The Genius of Tolkien
The high point of my Christmas was watching The Fellowship Of The Ring with the kids. Not for the first time, I was struck by the brilliance of this exchange:
FRODO I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened. GANDALF So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
Tolkien, of course, knew whereof he wrote. During the First World War he had served as a signals officer at the Somme and fought at the battle of Thiepval Ridge. Had he not succumbed to trench fever and been invalided out, he would almost certainly not have survived the war to write about hobbits. By 1918 all but one of his male childhood friends were dead.
One can guess that the Gandalf/Frodo dialogue above echoes something Tolkien heard many times on the Western Front: the "why me?" we all feel when it is our misfortune to live in interesting times.
But hey Ricochet friends, I don't want to leave you on a downer as New Year approaches. On the contrary, I want to leave you with a message of hope. There's some incredible wisdom in those lines of Gandalf's: first in their humbling recognition of just how utterly insignificant each one of us is in the vastness of space and time; second, in their acknowledgement that we do nonetheless have within us the power to make a difference.
It was true in the trenches of 1916. It remains true now. The dark forces of Mordor are on the march. We really might wish it otherwise but such is life, such is fate. Are we going to stay cowering in the false security of the Shire, waiting for the Orcs to arrive? Or we going to screw up our courage, seize that ring and venture all on the perilous journey to Mount Doom?
I think we know the answer, Ricochet friends. We are the Fellowship and together we shall prevail!
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Mar '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Mr Delingpole, I was interested to read in the UK Spectator (subscription only - I read it on the Kindle) that you were educated in Malvern -- my UK home is there, on the West side, at the foot of the Worcestershire Beacon.
It always seems to me that this area may well have been Tolkien's inspiration for the Shire?
As to our current Interesting Times -- we Hobbits seem to be lacking a leader -- only Mrs Bachmann remains as a long shot. I can't quite see Mr Romney prevailing against the dark forces of Mordor, aka Alinsky, but I hope to be wrong...
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Ha! David: I ALWAYS think of the Shire when I climb up the Malverns. But I think he also meant the Lickey Hills, which are even more Shire-like close though they are to Birmingham.
Jul '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
All times are "Interesting Times" to those living through them.
Dec '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Whom would lose the war in pursuit of his precious? I think I know who plays Smeagol in this adventure!
Mar '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Mr. Delingpole, "We are the Fellowship." We are the brotherhood of those that feel competent to make our own way in the world. Yesterday, I was reading about how derivatives were first created in our lifetime and how with no restraints the financial gurus created several hundred trillion dollars worth of bad paper that is still hanging over us.
After reading that explanation I realized that our financial gurus had fallen for the "Village Green Problem" described to every class in Economics 101. They and their fellow "crony capitalists" in Congress are volunteering to show us the way out.
In my opinion our way out is to depend on ourselves, to never allow the crony capitalists in Congress to tell us anyone is "too big to fail" and find our own way to Mount Doom.
You know, we, in our society, comment occasionally on those who rely on the dole. It occurs to me that those who rely most of all on the dole are the crony capitalists of Wall Street and Congress. They are the best walking talking examples of Ayn Rand's villians who flim flam their was to sucking off the public trough.
Ron
Jun '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Unfortunately, that does not sound like Tolkiens' prose. That idiot director so screwed up the screenplay and the story that it is unrecognizeable in great part. Tolkien was a genius. The films, however, and sadly, were trash.
May '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
I've wondered if the eagles showing up towards the end of the battle at the Dark Gate (and if I recall correctly, at the Battle of the Five Armies) was a thinly-veiled reference to the US joining the World Wars to aid the "Men of the West" (as Aragorn calls them in the movie). Does the US have any allies waiting in the wings who will swoop in and help fight off today's evil?
And TucsonSean- you're being way too hard on the films, in my humble opinion. They were an adaptation. I doubt anyone expected an exact film portrayal of a massive work that had to be published in 3 parts. Jackson would have lost most of the audience out of sheer boredom at Tom Bombadil's appearance...
Dec '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Go Hobbits!
I'm pretty sure John McCain never read the books, or saw the movies.
/sgd/
Alumna of The Abbey School, Malvern Wells, frequent climber of both the Worcestershire Beacon and British Camp, niece of several uncles who attended King Edwards school, Birmingham (Google Tolkien, AE Houseman, Kenneth Tynan, Edward Burne-Jones, and even the incomparable Mark Steyn), and lover of the "Ring Cycle" since the age of 10.
Sorry, James, I'm sure that Tolkien was, like Langland, thinking of the Malvern Hills, not the Lickeys. Nothing compares to the view of the Vale of Evesham from the Malverns, on Boxing Day. Followed by festive celebrations complete with Morris Dancers and fine ale, and my secret guilty pleasure, Damson and Sloe Gin ice cream from the little kiosk that sells it in the hills . . .
May '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Mr. Delingpole, I too watched Fellowship (and Two Towers) last weekend, though not with my kids. (I am thinking my daughter who is a huge Harry Potter fan will appreciate Tolkein and I wanted to screen them with my 10 yr old daughter's eyes in mind.). There is indeed wisdom imparted. Looking forward to watching Return of the King.
Dec '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Sorry to go off topic, but I grew up in Malvern. Albeit in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States. As a child I found Malvern, England in the atlas, and always wondered what our town's namesake was like.
Now I know! The internet is a weird, playful, impressive place. Sometimes.
Mar '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
We're only guaranteed a time to be born and a time to die, what we do in between will define us.
Apr '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Please don't watch the movies! Please read the books! Especially with your kids! If you need visuals, there is a huge body of Tolkien-inspired art out there, including the Master's own drawings and paintings. Many of these are the foundations of Peter Jackson's astounding scene work. Sadly, Peter Jackson butchered some of the story's most important themes and characters to keep the movie under twelve hours.
Tolkien did not intend any correspondences between his story's characters and plot elements and any real historical event -- not a single one. He makes this clear in a letter to his publisher which is included in new editions of LOTR.
The most important application of Tolkien to today happens in the last conflict of the War of the Ring, which Jackson cuts completely from the movies. The hobbits rid themselves of an industrial regime and its confounding labyrinth of rules and oppression of commerce and free speech.
Tolkien held industrial technology beyond the comprehension of a person with common sense to be at best innocuously seductive -- he considered such contraptions and their efficiencies to be as insidiously evil (and as seductive) as Sauron's relentless quest for power.
Apr '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Like us, Tolkien was profoundly saddened by the growing power of the bureaucratic and industrial state. This sadness grows out of the regrettable loss of natural wisdom embedded in a culture.
Gandalf defends the keeper of the Prancing Pony in Bree against a charge of stupidity, claiming in the face of rather strong evidence to the contrary that he is wise enough on his own ground.
Gandalf also chides Theoden for discounting the value and wisdom found in old wives' tales.
Gandalf also finds wisdom in the ramblings of an old apothecary's assistant in Minas Tirith at the conclusion of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields when she recalls that the King could always be known in the past by his ability to heal.
Tolkien valued wisdom over intelligence and honest labor over the application of machines. He was a nature-lover, not an environmentalist.
The greatest wisdom passed on via Middle Earth is a sadness at the separation of art and reason in our modern world. Tolkien's elf-magic is intended as a re-marriage of art and reason.
On a personal note: more Tolkien posts! Every day we march on into oblivion proves his prescience!
Edited on December 28, 2011 at 4:05pmMar '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
I am afraid you are right, Mr Delingpole but, like She, I prefer to think of the Malvern Hills as the Shire. I will make a point, however, of visiting the Lickey Hills, sometime.
Maybe a Ricochet outing would be in order, taking in both? She, is that ice-cream kiosk at British Camp? If so, it was the one I often stopped at with my kids on the way home from school, in happier times, before our current Interesting Times.
May '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
James Delingpole:
It was true in the trenches of 1916. It remains true now. The dark forces of Mordor are on the march. We really might wish it otherwise but such is life, such is fate. Are we going to stay cowering in the false security of the Shire, waiting for the Orcs to arrive? Or we going to screw up our courage, seize that ring and venture all on the perilous journey to Mount Doom?
One reason men love war stories is because it's a lot simpler to do battle with enemies trying to kill you than to negotiate with neighbors trying to enslave you a little bit at a time.
Jan '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Maybe Tolkien didn't intend analogies to any historical event, but that last part of LOTR always makes me think of the England of Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan, who were getting started with their own "fundamental transformation" at the time Tolkien was finishing the books.
Mar '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
I find Gandalf's sentiment (which is found in perhaps exactly the same words in the book) to be profoundly religious in nature. What matters are the choices we make - essentially what we do with the cards dealt us.
It gives meaning to life itself.
Aug '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
We're the Fellowship? Are we sure we're not just contrarian Númenorians, sounding a warning but ultimately doomed to sink into the sea along with the arrogant leaders?
Or maybe we're living in Gondolin, ready to go isolationist when the world gets too evil, even though it ultimately does no good.
Tolkien was brilliant and the books deserve all the praise we've heaped on them... but Tolkien's beautiful world outside of the well-known Trilogy is full of "interesting times" that often end in doom. You can't have the Lord of the Rings without the Silmarillion; and you can't know if you're living in a triumphant Third Age or a dark Second Age until your time has passed.
Oct '11
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Aaron Miller
James Delingpole:
It was true in the trenches of 1916. It remains true now. The dark forces of Mordor are on the march. We really might wish it otherwise but such is life, such is fate. Are we going to stay cowering in the false security of the Shire, waiting for the Orcs to arrive? Or we going to screw up our courage, seize that ring and venture all on the perilous journey to Mount Doom?
One reason men love war stories is because it's a lot simpler to do battle with enemies trying to kill you than to negotiate with neighbors trying to enslave you a little bit at a time. · Dec 28 at 9:41am
wow! Can I steal that?...makes sense to me. Thanks
Edited on December 29, 2011 at 2:16amDec '10
Re: The Genius of Tolkien
Jimmie, I read Tolkien when I was about 14. (hmmmm..45 years ago, I didn't say that did I?) Tolkien was very intelligent and I got the analogy with Europe's Wars. I didn't find it that compelling. Yet, I agree with you that there is something interesting in the relationship of the Hobbit to the Wizard. However humble the Hobbit is the Great Wizard is in need of his service to fight the evil.
The character of the Hobbit is resourceful. Hobbits are poor and unable to afford carpeting. So they have the abiltiy to grow hair on the bottom of their feet to stay warm. Necessity is the mother of invention and Hobbits have a surplus of necessity so they invent.
All those who must do big things with few resources and against great odds can learn from Hobbits. All those who are lazy and greedy, who get royal reward for little effort, should fear Hobbits.
In 2010 the Hobbits came out in force. They won a great victory against long odds. Unfortunately, the whole evil is larger then the part defeated in that one battle.
The Wizard is knocking. He needs help for 2012.