JRRT, Part Three

I love this book.

For generations, many people of English-speaking lands lived with two books: the Holy Bible, and the Pilgrim’s Progess. This excellent book of John Bunyan’s has fallen out of favor, though it continues to be filled with treasures for those who find it. I submit that for my generation, Tolkien has served the function that Bunyan did for his time. Other books come and go; this one bears with repeated readings through a lifetime.

My older sister opened this door to me by giving me her copy of The Hobbit when I was in my early teens; looking at it as I write, I see her name inscribed on the cover, almost faded into obscurity. It, and the three volumes of LOTR which I soon purchased (95 cents apiece), are all in the old Ballantine paperback edition with the 1960’s psychedelic cover art. Through high school and college, I had on my wall a large poster which combined the three covers (which, together, make a sort of mural). Somewhere in graduate school and marriage, it disappeared; I am sorry to have lost it, though I cannot imagine what I would do with it now. But I still have the books; I have resisted purchasing better copies because these volumes are old friends, now beginning to fall to pieces. In these forty years, I suppose I have read them a dozen times or more.

At differing stages of life, I have found different connections with this tale. My first reading was nonstop, staying up all night for about a week and sleepwalking through my days at school and other responsibilities. I was caught up in the sheer adventure of it, and when I reached the end, I started right over for a second reading.

In subsequent readings, I have become increasingly aware of the author’s craft. In an essay, the author C.J. Cherryh analyzed one chapter, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” (FOTR I.8), in terms of pacing, the alternation of light and dark, sentence structure, and much more; all are handled with consummate skill, and the entire trilogy would reward analysis of this sort. These details are part of what makes the book impossible to put down. Tolkien is, as Cherryh says elsewhere, “the grandfather of us all” in his craftsmanship.

Songs are scattered through the book, with their own two-page Index buried in the Appendices. They range from the silly songs beloved of hobbits to bits of ancient Tales from the Eldar Days and the fell songs of the Rohirrim, full of blood and ruin. It took me many readings and at least a score of years before I began to love them; many of them are now among my favorite parts of the Tale. They often say much that could not be expressed in prose and in every case are characteristic of those who sing them. I suspect that the Author labored long on them.

The greatest glory of all is the world behind the story, Middle-Earth. Perhaps no one but Tolkien could have made such a place, the fruit of a lifetime of imaginative “sub-creation.” Much of it flows directly from the real World of trees and rivers and mountains and living creatures, described with loving respect. Much is drawn from the “Cauldron of Story” of northern European folklore, and especially the ancient Languages which Tolkien loved, which are behind the Languages of Middle-Earth, and thus the names of people and places therein. The songs, the maps, the appendices -- all add to the sense that “long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green” (The Hobbit, chapter 1), there was such a place as the Forest of Fangorn or the City of Gondor with its white tower. One might easily imagine that we are in a distant continuation of that Story. I have never encountered another work of fiction with this level of verisimilitude, even among those writings which are acknowledged as the great classics of literature.

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: ‘inner consistency of reality,’ it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ‘joy’ in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a ‘consolation’ for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?’ ... But in the ‘eucatastrophe’ [or “happy ending”] we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater -- it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. (from the Epilogue to the essay “On Fairy-Stories”)

It is for this “far-off gleam or echo of evangelium” that I now read the books. I hear this echo in the merry chatter of Tom Bombadil, in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, in the Golden Wood, in the long slow songs of the Ents, in the blowing of the horns of Rohan “like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains” (ROTK I.5), in the quiet voice of Samwise Gamgee holding his master’s bleeding hand amid the ruin of Orodruin, and at the last the “sound of singing that came over the water” from the “far green country under a swift sunrise.”

Appendices:

The Lord of the Rings, with The Hobbit, are not all that there is of Middle-Earth. I love The Silmarillion with almost equal intensity, and “Leaf by Niggle.”
This little story is generally paired with the essay “On Fairy-Stories” as “Tree and Leaf.” It is my favorite depiction of the process of artistic creation, and Purgatory. I will say no more: read the essay and the story, if you haven’t. A more systematic discussion of the concept of “subcreation” can be found in Dorothy L. Sayers' excellent book The Mind of the Maker.

And there are the contributions of others, not least the movies shepherded into creation by Peter Jackson. I have never been a fan of Peter Jackson, and I cringe at some of the choices he made in adapting the books into movies. He deserves credit, nonetheless, for tirelessly pursuing this task, negotiating the quicksands of finance, conflicting personalities, impossible schedules and all else involved in making a motion picture, and evoking fine work from hundreds of others. I think that most of the strength of the movies came from this last, the people who brought their skills to the project. I will mention only two examples:

- the soundtrack to LOTR, by Howard Shore. When I do not have time to properly re-visit Middle-Earth by reading the books, often I will play some of this music. It is an achievement of Wagnerian scope, and much of it is as ingrained in me as any of the classical works of music that I love.

- the work of Alan Lee, as conceptual designer, set decorator, and art director for the movies. One of my prized books is “The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook” (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Like the Howard Shore music, these drawings and paintings can transport me into Middle-Earth in an instant. It is peculiar to me that Lee’s pencil sketches and drawings seem more effective than his more finished paintings, several of which are reproduced in the book. But the pencil sketches seem to be his strength as an artist. An example of them in the movies comes in the closing credits to ROTK: Lee sketched pencil portraits of all of the leading characters, strongly evocative portraits. A couple of them are reproduced in the book; I wish more of them were there.

The Road goes ever on and on...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it begun,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet,
And whither then? I cannot say. (FOTR I.1)

I will never be heroic. Nor will I undertake a Quest upon which the world depends. For these things I am grateful.

But a Task has been entrusted to me, and I must discharge it to the best of my ability, as must we all. That Task involves more than a little “sub-creation,” through the medium of music. Each time that I sit down at the organ or piano, or sing, or lead others in singing, I am thereby creating, or helping others create, little “sub-creations,” each with their own character, for music is an art that exists only when it is played or sung. When all goes well, a Bach Fugue, or a Nunc Dimittis by Stanford or Gibbons, or a congregation singing an unaccompanied hymn stanza can be “a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth” just as fully in their way as LOTR. I have gained encouragement in this task from Niggle the Painter, and from the Author who wrote these things in, as he said, “a period in which I had many duties which I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me” (from the Foreward to the Ballantine edition).

And I have been much encouraged in every aspect of life by Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn, Eowyn of Rohan, Faramir, Legolas and Gimli, and many others in both the LOTR and the Silmarillion. This encouragement is very much akin to what one gains from the Communion of Saints. I do not think that it demeans either the real Saints whom we revere and follow or the imaginative creatures of fiction to say so.

... in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small.... The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the ‘happy ending.’ The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. (from the Epilogue: “On Fairy-Stories”)