Celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State in what is now the Republic of South Africa. The son of an English banker and homemaker, Ronald's (as he was called by his family) father passed away when he was three years old on an extended visit to England. The sudden loss of a livelihood for the family meant Ronald's family would not return to Africa, and soon found themselves living with maternal grandparents in the Birmingham suburb of Kings Heath. 

The Tolkien monogram

As a boy, Tolkien would often venture off and explore the hills and valleys of the Midlands of England, with these childhood adventures undoubtedly leaving a lasting and indelible impact on his imagination. When a monetary gift enabled young Ronald to attend the King Edward's School in Birmingham, his mother relocated the family to that city and gave the young student an important opportunity to learn at a very prestigious school. Already attending a Roman Catholic church (mother Mabel had been received into the Catholic faith in 1900) Tolkien soon came under the guidance of one of the priests of the Birmingham Oratory and a Catholic education would always have considerable weight on the thinking of Tolkien. He remained a devout Roman Catholic until the end of his days.

J.R.R. Tolkien in a Great War uniform of the British Army.

When he was just 16 years old, Ronald met Edith Mary Bratt, the 19 year old daughter of a Handsworth shoemaker. Shortly before his 21st birthday, Ronald wrote her a letter and proposed marriage. Already betrothed to another, Edith never-the-less returned the ring to her previous suitor and the couple were married on the 22nd of March 1916. Although there had already been two years of the "War To End All Wars", Tolkien elected to finish his degree before taking a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, a local infantry regiment. He was later transferred to the 11th Service Battalion of the British Expeditionary Force in 1916 and after arriving in France was moved again, this time to the front where he participated in the massive Somme Offensive.

He would not be there long though. In late October 1916 Tolkien contracted trench fever, a lice-borne illness that was endemic to those horrible conditions. This may have been a blessing in disguise because it was at the Somme and specifically Beaumont Hamel that Tolkien would lose many of the friends with whom he had joined the army. It was also during his recovery that he started work on stories that would later become the First Age of Middle-Earth, which included many massive and catastrophic battles between the forces of good and evil.

After the war and his recovery, Tolkien took a job with the Oxford English Dictionary before finding an academic position as a Reader (Lecturer) at the University of Leeds in 1920. Five years later he moved south to Oxford and was named the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College. It was at Oxford that he would encounter that less-than-exciting student paper on which he wrote: "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit." The finished manuscript of The Hobbit would eventually find its way into the hands of publisher Stanley Unwin (with the help of a favourable review by Stanley's son, Rayner) and onto book shelves by September 1937. 

Tolkien in Oxford during his later years

The Hobbit would go on to significant acclaim and when Mr. Unwin asked for a sequel, Tolkien set about completing the manuscripts for what would eventually become the darker and more mature The Lord of the Rings. This volume used one of the minor items found in The Hobbit as its key plot device and ended with the dark lord Sauron overthrown by the combined forces of good led by the wizard Gandalf, Frodo Baggins of the Shire (another Hobbit) and the rightful claimant to the throne of two ancient kingdoms. Originally intended as a one volume book, it was subsequently divided into three separate volumes with the final volume The Return of the King released in October 1955. In subsequent years The Lord of the Rings would garner astonishing levels of popularity and is currently the second best-selling single volume book of all time, behind only Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It has also been subsequently transformed into films (both live-action and animated), comic books, theatre shows and other media.
  

The Eagle and Child in Oxford was the pub where the Inklings would often meet to talk about their books. Photo by Author.

In 1977, four years after his death on September 2nd 1973, The Silmarillion, a collection of the tales of Tolkien's First Age of Middle-Earth, was edited by his son Christopher and Canadian Guy Gavriel Kay, and released for readers. This volume, much more dense and historical than The Lord of the Rings never-the-less remains my favourite book. In late 2011 while visiting Oxford, I had the good fortune of having a pint in one of the pubs where Tolkien's group of friends, the "Inklings", met regularly to discuss literature and religion among other things. It was a highlight of my time living in England and I'll be certainly be raising a pint of Ale for him again tonight, as I celebrate what would be J.R.R. Tolkien's 122nd birthday. 

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king

WGTB Reviews The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

There's always something risky when you see a beloved book turned into a film. I first read The Hobbit when I was eleven years old and it very quickly led me to reading Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and the rest of J.R.R. Tolkien's works. I still count him as my favourite author and when Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films came out over a decade ago, I'll admit I was a little skeptical about how it was going to be done. I've since come to appreciate the LOTR trilogy of films and walked into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with the guarded optimism that I've acquired over the past decade. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett & Christoper Lee. RATED: PG-13,  TIME: 169 Minutes 

(Warning: Some Spoilers Below)

Like Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, this film draws upon the larger Legendarium of Tolkien and is not just an interpretation of The Hobbit. There are some subtle but noticeable changes made to the story in order to drive the the plot forward, but for the most part it sticks to the earlier part of the 1937 novel, albeit with some Dwarven back story from the The Unfinished Tales and Lord of the Rings appendices. The story begins with grandiose introduction to the story of the Lonely Mountain dwarves, then proceeds to the Shire, where we are introduced to an aged Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) talking to fellow LOTR alumni Elijah Wood (as Frodo Baggins). From there Bilbo tells the story of his adventure sixty years earlier where he set off (here played by a much younger Martin Freeman) with Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), Gandalf the Grey (Sir Ian McKellen) and a company of dwarves. Along the way the group encounters trolls, orcs, (somewhat) friendly elves and Gollum. As their are two more films coming, I won’t say where exactly it ends, but you can probably get the idea from this description.

Sir Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf the wizard. In this scene he inspects his new sword Glamdring.

For the most part I enjoyed the film. There were a few additions to drive the plot forward that the purist in me felt unnecessary, but this was not too distracting. Much was said about the higher filming speed used by Jackson for this trilogy, but I can honestly say that this didn’t give me the dizzies it seems to have some other reviewers. The flight in the Goblin cave did seem a little longer than necessary -- at times taking on a Star Wars II factory scene feel -- but there was no headache or obviously fake prosthetic to speak of. One of the more active scenes featuring Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy) moved chunkily in places but the effects on the whole were good. And New Zealand, as always, was stunningly beautiful.    


My biggest problem with this Hobbit film ties to one of my favourite moments in the LOTR trilogy. You may remember the scene with Gandalf and Frodo in Moria during The Fellowship of the Ring when they discover Gollum has been following them. Frodo remarks how it was a pity that Bilbo didn’t kill him when he had the chance. The wizard responded.

In The Hobbit the encounter between Gollum and Bilbo is protrayed well, but there was a problem. After Bilbo won (stole) the Ring, he was soon in a position to kill Gollum. This was well done, with Howard Shore’s music working perfectly with the internal debate registered in Martin Freeman’s eyes and the pitiable nature of Smeagol. I’ll admit my own eyes welled up watching. This is one of the most important moments in the entire history of Middle-earth and is what makes Hobbits truly great. Unfortunately, prior to this scene Jackson added a few lines of dialogue that detracted from Bilbo’s true nature and that really bothered me.  

See, earlier in the film there was an exchange between Gandalf and Bilbo where Gandalf speaks about mercy, violence and wisdom. Unfortunately, I found this really took away from Bilbo’s greatness and lessened him as a character in the film. Hobbits are the paragone of humble greatness in Tolkien's works, because they've always been able to make these type of realizations on their own: often while awash in a maelstrom of chaos or evil. That is Frodo, Samwise, Pippin and Merry in LOTR and Bilbo in The Hobbit. This virtue was lost in this film and it really came across that Bilbo's decision to spare Gollum was wisdom from Gandalf.  

That said, despite some flaws in characterization it was an entertaining afternoon of cinematic entertainment and I did think it was a good film. Howard Shore's soundtrack was simply outstanding, and despite some technological overkill in places, it was enjoyable and I'm maintaining my guarded optimism about the upcoming two we'll see in 2013. 3.5/5 STARS

Getting Ready for The Hobbit

With the first installment of Peter Jackson's rendition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit appearing in cinemas in a matter of days, I've been reading Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and some commentary lately to bone up on all things Tolkien. 

I'm a big Tolkien fan -- as I'm sure are so many of the readers of this blog. If you're interested in commentary on Tolkien's work, I highly recommend J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by T.A. Shippey, which I just finished. It's been out for twelve years now, but I found it to be a great introductory work to Tolkien criticism and makes the point that J.R.R. Tolkien was -- suffice it to say -- a very special author. A paragraph from the closing few pages was especially poignant and I thought I'd mention it here. It talks about fantasy literature on the whole and is a statement that could equally apply to comic books:

The argument that fantasy is intrinsically less truthful than realistic fiction could be extended to say that realistic fiction is intrinsically less truthful than biography. But we all now (know) that fiction allows a writer to express something, perhaps metaphorically or by analogy, which could not be expressed by history. The same argument should be extended to fantasy. That is surely why so many writers of the nineteenth century, including the ones most closely concerned with real-world events, have had to write in a fantastic mode. 

Long ago I asked my English teacher if I could write an essay for class about The Lord of the Rings. She declined because it ‘wasn’t really literature’. Admittedly, having read it three times prior, it was a somewhat obvious way to cheat on a high school project. But I also didn’t quite understand what she meant by it not being 'really literature'. It certainly seemed like literature to me! Shippey's book takes aim at anyone who thinks in a similiar fashion and I wish I had the help of his ideas to refute my old teacher's idea back then.

The street in Oxford, England where the Eagle and Child pub is located. It's the circular blue sign in the distance. 

I hope you enjoy the film. With the exception of a few things (notably Faramir) Peter Jackson has proved he’s good at making Tolkien’s stories into feature films. I’ll be reviewing them here so keep an eye in the next week or so. Thanks for reading!