Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

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euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Data Graham posted:

You sure about this? I don't remember werewolves.

Yup.

Some one with the electronic edition should post the passage where they attack and Gandalf turns into a gigantic avatar of Odin and wrecks werewolf face.

PJ didn't put it directly in the movie I guess because the whole scene is strange for the context of the story at that time . Gandalfs power is mostly hidden until Moria but I guess this was a good precursor.

The Fellowship being attacked by a Balrog and werewolves are nice Gondolin call backs. All that was missing was the robot dragons.

euphronius fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Aug 31, 2017

# ? Aug 31, 2017 12:53

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# ? May 20, 2024 05:23

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

The important thing that shows they are werewolves, rather than just regular wolves, is that the corpses disappear overnight and there is nothing remaining of them. Which is a pretty odd touch that LOTR never explains and even that passage from MR doesn't quite touch on. I guess they are evil spirits who have created a wolf-shape for themselves and when it is destroyed, abandon it so that nothing remains.

I dunno if I'd call Gandalf's power "hidden until Moria" exactly, he always conceals his strength to some extent but he's already had a big fight with the Nazgul on Weathertop where they magicked at each other so hard it was visible from three days' march away! But I guess that is not seen directly within the story. Still, we've already seen his supernatural capacity to set things on fire at least once before.

quote:

�I wish I had taken Elrond�s advice,� muttered Pippin to Sam. �I am no good after all. There is not enough of the breed of Bandobras the Bullroarer in me: these howls freeze my blood. I don�t ever remember feeling so wretched.�
�My heart�s right down in my toes, Mr. Pippin,� said Sam. �But we aren�t etten yet, and there are some stout folk here with us. Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I�ll wager it isn�t a wolf�s belly.�

For their defence in the night the Company climbed to the top of the small hill under which they had been sheltering. It was crowned with a knot of old and twisted trees, about which lay a broken circle of boulder-stones. In the midst of this they lit a fire, for there was no hope that darkness and silence would keep their trail from discovery by the hunting packs.
Round the fire they sat, and those that were not on guard dozed uneasily. Poor Bill the pony trembled and sweated where he stood. The howling of the wolves was now all round them, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off. In the dead of night many shining eyes were seen peering over the brow of the hill. Some advanced almost to the ring of stones. At a gap in the circle a great dark wolf-shape could be seen halted, gazing at them. A shuddering howl broke from him, as if he were a captain summoning his pack to the assault.
Gandalf stood up and strode forward, holding his staff aloft. �Listen, Hound of Sauron!� he cried. �Gandalf is here. Fly, if you value your foul skin! I will shrivel you from tail to snout, if you come within this ring.�
The wolf snarled and sprang towards them with a great leap. At that moment there was a sharp twang. Legolas had loosed his bow. There was a hideous yell, and the leaping shape thudded to the ground; the Elvish arrow had pierced its throat. The watching eyes were suddenly extinguished. Gandalf and Aragorn strode forward, but the hill was deserted; the hunting packs had fled. All about them the darkness grew silent, and no cry came on the sighing wind.

The night was old, and westward the waning moon was setting, gleaming fitfully through the breaking clouds. Suddenly Frodo started from sleep. Without warning a storm of howls broke out fierce and wild all about the camp. A great host of Wargs had gathered silently and was now attacking them from every side at once.
�Fling fuel on the fire!� cried Gandalf to the hobbits. �Draw your blades, and stand back to back!�
In the leaping light, as the fresh wood blazed up, Frodo saw many grey shapes spring over the ring of stones. More and more followed. Through the throat of one huge leader Aragorn passed his sword with a thrust; with a great sweep Boromir hewed the head off another. Beside them Gimli stood with his stout legs apart, wielding his dwarf-axe. The bow of Legolas was singing.
In the wavering firelight Gandalf seemed suddenly to grow: he rose up, a great menacing shape like the monument of some ancient king of stone set upon a hill. Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to meet the wolves. They gave back before him. High in the air he tossed the blazing brand. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning; and his voice rolled like thunder.
�Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!� he cried.
There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a leaf and bloom of blinding flame. The fire leapt from tree-top to tree-top. The whole hill was crowned with dazzling light. The swords and knives of the defenders shone and flickered. The last arrow of Legolas kindled in the air as it flew, and plunged burning into the heart of a great wolf-chieftain. All the others fled.
Slowly the fire died till nothing was left but falling ash and sparks; a bitter smoke curled above the burned tree-stumps, and blew darkly from the hill, as the first light of dawn came dimly in the sky. Their enemies were routed and did not return.

�What did I tell you, Mr. Pippin?� said Sam, sheathing his sword. �Wolves won�t get him. That was an eye-opener, and no mistake! Nearly singed the hair off my head!�
When the full light of the morning came no signs of the wolves were to be found, and they looked in vain for the bodies of the dead. No trace of the fight remained but the charred trees and the arrows of Legolas lying on the hill-top. All were undamaged save one of which only the point was left.
�It is as I feared,� said Gandalf. �These were no ordinary wolves hunting for food in the wilderness. Let us eat quickly and go!

The spell of destruction there is glossed as "fire for saving us/fire against the wolf-horde".

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:17

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Slightly ambiguous but I'd say that after the publication of the Silmarillion and the lost tales it would be proper to call them werewolves. Or at least the leading members of the pack who attacked.

If it were 1960 and all you had was the Hobbit and LOTR you would have to say "not ordinary wargs".

Also you are right about weathertop. That's a good precursor because the reader isn't close to the action.

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:24

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Well poo poo. I'd completely forgotten about some of those details.

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:27

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

euphronius posted:

Slightly ambiguous but I'd say that after the publication of the Silmarillion and the lost tales it would be proper to call them werewolves. Or at least the leading members of the pack who attacked.

If it were 1960 and all you had was the Hobbit and LOTR you would have to say "not ordinary wargs".

Also you are right about weathertop. That's a good precursor because the reader isn't close to the action.

Yeah, I had always understood "ngaur(hoth)" to mean "(pack of) werewolves" specifically, with there being another word for normal wolves, but apparently the question is a little more complicated than that since one of the type specimens of evil-spirited wolves, Draugluin ("wolf blue") uses the word I associated with "wolf" rather than "werewolf". I guess all werewolves are wolves, but not all wolves are werewolves...even the evil intelligent ones.

Here's the real weird bit: the only time the word "werewolf" is actually used in LOTR is a throwaway reference to the various servants of Sauron in Many Meetings, in which they are directly contrasted to wargs:

quote:

Not all his servants and chattels are wraiths! There are orcs and trolls, there are wargs and werewolves; and there have been and still are many Men, warriors and kings...

I was entirely ready to find that this would be the source of the entire idea of the fight with wolves on the hill near Caradhras -- Tolkien having after all already written in The Hobbit about encounters with orcs and trolls and wargs, and having written quite a bit about wraiths in LOTR to that point. Unfortunately, the word warg is several times used to describe the wolves that attack them, while werewolf isn't used at all. Oh well.

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:39

Kassad: Nov 12, 2005; It's about time.

I thought the bodies being gone meant that other wolves had retrieved them as they fled. It doesn't really make sense now that I read that passage again, but it would show that these weren't normal wolves.

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:43

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

I'm guessing that Tolkien and his editors eschewed "werewolf" because at the time he wrote Lotr "werewolf" already had a rock solid definition of shape changing man wolf based on pulp horror novels and movies . Same with "vampire"

Totally guessing .

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:45

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Kassad posted:

I thought the bodies being gone meant that other wolves had retrieved them as they fled. It doesn't really make sense now that I read that passage again, but it would show that these weren't normal wolves.

Yeah, actually that's how I had always read it. I'd thought it meant orcs had come and scooped them up in the night, and "not ordinary wolves" meant that they were Orc-aligned wargs just like in the Hobbit. In fact now I'm getting a flash of memory of being a kid and reading it for the first time and being surprised that there weren't orcs in the battle, so it simply made sense to me that they'd just arrived late and cleaned up the mess or something.

i don't know why I ever thought I was a smart kid

# ? Aug 31, 2017 13:49

Ginette Reno: Nov 18, 2006; How Doers get more done; Fun Shoe

Forget werewolves, I want to know about the wereworms that Bilbo or someone mentions in the Hobbit. Show me the shapeshifting dragons J.R.R

# ? Aug 31, 2017 15:46

Put the gears down: Aug 4, 2014

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_(Middle-earth)

# ? Aug 31, 2017 20:07

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Werewolf :: Shelob and siblings
Warg:: the lesser great spiders

How about that ?

# ? Aug 31, 2017 20:11

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Ginette Reno posted:

Forget werewolves, I want to know about the wereworms that Bilbo or someone mentions in the Hobbit. Show me the shapeshifting dragons J.R.R

Clearly the wereworms are future development of Fall of Gondolin's vision of dragons as heavy armored troop carriers. Why put the weres inside the the worm, when the were can BE the worm?

# ? Aug 31, 2017 20:18

The Belgian: Oct 28, 2008

Ginette Reno posted:

Forget werewolves, I want to know about the wereworms that Bilbo or someone mentions in the Hobbit. Show me the shapeshifting dragons J.R.R

Can I interest you in Peter Jacksons The Hobbit: Part III: Battle of the Five Armies?

# ? Aug 31, 2017 21:38

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

euphronius posted:

I'm guessing that Tolkien and his editors eschewed "werewolf" because at the time he wrote Lotr "werewolf" already had a rock solid definition of shape changing man wolf based on pulp horror novels and movies . Same with "vampire"

Totally guessing .

Not sure vampire is the same - I always got the impression Thuringwethil was a "vampire" because she was a bat shapeshifter, not because bloodsucking/undead/Dracula/etc; I think vampire had more "bat" connotations than "undead" connotations then.

Pretty much guessing here too though.

# ? Aug 31, 2017 22:24

elise the great: May 1, 2012; You do not have to be good. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

The Belgian posted:

Can I interest you in Peter Jacksons The Hobbit: Part III: Battle of the Five Armies?

No, no you cannot. Also I'm calling the police.

# ? Sep 1, 2017 00:41

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

euphronius posted:

Slightly ambiguous but I'd say that after the publication of the Silmarillion and the lost tales it would be proper to call them werewolves. Or at least the leading members of the pack who attacked.

If it were 1960 and all you had was the Hobbit and LOTR you would have to say "not ordinary wargs".

Ok I am still learning Tolkien Things from this thread, this is wacky

I'd always assumed that yeah this just meant that they had retrieved their dead but yeah the support is there (in the silmarillion, etc.) for those to be wolf-spirits. That seems like something in the same category as "Wielder of the Flame of Anor", stuff you would never fully grasp on a first reading.

# ? Sep 1, 2017 05:32

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

There's juuuuust about enough in LOTR to get what Gandalf is referencing when he talks about flames of Anor (they've already explained what Minas Anor means at the council of Elrond) and Udun (though not until much later in book 6, and then it's the wrong explanation; you'd wind up thinking the Balrog was from Mordor, when Gandalf was actually talking about primordial hell) but lol good luck figuring out what the Secret Fire is supposed to be based on the text.

# ? Sep 1, 2017 12:25

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Runcible Cat posted:

Not sure vampire is the same - I always got the impression Thuringwethil was a "vampire" because she was a bat shapeshifter, not because bloodsucking/undead/Dracula/etc; I think vampire had more "bat" connotations than "undead" connotations then.

Pretty much guessing here too though.

I don't know why Tolkien used the word vampire for the bats. Vampire is a Slavic word tradition that has nothing to do with bats and vampire bats are new world oddities which were only called vampire bats very recently (like in the 1700s) .He definitely meant bat creatures tho. I have no doubt Tolkien read the 1897 novel Dracula in which vampire bats are referenced tho and Dracula turns into a bat. Maybe there is something about it in his letters or one of the Chris Tolkien books.

For Lotr they probably didn't use the word vampire because they didn't want people thinking of handsome Balkan undead princes like :

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0021814/

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0036376/

And Also

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0051554/ which starred Saruman!!

# ? Sep 1, 2017 12:51

sassassin: Apr 3, 2010; by Azathoth

skasion posted:

There's juuuuust about enough in LOTR to get what Gandalf is referencing when he talks about flames of Anor (they've already explained what Minas Anor means at the council of Elrond) and Udun (though not until much later in book 6, and then it's the wrong explanation; you'd wind up thinking the Balrog was from Mordor, when Gandalf was actually talking about primordial hell) but lol good luck figuring out what the Secret Fire is supposed to be based on the text.

Is it not the secret ring of fire/inspiration/mind-control he wears?

# ? Sep 1, 2017 13:27

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

sassassin posted:

Is it not the secret ring of fire/inspiration/mind-control he wears?

Really hard to say based on LOTR alone, because the phrase itself is never used again. Implausible to me though: Gandalf would not describe himself as a servant of the Secret Fire if he meant his ring. Then in the Sil we find out that it's another name of the Flame Imperishable, i.e. Tolkien's take on the Holy Ghost (though I always found it a bit closer to the Stoic doctrine of the Logos), so really he was just invoking God against a devil.

# ? Sep 1, 2017 13:42

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

sassassin posted:

Is it not the secret ring of fire/inspiration/mind-control he wears?

He says he is a servant of the secret fire (the Holy Spirit). It is mentioned explicitly in the Silmarillion .

He would never say he was a servant of a ring. The ring served him .

# ? Sep 1, 2017 14:12

extra stout: Feb 24, 2005; ISILDUR's ERR

skasion posted:

There's juuuuust about enough in LOTR to get what Gandalf is referencing when he talks about flames of Anor (they've already explained what Minas Anor means at the council of Elrond) and Udun (though not until much later in book 6, and then it's the wrong explanation; you'd wind up thinking the Balrog was from Mordor, when Gandalf was actually talking about primordial hell) but lol good luck figuring out what the Secret Fire is supposed to be based on the text.

Admittedly there is loads of poo poo in Tolkien that I enjoyed and even the second or third read through didn't research all of it. When I'm not fully certain of a definition I just assume it's derived from Christianity or another religious interpretation of good and evil. Never really thought about what exactly the Secret Fire is, just sort of assumed it's Tolkien's way of saying Lux Aeterna. But the word secret clearly should mean something other than eternal.

Looks like euphronius took it the same way.

# ? Sep 1, 2017 18:11

font color sea: Jan 23, 2017; Expelliarmus!

Inspired by this magical thread in GBS, I've decided to try and run a LoTR-themed Hunger Games simulation at brantsteele.net. The results were... amazing.

I've had enough of your singing you little bastard :commissar:

Sam's levels of badassery drastically increased after the quest

In the end Gollum set Frodo on fire with a molotov cocktail and won the game

# ? Sep 1, 2017 19:10

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Man

I know as well as anybody the whole "gently caress you, LotR isn't an allegory" thing. But going through the Treason of Isengard, particularly through the podcast, where you really hear the way certain bits of dialogue sound, and what must have been in Tolkien's mind when he wrote them...

I mean�the whole bit where Saruman tries to recruit Gandalf to Sauron's service. In the earlier versions it's so demagogic, so persuasive... I wish I had a transcript of it, but it's all in like the last 15 minutes of ep. 5 of the podcast, and it's just crackling in my ears how much it sounds like the kinds of stump speeches I have to imagine Tolkien must have been hearing all the time as he was writing this in 19-loving-39. A new power is rising in the southeast... there's no standing against it, and really we've been fools to try. Our only hope is in allying with it. If we do, and it wins, which it will, we'll get so much power to do everything we ever wanted. "There has been a conspiracy", it even says, to suppress knowledge, wisdom, and government... I mean maybe I'm just on edge but it can't have not been at least informed by the day-to-day news that was surrounding him on his equivalent of D&D

# ? Sep 1, 2017 23:39

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

euphronius posted:

I don't know why Tolkien used the word vampire for the bats. Vampire is a Slavic word tradition that has nothing to do with bats and vampire bats are new world oddities which were only called vampire bats very recently (like in the 1700s) .He definitely meant bat creatures tho. I have no doubt Tolkien read the 1897 novel Dracula in which vampire bats are referenced tho and Dracula turns into a bat. Maybe there is something about it in his letters or one of the Chris Tolkien books.

I think vampire was used as a synonym for bat in the early/mid 20thC; I'm sure I've run across that in other books from the period but I'm damned if I can remember any actual examples at the moment....

# ? Sep 1, 2017 23:48

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Data Graham posted:

Man

I know as well as anybody the whole "gently caress you, LotR isn't an allegory" thing. But going through the Treason of Isengard, particularly through the podcast, where you really hear the way certain bits of dialogue sound, and what must have been in Tolkien's mind when he wrote them...

I mean—the whole bit where Saruman tries to recruit Gandalf to Sauron's service. In the earlier versions it's so demagogic, so persuasive... I wish I had a transcript of it, but it's all in like the last 15 minutes of ep. 5 of the podcast, and it's just crackling in my ears how much it sounds like the kinds of stump speeches I have to imagine Tolkien must have been hearing all the time as he was writing this in 19-loving-39. A new power is rising in the southeast... there's no standing against it, and really we've been fools to try. Our only hope is in allying with it. If we do, and it wins, which it will, we'll get so much power to do everything we ever wanted. "There has been a conspiracy", it even says, to suppress knowledge, wisdom, and government... I mean maybe I'm just on edge but it can't have not been at least informed by the day-to-day news that was surrounding him on his equivalent of D&D

Informed, I'm sure. But that's the contemporary example of the much older and more universal phenomenon of craven power worship, as opposed to righteousness.

# ? Sep 2, 2017 01:38

William Contraalto: Aug 23, 2017; by Smythe

Runcible Cat posted:

I think vampire was used as a synonym for bat in the early/mid 20thC; I'm sure I've run across that in other books from the period but I'm damned if I can remember any actual examples at the moment....

That's something that happened but I think it's almost entirely due to the presence of the vampire bats in public consciousness.

Data Graham posted:

Man

I know as well as anybody the whole "gently caress you, LotR isn't an allegory" thing. But going through the Treason of Isengard, particularly through the podcast, where you really hear the way certain bits of dialogue sound, and what must have been in Tolkien's mind when he wrote them...

I mean—the whole bit where Saruman tries to recruit Gandalf to Sauron's service. In the earlier versions it's so demagogic, so persuasive... I wish I had a transcript of it, but it's all in like the last 15 minutes of ep. 5 of the podcast, and it's just crackling in my ears how much it sounds like the kinds of stump speeches I have to imagine Tolkien must have been hearing all the time as he was writing this in 19-loving-39. A new power is rising in the southeast... there's no standing against it, and really we've been fools to try. Our only hope is in allying with it. If we do, and it wins, which it will, we'll get so much power to do everything we ever wanted. "There has been a conspiracy", it even says, to suppress knowledge, wisdom, and government... I mean maybe I'm just on edge but it can't have not been at least informed by the day-to-day news that was surrounding him on his equivalent of D&D

The thing with "not an allegory" is that Tolkien didn't actually deny the use of contemporary inspiration, he just denied the idea that the fantasy was purely metaphorical for the modern day. So, yeah, Saruman is very definitely drawing on contemporary inspiration, as, arguably, is Denethor.

# ? Sep 2, 2017 02:59

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

turn left hillary!! noo posted:

Informed, I'm sure. But that's the contemporary example of the much older and more universal phenomenon of craven power worship, as opposed to righteousness.

This. "There's nothing new under the sun" you might say.

# ? Sep 2, 2017 03:55

MisterBear: Aug 16, 2013

Data Graham posted:

particularly through the podcast

The podcast?

# ? Sep 6, 2017 16:41

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I think he's referring to the Tolkien Professor podcast that got linked a page or two back

# ? Sep 6, 2017 17:20

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

It's this actually, which is related but not the same thing:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mythgard-academy/id690277482?mt=2

Going through the History of Middle-earth volumes in detail, more or less in parallel with the Exploring LotR one.

# ? Sep 6, 2017 23:26

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

William Contraalto posted:

The thing with "not an allegory" is that Tolkien didn't actually deny the use of contemporary inspiration, he just denied the idea that the fantasy was purely metaphorical for the modern day. So, yeah, Saruman is very definitely drawing on contemporary inspiration, as, arguably, is Denethor.

Yeah, I don't think he would've objected to the idea that it was heavily influenced by the World Wars etc. but he would have totally poo poo on things like "the Ring represents the A-Bomb" and so on. In fact I think he did in the introduction. I got the feeling he specifically pissed on things along the lines of "here is an allegory where every detail is painfully and obviously analogous to some part of a fairy tale or Christian story."

Probably got sick of Lewis.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 04:53

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Nessus posted:

Probably got sick of Lewis.

You're not wrong.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 08:46

extra stout: Feb 24, 2005; ISILDUR's ERR

webmeister posted:

I think he's referring to the Tolkien Professor podcast that got linked a page or two back

I forget his name, want to say Corey something. But this guy actually has a house in the LoTRO MMO on the goon server Landroval, though the devs since made a building in Bree to give talks at. Now it became pretty popular so he jumps servers, but you can actually drink digital beer in a big crowded room full of players while listening to him give lectures on Tolkien.

It's pretty neat and free, but he uses those lovely Webinar things I imagine for better sound quality and so people who join his fellowship in game can't talk over him.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 20:44

sassassin: Apr 3, 2010; by Azathoth

extra stout posted:

I forget his name, want to say Corey something. But this guy actually has a house in the LoTRO MMO on the goon server Landroval, though the devs since made a building in Bree to give talks at. Now it became pretty popular so he jumps servers, but you can actually drink digital beer in a big crowded room full of players while listening to him give lectures on Tolkien.

It's pretty neat and free, but he uses those lovely Webinar things I imagine for better sound quality and so people who join his fellowship in game can't talk over him.

How often did people get a band together and play green day over him?

# ? Sep 8, 2017 17:07

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

Nessus posted:

Yeah, I don't think he would've objected to the idea that it was heavily influenced by the World Wars etc. but he would have totally poo poo on things like "the Ring represents the A-Bomb" and so on. In fact I think he did in the introduction. I got the feeling he specifically pissed on things along the lines of "here is an allegory where every detail is painfully and obviously analogous to some part of a fairy tale or Christian story."

Probably got sick of Lewis.

Lewis didn't do allegory either though. Aslan isn't an allegory for Jesus, he is literally Jesus taking the form of a Lion in Narnia.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 20:24

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

Speaking on Lewis I liked his review of Fellowship, it's even relevant here as he discusses allegory.

quote:

The Gods Return to Earth

by C. S. Lewis

[The Fellowship of the Ring] is like lightning from a clear sky; as sharply different, as unpredictable in our age as [William Blake's] Songs of Innocence were in theirs. To say that in it heroic romance, gorgeous, eloquent, and unashamed, has suddenly returned at a period almost pathological in its anti-romanticism, is inadequate. To us, who live in that odd period, the return and the sheer relief of it is doubtless the important thing. But in the history of Romance itself--a history which stretches back to the Odyssey and beyond--it makes not a return but an advance or revolution: the conquest of new territory.

Nothing quite like it was ever done before.... The utterly new achievement of Professor Tolkien is that he carries a comparable sense of reality unaided. Probably no book yet written in the world is quite such a radical instance of what its author has elsewhere called "sub-creation". The direct debt (there are of course subtler kinds of debt) which every author must owe to the actual universe, is here deliberately reduced to the minimum. Not content to create his own story, he creates, with an almost insolent prodigality, the whole world in which it is to move, with its own theology, myths, geography, history, palaeography, languages, and orders of beings--a world "full of strange creatures beyond count". The names alone are a feast ... [and are] best of all ... when they embody that piercing, high, elvish beauty of which no other prose writer has captured so much.

Such a book has of course its predestined readers, even now more numerous and more critical than is always realized. To them a reviewer need say little, except that here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart. They will know that this is good news, good beyond hope. To complete their happiness one need only add that it promises to be gloriously long: this volume is only the first of three. But it is too great a book to rule only its natural subjects. Something must be said to "those without", to the unconverted. At the very least, possible misunderstandings may be got out of the way.

First, we must clearly understand that though The Fellowship in one way continues its author's fairy-tale, The Hobbit, is in no sense an overgrown "juvenile". The truth is the other way round. The Hobbit was merely a fragment torn from the author's huge myth and adapted for children; inevitably losing something by the adaptation. The Fellowship gives us at last the lineaments of that myth "in their true dimensions like themselves." (p. 1082)

[The Hobbits] are not an allegory of the English, but they are perhaps a myth that only an Englishman (or, should we add, a Dutchman?) could have created. Almost the central theme of the book is the contrast between the Hobbits (or "the Shire") and the appalling destiny to which some of them recalled, the terrifying discovery that the humdrum happiness of the Shire, which they had taken for granted as something normal, is in reality a sort of local and temporary accident, that its existence depends on being protected by the powers which Hobbits forget against powers which Hobbits dare not imagine, that any Hobbit may find himself forced out of the Shire and caught up into that high conflict. More strangely still, the event of that conflict between the strongest things may come to depend on him, who is almost the weakest.

What shows that we are reading myth, not allegory, is that there are no pointers to a specifically theological, or political, or psychological application. A myth points, for each reader, to the realm he lives in most. It is a master key; use it on what door you like. And there are other themes in The Fellowship equally serious.

That is why no catchwords about "escapism" or "nostalgia" and no distrust of "private worlds", are in court. This is no Angria, no dreaming; it is sane and vigilant invention, revealing at point after point the integration of the author's mind. What is the use of calling "private" a world we can all walk into and test and in which we find such a balance? As for escapism, what we chiefly escape is the illusions of our ordinary life. We certainly do not escape anguish. Despite many a snug fireside and many an hour of good cheer to gratify the Hobbit in each of us, anguish is, for me, almost the prevailing note. But not, as in the literature most typical of our age, the anguish of abnormal or contorted souls; rather that anguish of those who were happy before a certain darkness came up and will be happy if they live to see it gone.

Nostalgia does indeed come in; not ours nor the author's, but that of the characters. It is closely connected with one of Professor Tolkien's greatest achievements. One would have supposed that diuturnity was the quality least likely to be found in an invented world. And one has, in fact, an uneasy feeling that the worlds of Furioso or The Water of the Wondrous Isles weren't there at all before the curtain rose. But in the Tolkinian world you can hardly put your foot down anywhere from Esgaroth to Forlindon or between Ered Mithrinnd Khand, without stirring the dust of history. Our own world, except at certain rare moments, hardly seems so heavy with its past. This is one element in the anguish which the characters bear. But with the anguish comes also a strange exaltation. They are at once stricken and upheld by the memory of vanished civilizations and lost splendour. They have outlived the second and third Ages; the wire of life was drawn long since. As we read we find ourselves sharing their burden; when we have finished, we return to our own life not relaxed but fortified.

But there is more in the book still. Every now and then, risen from sources we can only conjecture and almost alien (one would think) to the author's habitual imagination, figures meet us so brimming with life (not human life) that they make our sort of anguish and our sort of exaltation seem unimportant. Such is Tom Bombadil, such the unforgettable Ents. This is surely the utmost reach of invention, when an author produces what seems to be not even his own, much less anyone else's. Is mythopoeia, after all, not the most, but the least, subjective of activities?

Even now I have left out almost everything--the silvan leafiness, the passions, the high virtues, the remote horizons. Even if I had space I could hardly convey them. And after all the most obvious appeal of the book is perhaps also its deepest: "there was sorrow then too, and gathering dark, but great valour, and great deeds that were not wholly vain". Not wholly vain--it is the cool middle point between illusion and disillusionment.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 20:27

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Why's he talking about Ents if this is a review of FotR.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 21:15

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

Data Graham posted:

Why's he talking about Ents if this is a review of FotR.

Actually I have no idea. He also says that the volume he is reviewing is the first of three which made me think this was for FOTR. It was published in August 1954, which was before TTT was released, maybe he knew about Ents just from talking to Tolkein. Still kind of strange to bring it up there.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 21:48

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# ? May 20, 2024 05:23

howe_sam: Mar 7, 2013; Creepy little garbage eaters

Maybe he means Old Man Willow?

# ? Sep 9, 2017 15:46

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

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