I really appreciate these posts, which are deepening my understanding of Tolkien. I wasn’t aware of academia embracing “object oriented ontology,” and, as a former nature writer, I think it’s a good thing.
On the realism vs escapism debate: I’m tired of it. Why can’t we have both? It’s a false dichotomy anyway. The minute we pick up any novel, we’re escaping our actual surroundings and situations and entering the lives of others, set in other places, whether near, far, or made up.
John, another great article. I really value the way in which you explore topics that may not be apparent to the casual reader but are relevant upon a deeper reading.
One of my personal frustrations with critics is that they sometimes insist on a work of art being all things for all people. I don't really understand this. Artists create at a specific point in time while accessing their own experiences and knowledge. The fact that Tolkien doesn't address every social issue isn't a detractor in my opinion. I think he does a rather good job addressing the issues he has prioritized.
Ecology and world-think are critical here. Having a perspective beyond that of human motivations is front and center. While humans have a role in the tale, they are not the focus, and their lives and desires are shown to be fleeting. The elves play a crucial role in tying the deep vision of worlds to a sentient being. I think that Tolkien does this in part to make it more relatable. In his time, proposing that trees or the world itself are sentient may have been a step too far for many readers (although he does play with this with the Ents). I see the elves as a bridge between the lesser races (those with short lives) and the long life/concerns of the created world itself. Because of this I see them as central to the story.
Indigenous Australians have an oral knowledge culture that stretches back into deep time (in human terms at least). For example they have songlines that bear witness to volcanism that happened thousands of years ago, and can describe cave systems that are now deep underwater, drowned long ago by seawater after the last glacial maximum. Perhaps they are our Elves, and that we should be paying more attention to indigenous cultures worldwide.
I want to echo what others have said about the value of these posts, which are certainly taking me new places with *The Fellowship of the Ring*. Old places, too, as I consider time moving forward and backward in my own life, trying to recall my first response to reading about Lothlorien when I was young. I recall that I loved that part of the book. I don't think I could have articulated it as the notion of deep time or make the connection to an ontology of place (or of nature/ecology; "object" seems to dry too me), but I certainly felt that this perspective was different from a human one. I was drawn to the elves, and I still like the idea of there being different conscious beings roaming the fictional realm of Middle Earth, not just humans.
This post also resonated as I dove into the "Treebeard" chapter in Book III this morning (yes, I'm ahead of schedule). We learn from Treebeard that the elves taught trees to speak, bringing in the idea that language or storytelling can be transformative for all beings. Through song and story, history is set down, even if imperfectly. I was amused to come upon Treebeard's "lore of Living Creatures," to which he recalled no reference to hobbits from the "old lists." I don't want to reduce something like deep time to a metaphor, but I do think the experience of it — the sense of always moving forward yet repeating, with some details lost as the river flows on — works something like memory.
I always have to stop myself from rolling my eyes whenever I remember that George R.R. Martin claimed that Tolkien's great flaw was that we don't know what King Elessar's tax policies were like, as though realism is achieved solely through knowing the exact yield of grain harvests and developing census records for your imagined world. I would argue that Tolkien made a far more realistic world in Middle-earth thanks to his deep knowledge of medieval literature and his love of language and nature. We don't read LotR for tax records, we read it to find adventure or solace or beauty or whatever you find in the books. The realism comes from the sense of place Tolkien built thanks to the details of time, place, and culture he wove into the narrative.
As for the modernists and their pooh-poohing of Tolkien for not talking about sexuality or what have you, I've always wondered at their obsessions with their libidos (or lack thereof). I don't want to read about the sex lives of aging men, thank you very much. I'll stick with my elves and hobbits.
I was really struck by Tolkien's description in the 1951 "Letter to Milton Waldman" that appears at the start of the Silmarillion: "a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel ... But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with ‘fading’, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming – even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts."
Tolkien goes on to describe some Magic (and all Machines) as being an attempt to use "Power" to "make the will more quickly effective". This sense of "clinging" strikes me a bit like the "attachment" that Buddhists try to avoid. But in this sense of the Buddhist point, I think I agree with the elves. As Gandalf says at the end of LOTR, tears are sometimes appropriate. I do think, however, that there's something to the idea that trying to resist the flow of time is problematic. But what are you to do if you're more-or-less immortal (as immortal as the earth) and you see beauty slipping away.
I also like how the best "Men" are the ones closest to (and most respectful of) the elves. I think the blending of the lineages and characteristics of elves and men is a great metaphor.
I really appreciate these posts, which are deepening my understanding of Tolkien. I wasn’t aware of academia embracing “object oriented ontology,” and, as a former nature writer, I think it’s a good thing.
On the realism vs escapism debate: I’m tired of it. Why can’t we have both? It’s a false dichotomy anyway. The minute we pick up any novel, we’re escaping our actual surroundings and situations and entering the lives of others, set in other places, whether near, far, or made up.
John, another great article. I really value the way in which you explore topics that may not be apparent to the casual reader but are relevant upon a deeper reading.
One of my personal frustrations with critics is that they sometimes insist on a work of art being all things for all people. I don't really understand this. Artists create at a specific point in time while accessing their own experiences and knowledge. The fact that Tolkien doesn't address every social issue isn't a detractor in my opinion. I think he does a rather good job addressing the issues he has prioritized.
Ecology and world-think are critical here. Having a perspective beyond that of human motivations is front and center. While humans have a role in the tale, they are not the focus, and their lives and desires are shown to be fleeting. The elves play a crucial role in tying the deep vision of worlds to a sentient being. I think that Tolkien does this in part to make it more relatable. In his time, proposing that trees or the world itself are sentient may have been a step too far for many readers (although he does play with this with the Ents). I see the elves as a bridge between the lesser races (those with short lives) and the long life/concerns of the created world itself. Because of this I see them as central to the story.
Indigenous Australians have an oral knowledge culture that stretches back into deep time (in human terms at least). For example they have songlines that bear witness to volcanism that happened thousands of years ago, and can describe cave systems that are now deep underwater, drowned long ago by seawater after the last glacial maximum. Perhaps they are our Elves, and that we should be paying more attention to indigenous cultures worldwide.
I want to echo what others have said about the value of these posts, which are certainly taking me new places with *The Fellowship of the Ring*. Old places, too, as I consider time moving forward and backward in my own life, trying to recall my first response to reading about Lothlorien when I was young. I recall that I loved that part of the book. I don't think I could have articulated it as the notion of deep time or make the connection to an ontology of place (or of nature/ecology; "object" seems to dry too me), but I certainly felt that this perspective was different from a human one. I was drawn to the elves, and I still like the idea of there being different conscious beings roaming the fictional realm of Middle Earth, not just humans.
This post also resonated as I dove into the "Treebeard" chapter in Book III this morning (yes, I'm ahead of schedule). We learn from Treebeard that the elves taught trees to speak, bringing in the idea that language or storytelling can be transformative for all beings. Through song and story, history is set down, even if imperfectly. I was amused to come upon Treebeard's "lore of Living Creatures," to which he recalled no reference to hobbits from the "old lists." I don't want to reduce something like deep time to a metaphor, but I do think the experience of it — the sense of always moving forward yet repeating, with some details lost as the river flows on — works something like memory.
I always have to stop myself from rolling my eyes whenever I remember that George R.R. Martin claimed that Tolkien's great flaw was that we don't know what King Elessar's tax policies were like, as though realism is achieved solely through knowing the exact yield of grain harvests and developing census records for your imagined world. I would argue that Tolkien made a far more realistic world in Middle-earth thanks to his deep knowledge of medieval literature and his love of language and nature. We don't read LotR for tax records, we read it to find adventure or solace or beauty or whatever you find in the books. The realism comes from the sense of place Tolkien built thanks to the details of time, place, and culture he wove into the narrative.
As for the modernists and their pooh-poohing of Tolkien for not talking about sexuality or what have you, I've always wondered at their obsessions with their libidos (or lack thereof). I don't want to read about the sex lives of aging men, thank you very much. I'll stick with my elves and hobbits.
Also, BTW, I believe the oldest living thing in the world IS TREES. Specifically Pando, the Aspen grove in Utah: https://www.treehugger.com/nature-blows-my-mind-year-old-aspen-grove-clones-itself-4859208.
I was really struck by Tolkien's description in the 1951 "Letter to Milton Waldman" that appears at the start of the Silmarillion: "a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel ... But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with ‘fading’, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming – even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts."
Tolkien goes on to describe some Magic (and all Machines) as being an attempt to use "Power" to "make the will more quickly effective". This sense of "clinging" strikes me a bit like the "attachment" that Buddhists try to avoid. But in this sense of the Buddhist point, I think I agree with the elves. As Gandalf says at the end of LOTR, tears are sometimes appropriate. I do think, however, that there's something to the idea that trying to resist the flow of time is problematic. But what are you to do if you're more-or-less immortal (as immortal as the earth) and you see beauty slipping away.
I also like how the best "Men" are the ones closest to (and most respectful of) the elves. I think the blending of the lineages and characteristics of elves and men is a great metaphor.
Bombadil and the Ents are as old as anybody, but Bombadil seems to live mostly in the present.