J.R.R. Tolkien Got Many Things Correct, And Many Others Wrong

I originally wrote this back in 2002 on my now defunct Dain Bramage blog that was hosted elsewhere.  I've thought about re-posting it, and a recent discussion over on File770 makes this a good time for re-posting.  Enjoy!

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Just this past Christmas, I received a copy of "The Lord of the Rings", "The Silmarillion", and "The Hobbit". J.R.R. Tolkien's series has always held an attraction for me. His writing borders on being magical.

The difference now is that it has been roughly 20 years since I first read his works. With a bit of experience under my belt, the series takes on new meanings. Here are some things that came to mind while reading his books.

J.R.R. Tolkien got so much right.

First of all, I find it ironic that this book should have become first popular in the 60's. One of the major themes of the book is the ability of power to corrupt. Frodo travels far and wide in his quest to dispose of the One Ring. The Ring will grant whoever wears it the power to essentially rule the world.

Frodo has the wisdom to discern between who would do evil with such power and who (he thinks) would do good. This is good for us as he is immediately assailed by those that would do evil (evildoers??) and if he had just turned the durned thing over, we would have a mighty short read indeed.

Consider all who are offered the ring.

Gandolf -- who is essentially immortal, to begin with as well as being a powerful wizard on the side of "good". He rejects the ring several times and comments as well on the burden of temptation.

Elrond -- who likewise recognizes that keeping and not using the Ring simply guarantees that Sauron would win it back someday. He also recognizes that using the Ring would inevitably cause him to either turn to evil or be consumed by the Ring.

Strider/Aragorn -- who in the end is not only proven to be brave and honest but a wise and powerful ruler as well. Strider rejects the Ring as being too great a responsibility for him to bear.

Galadriel -- who is pretty powerful in her own right and is demonstrated to be a very decent person, judges that she lacks the ability to master such power.

Then there is the case of Boromir and his father. Each feels that possession of the ring is within his ability to control. They have a certain unspoken lust for power. Boromir's father, Steward of Gondor in the stead of the missing line of kings, goes so far as to state his opposition to the returning king. He isn't inclined to relinquish power to some unproven upstart. How might things have worked out if HE had obtained the ring?

We also have the case of Sauron and Sarumon. Two who wanted to possess the Ring for their own purposes. One was just plain evil and the other thought his evil was good for other people. Let the world be ordered by the wizards and only good would come of it, or so Saruman thought. Sure, only the "best and the brightest" should have power and they will only do good.

As if those morality plays were not enough, we have the scenes of the hobbits returning to the Shire and finding that someone has claimed that realm for his own. Using big men to rough up any protestors, Lotho has set up whole lists of rules that aren't too be broken. He has set the men to collecting large portions of the local crops to be "shared". Of course, the sharing just means that men in his service have lots to eat while others go hungry.

Lotho also sets about seizing people's property, tearing it down, and essentially "remodeling" the countryside to meet his own needs. The new mill that spews waste into the river is his little piece of handiwork.

Just like any other government, Lotho takes what he desires, sets up poisonous works where he wants and cares little about who gets hurt.

The prosperity of the Shire that came from their previous freedom was destroyed by regulation and taxation. That prosperity was only recovered after Frodo reduced "the Sherriffs to their proper functions and numbers."

As I said at the start, I find it a bit ironic that J.R.R. Tolkien's work became so popular in the 1960's. After all, the politics on college campuses in that era essentially called for greater government intervention into everyone's lives. They were successful Boromirs and we are left with their mess.

J.R.R. Tolkien got so very much right.

He also got so very much wrong.

There is another bit of irony that goes with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and its popularity in the 1960's. Fans of the book, then as now, point to the simplistic life led by the main characters as being virtuous. They also point out the chapters where a loathsome mill poisons the river as being indicative of economic "progress".

"Simplistic" is an apt word for such thoughts.

"The Lord of the Rings" is filled with metal. Steel swords and armor, iron columns, silver horns and goblets, and of course mithril are present on almost every page.

Metalworking, by its very nature, requires a very hot flame in order to purify, mold, and work the metal. Creating such heat inevitably creates some sort of pollution. Decades ago, Pittsburgh used to be a city of dense smog and smoke from the iron and steel works. Burning coal to refine iron ore cause a lot of pollution. Fortunately, we have better ways of producing steel and iron that are less polluting.

In order to have such a level of metalsmith knowledge in Middle-Earth, there must have been a great many forges. Such operations are by their nature dirty. And because they are labor intensive, they couldn't have been hidden back in the mountains someplace away from the population centers. To the contrary, the forges would have generated population centers.

Another explanation might be a sort of understated racism. The dwarves of Middle-Earth are known for their craftsmanship in metalworking. I guess the mess of metalworking is only acceptable as long as it is kept underground near "those" people. But hey! It is only a book.

Another great anachronism is the sort of idyllic life that everyone leads. Frodo lives the life of a country squire. He does nothing but enjoys life. It is somehow assumed that it is possible to prepare 6 meals a day (hobbit fashion) and then leave enough time for gardening and other interests.

Anyone who has tended a significant garden can tell you that such endeavors consume a great deal of time. When one has no other means of supporting oneself, it consumes all of one's time. There isn't time for 6 meals a day. There is barely enough time for two decent meals and a snack at noon.

Similarly, the elves seem to do nothing. Food appears at the appropriate time and everyone eats their fill. Otherwise, the elves are heard singing in the trees.

These conditions could not exist anywhere in the real world. Only the wealthy and the powerful live such lives of leisure. Everyone else must work to create their leisure.

The only real acknowledgment of reality in the book is when Merry and Pippen end up serving the kings at the feast following the battle outside of Mordor. They stand and serve while others sit and eat.

The creation of wealth requires innovation and technological progress. Only the creation of wealth can end poverty. Attempting to live in a Luddite society only ensures that the poor will continue to remain poor.

On this count, J.R.R. Tolkien got so very much wrong.

Book Recommendation - Tales Before Tolkien

Whilst perusing the fantasy and science fiction section of one of our local library branches, I happened across "Tales Before Tolkien" edited by Douglas Anderson.  The forward promised a view into the fantasy fiction that the godfather of modern fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien read.  Included as well were some works by authors that were known to Tolkien that he may or may not have read and works that no one reasonably suspects him to have read, but that certainly reflected the state of fantasy writing in the years before "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" were written and published.

In many ways, this book is an unbidden view into the workings of Tolkien's fantasy world.  If the avid Tolkien reader imagines that all of the fantastic characters and circumstances simply bubbled up as works of his unique ingenuity, then "Tales Before Tolkien" will disabuse that reader of such wild thoughts.  Having loved lingering over Tolkien's use of language to present such a unique world, it was a bit of a disappointment to discover that the idea of confusing trolls by speaking while invisible was not a unique idea.  Nor was the concept of elves as illusive beings that live from an almost unworldly, exclusive perspective.

One of the tales included is "Puss-Cat Mew" that was written by E.H. Knatchbull-Hugessen in 1869.  Tolkien was read to from a collection that included this story.  There are many elements within this story that are reflected, amplified, and refined by Mr. Tolkien in his writing.  I won't spoil the surprise as to which elements those might be.

Only one or two of the stories were really difficult to get through.  Those few stories contained lengthy passages that threatened to become nearly Randian in their length of prose and depth of minutia.  I will confess to skipping past a couple of them.

My favorite tale of the collection was "The Regent of the North" written by Kenneth Morris.  Mr. Morris' work was almost certainly unknown to Tolkien.  Yet he evoked a certain sense of perspective that most any Tolkienian dwarf would find comforting.

"The Regent" tells the tale of a Viking lord who is sorely disappointed that his king has adopted this "new" Christian faith.  The lord sees Christ as a weak deity that is unworthy of the allegiance of decent Viking men.  Rather that submit to his king's command that the lord should come and accept this new faith, the lord flatly refuses in the hope that his king will attack his keep.  Better to die as a man fighting for that in which he believes than to kneel and scrape to weakling idol.

The king, in a fashion worthy of his new faith, offers forbearance and tolerance to his vassal lord.  "I will not trouble with you" the king sends in response the lord's outright challenge.

The lord is incensed at being essentially dismissed to live out his days being ignored by his king.  After raging about for a week, the he sends for his fifty most loyal men.  He proposed that those who were willing accompany him as he went a-viking.  They would sail forth to raid and rend.  They would fight the ocean and the elements if no better foes could be found.  And if death should find them during their travels, then they would die manly deaths on their feet rather than joining the mass of ignoble races answering jangling church bells to offer ignoble prayers.

By the end of the story, all of the lord's men have died at sea.  His ships were wrecked on a far northern coast. He has ridden a lengthy sleigh ride pulled by a lone reindeer and finds himself surrounded by a pack of wolves.

Battle with a worthy foe is about to commence.

This story spoke to me from two perspectives.  One is the larger narrative of the relative virtues of living such a physical life.  The lord is presented to the reader as a positive character who virtuously defends his country, his people, and his keep with enthusiasm.  Were it not for his king's conversion, the lord would have been venerated in old age or death for his faithful and manly service.

In our laudable pursuit of equality among the genders, I fear that we have denigrated the manly defense of justice, honor, and defense of the defenseless.

The second perspective was that of religion.  Never fear, dear reader.  I am not some blossoming Odinic novitiate.  I'm not looking to put the Thor back in Thorsday.

What I am is skeptical about all religions.  Might there be some sort of higher power out there?  Might we be the mote in a deity's eye?

Perhaps.  If there is, then I reasonably suspect that he/she/they have expended the fullest fraction of their interest in planting us here on planet Earth that will ever be expended.  I also reasonably suspect that they have nothing to do with any of the texts that are associated with any religion; past, present, or future.

Or perhaps not.

I see little difference between either conclusion given the lack of divine interaction.

I share our protagonist's skepticism regarding Christianity even though I do not share his alternative.

This collection was an interesting read and worth your time.



Also edited by Mr. Anderson is "Tales Before Narnia".  I haven't read it, but given the quality of the Tolkien tome, I think this one might be worthwhile for Narnia fans.

Never, Never Look

I never should have looked.  Now I can't wait.

Once you watch this trailer for Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit", you won't want to wait either.  Sadly, we have no choice in the matter.

[edited 1 May 2019]

Apparently the link to the video is borken.  The movie did come out.  I was disappointed.