Token Tolkien Talk

I’ve been inspired to write about this from two things I saw posted on Twitter recently, one old and recycled, one new and fresh. The old and recycled one was a quote from a 2014 Rolling Stone interview with “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin, in which he criticizes J.R.R. Tolkien for the lack of information in “Lord of the Rings” about King Aragorn’s tax and orc policies. The new and fresh one was by an academic lamenting that the name “Tolkien” is now often used as a euphemism for any generic swords-and-sorcery “high fantasy”, obscuring what is unique to Tolkien.

The two points are intertwined, I feel: what is unique about Tolkien is his self-conscious desire to create a kind of modern myth, a legend in the mold of Beowulf or the Volsunga saga, rather than a realistic depiction of a medieval ruler.

Now, I think George actually likes Tolkien, and quite likely name-dropped him for precisely the reason the academic lamented: Tolkien is the Hitler of fantasy writing—a lazy shorthand for a certain category of writer; you can compare writers to Tolkien and everyone immediately understands who you mean.

In contrasting his own writing with Tolkien’s, George had this to say:

Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it's not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn't ask the question: What was Aragorn's tax policy?

It’s such a good quote, let’s admit it, because it strikes just the right note of absurdity. It speaks to that little part of even the most ardent Tolkien fans, who know that there’s a side of “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” that is just kind of silly and childish. It’s undeniable-Tolkien did not write gritty, realistic novels. It’s also, and you’d know this if you’d read “Lord of the Rings” (and I’m pretty sure George has), a fatuous, stupid and glib thing to say, and a deliberate misunderstanding of everything Tolkien was trying to accomplish.

TOLKIEN != HIGH FANTASY

I’ll allow that insofar as George speaks to what the word ‘Tolkien’ has come to mean in terms of a certain niche of commercial fantasy fiction, it might be a fair criticism.

This is not an especially new or controversial opinion, but a number of authors have looked at the superficial, surface elements of Tolkien, and dropped them into their own works without any of the world-building, the care and attention that Tolkien lavished on his creation. I won’t name names, except for those of Terry Brooks, Dennis McKiernan (smack you in your Bag End obvious, that one), Raymond Feist and every Dungeons and Dragons novel ever published.

It kind of turns high fantasy novels into tick-box exercises. Tolkien provided a background, a sense of history and culture that lends verisimilitude to the text? Throw in a few references to things outside your tale, tick that box off. Tolkien invented languages, with lexicons, grammar and a sense of linguistic evolution? Make sure your made-up words sound vaguely similar, tick another box off. Elves, dwarves, orcs, wraiths and dragons? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

So if George’s point was that many modern fantasy authors write in formulaic and shallow settings about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys without seriously considering what makes someone good or bad, then fair enough. Even better, if his aim was just to get us thinking about precisely what we as readers define as a good fantasy book, mission accomplished. Here I am, pontificating about Tolkien because of his quote. Good job, George.

But if his point is to berate Tolkien about not being interested on the same literary goals as himself, then he can go fuck himself.

WHAT'S THE POINT?

Writing has a point to it. Not all writing shares the same point. You can write to inform, to entertain, to say something about the world. Even within that subset of writing which seeks to explain or comment on the human condition and our experience, not all focus on the same facet or aspects, nor should we expect them to try to cover every single one of them in every piece of writing.

LotR doesn’t talk about the tax policies of a good king, because at a fundamental level it isn’t about politics, and more importantly, isn’t trying to be a ‘fantasy novel’ in the sense that we use the term now.

It is possible, if you try hard enough, to extract real-world messages and meanings from LotR, both positive and negative, ones perhaps not intended by the author yet which come through in the structure of the story and the way it is written.

There’s less admirable stuff in there, of course. Although there are some powerful women in the tale, like Eowyn and Galadriel, or Luthien in the “Silmarillion”, they are minor characters, and the main stage is pure bratwurst. It’s not terribly sensitive on race relations, with its blond, blue-eyed, Anglo-Saxon heroes fighting off the swarthy hordes of “lesser men” from the South and East.

On the positive side, the writing is imbued with the love of nature and delight in the natural world, and the need to protect that nature from an encroaching human civilization. There’s also the power of the comradery and friendship that sees the characters through to the end of their quest.

If you hunger for a definition of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ there is a kind of Christian sensibility, in which the ‘wise’ are those who understand and are in harmony with the Plan of the LotR-universe god and his angels, Eru and the Valar, and evil manifests itself in a desire to control and force one’s will upon creation rather than submit to the Plan.

Finally, and for me most importantly, there is a study in the nature of heroism. In the end, the return of the True King wielding a sword out of legend proves to be a sideshow, a useful distraction at best. Evil is only defeated through the courage of plain, boring, ordinary hobbits, little people who just want to go home and have breakfast (and second breakfast, if possible). It is a reminder, to quote Tolkien himself, of “the amazing and unexpected heroism of ordinary men 'at a pinch'.” In other words, the world is saved not by supermen, but by ordinary folkses who don’t really want to be heroes, but realize they cannot sit by and do nothing.

Given the constant stream of raw untreated sewage which news outlets treat us to each day, that is both an empowering and terrifying realization: you can make a difference, but by the same token things are only going to get better if you, the person reading these words, does something about it.

It seems pretty mean-spirited then, with all of that served up on the intellectual buffet table for you to stuff yourself on, to then complain LotR doesn’t address whatever pet peeve or interest you have.

As a realistic portrayal of politics, it leaves a lot to be desired, sure. Okay.

It also says nothing about geology (and yes, you can find articles complaining about how Tolkien’s maps don’t play nice with plate tectonics), nothing about the migratory routes of birds, very little about botany despite naming a slew of trees and flowers, virtually nothing about trade routes, coinage or economics, very little about legal systems, nothing about a whole shitload of human activity, in fact. In one of his letters, Tolkien admits as much: “[Lord of the Rings’] economics, science, artefacts, religion, and philosophy are defective, or at least sketchy.”

That’s because Lord of the Rings isn’t a book about medieval politics. Or religion, or economics, or modern gender roles, or race relations.

What Lord of the Rings is, first and foremost, is an attempt to write a heroic myth.

TRIFFICLY MYTHICALLY HEROIC

Here’ s Tolkien again:

[A] basic passion of mine ab initio was for myth (not allegory!) and for fairy-story, and above all for heroic legend on the brink of fairy-tale and history, of which there is far too little in the world (accessible to me) for my appetite ... I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands.

Where Tolkien found inspiration was in Beowulf, Viking sagas and Finnish myths such as Kullervo (a cheerful little tale about a man whose family is murdered and is then raised by the killers, inadvertently sleeps with his own sister—who then commits suicide—and then kills his adopted parents before killing himself).

It’s that self-conscious desire to create a heroic legend rather than a novel, as well as the kind of grey, overcast, doom-laden Ragnarok sensibility, that both mark Tolkien as unique and answer George’s crack about having a medieval philosophy of kingship. Of course it has a medieval philosophy: Tolkien was absolutely not trying to provide a realistic, modern-day depiction of politics or social human activity, but rather a medieval one—meaning one which a medieval person would have recognized, insofar as such considerations impact the book at all (and mostly, they don’t).

They don’t impact the book because it’s not a book about King Aragorn being a wise king and ruling happily ever after. Aragorn’s rulership is a footnote in an appendix, a happy by-product of the quest rather than its aim.

More to the point, the book isn’t about happy endings at all. There is victory, but it comes at a cost. The main hero, Frodo, fails in his quest and is scarred for life. The home of the hobbits is ravaged and ruined, and will take years to rebuild. Gandalf, Galadriel, and all that is wondrous and magical in the world must fade away. King Aragorn’s reign is not the start of some golden age, it’s a last hurrah before everything goes irretrievably to shit.

Tolkien lived through both World War I and II, fighting and losing his friends in the former, watching his child go off to war in the latter. He knew far better than draft-dodging George about the callous brutality of our world. But, knowing that, he deliberately chose not to write about it. Tolkien says, after trying to write a sequel to “Lord of the Rings”, “It proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men, it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good … I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing."

As “Sandman” and “American Gods” author Neil Gaiman observed, the author is not the audience’s bitch. You may not have wanted a heroic fantasy written in the style of a mythic legend, but that’s what Tolkien wanted to write. He found real-world politics depressing, and consciously decided not to write about them. If you reject this mode and tone of storytelling altogether, then there’s really no point in discussing the book at all—you are fighting with the book’s legacy rather than its content, speaking to the book’s fans and their attitudes rather than the book itself, and trying to impose your will on others. You’re basically Tolkien's epitome of evil, folks.

As a heroic legend, it is about the struggle against evil. It is about the courage needed to face and defeat evil. More than that though, it is about the language of legends, the sound of them, the cadence of the words, 'ere' instead of 'until', 'leagues' instead of 'miles', and it is about the imagination-tingling place names like Mirkwood or Moria, Minas Tirith and Mount Doom. It’s about the feeling you get when you read a legend, rather than a New York Times bestseller.

Also, Peter Jackson’s movies were beautifully shot and Weta Workshop’s costume and prop designs were phenomenal, but the script was just awful. Don’t @ me.