In Memoriam

Christopher Tolkien Was The Unsung Hero Of Middle Earth

The son of J.R.R. Tolkien did far more than just compile and edit his father’s unfinished stories. He helped create the world of Middle Earth.

John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist

Last week, amid churning news cycles about impeachment and Iran and global trade deals, an era quietly ended. Christopher Tolkien, the third and youngest son of “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien, died at the age of 95.

The younger Tolkien, who spent the last four decades of his life completing his father’s grand artistic vision, was one of the great unsung literary heroes of the last century. For countless readers whose imaginations were molded in part by the legendarium of Middle Earth, his passing severs the last living link to another existential plane.

His obituaries variously describe Tolkien as the editor of his father’s posthumous works, or the guardian of his legacy. But that is not quite right—or not quite enough. Christopher Tolkien was more than an editor or a guardian; he was a kind of co-creator with his father of Middle Earth itself.

It was Christopher Tolkien who, in 1975 at age 50, left his fellowship at Oxford University to sort through dozens of boxes of his late father’s unfinished writings, some dating back more than 60 years and most of which dealt with the creation and history of Middle Earth and its peoples—the entire literary universe in which “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” take place.

He spent years compiling and editing these fragments and notes, and in 1977, more than two decades after the publication of his father’s acclaimed trilogy, “The Silmarillion” was published. It went on to sell millions of copies in dozens of editions and translations, and served as the foundation for two-dozen subsequent works derived from Tolkien’s archives, culminating with the publication, last August, of “The Fall of Gondolin”—Christopher Tolkien’s final literary contribution to a creative project that now spans more than a century.

From the very beginning, Tolkien had a hand in crafting what would become one of the greatest literary achievements of modern times.

The "Freedom" of Secular Humanism

. . . And In the Darkness Bind Them

Secular humanism and atheism commenced their campaign to "rule them all" by appealing to tolerance and liberty.  People, we were told,  should be free to embrace causes and ethics which recognize and respect atheist and humanist beliefs in the public square.  The first step represented a "feel good" stage.  The opposition was cast as illiberal and stingy.  In particular Christians were cast as bigots, narrow minded, and holding to outdated, non-scientific beliefs. 

The UK provides a case study of how this has unfolded and played out in the West.  Marriage and family was the first battleground.  At first, under the cloak of freedom, toleration of homosexuality was gradually extended throughout the UK.  In 1967 homosexual acts were legalised in  England and Wales (subsequently extended to Scotland in 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982.)  In 2001 the age of consent for homosexual acts was lowered to 16 years old. 

The acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual acts was then fleshed out (still under the banner of liberty and freedom).  In 2002 the Adoption and Children Act allowed unmarried and same-sex couples to adopt children.

Some Social History

The Age of the "Rings" and Their Influence

We have been working our way through David Kynaston's magisterial Family Britain, 1951--1957 (New York: Walker and Co, 2009.)  On page 404, dealing with events in the summer of 1954, we came across the following curio:

George Allen & Unwin published The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Naomi Mitchison, along with Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis, had already contributed praise to the dust jacket, and now they wrote appropriately laudatory reviews.  "Like lighting from a clear sky," declared Lewis in Time & Tide, while Mitchison in the New Statesman called it "a story magnificently told, with every kind of colour and movement and graveness."

Most reviews were positive, though not uncritically so.  "Whimsical drivel with a message?" asked J. "W. Lambert in the Sunday Times.  "No," he answered.  "It sweeps along with a narrative and pictorial force which lifts it above that level."  He did, however, note that it had "no religious spirit of any kind, and to all intents and purposes, no women".  The Daily Telegraph's Peter Green claimed that the prose style "veers from pre-Raphaelite to Boy's Own Paper", albeit conceding that the novel had "an undeniable fascination".  And in Punch, where under Anthony Powell's literary editorship it received the briefest of reviews, Peter Dickinson frankly stated: "I can think of nothing in the book to account for the fact that I find the whole thing absolutely fascinating, despite some of the most infuriating writing."

The most heavyweight critique came from a major literary figure, the Scottish poet and critic Edwin Muir.  "To read it is to be thrown in astonishment," he gladly conceded in the Observer, but insisted that in terms of "human discrimination and depth" there was a fatal shortfall: "Mr Tolkien describes a tremendous conflict between good and evil, on which hangs the future of life upon earth.  But his good people are consistently good, his evil figures immutably evil; and he has no room in his world for a Satan both evil and tragic."

Commercially, the book flourished, being reprinted after six weeks, ahead of the publication in mid-November of The Two Towers, second in the sequence.  It was not yet a cult, though, nor--away from the public prints--was it everyone's cup of tea.  "Don's whimsy" was the private verdict of Angus Wilson, to whom in his own mind the future belonged.  [Op cit, p. 404f.]

It is interesting to look back after over half a century of the trilogy being in print and see the enormous impact it has had on millions of millions of readers (and, latterly, movie goers).

It's Personal, Always

. . . And In the Darkness Bind Them

We have recently been reading through Matthew Dickerson's A Hobbit Journey: Discovering the Enchantment of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012).  Dickerson is an example of the growing coterie of Tolkien scholars whose work is making  the Tolkien corpus more and more accessible to modern readers.

There are many biblical and theological themes woven into Tolkien's work.  One of them is the nature of evil itself.  Tolkien rightly sees that evil is personal, a will of malice and hatred towards others.  Evil is not a mere impersonal misfortune that might occur from time to time.  It is a living will which desires the enslavement of all others.  Behind all evil acts, deeds, and schemes stands a living person of immense malice: subtle and cruel beyond our reckoning.  The very subtlety of its exercise makes the malice more evil and more cruel.

Tolkien's representation of evil is consistent with Scriptural teaching, where Satan's malice is revealed in such a way that--were it not for our Saviour  delivering us from his realm--we would all be subject to an eternal bitterness and a bondage to an immensely evil creature who hates us utterly.

The Reason Many Despise Tolkien's Work

Faux Protests and Outrage

We have been recently working through Matthew Dickerson's A Hobbit Journey (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press/Baker Publishing, 2012).  Dickerson has a PhD from Cornell and teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont.  In A Hobbit Journey, he attempts an exposition of Tolkien's world-and-life view as it emerges in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

At one point he takes up the issue of why Tolkien is loathed by many of the high priests and prophets of our secularist age. He argues that it is due in significant part to Tolkien's notions of objective morality and moral responsibility.  He explains:

Objective morality--or what some people call "moral absolutes"--is a definition of good and evil that is real and true for every person (and every culture), regardless of whether that person (or culture) happens to believe it to be true. [Dickerson, op cit., p. 127.]

Tolkien's mindset believes in objective morality and moral absolutes.  The modern world does not.  Therefore, for many amongst the chattering classes and the Commentariat, much of his corpus appears odd, at best, childish,simplistic, and superstitious at worst.  His is the shawl of the Grand Anachronism.

Dickerson employs an illustration to explain the contrast between Tolkien's philosophic and religious principles and those of the modern age.

Consider a computer virus.  No matter how inconvenient or destructive it is, a computer virus is just an impersonal collection of computer code composed of bits (zeros and ones) on a computer.  A virus has no will of its own and cannot be considered evil or immoral. . . .

Now suppose that a person who commits a heinous crime is only acting as he or she is programmed to do, as a materialist world view states is the case. . . . Then by no means can that person be evil; only the programmer of that person can be evil.  In this case, however, the programmer is believed to be a blind, impersonal force.  In short, where there is no choice at all, there can be no moral (or immoral) choice.  In a merely material world, we may at worst consider another person's actions as inconvenient to us; we cannot call them "evil" or "immoral."  Or, if we do, then we are really only calling "immoral" the universe itself . . . . I any case, the word immoral has no meaning in this context. [Ibid., p. 128.]

Does this sound familiar?  It is everywhere around us.

Letter From the UK (From Tolkien)

A Piece of Gandalf Magic

Lord of the Rings author's rediscovered message to fellow teacher talks about how frustrating he found the work

Alison Flood
Thursday 12 June 2014
The Guardian

JRR Tolkien, who famously wrote the first line of The Hobbit while marking exam papers, told a fellow teacher that "all teaching is exhausting and depressing" in a previously unknown letter which has just come to light.
The Lord of the Rings author wrote the letter on 17 January 1964 in response to Anne Mountfield, a newly qualified teacher who was working at Eltham Green School in London. Mountfield had written to Tolkien that her "rather restless" class had been spellbound when she read them The Hobbit. Tolkien typed her a reply, saying that the story of Bilbo Baggins's adventures "seems to go down well at school".

He then added a handwritten note to the bottom of the letter, telling Mountfield that "All teaching is exhausting, and depressing and one is seldom comforted by knowing when one has had some effect. I wish I could now tell some of mine (of long ago) how I remember them and things they said, though I was (only, as it appeared) looking out of the window or giggling at my neighbour".

"Tolers, You Absolutely Astonish Me"

Lewis and Tolkien Debate Myths and Lies

On Twitter, @TonyReinke points out that “On the evening of September 19, 1931, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis went for a walk, one of the most important walks in church history.”

At this stage, Lewis was not a Christian; Tolkien was.  Shortly after this conversation, Lewis became a Christian, being "surprised by joy", as he put it. There are sketchy accounts of the conversation--some from Lewis himself.  Tolkien wrote Lewis a poem to make his points more clear, entitled Mythopoeia.

After that late-night conversation with Lewis, Tolkien wrote a poem called Mythopoeia, in which he set out his views of myth, legend, and fairy story.  he wrote this poem for Lewis, and he put at the head of his poem the words that Lewis had used: "For one who said that myths 'are lies breathed through silver".

The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him.  Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost or wholly changed.
Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned . . . . 

[Jerram Barrs, Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature, and the Arts. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2013.)   p.94f.]

Here’s a dramatic reenactment of their conversation, which attempts to capture the issues if not the exact conversation itself:

Books

Echoes of Eden

In his recent book, Echoes of Eden, Jerram Barrs [Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature and the Arts (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2013)]  has a series of chapters on literature and the arts in general and then turns to some exemplars which exemplify his general theme.  Barrs argues that all art worthy of the designation reflects what he calls "echoes of Eden" in one way, shape or form. 

To make reference to Eden is to introduce the great underlying themes of all stories: the innate goodness of the creation in its original perfection, the brokenness of nature and of man which we experience daily, and the longing for redemption and deliverance.  In the latter portion of the book, Barrs turns to some examples or case studies of his theme: namely, Lewis, Tolkien, J K Rowling, Shakespeare and Jane Austen. 

The chapter on Tolkien alone is worth the price of the book.  Tolkien understood that myths are powerful in a culture because they inevitably sustain memories of God.

Voice From the Grave

Tolkien In His Own Words

Justin Taylor has kindly put together a collection of interviews and interactions with J R R Tolkien--all open source.

The collection entails:

First broadcast on BBC 2 on March 30, 1968: “John Izzard meets with JRR Tolkien at his home, walking with him through the Oxford locations that he loves while hearing the author’s own views about his wildly successful high-fantasy novels. Tolkien shares his love of nature and beer and his admiration for ‘trenchermen’ in this genial and affectionate programme. The brief interviews with Oxford students that are dotted throughout reveal the full range of opinions elicited by ‘The Lord of the Rings’, from wild enthusiasm to mild contempt”:

The protestations and pseudo-critiques from self-styled Marxist students are hilariously hide-bound.  Tolkien's quotation of Simone de Beauvoir on death at the end is strikingly memorable. 

Then follows:

The Sum Total of Human Misery--Yet

The Unexpected Good

J R R Tolkien writing to his son, Christopher during the dark days of World War II

I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days--quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice.  If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens!  And the products of it all will be mainly evil--historically considered.  But the historical version is, of course, not the only one.  All things and deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their "causes" and "effects".  No man can estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitatis.  All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success--in vain, preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.  So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives.  (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, a selection edited by Humphrey Carpenter, with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien.  London: HarperCollins, 1981, p.76)

 How powerfully these themes present themselves in The Lord of the Rings!  What a profound hope and belief in the Providence of King Jesus.