Category Archives: Tolkien Appreciation Month

Book Review: “Beren and Luthien” (by J.R.R. Tolkien)

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Anyone who’s ever read anything about Tolkien knows the story of Luthien, the tale of an Elf maiden who fell in love with the mortal man Beren and ultimately sacrificed her immortality to be with him. Their sage is, of course, intertwined with those fantastic gems known as the Silmarils, one of which they managed to steal from the crown of Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. Shadows of this tale appear in The Lord of the Rings (and the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen is modeled upon it), and it is told in relatively full form in The Silmarillion.

Now, however, Christopher Tolkien has brought us this marvelous book, which details the evolution of this tale from its beginnings, showcasing both its prose and poetic forms. Throughout, we get to see again how complex, and often frustrating, Tolkien’s composition process was. Given the many permutations this single narrative underwent over Tolkien’s creative life, it’s small wonder that he was never able to craft it into a form with which he was ultimately satisfied. 

Unlike other recent volumes of Tolkien’s posthumous work (such as The Children of Hurin), Beren and Luthien is not a cohesive narrative. Instead, it is more of a hybrid, part narrative and part textual history.

In it, when learn a great deal about how Tolkien’s conception of the story changed throughout its development. For example, in one early version Beren is imprisoned by a cat king (yes, you read that right). While we all mourn the excision of this fascinating character from the Beren/Luthien narrative, it does come across as being a little more whimsical than The Silmarillion proper. We also learn that Beren was not originally a Man was instead an Elf (which, as you can imagine, quite changes the dynamic between him and Luthien).

What is truly remarkable, however, is how much remains the same, both thematically and narratively. The fundamentals of the story of a pair of doomed lovers that nevertheless strive to remain together are there for the beginning, as is the profound sense of melancholy that is so much a part of the Elves’ existence. Again and again, we find them fighting against defeat and contending with the one inescapable fact of their reality: their immortality. What makes Beren and Luthien such a fascinating tale is precisely that Luthien was willing and able to transcend that immorality in order to be with her.

It is also striking–and worth noting–that in each iteration of the story it is Luthien who possesses the traits we most associate with the male hero of the epic. It is she who must repeatedly rescue Beren from his imprisonment, and it is ultimately her actions that make the claiming of the Silmaril from Morgoth’s iron crown possible. While Tolkien wasn’t always able to craft female heroes with the same sort of depth as his male ones, there’s no question that Luthien is the more compelling of the two heroes of this tale. 

I have one small quibble with the volume, and it’s the same one that I have with a lot of Christopher Tolkien’s editorial work. I’ve written elsewhere that we owe a tremendous debt to the younger Tolkien for his excavation of his father’s work, but man, does he have the most lumbering prose I’ve ever encountered. In this particular volume, this sometimes leads to a bit of repetition, as he tends to cite his work in the very volume that we’re reading. Nevertheless, when it comes to knowledge of his father’s manuscripts and the mindset behind them, no one holds a candle to Christopher.

Overall, however, I tremendously enjoyed reading Beren and Luthien. I’ve always found this tale to be one of the most profoundly moving in the entire legendarium, and it’s a fascinating experience to see how it grew and changed. While casual fans of Tolkien might find this volume a little rough to read, those of us who are a little more invested will find this a truly delightful treat. 

What Tolkien Taught Me About Writing

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As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I am both a fan of Tolkien and an aspiring writer of epic fantasy. In fact, it was first reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings that in part inspired me to try my own hand at not just writing an epic fantasy, but undertaking the work necessary to create an entire world–with its own histories, mythologies, religions, etc.–in which to set that epic. Even now, so many years later, I continue to find much about Tolkien’s process that I find inspiring and motivating. 

Those who have read the History of Middle-earth published by Christopher Tolkien know that he has laboriously and meticulously excavated his father’s voluminous manuscripts no doubt know how much LotR changed as Tolkien fiddled with it, often clinging to names long beyond the point where they didn’t match the characters to which they belonged. Reading these history books, one also sees just how complex Tolkien’s process was, how he allowed the story to grow and develop rather than adhering to some strict vision.

What’s more, you have to admire the profound depth of Tolkien’s legendarium. This is a man, remember, who created a world with its own internal consistency: replete with languages, histories, genealogies, and the like. And, taking a rather meta stance for a moment, it’s also true that his work has a textual history as rich and varied and contradictory (and frustrating) as any real-world mythology. There are still vagaries and inconsistencies that trouble those of us who like things to arrive in neat packages.

For the past two years now I’ve been working on an epic fantasy novel, and you know what that entails. Not only do you have to keep multiple plot-threads straight in your mind–for both the novel you’re working on and for the series as a whole–but you also have to develop your own world and make sure that it is both internally consistent and that it comes out properly in your novel. Neither of those is very easy to do, let me tell you, but the rewards are so satisfying. 

Just as importantly, you have to make sure that your characters have a depth and richness to them that makes them become something more than stand-ins for epic archetypes. While some have criticized Tolkien for not giving his characters a great deal of interiority or self-reflection, I think that grossly underestimates how much we get to see into the minds of the hobbits, particularly Sam and Frodo. 

In the end, I suppose that the greatest lesson I’ve taken from learning about Tolkien’s process is to allow yourself the time to revise what you’ve written. Very rarely does an epic spring fully-formed from its creator’s mind. There are going to be missteps, and that’s okay. At the same time, I’ve also learned that there comes a time when you simply have to let it go, that no matter how much you revise you are not going to reach a state of perfection (trust me, that is much harder than it sounds).

I’m now reaching what I believe to be the end of the first draft of my first novel, and I hope one day be worthy of following in Tolkien’s footsteps. Only time will tell!

Tolkien’s Heirs (IV): Robert Jordan

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In my inaugural entry in this year’s Tolkien Appreciation Month (which always takes place in December), I thought I would do a little spiel about Robert Jordan. Since I’ve been making my way through The Wheel of Time, it felt like this month would be a fitting time to speak about why Jordan deserves the recognition as one of Tolkien’s heirs.

There’s no question that Jordan clearly set out to write a fantasy in the Tolkien mold. The Eye of the World, like many other first entries in a fantasy series, follows the LotR paradigm: simple man from simple country folk; interloping magic-wielder who leads him on a quest, etc. The Blight looks suspiciously like Mordor, and there are numerous other parallels. This isn’t an indictment of Eye, however, as I’m not one of those who thinks that imitation somehow cheapens the work. Jordan clearly understood that this was a narrative archetype that worked and that could be used to address the cultural and social concerns of the late ’80s and early ’90s, and so he used it to explore issues in his unique way.

Thus, once we get beyond The Eye of the World, it quickly becomes clear that Jordan has something in mind that is more akin to the vast scope of The Silmarillion than to the mostly straightforward quest narrative of The Lord of The Rings. Beyond the scope of the series–which, we should remember, ended up being 14 books long–there is the vast tapestry of Jordan’s created world. Like Tolkien, Jordan understood that the actions of the past continue to press against the present and, to some extent, dictate the contours of the future. Thus, each book reveals a bit more of the history of this vast world. However, Jordan also took a key lesson from Tolkien: sometimes, there are aspects of your world that should remain beyond the reader’s gaze, tempting them with the lure of the perpetually unknown.

Like Tolkien, Jordan is also interested in the great philosophical questions that are, for many, the hallmark of truly great literary/artistic expression. To what extent do individuals control their own destiny? Are we all doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over? Are we all caught in a grand struggle in which we are but bit players? Of course, there is ultimately no answer to these questions, and it is this key tension that makes fantasies of this sort such a pleasure to read.

Unlike Tolkien, for whom people of colour and women were largely ancillary, Jordan involves them very much in the center of his created world. Many of his nations and peoples are explicitly depicted as being non-white, and some of the most compelling characters (Nynaeve, Egwene, Moiraine), are women. His perspectives on the relationships between the sexes–to say nothing of the neat way in which the Power is divided among women and men–may be quite old-fashioned (and even regressive), but at least he does give his female characters something meaningful to do in the novels themselves.

However, Jordan does have a fairly straightforward conceptualization of good and evil. Sure, there are characters that struggle with the right and wrong thing to do, but that’s not quite the same thing. It’s pretty clear that the Dark One is the embodiment of pure evil and the Forsaken, his most powerful servants, are likewise creatures of malice and unscrupulous desires. Taking a page from Tolkien’s book, however, Jordan also recognizes that there is something irresistible and compelling about the supposedly evil characters. We know that they cause untold damage to many hundreds of innocent people, yet we feel ourselves drawn to them anyway.

While it is commonplace to praise an epic fantasy author by comparing them to Tolkien, that praise has become so overused as to be almost meaningless. In Robert Jordan’s case, however, he most certainly deserves the title. Through both his world-building and in the depth of  the philosophical questions that he asks, he demonstrates (thankfully) that epic fantasy is not a genre that should be taken lightly. Indeed, it well deserves its place as one of the literary genres that tells us the most about how a culture thinks. And, in the hands of writers like Jordan, it can attain that rare thing: true beauty.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “Minas Tirith”

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I’ve always found the first half of Return of the King to be some of my favourite parts of the entire Lord of the Rings saga, so I’ll be spending a bit more time dwelling in detail on each chapter than I usually do. Even now I’m not entirely sure why, unless it’s because there is something hauntingly evocative about the fading grandeur of Gondor, so similar to Byzantium after the fall of the Western Empire (if you know me, you know I love me some Byzantines).

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the similarities between Byzantium and the Gondor that we see in The Lord of the Rings. Both are essentially rump states, decayed (yet still magnificent) relics of an empire that was once vast and powerful. They are, furthermore, beset on all sides by enemies who threaten to bring about their end, and that end seems to hover just on the edge of sight and of time, always present and yet never quite intruding into the flow of events.

Minas Tirith, as the novel describes it, encapsulates this similarity perfectly. While it is certainly more vast than anything Pippin has yet seen–and he includes Isengard in that estimation–the novel remarks that there are signs that it is on the downward spiral. The city, vast and powerful as it is, has not even managed to fill its walls full to capacity, and it is strongly hinted that even many of the most powerful families have faded into obscurity, leaving nothing behind but their enormous, empty mansions that stand as mute testimony to their once formidable power.

As Pippin and Gandalf make their way through this enormous city of Men, he cannot shake the feeling (and we cannot either) that this is a city and a culture that has passed its zenith. Like Byznatium in its long decline, Minas Tirith contains echoes of the greatness that it once possessed, but it is somewhat marred by a feeling of elegy and melancholy, for past that is now past any recall. We are left with the feeling that, even when/if Aragorn should win back the throne that is rightfully his, the spiral will be averted but not reversed, and that the restored world will be one that is not as glorious as it was at the height of its majesty.

Despite its decline, this chapter contains some truly beautiful and evocative imagery to convey to us the vast lands that comprise Gondor. These always stand out to me as some of the most powerful, piercing in their exquisite beauty. It’s hard not to feel a sense of overwhelming vastness as Pippin sits on the wall gazing outward, a vastness both complemented and soured by the high wails of the winged Nazgûl that fly periodically over the city.

Even Denethor seems to exhibit this set of characteristics, and it’s easy to see how he could produce sons as different as Faramir and Boromir. On the one hand, he is still a powerful figure with a cunning and deep mind, so deep that he even feels that he has the right and the power to challenge Gandalf in terms of the defense of the city and in the steps that they should take. While he has not yet been driven mad by the despair that will eventually claim his mind, it’s clear even at this point that he has begun to crack under the ceaseless pressure to defend the nation that he clearly (and, I would add, sincerely) loves from the relentless pressure of Mordor. He is flawed, yes, but still noble in his own twisted way, and we are led to have at least a modicum of respect and admiration for him.

Last but not least, no discussion of this chapter would be complete without a mention of Beregond. He is one of those characters that Tolkien creates, minor yet important, utterly compelling. This is a man in whom the best of Gondor is brought to fruition and yet, as we shall see, this places him somewhat at odds with the loyalties that he feels pulling him toward his beloved Faramir.

Next up, we’ll switch gears slightly and rejoin Aragorn as he makes a fateful journey to claim the allegiance from the dead.

Tolkien’s Heirs: Tad Williams

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When I heard the news that Tad Williams, one of my very favourite fantasy authors, was returning at last to Osten Ard, the sprawling setting of his epic fantasy series “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn,” I was overcome with happiness. While I haven’t yet read the short novel The Heart of What Was Lost, I have begun to re-read MST in anticipation of doing so (a full-length novel, The Witchwood Crown, is apparently due out this summer).

As I do every so often, I would like to suggest that Tad Williams belongs to that elite cadre of fantasy authors who truly deserves the title of “Tolkien’s Heir.” In terms of the richness of his world-building, the complexity of his characters, and the emotional depth of his achievement, Williams has truly ascended into the ranks of the great fantasy authors of the late 20th Century.

Now, I know that a comparison to Tolkien’s work is thrown about in review circles anytime a new epic fantasy series sees the light of day. It’s become so extensively used that it’s little more than a meaningless cliché. However, Williams’ work really does deserve comparison to the grand master of the form, the man whose own The Lord of the Rings is truly a masterpiece and one that succeeds as a piece of literature not in spite of but because of its form and content as fantasy.

In my estimation, the same can be said of all of Williams’ work, both the epics (MST and Shadowmarch), as well as the other fantasy works that he has published over his career. Williams constantly shows that there is a certain explanatory and experiential power in the fantasy genre that renders it a uniquely effective way of addressing some of the questions that continue to press us as human beings in a complicated and contradictory world.

Of course, Williams is one of the finest world-builders working in the genre today, and his invented nations seem to leap off of the page into breathing life right in front of us. Whether it is Osten Ard or the many warring nations that comprise the world of Shadowmarch, one can see that the worlds of his imagination of a phenomenal amount of internal consistency. Further, there are histories in these worlds, wells that run deep and troubled and contentious pasts that shape and determine what happens during the novels themselves. The titanic struggles the characters face are often not of their own making, but that does not mean that they don’t still bear a significant amount of responsibility for what occurs.

This, in turn, allows Williams to engage with the thornier questions of morality, justice, and who really gets to claim the high ground in the sort of larger-than-life disputes that are the lifeblood of epic fantasy. For all of Tolkien’s strengths, he was a product of his troubled times, and for him the question of race is, to put it mildly, a vexed one. His portrayal of people of colour is, with a few exceptions, quite negative (though not as repugnantly racist as his colleague C.S. Lewis), but Williams takes care in many of his works to depict people of colour who do not fit comfortably into established stereotypes. This is certainly true of Shadowmarch and sequels, which feature a number of characters that come from cultures that are not typically “white” or European.

Finally, and largely as a result of all of this, reading a Williams novel (or series) is an intense and sometimes overwhelming emotional experience. Beloved characters do die, and sometimes even the deaths of villains are more heart-wrenching than you might have expected. Death is very much a part of Williams’ novels, and you should never become too attached to some of your favourite characters. However, I would also like to point out that while you may feel emotionally wrung-out at

As I embark on my re-reading of Williams’ oeuvre (I hope to have read all of his works by the time the new novel is out this summer), I am astounded again at the richness and power of his prose. Truly, this is an author upon him I hope to model my own writing of fantasy. If I can accomplish but half of what he has, I shall consider myself fortunate indeed.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “Journey to the Cross-Roads,” “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol,” and “Shelob’s Lair”

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In today’s entry, we follow Frodo and his companions as they make their way beyond Ithilien and cross into the dark Morgul Vale, where they see the fearsome Lord of the Nazgûl ride out at the head of an army that has at last been unleashed upon the forces of the West, before encountering the vengeful, loathsome spider known as Shelob.

There has always been something terrifyingly evocative about the sequence in which Frodo, Sam, and Gollum see the Witch-king of Angmar ride out from Minas Morgul at the head of his enormous army that will prove all too effective at bringing the city of Minas Tirith to its knees. This sequence makes quite clear that this terrible power is indeed one of the most formidable weapons that the Dark Lord has brought to bear upon those who would seek to resist him. Further, the power of Tolkien’s prose is such that you feel as if you were actually there with the trembling hobbits, drawn by the same almost irresistible force of will that seems determined to overthrow Frodo’s will and force him to reveal himself.

Furthermore, there is something equally terrifying about the nature of the Morgul Vale itself, full as it is of the malevolent flowers that seem to exist on the poisoned and rotten earth of the valley, filling the very air itself with the noxious stench at atmosphere of death. One cannot help but realize that this, indeed, is one of the greatest tragedies of the continuing influence of Sauron’s evil upon Middle-earth, that he can take even such a beautiful place as Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, and turn it into something foul and rotten, as full of death and decay as Minas Tirith is light, joy, and vitality.

However, in the midst of all this terror, horror, and despair, there is Frodo, still struggling to find his way to fulfill his quest despite all of the forces arrayed against him. It is also a moment in which we are given a hint of the extent of Frodo’s injury way back at Weathertop, as the wound in his shoulder continues to exert a particularly pernicious sort of hold over his present. Here, we are already getting an inkling that this would will continue to haunt him and keep him from ever truly attaining the peace that he will richly deserve once he accomplishes what he set out to do.

These chapters also include one of my absolute favourite sequences in the entire novel, in which Gollum has one of those rare moments in which he seems to be almost on the cusp of at last finding the redemption that has eluded him for so long. The novel takes particular pains to show us that even now, even after all that has happened, there is still a faint (admittedly very faint) hope that he might yet be redeemed:

“For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.”

And yet, tragically, Sam misinterprets Gollum’s intentions, and the moment “passed, beyond recall.” From this point on there will be no doubt that Gollum is beyond the reach of the light and beauty of the world. Sam’s reproach, as justified as it might seem to him at that moment, nevertheless sows the seeds for Gollum’s later actions. Gollum, as pitiful and wretched as he is, has a part to play that is larger than he or the hobbits realize.

There can be no question that Shelob is one of the most terrifying creatures to emerge from Tolkien’s mythology. A last living vestige of the destructive and malevolent Ungoliant that proved to be so destructive in the First Age, Shelob is one of those extraordinary creatures in Tolkien’s world that seem to exist in their own moral universe. There is no question that she is an evil creature, full of all of the relentless malice and restless destruction that always characterize

In the next installment of our series, we finally get to see the terrible choice that Sam has to make, between continuing on with the Quest or giving up all hope.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “The Window on the West” and “The Forbidden Pool”

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Having met the noble Gondorian captain Faramir and his men, we now get to see them in more detail, as Frodo and Sam are welcomed into their abode and treated as guests of honor. They are also treated to the beauty of the land of Ithilien, including the cave where Faramir and his company have set up their camp.

I have always found Faramir to be one of Tolkien’s finest creations, a fitting complement to his brother Boromir. Unlike his elder brother, who seems to spring from the mold of men like Rohan (which, for all of their valour, are of a somewhat lower order then their neighbours), Faramir seems to have something in him of not just the nobility of the fallen lands of the West but also a measure of their Elvish wisdom. It is precisely this wisdom that allows him to turn away from the temptation that brought low his brother. In that sense, he seems to have more in common with Aragorn than he does with either his father or his brother.

It is the changes to Faramir’s character in the film version The Two Towers that I find the most vexing, in large part because he is just such a wonderful character in the novel. It is precisely his ability to resist the pull of the Ring that makes him so compelling and that suggests that he will one day make an exemplary steward in his father’s place. While I don’t want to spend too much time belabouring the changes made to Faramir’s character in Jackson’s interpretation, it is worth noting that this Faramir is much more steadfast from the outset than his film counterpart. He is both wise and a powerful leader of men, and it this particular combination of traits that makes him such a compelling hero.

What stands out to me the most about this chapter, however, is the description that Faramir gives of the men of Gondor. According to his narration, the heirs of Anarion gradually lost their way and gave into the faults that had long plagued the men of Númenor:  the obsession with death and its deferral, the fixation on the past and their ancestors rather than the children of the current world, the gradual but inexorable slipping into decline. It is a rather heartbreaking rumination, and it is (I think) reflective of the novel’s overall view of humanity. We may build works of great power and grandeur, but in the end we always seem inclined to let those slip away into obsolescence and a seemingly inevitable decay.

This in part will explain the behavior of Denethor in later chapters. He, like so many of his predecessors among the men of Númenor, yearns for a day when his rule was unquestioned, and he spends more time thinking about the past than he does the present, much to the detriment of his son Faramir. Thus, he is blind to the qualities that make his son such an excellent and superb commander and future steward, blinded by his love of Boromir. He wishes for the way that things were in the past, whereas Faramir is wise enough to understand that the future is what matters the most and that it will ultimately be up to him to shoulder the burdens that his father still bears (and which have already begun to to drive him slowly mad).

And then of course there is Gollum, who feels deeply betrayed by the fact that Frodo leads him into a trap set by Faramir. Once again, Frodo showcases his essential morality and pity, for once again he refuses to strike down Gollum when he has the chance. Of course, the powerful and almost tragic irony here is that Gollum doesn’t recognize this fact, and it may well be this incident that continues to cement his determination to see his villainous plans for Sam and Frodo through to their ultimate conclusion.

Next up, we follow the brave Sam and Frodo as they encounter the city of Minas Morgul as well as the dreadful spider Shelob. Stay tuned!

Through a Glass Darkly: The Diminution of Heroism in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy

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After recently rewatching Peter Jackson’s rightfully famous and well-regarded The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, it occurred to me that Jackson’s heroes are remarkably less lofty than their counterparts in Tolkien’s novel. If Tolkien’s heroes seem to exist in a time wherein heroes were larger than life figures that seem to defy the laws of humanity, Jackson’s are made of somewhat humbler stuff, plagued with doubt and required to go through the traditional hero’s journey in order for their personalities and their journeys to have meaning for their very modern audiences.

These changes range from the relatively minor to the significant, and some that appear to be the latter but are in my view the former. The shattering of Gandalf’s staff by the Witch-king at the gates of Minas Tirith might seem to be a relatively minor change in the context of the film as a whole, but it signifies that Gandalf, even in his iteration as the White, is far more vulnerable and susceptible to the power of his enemies than his novel counterpart. He is also plagued by doubt as to the fate of Frodo, and it is only Aragorn’s wise words that bring him back from the depths of despair during the events of The Return of the King.

Aragorn also suffers from this crisis of doubt. Unlike the Aragorn of the novel, for example, he does not at first set out with the intention of claiming the throne of Gondor for himself. It is only after fighting in the Battle of Helm’s Deep and gradually realizing the necessity of coming to Gondor’s aid does he seem to finally give in and accept the necessity of ascending Gondor’s throne as the rightful air. Admittedly, Viggo Mortensen does a magnificent job bringing together the essential nobility and world-weary aspects of Aragorn’s character, but there can be no doubt that, except in the very final scenes in which he appears, he definitely skews more toward the latter than the former.

The greatest casualty of this phenomenon, however, is the Steward Denethor, who definitely does not come out very well in his appearances in either The Two Towers or The Return of the King. This Denethor is not the proud throwback to the days of Númenór as described by Tolkien, not some lofty lord who has been slowly led into madness by his wrestling with Sauron through the palantír, but instead something of an arrogant and extremely deluded fool. Since the film does not really emphasize the fact that Denethor possesses one of the old seeing stones, we don’t get the sense that he has spent many long hours wrestling with the Dark Lord. Even his death is robbed of its rather tragic nobility, replaced instead with a disturbing scene in which Shadowfax kicks him into the pyre he had put together for himself and his son Faramir, after which Denethor runs screaming and plunges from the lofty tower into the burning city below. It’s visually striking, certainly, but not nearly the dignified and tragic ending envisioned in the novel, an ending that was more in keeping with Denethor’s lofty, if ultimately tragic, persona.

For Jackson, then, it appears that heroism is something far more bound to the foibles of mortality and the humble world of the flesh than is the case with Tolkien. His heroes are, for the most part, denuded shadows of their novel counterparts, cut down to a size that Jackson (for better or worse) deems more palatable and appropriate for a late-20th/early 21st Century audience.

Of course, part of this no doubt also has to do with the medium in which Jackson is working. While Jackson’s films certainly operate in the idiom and within the paradigm of the epic, there is still only so much detail, narrative complexity, and character development that can be squeezed into 3 hours. In order to get a full sense of Aragorn’s growth as a character, we can’t rely on pages of exposition and information revealed in the Appendices; instead, we must see the doubt that troubles him throughout his journey. We must be shown that he still bears the heavy weight of Isildur’s fatal weakness.

Just as importantly, the hero’s journey (so memorably outlined in the works of the mythologist Joseph Campbell in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces) has proven to be a remarkably durable and ubiquitous blueprint for Hollywood filmmaking. In that sense, it’s not surprising that Aragorn in particular becomes one of the people, in particular during the Battle of Helm’s Deep (in which he several times almost loses his life). It is worth pointing out that the release of Jackson’s film coincided with the resurgence of another type of film featuring somewhat larger-than-life heroism, the historical epic. Inaugurated with Ridley Scott’s film Gladiator, this genre also expressed a certain measure of ambivalence about the nature of male heroism, as Russell Crowe’s Maximus has to enter into the realm of the abject and the outcast in order to fulfill his historical and political mission (Robert Burgoyne makes a compelling argument about this in his book The Hollywood Historical Film).

While I may sound critical of Jackson’s film, I actually think it works well for what he is trying to do, and he definitely deserves credit for his portrayal of Boromir and Faramir, both of whom are compellingly drawn characters. In fact, I would say that Boromir, at least, is one of the characters whose characterization matches fairly closely between the book and the film. While the same cannot entirely be said of Faramir–who, after all, decides to take the Hobbits to Osgiliath in the film rather than unequivocally denying the Ring–he does emerge in The Return of the King as an essentially noble and heroic figure.

Clearly, Jackson has a different agenda in his vision of Tolkienian heroism for the 20th and 21st Centuries. That doesn’t mean that one is any less valid or intriguing than the other. It does, however, allow us to see the very different uses to which Tolkien’s work can be put in the visual imaginary.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit.”

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As we make our way again through The Lord of the Rings, we come at last to the fateful encounter between Frodo and Sam and Faramir, Boromir’s younger brother and the leading captain of Gondor. We also get a glimpse, albeit briefly, of the fragrant and peaceful glades of Ithilien.

Among his many strengths as a writer, Tolkien was unparalleled in his ability to evoke the atmosphere of place. Every time I read these portions on Ithilien, I feel as if I am there in that mild clime, drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells of this little paradise on the doorstep of Mordor. Unlike the Black Land and its environs, which the text specifically states will never know spring again (so deep and lasting is its destruction), here there is still a glimpse of what was no doubt true of many of the debased lands that have fallen under Sauron’s shadow. This is truly one of those places in Middle-earth that seems to leap off the page and into our imaginations.

This is, in many ways, a chapter full of respite and reflection, and affords Sam the opportunity to view his master and to express his love. As he says: “I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.” While this definitely lends itself to a queer reading, for me it is even more resonant when considered in the purely platonic sense, a signifier of the profound affective and companionate bonds that exist between Sam and Frodo. Just as noteworthy is the fact that the noble prose that precedes it is related in the narrator’s voice and Sam, finding words inadequate to his feelings, utters the line above.

Another compelling parts of this narrative is Sam’s reflection on the dead warrior that falls in their midst. His words are worth quoting in full:

“He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.”

It is fitting that this reflection should come from Sam. More than almost any of the other characters, the novel seems to identify most with his homespun wisdom. Certainly, he is often painted as more than a little foolish (and sometimes his mouth gets him into trouble, as when he blurts out the truth of the Ring to Faramir). However, he also utters some of the most sensible words in the entire novel. In that respect he shares a great deal in common with Ioreth, the old woman who remembers that the hands of a king are the hands of a healer and thus sets in motion Aragorn’s healing of Merry and Éowyn in the Houses of Healing. For Tolkien, it seems, the wisdom of those lower in class may seem to be beneath the notice of those who occupy the loftier helms of heroism, but this only makes their observations all the more essential and powerful.

Such is certainly the case here, as Sam is plunged, once again, into the midst of a war that he doesn’t entirely understand. Indeed, there is a certain parallelism here, and it is a rather unsettling reminder that the seemingly-neat divisions between good and evil are not nearly as stable as some critics would like to believe. Tolkien, as a product of one great war and a witness of another, had a particularly nuanced view of the tactics that brutal dictators use to bully and batter their subjects into submission and ultimately slavery.

The centerpiece of these chapters, however, is the character of Faramir. To my mind, he remains one of Tolkien’s most genuinely heroic characters, second only (among humans at least) to Aragorn himself. While I will discuss him in more detail in a subsequent installment, for now suffice it to say that Faramir, more than his brother, seems to exhibit the characteristics that Tolkien identifies most with the lost kingdom of Númenór.

Next up, we’ll discuss the character of Faramir in greater detail, in particular Sam’s comment that he seems to have an air of wizard-ness about him.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: “The Taming of Smeagol,” “The Passage of the Marshes,” and “The Black Gate is Closed”

Epic Fantasy, Fantasy Literature, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Tolkien Appreciation Month, , , ,

For a long time now, I’ve always preferred the first part of The Two Towers to the second. Maybe this has to do with the way in which I remain profoundly dissatisfied with Jackson’s interpretation of it in the film version, or perhaps because it lacks the big action set-pieces of the other half. Whatever the reason, I’ve always found it rather a chore to read.

As I’ve begun to reread it this year, however, I’ve been reminded of why I should like it and why it is so absolutely central to the development of the rest of the book.

For one thing, there is the menacing presence of the Nazgûl, who have now taken to the air on their winged steeds. For some reason, the image of one of those terrifying creatures hovering against the moon or blotting out the stars has always filled me with a dread very similar to that felt by Frodo and Sam (and even Gollum) as they cover in the Dead Marshes or even when they first encountered them way back in the beginning if the book.

Indeed, the whole passage of the Dead Marshes has always been a particularly disturbing and compelling one for me. There is something deeply, viscerally haunting about the idea of the dead faces in the water, of those Men, Elves, and Orcs that fought for the future of Middle-earth on the plain and have since fallen into a strange liminal space that is not quite life and not quite death. As with so much of The Lord of the Rings, we don’t really know who these creatures are nor why their restless spirits would still haunt the places where they perished all those long centuries ago.

Of particular note in these chapters is, of course, the nature of Gollum and just how far he has been redeemed by and through his service to Frodo. When we first meet him, his spirit and soul have been so corrupted by the Ring and by his hatred that he cannot even bear to eat Elvish food nor to have the Elvish rope bound to him. This signifies not just the ontological goodness of the Elves within the frame of Tolkien’s work, but also shows that the Ring, and all that it touches, remains antithetical to that goodness.

There is some measure of ambiguity about the nature of the oath that Gollum is forced to swear, and it hinges upon the word that Frodo chooses to define Gollum’s relationship to the Ring. He forbids Gollum to swear on it, but he does tell him that he can swear by it. In so doing and saying, Frodo suggests that the power of the Ring is such, and its tendency for corruption so great, that it will eventually corrupt him and turn it to Its purposes rather than his own.

Indeed, Frodo’s words, as so many others in the novel, prove prophetic, as it could be argued that it is precisely Gollum’s oath on the Precious that ultimately leads him to his own death. Looked at in just a certain light, it could be argued that Gollum’s tumble into the fires of Mount Doom is the ultimate fulfillment of his vow to do everything in his power to make sure that the Ring does not fall into the hands of Sauron.

Yet, for all that he is a treacherous and awful creature, there is still something remarkably sympathetic about Sméagol/Gollum. Every so often, Tolkien offers  us a glimpse into the tortured psyche that writhes beneath the surface of this most repulsive of characters. Tolkien shows us that he remains caught on the cusp of wanting to be free of the Ring that has caused him such terrible pain and suffering–and led him to murder his friend and so many others–and yet also desiring it ever more. It is hard not to feel at least a modicum of pity for him and even, dare I say it, to harbour hope that he will one day be able to gain redemption (even if, as savvy and experienced readers, we know that he won’t).

Next up, we at last meet the younger brother of the warrior Boromir, in the process learning a great deal more about how the men of Gondor think and behave in these latter days.