The Birthday Boy

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born this day in 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, the older son of John and Mabel Tolkien, who had moved for the business opportunity John had of working as a bank manager there. After Arthur’s death three years later the rest of the family (which by this time included Ronald’s younger brother Hilary) stayed in England permanently. Despite his distant birth and foreign name, Tolkien has become forever linked with the idea of Englishry through his efforts to create ‘a mythology for England.’

Whenever this time of year rolls around I always have thoughts, not only what the world would be like if Tolkien had never existed, but also most particularly what my life would have been like if I had never found his work. If I had never gone to a high school play of The Hobbit when I was nine, which led me to read The Hobbit in middle school, which led me to The Lord of the Rings and the works of C. S. Lewis in high school, how different my life would have been. Better? Worse? Definitely different, and hard to imagine. The works of Tolkien, even the example of his life, continue to be a deepening influence on my understanding of literature, on my faith, and on my philosophy of life.

Middle-earth, of course, was already quite celebrated when I came to it, but it had more of a cult status. It was in no way the easy popular phenomenon that the Jackson films have since made it. Then it was the province of geeks and weirdos and a hardcore of literary scholars, and the price of admission to the temple was actually reading Tolkien’s work. There were no super deluxe illustrated annotated editions to preen over; battered paperbacks were the common treasures. There was no settled widespread iconography; when someone said ‘Gandalf’, Ian McKellen did not spring immediately to mind to obliterate all other portrayals.

There were many artists and even authors who strove to develop Middle-earth and even more broadly the fantasy genre (which Tolkien’s work at least codified). The difference in those days was that the core of fans acted as gatekeepers and critics, as they had since the days when the Ace pirated paperback edition was driven out of existence by those ‘respectful of a living author’s wishes’. The difference these days is that such licensed deviations as Middle-earth: Shadows of War or Amazon’s The Rings of Power offer up lore contrary to Tolkien’s actual vision, and the unwary and enthusiastic accept them as equal to Tolkien’s invention.

Sorry to go off on such a side rant. The road to Middle-earth that I took is still there and indeed has deepened with each new authentic Tolkien publication; it just may be harder for a new fan to find under the parasitic undergrowth. Middle-earth, and indeed the fount and spring that The Lord of the Rings has proved to be, is a gift that keeps on unfolding. I don’t know how many times I have read the books, but yesterday was the first time I ‘saw’ Sam finding the site of ‘dreadful feast and slaughter’, a scene soon passed over, but which seems to me worthy of illustration.

It was nearly a year ago that I started my examination of LOTR, and in that time I’ve barely unpacked the half of it. I think I will have reached my own end before I ever come to the end of Middle-earth. Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien.