Tolkien—Author of the 20th Century

My first introduction to J.R.R Tolkien was as a Junior, in High School. One of my classmates was reading The Hobbit. He encouraged me to read the book. He was a weird kid who was into all kinds of strange stuff, so I declined. When I was a Freshman at Biola, my Lit Prof was deeply into fantasy and sci-fi.  She required Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was hooked, over the next three years I read all the Chronicles of Narnia. As a senior, I needed one more English class to fulfill that requirement for graduation. I was a great Sci-Fi fan and I had read most of Heinlein’s works, as well as some of Bradbury as well as Asimov. My final semester the head of the English Department offered a class in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. That was the class for me. We read much classic fantasy, some sci fi lit as well as works by both Lewis and Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I was hooked! Kay and I were engaged at the time, for my birthday about 6 weeks before we were married, she gave me the Lord of The Rings trilogy. I dove into volume one immediately. I was still working on volume 2 when we got married—it went with us on our honeymoon where I stole some time for myself to continue devouring the volume. (Kay did not feel cheated!) Several weeks later I finished the trilogy and over the next several years reread it several times. On each reading I saw more in the story than I had seen the previous readings. I also read some of the works that were published after Tolkien’s death. His ability to create a reality beyond our own, to create not only cultures but even languages continued to astonish me.

Over the years I have read several of the biographies of Tolkien that have been written.  From my perspective the work by Humphrey Carpenter is the best, but each biography looks at a different aspect of Tolkien’s life, his career, and the Inklings (the informal literary society that met at the Eagle and Child pub –which they referred as the “Bird & Baby,” where Tolkien, Lewis and several other authors of narrative fiction including Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Hugo Dyson and Nevill Coghill met twice weekly for decades). In all the Tolkien biographies his friendship with C.S. Lewis, who was a fellow faculty member at Oxford, plays an important part. In fact, it was Tolkien who urged Lewis to take the Professorship of  Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge when Oxford had passed him over for promotion. Nevertheless, Tolkien was a literary purist and when Lewis read to the group parts of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Tolkien panned it! The mixing of literary metaphors including the appearance of Father Christmas genuinely offended Tolkien’s purist literary sensibilities.

On my flight home from Guam in October, I browsed through the film offerings. I discovered the movie Tolkien.  With all that has been going on in our lives over the past year, selling our house in California and moving to Maine, I have not kept up with new films that have been released. I had not even heard of the movie. As a great Tolkien fan, that was the first film I watched. I was expecting a simple biography, a look at the life and writings of this renowned Professor and author. The film is radically different and much more moving than my expectation.

It is the story of Tolkien’s early life from childhood through young adulthood. The film traces his life from his childhood, through his time as a student at Oxford and includes his experiences in the trenches in France during WWI and the effect these events had on his life.

But the story is not told chronologically. As the film opens Tolkien a young Lieutenant is in the British army is in the trenches in France avoiding German bullets while trying to find a lost comrade, one of his lifelong friends.

It then cuts to his childhood, exploring  his childhood emotional losses: he had lost his father when he was four  years old,  later when he was just 12 years his mother died as well. His guardian was a Catholic priest (played by Colm Meany, whom you may remember as Chief O’Brien from Star Trek TNG and Deep Space 9), whose obvious but unstated desire was for the young Ronald to become a priest.

Much of the film focuses upon his secondary school (High School) and Oxford years—the formative years that set the pattern for his life. Without family, Tolkien’s “family” became a handful of schoolmates who bonded together as a brotherhood, an invincible alliance. This handful of schoolboys swore loyalty to one another “to the death.” Theirs was a brotherhood of loyalty, courage, fellowship: an invincible alliance. One that did not dissolve as they matured to adulthood. Even in the midst of their disagreements their loyalty to one another and the “fellowship” held firm.

The question for them became, “How shall we live?” Out of their shared loyalty they conceived of the goal—the great quest. We might say, “The impossible dream.” This fellowship grows and takes numerous turns. It is this loyalty, courage, fellowship and mutual devotion that leads Tolkien to risk his life to find a lost comrade in the trenches on the field of battle in WWI.

Comradeship. Loyalty. Brotherhood by choice. And remembrance of those who have fallen—themes that weave their way into the The Hobbit, and in a much more profound way into The Lord of the Rings.

What makes the film Tolkien different from the literary biographies? This film focuses not on his professional career as an Oxford Don, or his influence as a celebrated author of fantasy. Tolkien looks at his early life, the traditions, loyalties, heartaches and formative events that became the basis for themes in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

As the credits rolled, I found myself deeply touched.

Although he died nearly 50 years ago in 1973, his renown has continued to grow. At the turn of the millennium he was acclaimed by many as The Greatest Author of the 20^th Century.