Category: Tolkien

Enjoying “The Silmarillion”: “Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor” and “Of Thingol and Melian”

KC Winters

We arrive now at the point in the narrative where the Elves first appear. Before they do so, however, the Valar undertake an effort to capture and imprison Melkor, so that Middle-earth can be made safe for the Elves. Gradually, the Elves begin their migration westward, and while many do make it to Valinor, many more also tarry or are lost.

I’ll be honest. Keeping track of the various Elf tribes can get a little overwhelming, particularly since their names are, superficially at least, similar. Luckily for us, Christopher has included a diagram at the end of the book that shows in visual form the relationships among them, but it does get a bit cumbersome shuttling back and forth between the main narrative and the supplement. It’s also difficult to keep track of the various royal figures, again because so many of them have names that sound quite similar: Fingolfin, Fanrfin, Feänor. For my own sanity, I’ve decided to simply focus on those characters and tribes that seem to be the most important for a given part of the narrative. I find that each time I read the book I find the lineaments getting clearer and clearer, so it’s important for first-timers not to allow themselves to get too entangled in the weeds on an initial reading.

Even this early in the story, we get a sense of the sorts of character traits that will lead the Elves to both their greatest accomplishments and some of their most spectacular follies. This is most clearly seen in the fact that so many of them turn aside, unwilling to pass out of Middle-earth for one reason or another. This decision will come to have momentous consequences for them as the years progress, and they find that their own way of being in the world–even their very language–is sundered from their brethren. Only those who take the hardest road–a recurring theme in much of Tolkien’s work–will be rewarded by going to Valinor and experiencing the joy of being next to godhood.

One exception to this is, of course, Thingol, whose encounter with the Maia Melian utterly transforms him and allows him to come closest, in my mind, to the radiance of the Elves that do go to the West. Together, of course, they will have their own part to play in the saga of the Silmarils, those precious gems around which so much of the later events of The Silmarillion will revolve.

What’s more, we also get a clearer glimpse of Tolkien’s vision of how evil works. First of all, it cannot create, it can only mock and destroy. Indeed, one of the greatest tragedies that takes place in this chapter is the capture of some of the Elves by Melkor, who then undertakes their torment and torture until they are something altogether different, the brutal and monstrous Orcs. I’ve long thought that these creatures were some of the most fascinating that Tolkien ever created, in their own way just as tragic as their long-lost Elvish brethren. To my mind, one of the greatest tragedies in all of Tolkien’s mythology is the undying enmity between the Elves and the Orcs, two branches of the same tree turned irrevocably against one another by the machinations of another.

It is also interesting to note how deep has been the change in Melkor. From being one of the greatest beings in the created universe, he has become a dark and terrible force. What’s more, so deep does his evil go–in both a metaphysical and a physical sense–that even his defeat by the forces of the Valar is not enough to fully eradicate the damage that he has done. But then, that is the nature of evil in Tolkien’s world. It can never be fully eradicated; somehow, it will always find a way to return. This theme will carry right through to The Lord of the Rings, for the characters know that, while Sauron might be vanquished, someone will almost invariably rise up to take his place. It’s an admittedly rather pessimistic way of looking at things but, given that Tolkien was writing in the shadow of not one but two World Wars, with a possible third on the horizon, this shouldn’t surprise us. He might have been writing of an ancient past, but his works were very much of their time.

Next up, we’ll meet some of the particular Elves whose doings will be such an integral part of the history of Middle-earth.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “The Muster of Rohan” and “The Siege of Gondor”

KC Winters

Welcome to another installment of “Reading The Lord of the Rings,” in which we take a leisurely stroll through J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus, dwelling on the beauty, the majesty, and sometimes even the sadness in these wonderful pages.

In these two chapters, Merry contends with the fact that he’s been left behind by Gandalf. Though he offers his services to King Théoden, his offer is refused and it is only due to the intervention of the mysterious Dernhelm that he’s taken along to the rescue of Minas Tirith. For his part, Pippin must contend with the duties attendant upon serving the Lord Denethor while also witnessing the tightening siege.

Reading it this time, it was hard to put aside my awareness of the fact that Dernhelm is, in actuality Éowyn, to think back to the very first time that I read it and wonder who, exactly, was this young soldier that decides to take an interest in Merry and ensures that he comes to the battle. It’s hard not to feel tremendously touched, both by Dernhelm’s actions and by Merry’s desire to serve his king in whatever way he can. Merry, like all of the hobbits, shows a surprising strength and courage, a willingness to put himself in harm’s way, to do his own part (however small) in the great and terrible deeds that are shaking the foundations of his world.

On the other side, we finally get a more in-depth glimpse of Gondor and Minas Tirith in particular For some reason, I’ve always found myself drawn to the faded majesty and grandeur of Gondor. Perhaps it stems from my love of Byzantium (and Late Antiquity more generally), which the fading might of Gondor so clearly resembles. There is something irretrievably melancholic about this noble city, poised on the brink of utter oblivion yet refusing to give in to the pressure from the East. Relatedly, I’ve also always thought that the chapter on the siege of Gondor contains some of the most visually vivid of all of those in the book. Every time I read it, I can almost imagine that I’m sitting on the ramparts of Minas Tirith, looking out over the fields below. Certainly, my image of this terrain has been shaped by Jackson’s interpretation of the novels. Even before I watched them, though, I always found myself utterly immersed in this world and this city.

Narratively, the sequence of chapters here are some of the most brilliantly conceived in the entirety of the novel. At each conclusion of each chapter, we are left wondering exactly how matters shall transpire. While the Rohirrim come to save Gondor? Will Gandalf be able to save Faramir from the suicidal madness that has overtaken Denethor? Scholar Tom Shippey refers to this as interlacement, and it is a narratively brilliant move, showing us how actions can frequently have unexpected consequences, ones far beyond the ken of those who undertake them.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Denethor. This is a man, after all, who has spent his entire life trying to keep the darkness of Mordor at bay, even as he’s aware that it’s a losing battle. There is a noble spirit in him, but it’s a sort of nobility that has been corrupted because of its inability or unwillingness to see anything beyond itself. This is most conspicuous in his confrontations with Gandalf, with whom he maintains an ongoing antagonism.

These chapters are interesting for another reason. For the first time since The Fellowship of the Ring, we finally get to see the Witch-king in action. As with so many of Tolkien’s villains, the Witch-king draws us to him precisely because there’s so much that we don’t know about him. Even in this, his moment of greatest victory, he remains literally invisible. One of the most fascinating parts of this chapter is the unanswered question of who would have won the contest of wills between Gandalf and the Witch-king. While it’s tempting to think that Gandalf might have done so–considering how he was able to chase away the Nazgûl in other parts of the chapter–I’m inclined to think that the Witch-king would have won. This chapter makes it clear that, in this moment, the power of Mordor is in the ascendant,

Next up, we’ll continue exploring the intertwined fates of the Rohirrim and the Gondorians, and we will also see some of the most beautiful and tragic scenes in an epic that’s full of them.

Enjoying “The Silmarillion”: “Of the Beginning of Days” and “Of Aulë and Yavanna”

KC Winters

I’ve decided to change the title of these blog posts to “Enjoying The Silmarillion,” because I do think that one of the things that people often overlook when they read this book is that, if you approach it in the right way, you can actually find yourself enjoying it, not just appreciating it (though hopefully you’re doing the latter as well).

So, with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let’s get right into it.

In the first couple of stories of The Silmarillion, we are told of the way that Ilúvatar, the One, created the Valar and the Maiar, great spirits of varying powers and abilities. From the beginning, the vision of the One is challenged by Melkor, the mightiest and most powerful of the Valar. The contest between the Valar who remain loyal to the vision of Ilúvatar and Melkor forms the foundation upon which the other great events of Arda are built.

Even at the very beginning, we are shown of the way that one of Melkor’s greatest desire is to claim for himself the ability to create something from nothing. It is in part of his nature to continue to struggle against the limitations imposed upon him by the One. However, as the text makes clear, no matter how much Melkor tries to fulfill his own desires, he finds that he is merely contributing his own part to the grand vision that his maker had already intended.

Two things have always stood out to me about Melkor (who will later become known as Morgoth). First is the fact that, counterintuitive as it might seem, he is the most natively powerful of his brethren. For me, it’s always a little hard to wrap my head around the idea that evil–if we can describe Melkor in such a way–should be so much more powerful than good. But of course, that has always been a key part of Tolkien’s vision of the world, and it is the very fact that evil is so powerful that makes the attempts to either confront it or to mitigate its actions that much more meaningful.

Second, The Silmarillion also makes it clear that everything that Melkor does eventually feeds into the greater purpose. No matter how hard he tries to enforce his own will upon Arda, to put his own will in opposition to that of his maker, he remains powerless to have any lasting effect. There is, thus, an eternal sort of optimism in this book, that no matter how difficult or terrible the world is or may be, no matter how tremendous the power of evil may be, all of it will ultimately fulfill the purpose of some greater power.

One of the other things that really stood out to me as I was reading was the role of gender. The text makes it clear that the Valar do not have any sort of gendered essence as we would understand the terms. Instead, they take on the guises that seem most fitting to them. There’s something refreshing about a cosmology that doesn’t necessarily see the gods themselves as being essentially male or female, but something more and beyond that.

I was also particularly drawn to the personality of Aulë. Of all of the Valar, it seems that he is the one whose desires and abilities will come to shape the destinies of the people who come after, and it’s interesting to speculate whether Tolkien felt a particular affinity with him. If he did, it would be easy to understand why. After, Aulë is the Valar most interested in the making of things, and given that Tolkien was himself a greater maker (though of words and worlds rather than physical things), it would be easy to see why he, and his avatars in his fictional world, would feel so drawn to him.

Even in these early chapters, we get strong glimpses of the philosophical underpinnings of The Silmarillion as a whole. For Tolkien, the power of creation is, seemingly, the key to godhead. Even Aulë, who actually creates the Dwarves in despite of Ilúvatar’s command not to do so, cannot imbue his creations with a will independent of his own. As subsequent chapters in this great saga will show, the power of making–as well as the tremendous toll that it takes upon those who engage in it–can be both a good and an ill.

As essential as free will and creation are to Tolkien’s philosophy, equally important is the imposition of mortality. For the Elves, life is eternal, and thus they have a very specific sort of burden to bear. They must watch the world go on and change around them, even as they remain the same. For Men, however, the opposite is true. They yearn for everlasting life, yet one gets the feeling that none of them really and truly understand what a burden it is to have to shoulder the burden of the ages. The unfortunate thing for both groups is that neither of them can really and truly understand the other; their ways of being in the world are utterly different. Just as importantly, they each possess a relation to the world that the other, at least to some degree, desires.

Though these early chapters of The Silmarillion aren’t quite as action-packed with deeds both great and terrible that the following ones are, they are nevertheless essential to understanding the events that will later take place across the face of Middle-earth. And, while it is true that the prose here is more than a little portentous and pondering, to me it is only fitting, since we are dealing with the creation of the world and the affairs of gods. Lastly, these early chapters reveal a great deal of the true richness and fertility of Tolkien’s imagination, his ability to take the bare bones of myth and transform them into something different.

Next up, we’ll start diving deep into the affairs of the Elves, whose fortunes will be bound up with the Valar, especially Melkor.

Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion”: Beginnings

KC Winters

I recently finished reading Corey Olsen’s excellent Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and I was struck by how easy and conversational Olsen managed to be, even while conveying the rich literary tapestry and meanings of this oft-overlooked book. My finishing of his book just happened to coincide with my beginning a re-read of The Silmarillion, so I thought I’d take a stab at providing an in-depth commentary of what in many ways is the work of Tolkien’s heart.

While it is true that The Silmarillion has grown in popularity as the years have progressed, it’s also true that it is still one of the lesser-appreciated parts of Tolkien’s expansive corpus. Part of this is because, for better or worse, it is sometimes difficult to make headway through the elevated diction and because the names (both of individuals and of peoples) are sometimes bewilderingly similar. It’s small wonder that most people begin it but give up before finishing.

To put all of my cards on the table…that was true for me once, too. In fact, I only read The Silmarillion from cover to cover for the first time a few years ago, and while I’m sad that it took me so many years to really appreciate the beauty and the tragedy of this work (both in terms of its composition and in terms of its subject), another part is glad that I waited until I was mature enough to truly appreciate it. While I still have some difficulty keeping the Elvish names straight (including the different tribes), I feel like I have a firm enough grasp on the narrative to be able to offer commentary.

To those who have never read The Silmarillion, I would definitely recommend starting with the Second Edition. This actually contains a letter that Tolkien wrote that sets out the broad outline of the various stories, and it is enormously helpful as a guidepost for which parts of the true touchstones of the story, both narratively and thematically. That way, even if you sometimes get a little lost in the weeds, as it were, you can always refer back to the beginning to get your bearings. While his letter doesn’t detail every part of the ensuing stories, the higher points are addressed.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention how grateful I am to Christopher Tolkien for all of the intellectual labour he put into making sure that this book saw the light of day at all. Tolkien was infamous for continuing to make adjustments to various aspects of his mythology, right up until his death, and I cannot imagine the tremendous amount of effort it took to bring this book into being. Christopher himself admits that he was only able to attain so much consistency, given the state of the record. In my opinion, what he has created for us is nothing short than one of the greatest works of epic myth-making in the modern world.

In the posts that follow, I hope to take a leisurely stroll through the book, beginning with the creation of the Valar and touching down into all of the various tragedies that befall the Elves as they labour through the many ages of the world. For the most part, I’ll keep my commentary rather light and accessible, rather than allowing myself to get lost in the jargon that is so common to literary criticism. Part of what I enjoyed about Olsen’s book was that he managed to speak in a way that was understandable to many different kinds of reader, and I aspire to do the same with this series.

I do hope that you’ll join me as we embark on this extraordinary journey, and that some of you at least share your thoughts with me. If nothing else, I sincerely hope that at the least this series of blog posts will help you find new ways of enjoying and appreciating Tolkien’s The Silmarillion.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings: “The Passing of the Grey Company”

KC Winters

Some time ago, I began a series of blog posts (over at Queerly Different) that was a detailed exploration of The Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t quite chapter-by-chapter, but it was close. Now that I’ve moved most of my fantasy writing to this blog, I thought I’d pick up where I left off, with the arrival of the Rangers from the north and Aragorn’s journey to the Paths of the Dead, as well as the significant exchanges between Merry and King Théoden and between Aragorn and Éowyn.

I’ve always found this to be one of the most fascinating chapters in The Return of the King, in that we actually get to see Aragorn as a powerful king in his own right. Up until now, much of his most glorious and miraculous powers have lain beneath the surface. Now, we know that he has the power to command the dead themselves to come to his aid. And, unlike in the film version, the dead largely hover out of sight; it is thus the mere description of their presence that inspires horror, both in the reader and in the people in the novel.

Though Tolkien excelled at conveying sweeping grandeur in his description of place, he also excelled at capturing the stifling power of the deep places of the earth, and that is on conspicuous display here. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Tolkien is unmatched in fantasy for his power to describe physical settings in such a way that you feel as if you are actually there.

The emotional heart of it, though, lies in two characters: Merry and Éowyn. I challenge you not to feel at least a little choked up when Merry offers his sword in service to Théoden. Though always the most mature of the four hobbits (next to Frodo) this sequence really shows how far he has come, and how much he has begun to grow into the stature of a true hero out of the old tales. It would be easy to dismiss him as someone who’s gotten a bit too big for himself, but that would be a fatal misreading. There is, I think, an innate bravery and, just as importantly, nobility, in the hobbits that this sequence showcases to great effect. What’s more, it shows that there is a great deal of kindness in Merry’s spirit, a kindness that leads him to see the old king as a father figure that he would love to serve.

Éowyn, of course, is a very different character. She is, without question, one of Tolkien’s finest creations. She’s the only woman who gets to play an active role in the unfolding events of the War of the Ring (Galadriel, while powerful, is in many ways only incidental to the narrative of the story, though obviously her cleansing of Dol Guldur, related in the Appendices, is vital), and as such it is all the more tragic that the men in her life seem determined to keep her at home.

The brilliance of her her exchange with Aragorn is that both of them are right in their own way. Éowyn has every right to chafe at the bounds imposed upon her, which are both gendered and societal (gendered in that women aren’t expected to fight; societal in that, as the king’s niece, she’s expected to take care of the people in the king’s absence). However, Aragorn is right to remind her that even those whose lot it is to stay at home may still perform deeds of valour, even though they may not be recounted or celebrated in song.

For both Merry and Éowyn, their essential nobility of spirit is what drives them ever onward, and it will ultimately prove to be the crucial aspect of their characters, one that will also have profound effects on the doings of the war to come. Though to some they might appear secondary, Tolkien clearly intends for them to be seen as crucial as any others to the fortunes of their world.

Next up, I’ll be discussing the twinned chapters that detail the slowly tightening siege of Gondor and the mustering of the Rohirrim. I do hope that you’ll join me!

The Danger of Canonizing Tolkien

KC Winters

In an interview after the release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films, his son Christopher–his literary executor and one of those most responsible for cultivating his father’s posthumous legacy–expressed a fair amount of skepticism about whether it was truly possible to translate his father’s work into the popular medium of film. Something, he seems to suggest, always gets lost.

This attitude on Chistopher’s part shouldn’t surprise us. After all, this is a man who has devoted much of his adult life to, first, ensuring that his father’s literary legacy was created and then, subsequently, burnishing until it shines as brightly as it ever has. To someone a bit old-fashioned in his tastes, the medium of film no doubt appears more than a little frivolous directed primarily, as he puts it, at young people.

To be fair to Christopher, however, this is hardly unique to him. Indeed, part of the effort to canonize Tolkien in literature has been based on extracting him from the grasp of his juvenile fans. This was recently brought home to me while I was reading a critical volume on Tolkien, for in the entire collection, there wasn’t a single piece about the influence of Tolkien’s work on its fans, nor indeed any essays dealing with the robust fan culture at all. Instead, the works were primarily geared, it was pretty clear, toward solidifying Tolkien’s bona fides as a literary figure and The Lord of the Rings as a work of literature in the most conservative sense.

There is much to appreciate about volumes like this, and I don’t mean to suggest that Tolkien and his work isn’t deserving of serious and perceptive literary criticism. It most definitely is. And I don’t mind to suggest that Tolkien doesn’t deserve a place in the literature canon, alongside the other giants of 20th Century literature, because I believe he does (after all, if we are to have a canon, which arguably is a good thing, then it should at least be a diverse one, both in terms of identity and in terms of fiction being allowed. Too long have “popular” fiction writers been denied their due in this regard).

However, it does seem to me that there is a possible downside to the canonization of Tolkien, and this has to do with his fandom.

Ever since the Lord of the Rings started its ascent into popularity there have been those who saw its fans as somewhat ridiculous if not outright worthy of ridicule. Tolkien, lovely old curmudgeon that he was, was not overly fond of his fans tramping through his gardens (one can hardly blame him for that) although, on the flip side, he was very generous with his time in responding to the mountains of mail that he received. To the critics, on the other hand, there has always been something vaguely embarrassing about the level of fervour with which Tolkien’s fans engage with his work.

It shouldn’t really surprise us that there is so much hostility to Tolkien fandom. Indeed, fandom of any kind–whether for film franchises of fantasy series–is always ripe for opprobrium. For many literary critics trained in English departments in a certain period of time, the popular is dangerous because it is so fleeting. Only those texts that have passed the test of time should be granted the honor of being taken seriously.

This is especially germane for Tolkien’s status as an author for, of course, the very thing that has been most responsible for Tolkien’s success also threatens to undo his literary legacy, at least if we hold to a rather limited sense of what a legacy should look like. Any time that the appreciation of a text or an author passes out of the hands of the professoriate or the creator himself, it inevitably enters into the public consciousness. The literati have always (and probably always will have) a distaste and distrust of the popular. Anything that appeals to the masses must be suspicious, if for no other reason than that it must be unserious. Serious art, many contend, should be difficult.

Unfortunately, whether they know it or not, those who have set out to cement Tolkien’s place in the literary firmament replicate the very systems of power and privilege that have defined both literature and literary study for far too long. What’s more, they tend to overlook (or deliberately denigrate) the sorts of ingenious ways in which fans engage with their chosen object. If you’ve ever seen the documentary Ringers, you know that there truly is no limit to what Tolkien fans are able to accomplish when they set their mind to it. While some might look at this with sneering dismissal, I prefer instead to see it is as a key part of what makes Tolkien’s work such a wonderful part of the 20th Century literary landscape. Rather than attempting to rescue Tolkien from the grasp of fans so that he can occupy some vaunted pedestal, we should instead be using that very fan adulation to show how influential his work was and remains.

This skepticism toward fandom at least in part explains the ambivalence of many Tolkienists-including Christopher himself, obviously–toward the film adaptations. For film has always struggled to gain appreciation as a form of art rather than vulgar entertainment, and this is especially true of fantasy film. To be fair, there are some serious flaws in all of the adaptations that have gained any measure of currency–Rankin/Bass, Bakshi, and Jackson–but they are nevertheless important interpretations of Tolkien’s work and, for many, an important gateway into the written works themselves. Literary critics would do well to remember this fact, rather than simply reverting to their tried and true methods of dealing with literature and attempting to isolate Tolkien’s works from the very people that have done so much to ensure his legacy.

As important and necessary as it may be to elevate Tolkien into the canon, we must also be wary of how we do so.

The Terror of the Nazgûl: Evil and the Uncanny

KC Winters

When I think back to the first time that I read The Lord of the Rings, one of the things that stands out most to me is just how disturbed I was by the hobbits’ encounters with the Ringwraiths, both within the bounds of the Shire and outside of it. Though the effect has been mitigated a bit as I’ve grown older, I still feel a little chill race down my spine every time I read those passages in the books where these terrible servants of Sauron appear to afflict the heroes.

Consider, for example, the first time that we get a glimpse of one of them. We as readers don’t know that the horseman pursuing the hobbits is one of the most evil beings in Middle-earth, but the way that Tolkien describes it makes it abundantly clear. Matters escalate when the frantic hobbits turn to a shortcut After they spot the nameless creature kneeling beside its horse on the rise behind them, they hear a long-drawn wail that freezes both their blood and our own. This, to me, is one of the most haunting moments in the entire first part of the book. Simply seeing that horse and rider at the top of the embankment is enough to fill our hearts with dread and apprehension about what is going to come next. And the sound that follows is yet another marker of just how strange the world has become.

To me, even as an adult, this entire sequence is disturbing, verging on terrifying. Though we don’t know what these creatures are, their utter lack of humanity instills in us an instinctive fear of the unknown. More than that, though, their appearance within the supposedly safe boundaries of the Shire renders that space uncanny, the familiar now made unutterably strange. A great deal of this scene’s power also comes from Tolkien’s unmatched powers of description and his ability to convey a scene with such detail that you can almost see it in your mind’s eye.

To my mind, however, one of the most terrifying incidents occurs when Frodo and Sam are crossing the Dead Marshes in the company of Gollum, who has agreed to take them to the Black Gate. As they stumble across this blasted landscape, they are once again subjected to the sound of that wail, while a terrible winged shape wheels above them before darting off on another errand. Again, there’s nothing overtly horrifying about this particular appearance, but to me there’s something haunting about the image of a great winged beast silhouetted against the moon, a sort of nameless horror that, perhaps, calls to some primordial fear of giant beasts in the sky.

In terms of the films, I have to say that the Bakshi version does best at capturing the sheer inhumanity of these creatures. Though the film doesn’t age terribly well, each time I watch it I’m impressed anew at the way in which Bakshi manages to capture the strange and unsettling otherness of the Ringwraiths. They don’t have nearly as much personality as the they do in Jackson’s version, and they are given an extra layer of uncanniness by the fact that they’re brought to the screen via rotoscope (in which live action figures are filmed and then animated cells are laid over top of them). I remember being profoundly chilled by their appearance, and even now I find them very disturbing.

Jackson’s version of these characters isn’t quite as haunting, in part because they are more straightforwardly depicted and because Jackson isn’t always the most subtle of filmmakers. However, there are a few moments that capture some of the strangeness of the novels, particularly when the hobbits first encounter their enemies.

Without doubt, the Ringwraiths are some of the most frightening of Tolkien’s creations, and they are testament to his ability to move seamlessly between so many different registers. They are at once the evil with which the heroes must contend as they embark on their quest, yet they are also embodiments of our deepest fears, conveyed in sparse prose that nevertheless evokes the horror of the unknown. As always, Tolkien knows just how to most compellingly explore the most vexing of human questions, both the good and the evil.

Tolkien’s Songs: Pleasure or Pain?

tjwest3

In the annals of Tolkien fandom, there is no subject more likely to cause an argument that the subject of the songs. Anyone who’s read either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings knows that fans either love them or hate them. Anecdotally, I’d go so far as to say that casual fans tend to simply skim over them in the process of reading the books, while those who are a little more in-depth in their appreciation read them and savor them (though whether they enjoy them, per se, is a rather different question). To some they’re an essential part of world-building, while to others they’re hopelessly self-indulgent and more than a little silly.

In my opinion as someone who has read both of these books more times than I can count, I have to say that I’m still divided. Part of me dearly wants to love the ones that Tolkien clearly took the most pride in–the great romantic tales of Beren and Luthien, the sailing of Eärendil the mariner–but I’ll be honest, they’re kind of a slog to get through. I’m not enough of a poetry critic to gauge whether they’re “good” (I’m also rather dubious about such distinctions in any case). Sometimes, I do read them in their entirety, but at other times I skim through them to get to the parts of the narrative that interest me more.

At the same time, I can appreciate how these serious songs function in the context of the books as a whole. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, they are often symbolic of the power of the Elves, even in the darkening hours of the Third Age, to command some measure of power. For example, when Frodo, Sam, and Pippin encounter Elves in the Shire, it is their song in praise of Elbereth that drives away the Black Rider. It’s clear that for Tolkien song in particular was a powerful form of magic as great as anything that a wizard can create.

I can say, however, that as I continue to re-read Lord of the Rings, I find myself absolutely loving the ones that are more humourous in tone. Both the elaboration of the nursery rhyme “The Man in the Moon” and Sam’s ditty about the Troll never fail to bring a smile to my face. But, more than that, they do reveal some important facts about Tolkien and the way that he viewed his act of creation. In the case of “The Man in the Moon,” we can see him performing the sort of linguistic archaeology that he loved so dearly, giving us an extended version of the very short nursery rhyme that we already know so well.

In the case of Sam’s song about the Troll, it is not only very amusing–almost earthy–but it also reveals something important about Sam. While we might be forgiven for regarding Master Samwise as something of a buffoon, there are hidden layers to his character that really come into the open at moments like this. Through this song, we learn that he is actually a far more competent and intelligent character than we might have been led to believe.

No doubt the arguments about the merits and drawbacks of Tolkien’s songs will continue to rage for as long as people continue returning to Middle-earth. Love them or hate them, however, you have to admit that they remain a key part of the world that Tolkien created, a reminder of just how much he laboured to make a world that had its own internal consistency. If we owe one thing to Peter Jackson’s films (and I would argue that we actually owe quite a lot), he deserves credit for bringing the songs out of the realm of the abstract and into the performative. Let’s face it. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to really hear how a song is supposed to sound when you’re reading it silently. However, I dare you to remain unmoved by Billy Boyd’s singing of the travel song (even if it is delivered out of its original context).

What are your thoughts about the songs in the work of Tolkien? Do you love them, hate them, or some combination of the two? Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: The Dark Powers of Tolkien (by David Day)

KC Winters

As I do every year at this time, I find myself wanting to read anything and everything I can about Tolkien, his worlds, and his philosophy. When I saw David Days The Dark Powers of Tolkien in a bookshop in Edinburgh, I knew at once that I had to have it. Well, I started reading it and, a day later, I’m finished and ready to share my thoughts with all of you.

It’s a slender book, but Day manages to pack quite a lot into it despite that. He gives us a pretty good overview of the various incarnations of evil that appear in all of the ages of Middle-earth, ranging from the titanic force of Morgoth in the First and Sauron in the Second and Third to the rather lesser evils of Saruman, Orcs, Trolls, and sundry dragons and other monsters. The book is arranged chronologically, so that the reader gets a good sense of how evil incarnates in each Age of Middle-earth.

In the process, he shows us how, for Tolkien, evil is nothing more nor less than the absence of good. In other words, it is a nothingness that can only ever be self-defeating. We see this time and time again in his work. Melkor/Morgoth, for all of his grand ambitions, finds that he lacks the power to make something out of nothing, and so must content himself with damaging and corrupting the work of others, and his efforts ultimately end up being self-defeating. The same is true of Sauron who, in his arrogance and desire to dominate, sows the seeds of his own undoing.

Day draws some interesting parallels between Tolkien’s work and the various threads and cultures that he drew upon, some of which even I wasn’t aware of. In doing so, Day helps us to appreciate the deep wells of Tolkien’s own mind. Those who aren’t as familiar with his work and his influences will definitely find some valuable gems. Day is particularly successful at showing how Tolkien drew on the various myths and legends of northern Europe, though he also does some cross-cultural exploration that I found intriguing. Day also provides some interesting glosses on nomenclature and how, in Tolkien’s fiction, the name of a person or thing reveals something about its essential nature.

Perhaps the book’s most interesting contribution to an understanding of Tolkien’s work is his comparison of Tolkien to Milton. The two men are, arguably, the greatest crafters of epic in English, and each of them has a particularly keen eye of how to create evil characters that are at once deeply repugnant yet utterly comprehensible.

Lastly, a word on the illustrations. The book is lavishly illustrated with various styles of image. Some of them are truly disturbing in their ability to capture the grandeur and terror of Tolkien’s evil creations. While some of them may not be to everyone’s taste, many of them are very extraordinary indeed.

Overall, I think this book will be enjoyed by those, like me, who have a voracious appetite for everything Tolkien. There’s not necessarily anything truly groundbreaking in the book, it does provide a good overview of the types of evil creatures that populate Tolkien’s fiction.

On the Pleasures of Re-Reading “The Lord of the Rings”

KC Winters

As I do every year, I’ve recently started re-reading The Lord of the Rings. Those who are familiar with my old blog no doubt know that, every December, I commit a good amount of my blog space to a discussion of Tolkien and his works, and this year is no different. So, to inaugurate my first Tolkien Appreciation Month on this author blog, I thought I’d talk about the pleasures of re-reading Tolkien.

I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was about 9 or 10, and it proved to be one of those truly life-changing literary events. I simply couldn’t stop reading it; it seemed to exert some sort of hold on me that I couldn’t break. Full of trembling fear at the Ringwraiths, swept up in the majesty of Tolkien’s world, and moved to tears by this tale of sacrifice, I knew that here was a book that I’d return to again and again.

Part of this, I think, comes from the fact that it was my Mom who introduced me to Tolkien and that she, like so many others, had returned to it repeatedly over the years. Re-reading it with her was a way of forging bonds with her, each of us sharing our observations and thoughts about the book, as well as explaining to one another why we took pleasure in it.

In the years since, I’ve read it dozens of times, but still something keeps me coming back again and again. Sometimes, this was an external factor. When, for example, the films came out in the early 2000s, I found myself reading The Lord of the Rings on a yearly basis. While in undergrad, I also took not one but two courses on Tolkien, which encouraged yet more readings. And then there were The Hobbit films, and the release of further volumes from Christopher, notably Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin. Each one gave me a reason to return to the stories that started it all. It’s now become basically an annual ritual for me to pick up The Lord of the Rings and to give it another read.

Sometimes, I read it slowly, savoring each and every word, allowing myself to become fully immersed in the beauty of Tolkien’s language. Even a cursory reading of The Lord of The Rings reveals a man who knew how to describe landscape in a way that almost no one else in epic fantasy has come close to matching (Terry Brooks is one such). On these readings, I often allow myself to even linger over the songs (certainly one of the most divisive aspects of the book, with some fans loving and others hating them). At other times, I go at a faster pace, sometimes skipping to the parts of the book that I find the most enjoyable.

Either way, I continually and consistently find new things about the story itself, the characters, and the world that Tolkien crafted with such care. That, to me, is one of the most extraordinary things about Tolkien in general and The Lord of the Rings in particular. No matter how many times you read it nor over how many years, it can still manage to surprise you. In that sense, they are both very much like the hobbits themselves.

At the same time, there’s also something comforting about the familiar notes, about knowing what’s going to happen yet enjoying the journey anyway. I love reading the chapters that detail history (such as “The Shadow of the Past” and “The Council of Elrond”). And, silly as it sounds, I still get a chill when the Ringwraiths first begin to make their appearance. And, divisive as it may be, as the years have gone by I’ve even begun to enjoy Tom Bombadil.

A lot about me has changed in the 20 years since I first read The Lord of the Rings. Still, every time I pick it up, I found myself drawn back, reminded of that sense of wonder and joy that accompanied that first reading. No matter what happens in the outside world, and no matter how dismal and depressing it may be at times, I know that there is a different sort of world awaiting me between its pages.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must rejoin Frodo and company. Cheers!