Happy Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien!

 

Well, today is the 133^rd anniversary of J. R. R. Tolkien’s birthday, and as usual I like to note the date in some way, and perhaps meditate a bit on what the Professor means to me and on the state of his legacy.

This year I’d like to especially think about what he means to what they call my ‘faith life’. While a lot of people take Middle-earth to be a pagan place, or at least a pre-Christian place, deep reading reveals the profound religious bones that underlie the work, implicitly in The Lord of the Rings and more explicitly in The Silmarillion. Tolkien always makes sure his ‘legendarium’ never directly contradicts the Christian faith, and even went to some pains to make sure it would dovetail with the Bible, perhaps an account of Genesis from another point of view. A lot of recreational readers (especially of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings) take the religious aspect as just so much chin-wagging or window-dressing, a bit of verisimilitude to help sell the story, no more than a piece of colorful mythology like Crom or Cthulhu. I think this attitude might be what is leading (in part) to the inadequacies of things like The Rings of Power.

For myself, Tolkien’s work is what led me obliquely to my own Roman Catholic faith. I say obliquely, because Tolkien led me to C. S. Lewis and his apologetic work (not to mention G. K. Chesterton), and Lewis, though an Anglican, through his orthodoxy, helped lead me to be a Catholic (it’s funny how often that happens to Lewis’s readers). Further delving into Tolkien’s personal life confirmed him as an admirable paradigm and did not hurt my decision to become Catholic. This was further deepened by Holly Ordway’s Tolkien’s Faith last year, which finally solidified my understanding of Tolkien as a person.

Tolkien has often been jestingly proposed as a candidate for sainthood, even to the point of having devotional candles sold on Etsy. Although certainly not a recognized saint (yet) in the Catholic Church, there is no stricture against asking any blessed soul (whether in Heaven or still in Purgatory) for help and intercession. That might be superfluous for me, considering how much he already gives me with what he left here on Earth.

What can we expect from Tolkien in 2025? I really don’t know. I have not heard any rumors about publication for any ‘new’ unpublished works; I would certainly welcome another edition of The Old English Exodus (not Middle-earth related, but the most unavailable of his scholarly works) even if only in paperback. Perhaps the most we can hope for are ‘repotted’ volumes, collecting various strands of the ‘Great Tales’, like the books Christopher Tolkien edited together for Beren and Luthien or The Children of Hurin. Or perhaps an anthology volume, gathering several shorter works together, a book like A Tolkien Miscellany or Tales from the Perilous Realm. What is almost certain is that there will be a dozen or so mediocre-to-poor books ‘about’ Tolkien and Middle-earth and maybe one or two with real insight, with perhaps a useful ‘technical’ volume somewhere in the mix. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, Middle-earth exists in that same timeless bright, shadowy realm glimpsed from afar as if through deeps of time, that can never be stained by the dirty devices of marketing or modernity. And it is for this ‘birthday gift’ from J. R. R. Tolkien that I raise a glass in remembrance to him, on this, his birthday. Peace and honor and thanks to you, Professor!

Into the Archive: The Wood at Midwinter

The Wood at Midwinter, by Susanna Clarke [Bloomsbury. October 2024]

“From the bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

“Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees-and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

“One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst-and the path of her life is changed forever.

“Featuring gorgeous illustrations [by Victoria Sawdon] truly worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.”

-Amazon

I didn’t even know this book existed until the last day of December, and I knew when I saw it that it was my one book for January. I sent off for it then, and it came today. It is a beautiful little book; the picture does not do it justice. The blue and white is wonderfully accented by the gilt lettering and figures, giving it the look of a wintery medieval manuscript.

It is listed at 64 pages; of those, only 50 of those are dedicated to the story, and those are generously illustrated, so the text is really shorter. The afterword is 8 pages long. Clarke explains how the short story was written in 2020 for Christmas broadcast on BBC 4, and how it was influenced by the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Kate Bush.

Though it takes place as the same world as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, it can be described in one way as the exact opposite of that work; while the other book is a thick tome, this is a wafer-thin little volume. My copy arrived with thin scratches on the cover, not immediately noticeable, just slightly marring its beauty. The shipping and handling cost almost as much as the book itself. Clarke is supposed to be working on a novel-length sequel to JS&MN; I’m beginning to wonder.

 

"Since When is Murder a Heroic Act?"

 

υποκριτής

A Fox had by some means got into the store-room of a theatre. Suddenly he observed a face glaring down on him and began to be very frightened; but looking more closely he found it was only a Mask such as actors use to put over their face. “Ah,” said the Fox, “you look very fine; it is a pity you have not got any brains.”