On this day in 1892, a very talented boy was born to an English family in South Africa. Most of his childhood, though, was spent back in England, in a village called Sarehole.
Well - you probably know a bit about him already. In case you don’t, here is a link to the Wikipedia entry. Thinking about it, his life greatly affected how and what he wrote. He was a devout Catholic and that comes through in Lord Of The Rings, but he doesn’t hit his readers over the head with his religion. It took me a while to notice it!
His wartime experience in France is certainly the background for the Land of Mordor. He did lose two out of his three closest friends from school.
When I was at university I was about the only student who hadn’t read the book. And even so, it took me years to get around to it. Once I did, I was hooked. There was a girl in my Honours English class who wanted to write her thesis on it and most of the English staff wouldn’t supervise it because “It’s not literary enough.”
Clearly, they hadn’t read it! In the end, she got her supervisor - Professor Brown was a huge Tolkien fan, who had a manuscript hand written and bound as a Christmas gift for one of Tolkien’s friends, which he used to hand around reverently in his tutorials, back in the days when a tutorial group was five or six people.
I love the power of the writing, the characters and the story. It’s not written for children, but has some of the things I love best about children’s fiction. Story and characters you can care about are more important than mere “beautiful writing”, although the writing is beautiful too.
And then there is The Hobbit, which was written for children, and has a hero who develops from a man who has to be dragged kicking and screaming from his comfort zone into one who is brave and quick thinking and is willing to trust his life to adventure. The elderly Bilbo, in the sequel, rejoices at being “back on the road with Dwarves!”
I have several copies of The Hobbit, including one illustrated by Michael Hague, one by Alan Lee, a couple illustrated by Tolkien himself and one annotated edition which, as wrk, as the annotations, features art work from around the world. I have my eye on a newer edition, which I bought for my great nephew, Eden. Oh, and there’s the special ebook I have, which has a number of goodies, including the option to hear Tolkien sing. As I hear the story, he got hold of one of those newfangled tape recorders and had a bit of fun recording some of his songs and poems. So these were worked into the enhanced ebook. (I also have some CDs of the Tolkien Ensemble performing the songs to their own music, one of which has Christopher Lee singing Treebeard.)
Something I learned a while back is that the meeting of the Ents, that race of walking trees, is cheekily meant to represent a faculty meeting, and Treebeard is meant to be Tolkien’s best friend, C.S Lewis, who did have a deep, booming voice like Treebeard’s.
Anyway, happy birthday, Professor! I am off to bed to reread some of your greatest book!
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| Public domain. The baby is Tolkien! |
Well - you probably know a bit about him already. In case you don’t, here is a link to the Wikipedia entry. Thinking about it, his life greatly affected how and what he wrote. He was a devout Catholic and that comes through in Lord Of The Rings, but he doesn’t hit his readers over the head with his religion. It took me a while to notice it!
His wartime experience in France is certainly the background for the Land of Mordor. He did lose two out of his three closest friends from school.
When I was at university I was about the only student who hadn’t read the book. And even so, it took me years to get around to it. Once I did, I was hooked. There was a girl in my Honours English class who wanted to write her thesis on it and most of the English staff wouldn’t supervise it because “It’s not literary enough.”
Clearly, they hadn’t read it! In the end, she got her supervisor - Professor Brown was a huge Tolkien fan, who had a manuscript hand written and bound as a Christmas gift for one of Tolkien’s friends, which he used to hand around reverently in his tutorials, back in the days when a tutorial group was five or six people.
I love the power of the writing, the characters and the story. It’s not written for children, but has some of the things I love best about children’s fiction. Story and characters you can care about are more important than mere “beautiful writing”, although the writing is beautiful too.
And then there is The Hobbit, which was written for children, and has a hero who develops from a man who has to be dragged kicking and screaming from his comfort zone into one who is brave and quick thinking and is willing to trust his life to adventure. The elderly Bilbo, in the sequel, rejoices at being “back on the road with Dwarves!”
I have several copies of The Hobbit, including one illustrated by Michael Hague, one by Alan Lee, a couple illustrated by Tolkien himself and one annotated edition which, as wrk, as the annotations, features art work from around the world. I have my eye on a newer edition, which I bought for my great nephew, Eden. Oh, and there’s the special ebook I have, which has a number of goodies, including the option to hear Tolkien sing. As I hear the story, he got hold of one of those newfangled tape recorders and had a bit of fun recording some of his songs and poems. So these were worked into the enhanced ebook. (I also have some CDs of the Tolkien Ensemble performing the songs to their own music, one of which has Christopher Lee singing Treebeard.)
Something I learned a while back is that the meeting of the Ents, that race of walking trees, is cheekily meant to represent a faculty meeting, and Treebeard is meant to be Tolkien’s best friend, C.S Lewis, who did have a deep, booming voice like Treebeard’s.
Anyway, happy birthday, Professor! I am off to bed to reread some of your greatest book!
Thanks for posting this. I had no idea that it was Tolkien's birthday.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard that story of The Ents and faculty meetings. It is fantastic.
Harold Bloom, who I love to read, but who is bit of a grouch and literary snob, still makes the argument that The Lord of The Rings should not be considered serious literature so the "not literary enough" theory is still kicking around. Personally I just enjoy the books and have gotten a lot out of reading them.
Ah, Harold Bloom! I believe he hates Harry Potter as well. As you say, a bit of a snob. Personally, I am a snob about “literary fiction” as I like story and characters and if you can also get “beautiful writing” as in LOTR, even better. If it’s on the short list for a Man Booker, it probably isn’t my cup of tea. Anyone who thinks that a book written by a university academic who knows all about history, folklore and language is not good enough for him is the one with the problem, not the author or fans. I suspect the issue is, “This is too popular!”
ReplyDeleteJ. R. R. Tolkien was one of those people that I recognize the name, but I knew very little about them. I've never read any of his books, but I have seen all the movies! I know the two works of art are never on the same level and shouldn't be compared to as the same either. Checking out his Wiki page. The love between Tolkien and Edith is so cute!
ReplyDeleteHi Elle! The LOTR films are works of art in their own right, made by people who were passionate about the books, but yes, they are different. The Hobbit movies are even more different from their source than the LOTR movies! I hope you will discover the books some day.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tolkien adored his Edith and I believe he had “Beren” and “Luthien” on their tombstones, for the hero and heroine of the strongest love story in his Middle-Earth fiction. You won’t find it in either of his most famous books, but it’s lovely.
At the same time, he had a tendency to stay out till the small hours most nights talking about things mediaeval with his male friends instead of with her. She must have loved him very much to put up with that!