Catholicity, Orthodoxy, and Lordship
I had mentioned in a previous post about Tolkien’s opposition of machinery in favor of trees. Carpenter elaborates on Tolkien’s love for trees in chapter two of his biography:
(Tolkien) was more interested in the shape and feel of a plant than in its botanical details. This was especially true of trees. And though he liked drawing trees he liked most of all to be with trees. He would climb them, lean against them, even talk to them.
Young Tolkien (also known as “Tollers” by his close friends) endured much as a little boy, including the death of his father, Arthur. His childhood days in South Africa did not leave too many impressionable moments in his mind, but a few of the incidents remind us of some of the well-known scenes in hisTrilogy.
In one of the few stories remembered by a grown Tolkien, he recalls how as he was beginning to walk he stumbled into a tarantula. It bit him, and he ran in terror across the garden until the nurse snatched him up and sucked out the poison. Tolkien later observed that the incident left him “with no special dislike of spiders.” But as his biographer, Humphrey Carpenter observed: “In his stories he wrote more than once of monstrous spiders with venomous bites.”
In Horne’s biography of Tolkien he observed that what truly motivated Tolkien’s writings were not only the literary influences in his life, but the Christian faith, which
“…helped him deal with the crises and losses in his life made it possible for him to write with maturity and character.
{Mark Horne, From Introduction}
I’ve begun reading through Tolkien’s biography by Humphrey Carpenter. His first chapter details his visit to Professor Tolkien’s home. A few things struck me:
First, Professor Tolkien is deeply engaged with his pipe. His pipe is almost symbolic in that it is inextricably linked to his thoughts about Middle Earth. Can you imagine the The Lord of the Rings without a pipe?
Secondly, the biographer describes Tolkien’s stature. He is rather short and his wife even shorter. In light of the grandiose figures in Tokien’s fiction, Tolkien sees himself as a mere hobbit–content with his stature and his life in the Shire.
Finally, Tolkien is not described so much as a fiction writer, but someone who is deeply interested in the accuracy of Middle-Earth in its geography, details, language, etc. He functions more like a historian of a world he created and designed after his own image
In describing Tolkien, Carpenter concludes:
It is rather as some strange spirit had taken on the guise of an elderly professor. The body may be pacing this shabby little suburban room, but the mind is far away, roaming the plains and mountains of Middle-Earth.
In preparation for my interview with Mark Horne for Trinity Talk and my biography Sunday School at Providence on J.R.R. Tolkien, I have been re-visiting some old works and exposing myself to some new ones on the creator of Middle-Earth. Mark Horne discusses in his J.R.R. Tolkien (Christian Encounter Series) how “Hobbits” came to be in the mind of Tolkien:
That summer day, in the midst of the dreary boredom of marking papers, Tolkien did something that changed his life. Working diligently on marking one of many exams, Tolkien came to the bottom of a page in the exam book, expecting more handwriting to read, evaluate, and mark when he turned it over. But the next page was blank. And for some reason he took up his pen and wrote across the blank space, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” He had no idea what a “hobbit” was. When he did define a hobbit, it would change the literary world.
A friend posed the following question to me:
“… you were plugging LOTR the other day and Mark Hornes new bio of Tolkien..I am considering starting to read The Hobbit with my family, Including a 4.70 yr. Old and a 3 yr old boy..and a 1.75 yr. Old girl wondering what ur thoughts are on it’s age appropriateness. I have listened to it but wanted to get someone elses thoughts. Thanks!
Timothy, grace and peace be with you. A few thoughts: 1) Literature like LOTR accentuates children’s imagination. I am saddened not to have grown up in an environment where my imagination was stirred. 2) LOTR is literature at its best.There is good poetry, good food, and good war. All three central components to redemptive history. LOTR begins children’s hermeneutical training. By reading it to them early on you develop a good sense for how the Bible should be read. For instance, food in LOTR is not just a meal, it is in many ways sacramental. Professor Dickerson–Tolkien scholar–says that food was tantamount to sacrament in Tolkien’s writings. It was preparation for warfare. Think of Psalm 23: … a meal in the presence of mine enemies. 3) LOTR is good intro to biblical warfare. As Psalm 8 teaches, children are voices of warfare to silence foe and avenger. Hope this helps. Perhaps other dads may wish to comment. –UTB
We need more Tolkien in our society. Christians should read him constantly. An interesting side to Tolkien’s famed Trilogy was brought to my attention in a fascinating article by Matthew Dickerson entitled Food and the Culture of Hobbits. Dickerson observes that there is good in Peter Jackson’s magnificent rendition of the Lord of the Rings, but yet, he finds that readers miss crucial features of Tolkien by looking only to the studio productions.
One feature that is missed is the theme of feasting. As Dickerson observes:
…the narrator is particularly fond of describing the food and the various traditions and practices surrounding meals and eating in Middle-earth.
In Tolkien’s world, food is communal. It is to be shared. It brings people together and accentuates joy. Dickerson, in sacramental fashion observes that it is “the importance of what happens around these meals that makes the sacrifice of war worthwhile and that lets the reader know there is something worth fighting about.”
Tolkien opens the door to discuss sacramental theology. In bread and wine the community is united and strengthened for battle. In the church’s sacred meal Yahweh’s family is emboldened to fight Mordor.