The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien
read: 2012
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

In most fantasy novels, the reader is brought into the world by an outsider. Tolkien uses this convention in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The reader doesn't see the world through the eyes of Gandalf or one of the elves, but through a lowly hobbit. This allows him to learn about the world as Bilbo or Frodo does. But partway through The Lord of the Rings, the narrative shifts perspective from Frodo to Samwise Gamgee. This is a sign that Frodo's extended ownership of the ring has transformed him from a simple hobbit we can relate to it into someone wrestling with forces beyond our understanding.

Tolkien's best characters tend to possess a lot of humility. Gandalf knows he cannot possess the ring because it will destroy him. Gandalf is also the only wizard who is interested in the lesser beings of Middle Earth, such as the eagles and the hobbits, and this ends up being one of the major factors in his success. Frodo recognizes his own lack of courage and this inspires his brave choice at the end of book two - he knows he must leave alone with the ring right then because he will not be strong enough to do so later.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien
read: circa 2001
Guardian 1000 Novels

Bilbo's acquisition of The One Ring in The Hobbit doesn't seem especially significant - it's just a cool ring that turns him invisible. It wasn't surprising when Tolkien Professor Corey Olsen explained that Tolkien didn't  initially conceive of the ring as a dark artifact of Sauron, and in fact that he re-wrote The Hobbit a bit to make it more menacing in subsequent editions.

Professor Olsen spent a lot of time talking about luck, coincidence, and deus ex machina devices in The Hobbit. In light of Tolkien's strong religious believes and the framework he's set up in The Silmarillion, these apparent lapses make more sense - there is literally a "deus" in Iluvatar pulling the strings.

The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion
by J.R.R. Tolkien
read: 2014

I would have had a lot of trouble getting through The Silmarillion if not for Professor Corey Olsen's course on J.R.R. Tolkien's works. Tolkien's fascination with names is distracting - he will often give three or four names for something and few other distinguishing details. The prose style is often lifeless, akin to a textbook. But Professor Olsen introduces a concept at the beginning of his lecture series on the book: events in The Silmarillion echo other events in the book, in other works of Tolkien, and other mythological and religious stories. These echoes paint a fascinating, almost fractal pattern reverberating through the world - we see the same behaviors, flaws, tragedies, and triumphs repeated, but writ smaller and smaller as time goes on. We start out with the Valar opposing Morgoth and end with Elves and men against Sauron (and in The Lord of the Rings, men and hobbits against an even weaker version of Sauron). The inhabitants of the world become more and more distant from Iluvitar, the creator of all - in a way that it's not hard to imagine Tolkien (a devout Catholic) finds mirrors our society's relationship with God.

Tree and Leaf

Tree and Leaf
by J.R.R. Tolkien
read: 2013

Tree and Leaf is not a novel but a collection of two of J.R.R. Tolkien's earlier works. Pairing them together emphasizes how the themes in the essay "On Fairy-Stories" resonate in the story "Leaf: by Niggle." Tolkien was a devout Christian. Today fantasy novels come under attack for being occult and against Christian values, but Tolkien didn't see it that way. He spells this out explicitly in "On Fairy-Stories," making the case for both the recreational value of fantasy and also its ability to expose the reader to wonder, wonder that ultimately can only come from God. He also makes the case implicitly in "Leaf," telling an allegorical story to prove the value of art and its role in helping people find faith and salvation.

These are the first readings in Professor Corey Olsen's course on Tolkien. I just finished Lord of the Rings, and it'll be interesting to see how he relates Tolkien's world view to his magnum opus, which is much longer and more subtle than "Leaf."