sequel from Tolkien. Tolkien was not inspired to write the sequel, but with some encouragement from “The Inklings”, Tolkien again began work on a book that he had also started during his time at Pembroke. This turned out to be a very labor intensive task. The primary narratives and appendices took Tolkien more than ten years to complete. As with The Hobbit his next work, The Lord of The Rings initially started as a children’s story, but quickly became to dark and was then directed toward
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an adult audience. Originally written as one book, The Lord of The Rings was split into three volumes by the publisher due to printing costs.
After its publication, The Lord of The Rings became very popular, especially with the “hippie” generation in the United States. It was ranked both in sales and by readers as the most popular work of fiction in the twentieth century. Tolkien’s “middle earth” saga has influenced the fantasy genre more than any other publication. Many fantasy writers today owe their start to Tolkien and some produce epic works in multiple volumes because of Tolkien. One that comes to mind is Dragonriders of Pern by Ann McCaffrey.
Just as with anything that becomes popular, Tolkien’s works have received a large number of criticisms, everything from his writing style to arguments over his influences and how he relays them in his works. These Criticisms might have some merit if Tolkien had been attempting to write a literary classic for the joy of the majority of the reading critics, but that was not his intentions. His two most popular works were written for the enjoyment of his children, and his colleagues in “The Inklings”. The Lord of The Rings may have never been completed had it not been for the pressing of his publisher and the support and admiration of “The Inklings”. Could it be that the critics are just a little jealous because here was a man who took a very simple story meant to entertain his children and it turned into a world wide phenomenon.
Tolkien’s writing style has been condemned as a continuous narrative bombast for 1500 pages. If The Lord of The Rings was the only work of Tolkien read by critics, then that statement could be understandable. What has to be understood is the time that stories took place, some time in earth’s past. Even in the recent past of our real world, language had the tendency to be a little more pompous. Would anyone really expect Tolkien to write – “Did you see the way that I gutted that orc, it was totally gnarly, man”. Writing styles have changed so much even in the last fifty years.
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Some critics complain that Tolkien’s works are shallow and offer no insight or a deeper meaning. These statements make me wonder if these critics were only quickly glancing at a written word on a page without giving any thought to the storyline. What most critics should remember, is that this is a work of fantasy, not Socrates or Plato, it is meant to entertain the imagination. If the reader is looking for some deep philosophical gibberish to jump up from the pages, and slap him across the face and change his life forever, then it’s the critic that is shallow, not Tolkien.
Tolkien’s fantasy works are the classic good verses evil struggle that so many writers have tackled before and since. The evil in Tolkien’s fantasies are wholly evil, as evil should be, it does not pity, it has no conscience and it is selfish with no regard, nothing new here, readers have seen it time and time again. But, unlike most writers, evils adversary is not wholly good, it has its flaws. The heroes in Tolkien’s tales know greed, selfishness, temptation, the lust for power and just about every human frailty known to man. But, by banding together they push and pull each other over the obstacles that weaken them to triumph in the end.
I could ask, is this a tale of fantasy or does it have its basis in the real world? Is not terrorism the modern day evil? Are not the innocents those who have died or been threatened by this evil? And, what of the heroes, could Frodo, Samwise, Aragon, and Gandolf be a representation of the soldiers of the world that have banded together to fight this evil at any cost? Yes. Frodo is alive and well and living among us.
Another quality to Tolkien’s credit is his ability to construct so many stories within the story. Each character in the tale of “middle earth” is a story within itself, and all are connected and dependant upon the outcome of the others.
The controversy over Tolkien’s work is so great that it has prompted a book on these arguments. In his book, The Road To Middle Earth”, author Tom Shippey defends Tolkien’s works. And, what would qualify Shippey to offer insight into Tolkien’s works? Shippey taught at Oxford, overlapping chronologically with Tolkien and taught from the same syllabus. He has also held the chair of English
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Language and Medieval Literature at Leeds University just as Tolkien did. This book is available through Houghton Mifflin Books.
The senior Tolkien had so many notes, maps, poetry, and unfinished manuscripts concerning “middle earth”, that his son, Christopher has since published The Silmarillion, which is a history started by Tolkien concerning the history of “middle earth” before The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings. Christopher Tolkien has also published a twelve volume, History of Middle Earth, which traces the creative and technical processes in which “middle earth” evolved.
The love of Tolkien’s works have not only inspired several writers to undertake the fantasy genre, but has inspired some writers to research Tolkien’s works, such as Robert Frost’s Tolkien’s World From A to Z, The Complete Guide to Middle Earth. This is a 569 page complete description of all the terms used by Tolkien, written alphabetically and in dictionary style. It includes, people, places, items, and timelines, all created within Tolkien’s imagination.
In regards to critics, I have never held much credence in their holier than thou attitudes. Are their tastes so much better than mine, that I should be ruled by their definitions of what is good or bad? I would rather take the recommendation of the average reader than the critic, for I am the average reader, so, I leave this for your consideration.
Since 1960 to this day, The Lord of The Rings has been ranked as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, by both sales and reader surveys.
In 2003, “Big Read” survey found The Lord of The Rings was the “Nation’s Best Loved Book” in a poll conducted by the BBC.
Australians voted The Lord of The Rings “My Favorite Book” in 2004
A 1999 poll (before the movie trilogy) of Amazon.com customers voted The Lord of The Rings to be their favorite “Book of the Millennium”.
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In 2002, Tolkien was voted the 92nd “greatest Briton” in a poll by the BBC and in 2004, he was voted 35th in the SABC3’s “Greatest South Africans”. The only person to appear on both lists.
In 2004, a poll inspired by UK’s “Big Read” survey, about ¼ million Germans found The Lord of The Rings to be their favorite work of literature.
I highly recommend reading at least The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings for yourself and being your own best critic of the work.
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