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Quote of the Day: The Least of Us
“There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
September 21, 2017 is the eightieth anniversary of the publication of a favorite book from my childhood and beyond, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s The Hobbit. (It’s also the day before September 22, and so a premature “Happy Hobbit Day” to you all!)
At the time, Tolkien was a 45-year-old South African expatriate who’d lived in England since he was three, ever since he, his mother, and his brother went there on a family visit, only to find that his father died in South Africa while the rest of the family was away. He spent much of his youth in my old stomping grounds of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, Birmingham, Edgbaston, and the Malvern Hills, and I can see this in some of his descriptions of the “Shire.” He was an alumnus of King Edward’s School in Birmingham, as was my Uncle Arthur, who was about 10 younger than Tolkien, but met up with the great man, on occasion, at “Old Boy” reunions.
The young, newly married, Tolkien was posted to war in France as a signals officer in June of 1916. Four months later, he was invalided home with trench fever, in the first of many such instances. Although he survived the war (at one point, he wrote “Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute”), many of his childhood friends did not. The way in which his war experiences changed him, or informed his worldview, is a matter that has been speculated on and written about for decades, but Tolkien did not say very much about it himself.
After the war, Lt. Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary, and then began his academic career, during which he famously joined an informal literary discussion group known as The Inklings. Other well-known members of the group included, at one time or another, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Lord David Cecil, and Owen Barfield. Tolkien’s contributions to scholarship, particularly in the fields of linguistics and medieval literature are legion, and took place at the same time he was writing the work that would make his a household name.
As a child, Tolkien and his friends formed secret societies, invented worlds, and created secret languages. (Fittingly, his work during the Second World War was as a cryptographer.) So it seems quite appropriate that his first popular book, which was largely written for his own children, involved a fellowship (lower case “F”), a magical world of wizards, dwarves, elves, and trolls, and secret writings. When the book was first published, it became popular with adults as well as children, and literary history was assured when Tolkien was asked to produce a sequel.
So much has been written about Tolkien that is far beyond the scope of this post — his scholarship, his Catholicism, his worldview — have at it in the comments, please.
J.R.R. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. He is buried beside his beloved wife, Edith, under a marker that refers to them as Beren and Luthien, characters in a poem that tells of the love between the mortal man Beren, and the immortal elf-maiden Luthien. (Tolkien often referred to himself and his wife by these names.)
So, why this particular Quote of the Day?
Because I think we occasionally need a reminder that it might be the smallest, and least likely among us, who sometimes lead the way. We should be mindful of that.
Not to go all political on you (God forbid), but I’ve always thought it was one the dumber things that came out of Senator John McCain’s mouth, when he insulted the “tea party hobbits.” You might say (I know I would) that it was a deplorable moment for him.
Clearly, Senator McCain is not a Tolkien afficionado. His loss, believe me.
But Tolkien knew. On March 28, 1958, he spoke at a celebratory “Hobbit Dinner” in Rotterdam, and concluded his remarks with this toast: “To the Hobbits! And may they outlast all the Wizards!”
Amen to that.
Published in Literature
The only thing I can say in response is this: if I ever want to lose myself, to instantly be far away from here, all I have to do is pick up one of those books, open to a random page, and bang, I’m there, like stepping through the back of a wardrobe (see what I did there?). They are masterful, and timeless works of art.
When I heard him say that, I thought that he clearly didn’t understand either end of his attempted equation.
I’ve had a pint at the Eagle and Child. Well worth a visit. Have enough pints and you’ll start seeing Frodo et al.
He saw himself as a Hobbit. Nothing like second breakfast, a comfortable chair, and a pipe.
I also love his use of Anglo-Saxon Futhorc.
Tolkien was very popular when I was in college in the 1970s, but I didn’t read any. I only started reading his books in about 2002, and once I started, I plowed through the entire Middle Earth oeuvre. I especially liked the Silmarillion, which I think is an excellent Creation story.
And this is another fine entry in the Quote of the Day Series. For those who would like to join the fun of finding and providing a quote, we still have September 26th available. When that’s taken, I’ll put up the schedule for October. The Quote of the Day is so easy that even a tank commander could do it.
I recently finished a re-read of the Hobbit and LOTR. While I was reading LOTR I was also reading Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.
In Tolkien’s world, a Hobbit, a Halfling, is chosen to save all Middle Earth.
In our world, God chooses an illiterate teenage peasant girl to save France.
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” 1 Cor 1:27
Sorry about snatching up 9/22, but I had a good reason for taking it (see tomorrow’s QOTD).
It comes in pints!??
More half-pints. :D
I discovered Tolkien in high school and every 10 years or so, I re-read some of the books. I had my first mulled wine on a cold, rainy December day at The Eagle and Child (also known as The Bird and Baby.)
One of my favorite Tolkien quotes (not from his books): “The real ‘soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Lovely, @she! I’m off to have my nth-Breakfast!
Wonderful!
I urge anyone who visits the UK to visit the traditional pubs. Many of them are struggling at the moment. There’s just something very “right” about sitting down and having a meal in a building with a sign behind the bar that says something like, “Food and Drink Have Been Continuously Served on These Premises Since the Year AD 1377.”
One of our favorites is the Rose and Crown in Ludlow, Shropshire. Well worth a trip, as is Ludlow itself.
Yaay! I’m not the only one. His tale of how the evil started is brilliant and sublime.
How the “races” started (Elves, Dwarves, Men, etc.) is incredibly moving. I’m not a believer (though I envy you all), but when I contemplate/wrestle with the question, I always think of his fascinating origin myth. Meditating on the difference between Elves and Men as he describes it leaves me with so much more to think about than many Christian apologetics. His pal C. S. Lewis has this effect on me too.
I highly recommend the audio version. I had it on cassettes, not sure if it’s at Audible. It’s performed very well, with musical background effects that make it a very memorable experience. I can hear it now, in all its majesty, as I type this.
The Silmarillion will change the way you think about the other tales, give you a new context for them. Why Aragorn was as he was, and why his marriage to Arwen was so rare and special. Where the Balrog and Shelob came from. And on and on. The Hobbit and LOTR are both stories taking place at the end of something – the Third Age; the adventures take place on the bones of a much older civilization, from which our plucky characters descend. The Silmarillion is a collection of tales from the first two ages.
We are evidently living in the Fourth Age, the age of Men.
My favorite quote from LOTR, about Sam as he, through “good Hobbit sense”, conquered the ring’s hold over him:
The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.”
This is profound self-awareness, profound humility. He is the only person in the whole saga to hold the ring and give it up voluntarily. That’s huge. (Well, Tom Bombadil. But was he really a person?)
This is why I named my firstborn son Samwise.
A nickname of Mr She’s firstborn, Sam, also.
Off topic, but I just heard a most interesting thing from the great linguist, John McWhorter.
He says that Joan of Arc’s name is one of those fascinating mistakes made often in recounting history.
She is from Domremy, not “Arc”. There is no such place in France called Arc. Her last name was “Darc”.
In French, (I know you all know this) “of” (from) is “de”. Or d’ if followed by a vowel, as in D’Artagnon. Somebody way back, when writing this story up for posterity, misunderstood that last name Darc, thinking it meant “from Arc” and inserted the apostrophe. It stuck, and here we are.
Indeed. The version I have is on 46 CDs, narrated by Rob Inglis, who not only reads incredibly well, but sings all the songs. All the times I’ve read the LOTR before, I simply skipped over the songs, but hearing them sung was a revelation. In particular, the lament for Boromir is awesome, and very moving.
Even better, she was born in the Duchy of Bar. So, she doubles the tradition of French wins under women and foreigners.
About 20 years ago, I attended a short course in Boston, Lincolnshire and stayed at the White Hart. We traveled around The Wash to examine the sediments created by the 6-metre tides. Anyway, on one of the days we stopped at a country pub for lunch. Being an American, I always thought a pub was just Brit for “bar,” but here I found out that it really was “a public house” and there were families with children eating lunch there. Great food, great beer, great time.
Glad you had a good time. I have a bit of a personal connection to “pubs” as the building containing this one, The Plough Inn at Stretton On Fosse was, at one time, my ancestor’s home. My family didn’t own the whole building (you can see from their website that it’s very wide, but was in one end or the other, left or right, I’m not quite sure which. It’s beautiful country.
Another nice place is The Peacock Inn in Tenbury Wells. It’s quite an establishment (15th century coaching inn) which also has rooms. Being centrally located to my family’s scatter-plot around England, for the last thirty years, was the traditional meeting point when we were looking for a place to eat and stay.
For many years, they served my brother-in-law’s mother’s prize-winning rabbit pie on the menu (Mrs. Boswell’s Rabbit Pie. Don’t know if they still do.) I don’t do rabbit pie, but if that’s your thing, I understand it’s very good.
You will be seeing more about Tolkien in the next few months because of a video game (revolutionary in design) by Monolith Studios called Middle Earth: Shadow of War, a sequel to Shadow of Mordor. You might have already seen some strange commercials with orcs on TV or online. The narrative riffs off Tolkien’s themes (like the dangerous allure of power) and ventures into some unwritten details about characters like Shelob and the elven silversmith Celebrimbor. The first game’s narrative was well crafted and suited Tolkien’s fictional world. But it is more game than film, so the most important stories are those unique to each player. Gamers will understand.
Joseph Pearce has an interesting book called Tolkien: Man and Myth. In it, Pearce argues that the grandfather of modern fantasy fiction held an anachronistic view of mythologies, which is that myth is a means of communicating truth. Tolkien was fascinated by Europe’s old pagan religions and folktales. Supposedly, he ascribed to a theory of “progressive revelation”, which means in part that God gradually introduced Himself through the images and experiences familiar to distinct peoples.
Incidentally, that’s an interest that made another “high fantasy” world so popular. The Witcher games spin off The Witcher novels and employ a wealth of East European folklore to construct a fascinating setting.
It’s difficult for younger generations to appreciate how recently Tolkien was alive. His literary influence is so immense that it seems like epic tales of knights and dragons have always been popular.
I read once that only the Christian Bible has been translated and printed as broadly as The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien created a mythology of England and the whole world loves it.
All I’ve seen of England is London. But there one of my favorite memories is drinking in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, where Mark Twain supposedly frequented. It was built so many centuries ago that I had to crouch beneath the ceiling on the way to the can.
It would be nice to stop in some more pubs, old and new.
That’s not a Y, it’s a Þ (Thorn). In some scripts, it is a bit looser on the top join and looks like a flowing Y. So, if you haven’t got a thorn, a “Th” will do.
And my son #3, Sam. I had a perfect excuse (to my mother and mother-in-law), as he was born on my grandfather Sam’s BD. They told all he was named after my grandfather Sam Flanagan; son #3 knows better he was named for Samwise.
Although only 22, he has well lived up to the name.
I was blessed with a 6th grade teacher, Carolyn Jackson, who read aloud to our class The Hobbit (she had been turned onto the Lord of The Rings by her college-aged children).
I was hooked, read all the books on my own in high school.
My husband, who is the master of reading aloud, started with The Hobbit when son #1 was 3 and finished the series by the time the fourth child was a toddler.
And then it was time to start over again. Night after night, for years, I would sit it my office and work, he would sit in the hall between the bedrooms, reading aloud and trying to stay awake (and not always successful; he would doze and wake up talking about work) while trying to get the kids to sleep.
There is nothing more magical than being read to aloud. I loved it, and the kids did too. My husband though still dozes and wakes, talking of work.
The Three Horseshoes and the Original Oak in Leeds are good choices, too, if one were to undertake to visit pubs in the places where Tolkien lived and worked.
There is so much more to this. Beren is the great warrior hero who battles against evil and falls in battle, only to be saved by Luthien, the PE-Goat (prettiest elf girl of all time), who then gives up her immortality to live with the mortal man she loves. There is something incredibly touching in the fact that at the end of their lives, after nearly 60 years of marriage, this is what they put on their common gravestone.
@She, I like this each time I re-read it, though I’m only allowed to “like” once. Nicely done.
Agreed. Once you get a taste for Tolkein, the Silmarillion stands out as his most impressive work.