Duriez Colin - Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings : a guide to Middle-earth

T OLKIEN AND T HE L ORD OF THE R INGS

By the same author

The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia (Crossway Books, 2000)

The Inklings Handbook (with David Porter, Chalice Press, 2001)

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (Sutton, 2003)

A Field Guide to Narnia (forthcoming, Sutton 2005)

T OLKIEN AND T HE L ORD OF THE R INGS

A GUIDE TO MIDDLE-EARTH

COLIN DURIEZ

This book was first published in 2001 by Azure

This edition first published in 2004 by Sutton Publishing Limited

The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved
Colin Duriez, 2001, 2013

The right of Colin Duriez to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9562 0

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

To my mother, Madge

Anar kaluva tielyanna

F OREWORD

The Reality of the Fantastic

I f youve paid good money for this book, then the chances are youll be fairly keen on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Therefore, it may come as something of a shock to you to know that there are those who are left absolutely cold by The Lord of the Rings and the other tales of Middle-earth.

Some people simply cant get to grips with an author who goes to such elaborate lengths in creating an entire history, geography, literature and language as background to a work of fiction.

Ironically, it is just this feature of The Lord of the Rings that others find most appealing. For them and, I might as well own up and say, for me as well the real strength of Tolkiens writing doesnt rest on such conventional elements of good fiction as story and character, excellent though he is at both, but on a skilfully created sense of fantastic realism.

Few other writers, before or since, have attempted anything on quite so grand a scale, and even fewer have created other worlds that whether in those insouciant tales of The Hobbit or Farmer Giles of Ham , or in that complex fantasy epic, The Silmarillion are so beguilingly convincing.

Why then did Tolkien labour so intently and take such meticulous care over something which isnt, in the literal sense of the word, true? Essentially, he saw no conflict between the fantastic and those things which could be verified by reason, logic or science; indeed, he firmly believed that if the fantasy writer approached his subject with the same degree of reason as would be expected of the non-fiction writer, the better the resulting fantasy would be.

It was a belief that stemmed from Tolkiens Christian view of the creative artist. Man, he said, had a natural desire to create because he was himself a created being made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

Tolkien went so far some may say too far and too fancifully as to suggest that a writers creations might actually become, in some sense, part of Gods greater Creation. All tales may come true, he hazarded, and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

For a great many readers, Tolkiens worlds dont have to come truethey seem true already. It doesnt matter to them why this should be; it is enough that it is. So what then is Tolkien saying in his stories? Unlike his friend C.S. Lewis, he was not fond of allegory (and only once wrote in that genre, with his short story Leaf by Niggle ); but he did passionately believe in what he referred to as the applicability of fantasy.

Tolkien knew that the most fantastical adventure remains a hollow artifice if it fails to engage its readers on an emotional level. Though we and Tolkiens characters are worlds apart, we identify with their feelings, share their dreams and fears. Which is why, heart in mouth, we follow Frodo and Sam on their struggle through the ash-pits of Mordor towards Mount Doom; or why real tears start in our eyes when we read of the ill-starred romance of Beren and Lthien.

And the presiding virtue in so many of Tolkiens tales is hope. Always, even in the longest and darkest night of Middle-earth, there glimmers a light however small and flickering of humanity, compassion and courage.

These and many other aspects of the fantasy realms of J.R.R. Tolkien are discussed by Colin Duriez in this book. Here you will find a listing of all the people, places and things of importance in Tolkiens writings. This, of course, is extremely useful if, for example, you cant quite remember who Amras was; what you would do with lembas; where in Middle-earth you would find Caras Galadon; or what you might expect to see in the Halls of Mandos.

The book also contains details of Tolkiens life, his friends and colleagues and the writers and thinkers who influenced his work; and most importantly summarises his beliefs and the way in which they are revealed in his books.

This volume will prove a welcome addition to any Tolkien readers bookshelf, since wherever you dip into its pages you can reckon on gaining some new understanding of Middle-earth or the man of extraordinary vision who created it. Apart from which, it is impossible to read Mr Duriezs book without wanting to read or reread Professor Tolkiens books, which is an undoubted compliment to both authors.

Brian Sibley

Preface

J .R.R. Tolkien is such a widely read author that it is difficult to believe that, once upon a time, his publishers were convinced that The Lord of the Rings might well make a financial loss for them. In those unenlightened days, the learned Professor could mutter the word orc at uncouth behaviour, or exclaim Mordor in our midst at an ugly example of modern life, without his meaning being known to the general public. Now the very word hobbit has entered the English language, with its own place in dictionaries. The readership of his books is well over 100 million (the print run of the first US paperback edition of The Silmarillion alone was reportedly over 2 million). He is read throughout the world in many languages.

Several polls of readers have made The Lord of the Rings their first choice. In 1996 the British bookshop chain, Waterstones, and a network TV programme, Book Choice , commissioned a poll of readers to determine the five books you consider the greatest of the century. The response was impressive. Around 26,000 readers responded, with 5,000 giving the first place to The Lord of the Rings , placing it in the number one position as the book of the century. Other polls repeated this preference. In 2000 Tom Shippey published J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century . He is a literary scholar who like Tolkien has held the Chair of English Language and Medieval Literature at Leeds University. His book opens with the increasingly plausible claim, The dominant literary mode of the twentieth century has been the fantastic, a claim he defends rigorously in the book. He speculates: