Me want

Here's some ultimate nerdity that I would nevertheless gladly wear (look closely/zoom in on thumbnails below): http://www.threadless.com/product/2293/There_and_Back_Again.

I wonder if the Tolkien Estate will be putting the smack down on this, though.

The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett—a review

The Sword of Rhiannon (1949) was my first experience reading Leigh Brackett, one of the grand dames of science fiction along with C.L. Moore, and I must say I was quite impressed. Although it may sound like heresy to the Edgar Rice Burroughs fans Brackett’s depiction of Mars might be the best I’ve read. While not as action-packed, I thought it created a more convincing alien atmosphere than A Princess of Mars, although it certainly owes a huge debt in terms of form and genre elements to Burroughs' earlier work.

The Sword of Rhiannon tells the story of Matthew Carse, an archeologist from Earth who’s spent 30 of his 35 years on the red planet, an arid, dying world that at one time was home to a vibrant environment and an advanced alien culture. One day a wealth-seeking Martian leads Carse to the tomb of Rhiannon, in which a cursed, godlike figure from Mars’ ancient past is rumored to lie in deathless sleep. Carse enters the tomb and is swept back via some form of wormhole into Mars’ ancient past, before its seas dried up and when all was green and beautiful. Carse takes with him the jeweled-hilted sword of Rhiannon as well as a dark sentience from the tomb. He soon finds himself emeshed in an ancient conflict between the militaristic nation of Sark and their evil serpent-like allies, the Caer Dhu, who are at war with the Martian free peoples under the Sea Kings.

Despite its fantasy trappings, The Sword of Rhiannon is firmly in the sword and planet genre. While the protagonist wields a sword and ancient Mars is decidedly low-tech (transportation is by sail or rowed ships; combat is with medieval-style weapons), Mars was once home to a race of advanced beings called the Quiru. The Quiru abandoned the planet but left behind relics of their advanced civilization, incredibly powerful technology that includes time-travel devices. There is no overt magic in the story, save perhaps for a form of telepathy. The Quiru’s artifacts are sufficiently advanced to seem like magic though Brackett does describe them as working according to scientific laws.

More than its fun story (which rigorously follows Burroughs’ sword and planet formula), The Sword of Rhiannon succeeds due to its style and atmosphere. Bracketts’ writing makes Mars feel, well, otherwordly. She succeeds in creating a vivid contrast between the arid waste of the new Mars and the beauty of the old, and we as the reader feel the pang of loss of a great civilization that once was. Here’s an example, a scene in which Carse, chained to the oars of a Sark ship, awakes at his post and looks upon a sunrise on the sea that makes him momentarily forget his enslavement, so different is it from the dry wastes of Mars that he previously knew:

Through the oar port he watched the sea change color with the sunrise. He had never seen anything so ironically beautiful. The water caught the pale tints of the first light and warmed them with its own phosphorescent fire—amethyst and pearl and rose and saffron. Then, as the sun rose higher, the sea changed to one sheet of burning gold.

Whenever I finish a book I typically scour the web to see what others think about it. In my travels I was pleased to find a nice essay on Brackett by Michael Moorcock, “Queen of the Martian Mysteries: An Appreciation of Leigh Brackett."

As readers of this blog may know I don’t have a lot of love for Mr. Moorcock for his harsh and rather personal criticisms of J.R.R. Tolkien. But I freely admit that Moorcock’s piece was a nice read, informative and infused with some illuminating personal anecdotes about Brackett the person and the writer. It also manages to steer entirely clear of the spite-filled tangents into which Moorcock’s criticisms frequently seem to veer. I was surprised to find that many of his observations of Brackett were the same as mine, formed during my limited exposure to Brackett (which consist of The Sword of Rhiannon only).

I must say however that some of Moorcock’s commentary caused me to do a positive double-take. In particular I was flummoxed to find that some of the very characteristics he finds most admirable in Brackett’s romanticism-infused science fiction are the selfsame qualities that imbue his most hated of books, The Lord of the Rings. From his essay:

Yet Brackett has less in common with Mervyn Peake than she has with Graham Greene, Raymond Chandler and other superior writers of popular fiction. Yet common to all these writers is the sense of yearning loss, as of innocence, a nobler, irredeemable past and an uncertain future. Her heroes are often deeply aware of some moral transgression which everyone forgives them for except themselves. At the time these stories were written we had seen our sense of our history, of our progress towards real civilisation, blasted to bits before our eyes. By the time these stories were appearing in the pulps, Germany’s Nazi armies seemed unchallenged in their conquest of Europe. All those idealistic aspirations for world peace and the rule of civil law had collapsed before the cheap rhetoric of a bad journalist like Mussolini or a mediocre painter of postcards like Hitler.

Wow, where to start…at last check The Lord of the Rings is infused with a sense of “yearning loss, as of innocence.” It certainly draws the readers’ attention (even without benefit of The Silmarillion) to a “nobler, irredeemable past,” and transitions the reader with its heartbreaking, equivocal ending, to an “uncertain future.” When LOTR was written progress was being “blasted to bits” before Tolkien’s eyes, which he witnessed first-hand in the trenches of WWI and later in the rise of Nazi Germany. Yet Moorcock somehow finds these traits admirable in Brackett and execrable (no exaggeration on my part) in Tolkien. Is it because Tolkien’s hobbits are too British and countrified for his tastes, or perhaps because Tolkien offers the possibility (not the guarantee) of consolation/salvation?

Moorcock even comments that the hard science fiction in vogue during Brackett’s time (her stuff shares more in common with science fantasy) fails as lasting literature because of its lack of humanism and inability to portray technology as anything less than progressive. Writes Moorcock, "We were beginning to realise that controlling [the world] might not produce the effects we desired."

Hmm, sounds conspicuously like the point Tolkien made with that whole One Ring bit.

But enough Tolkien digression. In short, The Sword of Rhiannon=highly recommended.

Roots and Branches by Tom Shippey: A review

Unlike like a lot of literature that you read in school—the kind that requires you to pinch your nose to swallow—you don’t have to be told to enjoy The Lord of the Rings. You can love its sheer storytelling and that of works like The Silmarillion first, and perhaps only for that reason. But The Lord of the Rings is also a deep work worthy of study, and waiting behind the tales is a wealth of literary criticism for the further explorer.

Tom Shippey’s Roots and Branches (Walking Tree Publishers, 2007) ranks among the best Tolkien criticism I’ve read, which should come as no surprise, given that the author is the pre-eminent Tolkien scholar of our age. While I wouldn’t rate it as highly as Shippey's The Road to Middle-Earth or J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Roots and Branches is a similarly illuminating and engaging read.

Roots and Branches collects 23 of Shippey’s essays and includes some previously published as well as newer/updated material. It takes a much broader focus than just Middle-earth: The essays include analyses not just of Tolkien’s fiction, but also his love for Old English poetry and Northern myth, his academic reputation then and now, and his lesser known works like “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.”

In particular I enjoyed “Tolkien and the Beowulf-Poet,” which sheds a tremendous light on Tolkien’s love and fascination with that poem (in many ways he considered himself a reincarnation of the anonymous writer of Beowulf). “Tolkien and Iceland: The Philology of Envy,” is a wonderful summation of the influence of the Northern myths on Middle-earth and is another favorite.

Like Tolkien Shippey is a philologist, so there’s a lot of discourse about the roots of words and how Tolkien derived his inspiration by extrapolating words like the variant forms of “elf” in Germanic. It may sound dry but it’s not: Shippey writes his essays like he speaks. They’re lively and he injects humor and personal commentary throughout, especially into the footnotes.

My favorite essay was “Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien’s Images of Evil.” Fantasy has often been labeled as lightweight escapism by its critics, but Shippey demonstrates how fantasy actively grapples with real evil in ways that works of “serious” literature avoid or fail to address. “Tolkien, Lewis, and Wolfe demonstrate between them that one of the major advantages of fantasy in the modern world is that it effectively addresses the major threats of the modern world, like work, tedium, despair, and bureaucracy,” Shippey writes.

For example, Shippey lays out a convincing case that orcs reflect our own characteristics of selfishness and self-centeredness. Orcs know what’s fair and unfair (they use the term “regular elvish trick” to describe Sam’s “abandonment” of Frodo, after Sam mistakes him for dead), and they exhibit a loyalty to their mates. But they refuse to apply morality evenly and lay it aside when it interferes with their own self-interests. “Orcish behavior is human behavior, and their inability to judge their own actions by their own moral criteria is a problem all too sadly familiar,” writes Shippey.

What about the Ringwraiths; are they pure evil? No, says Shippey. They’re an absence, a twisted thing, which Shippey demonstrates by showing us the philological roots of the word wraith (which derives from wreath, and writhe). Modern-day analogues can be found inside corporations or big government, Shippey says, in the soulless behavior of executives or the shuffling figures of cubicle workers who sacrifice their humanity for advancement or material gain. “No one is secure from the prospect of being a wraith,” Shippey writes. I myself have seen wraiths walking the halls in the (half) flesh in corporate America (and sadly at times feel like one myself).

Overall the essay is a brilliant refutation of critics like Richard Morgan who label The Lord of the Rings as a simplistic struggle of stainless good vs. irredeemable evil: it demonstrates that evil is not just some abstract presence or created by Sauron on some factory-line, but is “an element of goodness perverted, of evil as a mistake, something insidious,” to quote Shippey.

Shippey also wades into the Lord of the Rings films with “Another Road to Middle-Earth: Jackson’s Movie Trilogy.” As some may know Shippey was a consultant for the screenplay of the Jackson films (assisting with the proper pronunciation of Elvish, primarily) and was interviewed for the extras on all three discs.

Overall Shippey has a mixed but, in the main, a positive opinion of the films. He does lament some of the changes and notes in places how they strip The Lord of the Rings (the book) of some of its complexities. Shippey describes some of the cruder alterations as financially driven: Tolkien, working on his spare time, had no-one to consider but himself, while Jackson had a budget of hundreds of millions and had to consider popular appeal. He describes elements like Legolas’ shield-surfing, Gimli’s dwarf-tossing, and Arwen’s transformation into warrior princess as “playing to the gallery.” He says Jackson is guilty of “democratization” and “emotionalisation,” meaning he succumbs to a need to inflate the roles of minor characters, and also needlessly inserts a triangle situation into the journey of Gollum, Sam, and Frodo, in which Gollum competes with Sam for Frodo’s love. He has other criticisms as well, including the films' removal of Tolkien's conception of the workings of divine providence.

But Shippey says Jackson and his screenwriters were well-versed in the material and gives them credit for taking bits of Tolkien and using them in different places than they appear in the book to great effect (for example, moving parts of “The Shadow of the Past” and “The Council of Elrond” into the arresting prologue). He also thinks the film gets much of the broader themes and narrative core of the book right, including “the differing styles of heroism, the need for pity as well as courage, the vulnerability of the good, [and] the true cost of evil.”

Tolkien and Howard still The Two Towers of fantasy

Not to beat the subject, like Fingon, to death, but neither writer is trod into the mire by a comparison to the other. The shortest distance between these two towers is the straight line they draw and defend against the dulling of our sense of wonder, the deadening of our sense of loss, and the slow death of imagination denied.

–Steve Tompkins, “The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers”

With my first Black Gate/Silver Key post of 2011 I thought I’d kick off the New Year with one of those big, bold, declarative, prediction type posts. So here it is: J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard are firmly ensconced as the two towers of fantasy, and as the years pass they will not only remain such, but perhaps will never be dethroned.

Although they arguably did not blaze the trail, Tolkien and Howard set the standard for two sub-genres of fantasy—high fantasy and swords and sorcery, respectively—and no one has done either better before or since.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website .

B-slapping a random Epic Pooh/Moorcock supporter

Typically I stay away from engaging in debate on sites like Youtube, knowing the caliber of response I'm likely to get. But in this case I just couldn't resist (I'm Rutgerhauer 666, still waiting for a response in the comments section that won't be coming any time soon).

Someone asked me once why I've taken up the crusade against Epic Pooh and other anti-Tolkien essays. "Why would you waste your time on something 30 years old?" The reason is simple: People still believe this crap. Epic Pooh has been cited approvingly by the likes of China Mieville and used as a basis of misguided criticism of Tolkien. And it still is today. But because Michael Moorcock wrote it, it must be true, right?

In fact, Epic Pooh is a shallow, surface-level ad hominem attack on a far more subtle and complex work than its detractors realize. It's a political screed and fails to engage the text of The Lord of the Rings or any of Tolkien's works on a meaningful level.

It comes down to this: You can choose to believe the unfounded opinion of essays like Epic Pooh, or you can examine the facts in Tolkien's stories. When I see it held up as evidence of Tolkien's faults on Youtube or Amazon.com or elsewhere--or when I'm feeling the need to blow off some steam in a futile and meaningless crusade for truth--I'm going to set the facts straight.

The Lord of the Rings ignores death and forces a happy ending upon us? Really, Michael?

(Note that Moorcock doesn't actually discuss Epic Pooh in this clip, it just comes up in the comments section).

In the grip of “The Northern Thing:” My top 10 northern inspired stories

Let us die in the doing of deeds for his sake;
let fright itself run afraid from our shouts;
let weapons measure the warrior’s worth.
Though life is lost, one thing will outlive us:memory sinks not beneath the mould.
Till the Weird of the World stands unforgotten,high under heaven, the hero’s name.

–from Hrolf Kraki’s Saga, Poul Anderson


If I had to choose a favorite sub-genre of fantasy literature it would be those writings showing the clear influence of ancient Northern mythology. Fantasy critic Lin Carter once described a group of writers including the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien, Poul Anderson, and William Morris as being possessed by “The Northern Thing”; I too am firmly in that Icelandic grip of iron. There’s just something about tales of pagan heroes possessed of grim northern courage, set against a backdrop of bleak fjords and smoldering mountain peaks and gray lowering skies, that make me want to hop on the nearest dragon-headed longship and go a-viking.

Following in no particular order are my top 10 favorite northern stories. These are stories inspired by northern myth (the Prose and Poetic Eddas), legend (the Icelandic Sagas), or history (the Danish invasions of England), and sometimes all three at once.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Tolkien feature on the BBC, circa 1968

I came across a great video feature on Tolkien circa 1968, courtesy of the BBC. I've never seen most of this footage. Tolkien walking through his old haunts and talking about his books is priceless. Enjoy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12237.shtml.

With that, I'll be signing off for a short vacation, returning Wednesday or so.

On Stories: Discovering a kindred spirit in C.S. Lewis

Though he’s best known as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was also a prolific essayist and an ardent defender of fantasy literature. In addition to medieval studies (The Allegory of Love) and Christian apologetics (Mere Christianity), Lewis wrote several essays about the enduring appeal of mythopoeic stories, connecting fantasy’s remote, heroic past to its flowering in the early 20th century.

Lewis’ passion and erudition in the mythopoeic comes pouring through in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, a collection of essays and reviews loosely tied around fantasy literature. Lewis’ overarching theme in On Stories is that the best mythopoeic/romance literature (which includes works like E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and H. Rider Haggard’s She) stacks up with the best mainstream literature, and thus deserves to be not only enjoyed, but studied and preserved (I can sense a lot of nodding heads around here, but keep in mind that Lewis wrote these essays in an age when it was heresy to compare fantasy fiction to “real” lit).

To read the rest of this post, visit the Black Gate website .

Wolfe’s lost road: Discovering an author’s personal essay on J.R.R. Tolkien

Freedom, love of neighbour, and personal responsibility are steep slopes; he could not climb them for us—we must do that ourselves. But he has shown us the road and the reward.

--Gene Wolfe, “The Best Introduction to the Mountains”

J.R.R. Tolkien has so many readers, and his works have become so pervasive in the broader culture, that coming to his defense hardly seems necessary anymore. Haven’t we established Tolkien’s credentials by now? Magazines like Time have selected The Lord of the Rings as one of the top 100 novels ever, according to Wikipedia it’s one of the top 10 best-selling books of all time with 150 million copies sold, and the movies upon which it’s based won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Tolkien has made it onto several college syllabi and there are academic journals and numerous critical studies devoted to his works, including Tom Shippey’s par excellence works Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-Earth.

But someone always comes along to attack Tolkien on the basis of his conservatism or religion, his perceived racism, and/or the perceived shallowness/non-literary nature of The Lord of the Rings, and I’m reminded of why we need to vigilant. For example, David Brin of Salon.com, Science fiction/fantasy author Richard Morgan (author of The Steel Remains), and Phillip Pulman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) have all taken shots at The Lord of the Rings and/or Tolkien himself in recent years, calling him outdated and dangerously conservative (Brin), a refuge for 12-year-olds and adults who have never grown up (Morgan), and shrunken and diminished by his Catholicism (Pulman).

Now I’m not saying Tolkien is above criticism, but critics like Brin and Morgan have essentially gutted The Lord of the Rings, attacking it on an existential basis and more or less claiming it should be placed in the dustbin of history. When people take aim at classics like Ulysses or Moby Dick you rarely see criticism elevated to the level of calling into question the very existence of these works. Yet Tolkien criticism for whatever reason frequently ascends to shrill peaks of outrage.

To read the rest of this post, visit the Black Gate website .

Howard’s Muse: Some ruminations by historical fiction author Steven Pressfield

Historical fiction author Steven Pressfield, perhaps best known for Gates of Fire, a magnificent re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae, writes about the art (or more accurately, the hard labor) of writing every Wednesday on his Web site, stevenpressfield.com. This week’s installment references our favorite author ‘round these parts, Robert E. Howard.

In The War of Art, his non-fiction treatise about the writing profession (and upon which Writing Wednesdays are based), Pressfield describes writing as the product of grit and effort, accomplished by overcoming the demon of resistance. In other words, writing is largely an unromantic slog and the result of hard work. But Pressfield also believes that ideas are an entirely different animal: Inspiration like Howard’s arrives from the wings of angels, a kind of divine insight that alights on our shoulders as we set pen to paper. Pressfield calls this the spirit of the Muse.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Closing the book on The Silmarillion

Re-reading The Silmarillion was a lot of fun—as I knew it would be. From the Dagor Brallogach to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, from The Fall of Gondolin to the Voyage of Eärendil, how could it be otherwise? The Silmarillion might not be for everyone, but it never fails to awe, inspire, and move me. Telephone directory in Elvish my ass (okay, that particular description makes me smile, inaccurate though it may be).

I found my most recent trip through Tolkien’s legendarium particularly rewarding because blogging as I read forced me to organize my thoughts and get them down on paper. Committing to a series of posts had the byproduct of making me think more deeply and rigorously about the subject at hand. I hope you enjoyed Blogging The Silmarillion and I want to thank you all for the great comments.

I do feel obligated to mention the edition of The Silmarillion I used to write this series, in part because I borrowed so much of its artwork. It’s a hardcover published in 2004 by the Houghton Mifflin Company containing 45 gorgeous, full-page color illustrations by artist Ted Nasmith. This isn’t just a book, it’s a work of art, one of the gems of my bookshelf. I’m a reader, not a collector, but I am proud to own this particular volume (you can find it pictured above).

While he may not be as well-known a Tolkien illustrator as John Howe or Alan Lee, Nasmith is perhaps my favorite artist of the trio. He’s particularly good at painting detailed landscapes and broad vistas, which makes him a natural fit for the epic, scenic sweep of the stories contained in The Silmarillion.

One of the most affecting images that I’ve ever experienced in my mind’s eye is a young Tolkien on the battlefields of the Somme, wreathed in the reek of cordite and blood and fear, hope for survival minimal, writing down the tale of The Fall of Gondolin. Some combination of chance or fate allowed him to survive those horrors and deliver his wonderful tales of Middle-earth to us, posthumously, with the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion. I’m glad we have it.

Critical works referenced

Carpenter, Humphrey, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography

Flieger, Verlyn, Splintered Light

Garth, John, Tolkien and the Great War

Shippey, Tom, Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth

Zimbardo, Rose; Isaacs, Neil: Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism

REH and other omissions aside, Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature a worthy listen

Slowly—too slowly and decades overdue, in my opinion—fantasy literature is gaining a foothold in colleges and universities. Long ignored and/or the subject of sneering intellectuals and defenders of the literary “canon,” works like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are finally starting to appear on a handful of college syllabi. (To geek out a moment and quote Gandalf the Grey, “that is an encouraging thought.”)

For this slowly building acceptance of fantasy literature in academic circles, one has to acknowledge the work of the college professors who have cajoled, pled, or insisted that it be allowed into the hallowed halls of academia. These include men like Tom Shippey (former Chair of Humanities at Saint Louis University and author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth), Corey Olsen, aka., The Tolkien Professor, an English Professor at Washington College, and Michael Drout, Chair of the English Department at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.

Drout is editor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf and the Critics and a co-editor of Tolkien Studies. At Wheaton he teaches Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, medieval literature, fantasy, science fiction, and writing. He also writes a blog, Wormtalk and Slugspeak, which is definitely worth adding to your list of links.

Drout also wrote and narrated a fine entry in The Modern Scholar audio book series, Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature, which is the subject of this post. I recently had the pleasure of listening to it during my commute to work and found it immensely enjoyable, lucid, thought-provoking, and ambitious. It offers prima facie evidence for why fantasy literature deserves to be the subject of academic study.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Blogging The Silmarillion: Closing the book on the Third Age

Part nine of Blogging The Silmarillion concludes with Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

“Many are the strange chances of the world,” said Mithrandir, “and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

A recurring theme in The Silmarillion is Elves and/or Men meeting force with force, the result of which is endless cycles of war and ruin. In the Quenta Silmarillon Melkor steals the three Silmarils, and their maker, the Noldorin Elf Fëanor, vows to recover them at all costs. Fëanor’s destructive oath sets in motion a millennia-spanning series of conflicts that continue until the Valar intercede in the War of Wrath, another horribly destructive affair which mars Arda forever and ends the First Age of Middle-earth.

But even after Morgoth’s defeat in the War of Wrath, evil is not destroyed, nor are possessiveness and pride stamped out of the hearts of Men. In the Akallabêth the Númenóreans fall victim to the same Fëanor-like sins of pride and overreaching when they try to wrest immortality from the Valar. The result is the destruction of their civilization.

Thus far it’s been pretty bleak stuff from Tolkien, and with only one section of The Silmarillion left it’s still very much an open question whether Men and Elves will ever learn from their mistakes, or whether Middle-earth is doomed to ever more destructive wars of possession. And so we arrive at Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age.

After the drowning of Númenor, the surviving ships of the Faithful led by Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion alight on the shores of Middle-earth. They build great works whose gorgeous, evocative names I can’t resist repeating here: the watchtowers Emyn Beraid and Amon Sul; Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon; Minas Anor, Tower of the Setting Sun; the massive Argonath statues; and the Pinnacle of Orthanc (Saruman’s future home). Atop these new towers the Númenóreans place the Seven Stones, aka the palantíri, which allow them to keep a vigilant watch on Sauron. They also settle the great realm of Gondor and construct the city of Osgiliath.

Meanwhile the disembodied, drowned spirit of Sauron eventually returns to the Mountains of Shadow where he sets his minions to work building Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower. Sauron takes up the One Ring, and after gathering his strength goes to war. His forces capture Minas Ithil (which later becomes Minas Morgul, “The Tower of Dark Sorcery”) and gain control of the palantír kept there.

Isildur vs. Sauron.

With Middle-earth in jeopardy of falling under Sauron’s dark rule, Elendil and the Noldorin high king Gil-galad unite in the Last Alliance, a great host of Elves and Men. In an all-out battle with Sauron’s forces on Dagorlad, the Battle Plain, the host of good prevails, then lays siege to Barad-dûr. Anárion is slain during the seven-year standoff. Finally Sauron himself issues forth, slaying both Gil-galad and Elendil in an epic throw-down. But Sauron is vanquished when Isildur cuts the Ruling Ring from his hand. This ushers in The Third Age and the events of The Lord of the Rings.

The Third Age doesn’t get off to an auspicious start for the forces of good as Isildur refuses to destroy the One Ring. Instead he opts to keep it as “weregild” for the death of his father and brother. A weregild is an Anglo-Saxon term meaning reparation for murder. In other words, the One Ring is a form of blood money and keeping it is a bad omen. It’s therefore not surprising when Isildur is slain by a band of orcs. The Ring is swept into the river Anduin and lost.

(This raises an interesting side-question: Is Isildur’s failure to cast the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom the result of the One Ring’s corruptive influence, or Isildur’s own lust for power? Tolkien leaves the issue open for interpretation.)

Sauron, defeated but not destroyed, arises from the ashes a second time and begins to rebuild his armies. His thoughts return to finding and recovering the One Ring, his source of power, which eventually is recovered by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo, now has the unenviable task of taking it to Rivendell to allow the powers-that-be to decide what to do next.

Right about here a First Age hero may have confronted Sauron on the battlefield with the One Ring and destroyed him, but in the process becoming another Dark Lord in his stead. But this time, miraculously, evil is thwarted by an act of humble bravery by a meek, unlikely hero.

Frodo is unlike anyone we have seen in the First and Second Ages of Middle-earth. While the events of The Silmarillion are dominated by the long shadow of Fëanor, who vows to recover the great treasure of the Silmarils and inflict revenge on Melkor, its successor, The Lord of the Rings, is the inverse of this equation: It’s about a humble hero who bears an artifact with him into the heart of darkness with the intent to destroy it, not wield it as a weapon.

While Feanor is driven by a limitless pride in his own strength, Frodo is motivated by an inner sense of duty and undying loyalty to his friends. In the end he succeeds where greater Men and Elves would have (and have already) failed. The forces of the West would surely have been overcome at the last were it not for the hands of the weak, the long trek into Mordor of Frodo and Sam, who beyond all endurance and hope deliver Middle-earth from destruction. “For, as many songs have since sung, it was the Periannath, the Little People, dwellers in hillsides and meadows, that brought them deliverance,” writes Tolkien.

Frodo’s seemingly hopeless quest is the answer to the eternal question: How do you defeat force? The answer is through patient endurance and self-sacrifice. In other words, through unassuming, quiet heroism, by exhibiting pity for one’s enemies, and through subversion, by not playing by force’s rules. This is another of the great themes of Tolkien’s works, and one which he explains in a letter:

Of course, Allegory and Story converge, meeting somewhere in Truth … And one finds, even in imperfect human ‘literature,’ that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easy it can be read ‘just as a story’; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easy can those so minded find allegory in it. But the two start out from opposite ends. You can make the Ring into an allegory of our time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work. You cannot write a story about an apparently simple magic ring without that bursting in, if you really take the ring seriously… 

--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

But as is always the case, Tolkien’s works resist simple, reductive explanations. While we can interpret Frodo’s carrying of the One Ring to Christ’s burden of the Cross, for example, Middle-earth is not saved through pacifism and pity alone. The spirit of Feanor endures in the suicidal feint at the Black Gates of Mordor and the sacrifice on the Pelennor Fields, which I would argue are just as integral to victory as the quest into Mordor. The Elf-Lord Círdan says as much when gives Gandalf the Ring Narya, hoping that the some of the Ragnarök-like spirit of the First Age will help the heroes of the Third:

“For this is the Ring of Fire, and herewith, maybe, thou shalt rekindle hearts to the valour of old in a world that grows chill.”

It is the union of Northern courage and Christian faith, “hammerstrokes with compassion” as coined by C.S. Lewis, that ultimately delivers the Third Age from the black night of Sauron’s victory.

Terrific Tolkien: Finding joy in unhappy endings

In Tolkien’s legendarium victory is never the black-and-white happy ending that it appears to be. Yes, Sauron is destroyed when the One Ring is consumed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the Ring’s destruction opens an artery in the heartstrings of Middle-earth, from which magic drains away, along with its greatest heroes. Writes Tolkien:

In that time the last of the Noldor set sail from the Havens and left Middle-earth for ever. And latest of all the Keepers of the Three Rings rode to the Sea, and Master Elrond took there the ship that Cirdan had made ready. In the twilight of autumn it sailed out of Mithlond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs above the mists of the world it passed into the Ancient West, and an end was come for the Eldar of story and of song.

Last ship to Valinor.

For all the race’s previous acts of pride and stubbornness, it’s noteworthy that a Noldorin Elf commits the greatest self-sacrifice of all. Galadriel, one of the Eldest of the Eldar, has the One Ring in her grasp after Frodo offers it to her freely in Lothlórien. She could have taken it and used it to defeat Sauron. Think of her temptation: The fate of the One Ring is tied to the Three Rings. Had it not perished the three Elven Rings would also have endured, along with all the great works of the Elves which the Rings protect and preserve, including Lothlórien and Rivendell. Yet in the end Galadriel resists its temptation. The Elves choose to sacrifice the Ring and their Rings though it results in the destruction of all their works. They opt for freedom over immortality. It’s a wonderful inversion of everything we’ve seen so far in The Silmarillion.

Like The Lord of the Rings, I find the ending of The Silmarillion incredibly sad. I grieve for the departure of the Noldor, for the draining of magic from the world, for the last ship which pulls away from the Havens, and for our own, grayer world left in its wake. While reading Tolkien’s letters, I was interested to find that he began a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Mordor, “but it proved both sinister and depressing,” and he wound up abandoning the project.

I can sympathize. During a few (all too fleeting) times in my life, I’ve felt glimpses of magic at the edges of my vision, dim remembrances of heroic ages separated by vast epochs of time. Just as quickly, these tantalizing images fade, and I’m back in the here and now of modern life, a world of banal existence, drab landscapes, and moral turpitude. Does this make me crazy? (Arguably) no, just someone who loves slipping into the world of fantasy fiction, and in particular the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Silmarillion provides these rare, exotic glimpses of a rich and wonderful secondary world, of which I have yet to find an equal. Everything in The Lord of the Rings is an echo of a grander, more epic work. The Silmarillion may not be as grounded, as accessible, nor ultimately as successful as a work of literature as The Lord of the Rings, but in my opinion it’s just as great. For it is myth writ large.

(Images by J.R.R. Tolkien, Jos, Ted Nasmith)

Blogging The Silmarillion: A straight road is bent and Men suffer punishment divine

Part eight of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with the Akallabêth.

According to scholar Tom Shippey, J.R.R. Tolkien struggled to reconcile his belief in a Christian heaven with the uncertain fate of the pre-Christian heroes he so adored. Un-baptized and living in a pagan age, where would the spirits of great Northern heroes like Beowulf dwell after their death? Likewise, what would be the fate of his Middle-earth creations, for example the slain Elven heroes Fëanor, Fingon, and Fingolfin? And where would their living, immortal brethren ultimately take up residence? The answer as explained in The Silmarillion is twofold: The Halls of Mandos, which houses the spirits of Elves slain in battle, and Valinor, the Blessed Realm, a paradise on earth removed from the darkness of Middle-earth.

Valinor and the Halls of Mandos serve as halfway houses for pre-Christian souls, or as Shippey notes in The Road to Middle Earth, a “middle path” where they remain until the Ragnarök-like ending of the world. While the Halls of Mandos can perhaps be thought of as a less rowdy Valhalla, Valinor makes a wonderful, shifting metaphor: The Garden of Eden; a lost time of innocence; a dim remembrance of a better time in our own lives; a loved one separated by death but who we hope to rejoin one day; they’re all applicable ways of assigning meaning to the Undying Lands.

Of course Valinor is sadly beyond not only our reach, but the reach of the denizens of the Third Age of Middle-earth. It’s a divide not merely between heaven and earth, but a split on Middle-earth itself. This is Tolkien’s myth of The Lost Road, an impossible straight path on a curved earth that leads to a land of magic and deathlessness. Frodo, en route to the Grey Havens, sings of this myth in the final pages of The Lord of the Rings:

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun

Though hidden, Valinor was still reachable by ship into the Second Age via a sea-journey into the west. But then a powerful race of Men called the Númenóreans decided that they too wanted in on the deathlessness, an ill choice which ultimately resulted in the separation of Valinor from Middle-earth (or heaven from earth, if you will). Their story is told in the Akallabêth, the penultimate section of The Silmarillion.

The set up to the Akallabêth is as follows: The Edain (Men who dwelt in Beleriand and were friendly with the Elves) are given the island of Númenor by the Valar as a gift for their valorous service in the wars against Morgoth. As the Second Age of Middle-earth begins they build splendid kingdoms and live for long years in unbridled peace and prosperity.

But the one seemingly unsolvable problem for the Númenóreans is that, as Men, they are mortal. Though they have much longer lifespans than modern Men, they will eventually grow old and die. Most do so gracefully in their time, accepting their fate. But some of the Númenóreans begin to question why this must be so. Valinor and its coastal city of Avallónë, just visible far off on the western horizon, seem to offer answers to this unsolved question. With the home of the deathless Elves in sight (serving as a nagging reminder of their own mortality), the Númenóreans begin to wonder why they too can’t get in on that action.

The Akallabêth can be viewed as one long exploration of Tolkien’s preoccupation with death, and also our purpose in this mortal, all-too-short life. As I see it, the answer Tolkien offers is that we’re not here on earth to hoard wealth, nor to use our minds and hands to build military strength, but to live in peace and fellowship and dignity until we pass beyond the Circles of the World. But as time passes the Númenóreans stray from the path. They turn toward military conquest and the acquisition of wealth. They build great tombs to house their dead, a symbol of the exaltation of the physical body and a distancing from the spiritual (I could draw parallels with the state of our great nation today and its infatuation with celebrities, plastic surgery, and physical beauty, but it’s too easy a target).

The Valar forbid the Númenóreans to sail to Valinor, warning of calamity should they tempt fate. For death is a gift to Men granted by Ilúvatar. But the Númenóreans, led by their 25th king, Ar-Pharazôn, continue to rebel (At least, most do—a separate faction led by Amandil called the Faithful continue to heed the words of the Valar, along with Amandil’s son Elendil. But they are in the minority).

This gap between the two groups grows into a gaping rift after Ar-Pharazôn falls in with the Dark Lord Sauron. Though he’s initially brought to Númenor as a humble captive, Sauron woos Ar-Pharazôn with his knowledge and guile. Soon a houseguest instead of a prisoner, Sauron spreads lies about the Valar among the Númenóreans. He finds a willing partner in crime in Ar-Pharazôn. Sauron gets the Númenórean king to cut down the white tree Nimloth (though not before Isildur, Elendil’s son, risks life and limb to steal a fruit from one of its boughs and carry on its line). At his suggestion Ar-Pharazôn also builds a temple in the heart of the city and the Númenóreans begin the practice of human sacrifice.

Downfall of Númenor.

Ultimately, Sauron’s destructive whisper campaign gets Ar-Pharazôn to launch the Númenórean fleet in an all-out attack on Valinor. The result is the destruction of the entire fleet and the sinking of Númenor. A towering wave, green and cold, overlaps the island, sending the once-great civilization beneath the waves. In the great flood Sauron is unmade, but not destroyed, and his spirit returns to Mordor, where he “wrought himself a new guise,” an image of malice and hatred made visible.

Most strikingly of all, Ilúvatar remakes the once-flat Arda as a round planet. Valinor no longer resides as an island in the west, but a mythic land hovering somewhere in the ether. Ships can no longer reach Valinor by sea “for all roads are now bent.” Only a few mortals, by the whim of the Valar, will ever reach Valinor and see its white shores before they die. Thereafter, the hearts of Men feel its loss keenly. That welling of nostalgia for something you cannot quite place when you stand on the shore and look to the sea? That’s Valinor.

Christianity, Arthuriana, and more

The Akallabêth is loaded with references to the Christian bible and parallels with the myths of Atlantis and King Arthur. For example, the Valar’s warning not to set foot on the Blessed Realm has echoes of the forbidden fruit. The Númenórean capital city of Armenelos devolves into a wicked den of sin in the mold of a Sodom or Gomorrah. In fact, the description of the awful goings-on in Armenelos, including human sacrifice on pagan altars, reminded me somewhat of a Stygian city from Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age. Writes Tolkien, “In that temple, with spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from Death … Yet those were bitter days, and hate brings forth hate.” This is (to my knowledge) the first overt mention of an organized religion in The Silmarillion, and it is not portrayed well.

The ships of the faithful.

Then there’s the preparing of the ships of the Faithful, an obvious allusion to the myth of the Ark. Amandil tells Elendil to prepare a handful of ships “with all such things as your heart cannot bear to part with.” Elendil loads them up with artifacts, scrolls of lore, and a young tree, the scion of Nimloth the Fair. Perhaps this is Tolkien’s exaltation of knowledge and tradition, and the need to carry on the great works and memories of nations, which inevitably become corrupt and fall (another Howardian theme).

The legend of Númenor resonates in our own history in the myth of Atlantis (i.e., a prehistoric civilization that sinks after some great natural calamity).

Finally, its no great leap from Tolkien’s Avallónë to the Arthurian myth of Avalon. The dying King Arthur may have found healing in the Undying Lands after he is wounded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann and sails away to the island of Avalon.

The future takes root in the present

Apart from its wonderful mythic elements, my recent re-reading of The Silmarillion reminded me of another reason why I’m partial to the Akallabêth: I can feel the connections with the Third Age coming together with an audible click, yet another reminder of the gorgeous tapestry that is Tolkien’s tightly-constructed universe. The names we encounter are quite familiar which makes my Lord of the Rings-obsessed heart skip a beat. For example, Sauron takes center stage in the Akallabêth, and it’s here we first hear of the forging the One Ring (I had forgotten until this re-read that, among the Nine, Sauron enslaves three great warrior-lords of the Númenóreans. This is another reason why the Nazgul are to be feared: The Númenóreans were mighty warriors).

I’ll admit that it’s strange to see Sauron—portrayed of course in LOTR an incorporeal spirit or a flaming eye—walking around in as a handsome man in the Akallabêth. Like Melkor, he too was once fair to look upon. Drowning is not good for the complexion, apparently.

Elendil and Isildur are also straight out of LOTR; the tale of father and son can be found in Chapter two of The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Shadow of the Past,” where Gandalf tells a wide-eyed Frodo about their combat with Sauron on the slopes of Mount Doom. The Akallabêth also provides some illumination on Aragorn’s shadowy history, first hinted at in a conversation between Bilbo and Frodo in Rivendell in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter One, “Many Meetings”:

“And why do you call him Dúnadan?” asked Frodo.

“The Dúnadan,” said Bilbo. “He is often called that here. But I thought you knew enough Elvish at least to know dún-adan: Man of the West, Númenórean. But this is not the time for lessons!”

Tolkien forges the final link in the chain from the past to the present of Middle-earth in the final section of The Silmarillion, “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” which I’ll tackle next week.

Terrific Tolkien: The last words of Amandil and other death-speeches

Has any fantasy author ever written such poignant, beautiful death-speeches as J.R.R. Tolkien? Despite accusations of his tendency to cave in to happy endings, Tolkien frequently writes noble characters who deliver heroic speeches just before suffering some grim end. For example, there’s Felagund dying in Beren’s arms in the pits of Sauron (“It may be that we shall not meet a second time in death or life, for the fates of our kindreds are apart. Farewell!”), and Huor’s final words to Turgon before his suicidal rear-guard action at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (“This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and from me a new star shall arise. Farewell!”).

Equally lump-in-the-throat inducing are the last words of Amandil, father of Elendil, before he sets sail for Valinor. Like Eärendil, he hopes to reach the Undying Lands, in this instance to warn the Valar about the impending attack by the Númenórean fleet. Amandil tells his son to be ready should he fail to return, and the pathos is palpable:

“It may well prove that you will see me never again; and that I shall show you no such sign as Eärendil showed long ago. But hold you ever in readiness, for the end of the world that we have known is now at hand.”

Amandil’s words prove prophetic: He and his crew perish, suffering a cold, lonely death beneath the waves: “And never again were they heard of by word or sign in this world, nor is there any tale or guess of their fate. Men could not for a second time be saved by any such embassy.” Yet Elendil heeds his father’s words, and when the great green wave comes to envelop Númenor, he and his crews are ready.

Amandil’s final voyage may have been in vain, but his last words to his beloved son were not.

(Artwork by John Howe, Darrell Sweet, and Ted Nasmith)

Blogging The Silmarillion: Out of ruined lands and cities, a star of hope arises

Part seven of Blogging the Silmarillion concludes the Quenta Silmarillion with a look at Chapters 22-24.

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No careful reader of Tolkien’s fiction can fail to be aware of the polarities that give it form and tension. His work is built on contrasts—between hope and despair, between good and evil, between enlightenment and ignorance—and these contrasts are embodied in the polarities of light and dark that are the creative outgrowth of his contrary moods, the “antitheses” of his nature.

–Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World

J.R.R. Tolkien was, paradoxically, a man of deep faith who was subject to extreme bouts of despair. He believed that life here on earth is a long defeat, an inevitable march toward the destruction of man and all his creations. However, he also believed in an afterlife. Despite numerous defeats and endured miseries, there existed for Tolkien the possibility of final, unlooked-for victory (coined by Tolkien as a “eucatastrophe”) in this world or the next.

These contrasting sides to Tolkien’s personality are revealed in the final three chapters of the Quenta Silmarillion. In chapters 22-24 we experience (Middle)-earthian defeats that result in unimaginable ruin, followed by the Valar-backed defeat of Morgoth, a victory of truly epic scale.

It’s foolish to think that we can ever have a paradise on earth, for life here is transitory, a passing thing. So too it was in the First Age of Middle-earth. The Elves built cities of surpassing beauty and strength, but each in turn fall into ruin. While Part Six of Blogging The Silmarillion revisited the sack of Nargothrond, in this section of The Silmarillion we witness the ruin of the kingdom of Doriath, followed by the fall of the hidden mountain city of Gondolin. This is the culmination of the Long Defeat for the Elves, whose greatest and seemingly most enduring works come to a violent and ruinous end.

In this re-read of The Silmarillion I noted that all three cities seem to fall as a direct result of (or due in part to) human intervention. In summary:

1. Túrin’s pride and unwillingness to cut the bridge to Nargothrond resuls in the sack of that city.

2. Húrin, freed by Morgoth and wandering in the hidden realm of Gondolin cries out in despair. Morgoth, listening, discerns the rough location of the city. Later Tuor, human son of Húrin’s brother Huor, wins the heart of Idril, daughter of high king Turgon. This incites the hate of the Elf Maeglin, who ultimately betrays the city to Morgoth.

3. After wandering through the ruins of sacked Nargothrond, Húrin retrieves the priceless Dwarven necklace Nauglamír and brings it to the caves of Menegroth in Doriath. The Elven King Thingol takes it and employs Dwarven smiths to mount a Silmaril on its chain. Incited by wealth-lust, the Dwarves slay Thingol. His death leaves Doriath leaderless and open to its enemies, and the kingdom is consumed by civil war and kinslaying.

Perhaps these examples are Tolkien’s way of saying: Thus do men’s prying eyes always rid the world of its wonder; some things are best left as they are (he may have uttered the same words regarding the prying eyes of literary critics…) The fall of these cities is also a refutation of the criticism that Tolkien was an incorrigible isolationist; the fate of those who would hide behind walls or seek refuge in seclusion is clear.

When I first read The Silmarillion many years ago I was disappointed in its lack of details, particularly in the descriptions of the battles of Gondolin and Nargothrond. Now, Tolkien was never one to revel in bloodshed (in a recent lecture I attended featuring Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey, Shippey explained that “Everyone who Tolkien knew was a veteran—there were things you didn’t have to explain”). But even so, I wondered why the clashes at Minas Tirith and Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings are more detailed than just about anything we find in The Silmarillion.

But now that I understand Tolkien’s intent in writing The Silmarillion a little better it’s clear that the work was written as a mythology, and accordingly we’re not given blow-by-blow treatments. This elevated, distant style lends the work a mythic feel, like a retelling of legendary events that might really have occurred in some distant once-upon-a-time.

For example, the scene where Maedhros is shackled to a cliff in the mountains of Thangorodrim before he is freed by Fingon is scarcely two pages of text. But it’s the context of these striking images which lend them such an epic scope.

In short, do we need a blow-by-blow treatment, or can we let our minds fill in the details?

Still, even painted with broad brush-strokes, what few details we have in “The Fall of Gondolin” are quite awesome. Here are some of my favorites:

• The attacking host of Morgoth, which includes Balrogs, Orcs, wolves, and dragon-brood of Glaurung (such a host would have made mince-meat out of Minas Tirith)

• Tuor hurling the traitorous Maeglin over the wall of Gondolin, consigning him to the same splattered fate as his father Eol (“his body as it fell smote the rocky slopes of Amon Gwareth thrice ere it pitched into the flames below.”)

Glorfindel and the Balrog.

• The Elf Glorfindel battling a Balrog in the dreadful pass of Cirith Thoronath; both he and it are slain in the duel after falling from a great height.

 It’s fortunate that circumstances led to the publication of The Lord of the Rings before The Silmarillion because the former works gives the latter a certain gravitas. For example, the account in The Silmarillion of Glorfindel’s battle with the Balrog is quite impressive, both as a striking image and an act of bravery. But with our foreknowledge of the might of the Balrog from Moria—how the heroes of the Fellowship were incapable of fighting it with normal weapons, and that only a Maia like Gandalf was a match—we have a frame through which we can view its battle with Glorfindel for the awe-inspiring, epic clash that it is. The great heroes of the First Age of Middle-earth thus seem all the greater in stature and imbued with a mythic quality; like a Sigurd or an Achilles are they in comparison to their Third Age counterparts.

After the ruin of Doriath and the Fall of Gondolin we set sail for the final chapter of the Quenta Silmarillion, “Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath.” Eärendil is the Halfelven son of Tuor and Turgon’s daughter Idril. He escapes the sack of Gondolin, and living near the mouths of Sirion on the coast becomes the greatest mariner of his age, save for Círdan the Shipwright (Eärendil means “Lover of the Sea”). Eärendil is blessed not only with unparalleled nautical ability but also a clear vision, unclouded by Noldorin pride. To quote Blind Guardian, he knows that “true hope lies beyond the coast,” in the west, in the strength and truth of the Valar. His eye is on the eternal, the divine, and thus he triumphs where heroes of greater martial might— Fëanor, Húrin, Túrin —all fail. While Túrin trusted in his own strength, Earendil places his trust in something greater, in faith. On his ship Vinglot, the Foam-flower, fairest of the ships of song, he begins his journey across the sea.

Voyage of Eärendil.

Ultimately Eärendil’s voyage succeeds because he refuses to succumb to despair. We learn that prior to his final journey Eärendil failed, time and again, to reach Valinor. When he left on his final trip, the weight of his troubles might have crushed a lesser Half-Elf. Morgoth was at the height of his power. Elven cities were falling at an alarming rate. Eärendil’s wife and all he loves stood in mortal peril. But he reached the Undying Lands by not giving up.

In contrast are Húrin and Túrin, who give in to despair and commit the ultimate capitulation, that of self-annihilation. Despair is a tool of the enemy (think of the Ringwraiths, whose primary weapon is sewing fear and despair); if you give up, Morgoth/Sauron has won. Despair is a sin, and suicide is not an answer. Because of the possibility of eucatastrophe, we have to fight on. Even a bitter defeat can be a step towards ultimate victory. It’s one of the greatest lessons that The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion have to teach us, in my opinion.

So Eärendil’s voyage across the sea succeeds, and he persuades the Valar, the Vanyar, the Noldor, and even the Teleri (who provide transport, not combat troops) to return to Middle-earth and wage war on Morgoth. Thus begins the final Battle of Beleriand, the War of Wrath.

Unfortunately the details Tolkien provides of the battle are scarce, but there are a few awesome scenes worth mentioning. Balrogs and dragons fight Valar and great First Age heroes. There are hordes of orcs too, but in such a clash, these are like cavalry meeting tanks: They perish in waves like straw in flame. Even the Balrogs are scattered before the might of the host of Valinor. So great is the shock that much of Beleriand is ruined and Sirion is covered in flood.

Morgoth forces a brief bulge when he releases a horde of dragons from Angband, but Eärendil strikes down their chief, Ancalagon the Black. Morgoth is finished. The Valar place him in chains and thrust him through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World, into the Timeless Void, and a guard is set on those walls. The surviving Noldor are pardoned by the Valar and forgiven by the Teleri and admitted to Valinor: Their ancient curse is laid to rest.

But his evil is not dispersed. The Quenta Silmarillion ends with a picture of the earth largely as we now know it: Arda Marred, a fallen world. Though some Elves and Dwarves remain, Man in all his complexity is coming into ascendancy with his propensity for great good and unspeakable evil. In him are planted dark seeds that continually sprout up, but also “the strains of the spirits divine.”

Maglor casts a Silmaril into the sea.

The Valar place Eärendil in the sky as a beacon of light and hope, a reminder that there is something greater beyond the great grey rain-curtain of this world. He is a star in the void with a Silmaril on his brow, a reminder of a time of unfractured light before the Fall. The other two Silmarils are lost—Maedhros and Maglor, unable to forsake the oath of Fëanor, steal the two precious gems. Wracked with a burning pain (for the Silmarils, being made of the light of Valinor, belong to the Valar and not the Noldor), Maedhros hurls himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire; Maglor hurls his Silmaril into the sea. Never more will they be found “unless the world be broken and remade.”

Terrific Tolkien: Of layering and The Fall of Gondolin

Arguably Tolkien’s greatest strength as a writer is his ability to make Middle-earth seem so three dimensional and historical. I’ve heard it called the illusion of depth, though I don’t think illusion is the correct word. Middle-earth has the actual depth of the Marianas Trench; some scholars have made it plumbing its depths a life-long calling. This is because Tolkien had a remarkable ability to layer his stories in deep history.

One of my favorite examples of layering is found in “Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin,” a brief passage which states that the real story of the fall of Gondolin is told in yet another tale:

“Of the deeds of desperate valour there done, by the chieftains of the noble houses and their warriors, and not least by Tuor, much is told in The Fall of Gondolin: of the battle of Ecthelion of the Fountain with Gothmog Lord of the Balrogs in the very square of the King, where each slew the other.”

For Tolkien, there was always another story to tell, older lore to discover, deeper myths to illuminate. Me, I’d settle for a few more tales of Middle-earth from any Age. I’m not picky.

In the meantime, if you happen to find an original copy of The Fall of Gondolin (on which the story in The Book of Lost Tales Volume 2 is based), let me know, I’ll make a fair offer.

(Artwork by John Howe and Ted Nasmith)

Blogging The Silmarillion: Of Túrin Turambar and the sightless dark of Tolkien’s vision

Thus was the fate of Túrin woven, which is foretold in that lay that is called Narn i Hîn Húrin, the Tale of the Children of Húrin, and is the longest of all the lays that speak of those days. Here that tale is told in brief, for it is woven with the fate of the Silmarils and of the Elves; and it is called the Tale of Grief, for it is sorrowful, and in it are revealed most evil works of Morgoth Bauglir.

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Are our lives lived in vain? Are we ultimately slaves to our own weaknesses and pre-programmed natures? Does life have any real significance when death’s mouth yawns blackly at its end?

These are some of the questions with which J.R.R. Tolkien grapples in his writing, but perhaps never so clearly and forthrightly as in Chapter 21 of The Silmarillion, “Of Túrin Turambar.”

I haven’t read as much of the Northern myths as I would like, but I can say with certainty that “Of Túrin Turambar” would fit right alongside any of the stories in The Sagas of Icelanders, for example. Along with the tale of Fëanor it is the most northern story in the book: heroic and studded with mighty deeds and feats of arms, but bleak, tragic, and ultimately fruitless. This is Tolkien in his darkest hour.

The protagonists of the Icelandic Sagas had their stories told through action and dialogue, the third person objective. Likewise Tolkien does not take us into Túrin’s head: He acts, or boasts, or cries out in agonized frustration. He flings himself into the wilderness in great rages, choosing exile over compromise. He does not fret away his hours as a philosopher brooding over questions of reality (Robert E. Howard would have appreciated the character of Túrin); he makes bold, sweeping decisions. Some are rash and ruinous, but they’re always brave and drawn with bright splashes of color.

A Clockwork Orange has nothing on Hurin.

We’re introduced to Túrin by way of his father Húrin, whose incredible last stand at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (as described in Part Five of Blogging the Silmarillion) allows Turgon and his people to escape to the hidden mountain fortress of Gondolin. Unfortunately for himself, Húrin is taken alive. Morgoth tries to torture the location of the hidden kingdom out of Húrin but fails; Húrin defies and mocks the dark lord. In his anger Morgoth lays a curse upon him, his wife Morwen, and their offspring, pronouncing “a doom of darkness and sorrow.” Morgoth then forces Húrin to sit in a stone chair in the mountains of Thangorodrim and watch this doom unfold on his family for nearly three decades. The soul-shattering sights leave him shattered, a hollow man (I’ll repeat it again: “Of Túrin Turambar” is in my opinion the darkest section of The Silmarillion: It’s a beautiful chapter but it’s brutal to read).

Chapter 21 picks up shortly after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Rían, wife of Huor (Húrin’s brother) seeks out her missing husband and finds only corpses: Huor is among the countless warriors slain in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. In her grief Rían lies down upon the Hill of Slain and herself dies. This is the first paragraph of the chapter.

If this weren’t grim enough, in the very next paragraph we literally get the death of laughter itself. Lalaith, Túrin’s precious three-year-old sister, catches a pestilence borne on an evil wind out of Angband and dies (lalaith means “laughter” in the Sindarin tongue). To top off the bleakness, in Túrin’s homeland of Hithlum the Easterlings are running amok, taking land and goods and enslaving the children. Afraid Turin will be taken next, his mother Morwen sends her son away to live in the hidden kingdom of Doriath.

But there is no safe haven for Túrin: Morgoth’s curse haunts his footsteps. Says the Elf Gwindor of Túrin: “A doom lies upon him. Doubt not the power of Morgoth Bauglir.”

The implication is that evil is an outside, maleficent force that can corrupt even the strongest of men. But Tolkien has a master’s hand on the tiller. We never know whether Túrin is like a puppet on the strings of the Dark Lord, or whether he is a master of his own fate and responsible for his life’s mishaps and tragedies. Tolkien lets us, his readers, decide, through presenting a series of mishaps in Túrin’s life whose sources we can interpret either way.

Turin’s first misstep is an accidental murder he commits while in Doriath. When the jealous Elf Saeros mocks Túrin’s wild and unkempt appearance, rather than swallowing his pride Túrin hurls his drinking cup full in the Elves’ face. Saeros retaliates by ambushing Túrin in the woods the following day; Túrin responds in kind by beating Saeros and chasing him through the trees. In a panic Saeros falls into a chasm and dies. This begs the question: Are Saeros’ words calculated and placed in his mouth by Morgoth, or is this Túrin acting rashly and making his own ill bed? Rather than plead his innocence before Thingol Túrin opts to flee into the wilderness.

Turin slays Beleg.

Thingol pardons Túrin and sends one of his best warriors, Beleg Strongbow, into the wild to bring him back. But Túrin refuses the pardon and joins a band of outlaws operating in the wilderness against Morgoth. Donning the Dragon-helm of Dor-lomin, he wages war on the dark lord.  Túrin and his men are eventually trapped and slain and Túrin is taken prisoner. When Beleg attempts a rescue, cutting Túrin free from his bonds, his sword slips (or is it guided by Morgoth’s hand?). Stung by the cut and thinking himself beset by an enemy Túrin slays Beleg. By his own hand he murders his best friend.

Túrin takes up Beleg’s black sword Anglachel, which he renames Gurthang, and wanders the wilderness, distraught and alone until he reaches the Elven city of Nargothrond.  Here Túrin’s pride continues to get the better of him. He chooses to face Morgoth openly on the field of battle, thus drawing the dark lord’s net ever closer to the Elven city. When the council warns him to “shut the doors of the fortress… cast the stones of your pride into the river,” Turin ignores their wisdom.

Like the tale of Fëanor, “Of Túrin Turambar” is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of pride. The Elves warn Turin not to challenge Morgoth openly. Theirs is the safe counsel—against the dark lord it’s best to fight defensively, to hold on to what is dearest for as long as you can, and to wait for the right time, if it ever comes. In other words, to swallow your pride.

But Túrin is a man of action whose first and strongest instinct is to meet the enemy on the open field and crush him, or die honorably in the attempt (I’ll admit that I myself am sympathetic to this view). But while the Elven perspective is (probably) right, Tolkien obviously had a soft spot for the passionate race of men, the Ragnarok spirit, and of the hot-blooded Húrin and Túrin in particular. These two great warriors very closely resemble the great figures and heroes of northern myth with which Tolkien felt an obvious kinship. We cannot help but sympathize with their unyielding spirit, even when it leads them terribly astray.

Alerted by Túrin’s presence Morgoth sends a great host of orcs to capture Nargothrond with the great dragon Glaurung at its head (Túrin has a chance to destroy the bridge leading to Nargothrond but refuses, foolishly trusting in his own strength). Glaurung puts a binding spell on Túrin that roots him to the spot, then speaks wicked words to the immobile warrior that cut to his soul:

“Evil have been all thy ways, son of Húrin. Thankless fosterling, outlaw, slayer of thy friend, thief of love, usurper of Nargothrond, captain foolhardy, and deserter of thy kin.”

Whether puppet or perpetrator, Túrin is guilty of all these things, and he’s about to become something worse: A perpetrator of incest, guilty of one of mankind’s oldest taboos. Glaurung places a spell of forgetfulness on Túrin’s sister Nienor and she and Turin meet, fall in love, and marry, not knowing that they are both the Children of Húrin.

The awful truth is revealed when Túrin slays Glaurung; with its dying breath the monster restores full memory to Nienor, who hurls herself over a cliff.  Túrin, knocked unconscious during the fight, also learns the truth and throws himself upon Gurthang.

While a great story and a masterful tragedy, “Of Túrin Turambar” is also something more. Tolkien uses the tale to place evil itself under the microscope.

As a philologist, Tolkien’s expertise was in words and their derivations, which reveal facets of his characters. For example, during his wanderings Túrin takes the name “Turambar,” which means “Master of Doom” (i.e., someone who controls his own destiny). But Morgoth’s curse is always at his heels, and he cannot seem to outrun it. We’re not sure therefore if Túrin is a victim of his own ill-choices, or the external, overbearing evil of Morgoth.

Tolkien is revisiting familiar ground here, as the same argument swirls over the One Ring—is its wielder bereft of choice, consumed by its terrible power, or does the Ring reflect and amplify our own weakness? Túrin is indeed cursed with terrible luck, ill circumstances devised by the cunning of Morgoth. But he always has a choice in how to react to the terrible events that befall him—perhaps his own flawed responses, more than Morgoth’s pronouncement of doom, makes him the “cursed” man that he is. In fact, his friend Gwindor openly tells Túrin that he is responsible for his own fate: “the doom lies in yourself, not in your name.” This exploration of the duality of evil makes “Of Túrin Turambar” all the more interesting, and certainly one of the most memorable chapters in the book.

At the end of the chapter Túrin commits suicide, so in this respect he is a literal master of his own doom. But his life appears to be vain: He himself has met an untimely death, both his sisters are dead, his father Húrin remains in chains, and Morgoth still sits upon his dark throne. And we readers are ready to climb into a warm tub with a razor blade. But what a journey! Was Túrin’s struggle worth it? We shall see as The Silmarillion progresses toward its conclusion.

I will now admit feeling for the first time a bit of disappointment with The Silmarillion: Since my last-reading we have seen the publication of The Children of Húrin, a full-length novel treatment of the story of Túrin (Unfinished Tales, published in 1980, also has a far more expansive version of the story). In contrast, the tale as told in The Silmarillion feels truncated, its power slightly denuded. Perhaps a Tolkien scholar can explain why this vastly shortened tale was published, whether it was simply due to an oversight or a rush to get The Silmarillion completed and in circulation for those who had their appetite whetted by The Lord of the Rings. But the cuts make this chapter feel incomplete in comparison to the longer treatments.

Terrific Tolkien: Gurthang, Iron of Death

Steve Tompkins wrote a nice piece about the echoes of cursed blades throughout fantasy literature—two noteworthy examples being Michael Moorcock’s Elric, and Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword. The Silmarillion adds another legend with Anglachel, a black sword made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star (“There is malice in this sword. The dark heart of the smith still dwells in it. It will not love the hand it serves; neither will it abide with you long.”)

Túrin inherits the sword from Beleg after accidentally slaying his friend and renames it Gurthang, Iron of Death. When he’s in the throes of his final despair he asks Gurthang if it will take him out of his misery. Chillingly, Gurthang speaks.

“Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly.”

The black sword can be viewed as a metaphor for those mighty weapons whose power is too great to handle and, once employed, are cursed to destroy their wielders.

(Artwork by Ted Nasmith and Alan Lee)

A recap of Boskone 47: Talking Tolkien with Tom Shippey

Tom Shippey might be the closest connection we have to J.R.R. Tolkien himself, save for Tolkien’s son Christopher. Shippey met Tolkien and had a few conversations with him shortly before the latter’s death in 1973. He followed in Tolkien’s footsteps as a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature, inheriting Tolkien’s chair and syllabus. Most importantly of all he understands the source material of Tolkien’s legendarium probably better than any man alive, including works like the Finnish Kalevala, Beowulf, the Eddas, and the Icelandic sagas. Shippey has also written two highly regarded critical works on Tolkien (certainly the two most impressive I’ve read), J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien created a new mythology.

Entering Friday’s night’s Boskone 47 conference at the Westin Boston Waterfront in Boston, MA, I was hoping to steal a minute or two of Shippey’s time to ask him some questions about my favorite author. I’m pleased to say I got much more!

I arrived at the conference a little before 6 p.m., checked in and got my badge and conference literature, then slid into an ongoing panel discussion about works of science fiction that don’t seem to be aging well (“What’s Showing Its Age?” by Daniel Dern, David Hartwell, and Peter Weston). The session let out at 7, just in time for an autographing session with Shippey, children’s author Jane Yolen, and sci-fi author Andrew Zimmerman Jones. The autographing session was being held in the Galleria, a large exhibition hall full of book dealers, purveyors of fantasy sculpture and miniatures, original artwork by the likes of John Picacio and Michael Whelan (the latter of Elric book cover fame), and much more.

When I entered the hall I saw that Yolen had a line of some 15-20 people deep waiting for autographs; Shippey had only a couple! Within minutes I was shaking the hand of perhaps the greatest Tolkien scholar ever, offering thanks for teaching me more about Tolkien than any other author, and garnering signatures for my copies of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth.

I was prepared to be swept aside by other autograph seekers, but with none coming I got to speak with Shippey for quite a while. I felt completely out of my depth and initially a bit flustered, but he put me at ease with his friendly banter, warmth, and genuine sense of humor. Shippey is a lifelong fan of fantasy and science-fiction beyond Tolkien which also helped put me at ease.

I could not resist asking such fannish questions as:

“What was Tolkien like?”

“Have you read Michael Moorcock’s Epic Pooh? What did you think?”

“Which was a greater influence on Middle-earth: Old Northern or Christian mythology?” (this last question sparked some interesting side-conversation on Joseph Pearce’s Tolkien: Man and Myth).

“Was Middle-earth our actual earth in some pre-cataclysmic age? Or did Tolkien intend it purely as a fictional creation?” (The former, Shippey said)

Shippey took the time to answer them all. I won’t share all of Shippey’s comments here as it was personal, candid conversation, but I will relay a few things. For example, he mentioned how Tolkien was very Hobbit-like: He cared about things like football scores and people’s names and their origins. Shippey also talked about the declining enrollment of English majors and the marginalization of literature studies and critics (I agree completely). It’s strange to say, but having spoken with Shippey I now feel two degrees removed from Tolkien himself (and technically, I now am)!

Afterwards I attended two panel discussions featuring Shippey and others: The Lord of the Rings Films: 5 Years Later (which ran from 8-9 p.m.) and The Problem of Glorfindel and Other Issues in Tolkien (which ran from 9-10 p.m.). These were very enjoyable.

In general, Shippey enjoyed the Peter Jackson films and thought they were well done. He has some problems with them, of course, and stated that he didn’t like what Jackson did with the character of Theoden. Aragorn’s fake death when he falls over the cliff was derided by the panel, as were some of Jackson’s over-the-top scenes of grue (his horror influences spilling through).

But in general the panel thought the films were very good, and that the changes from the book were necessary in adapting it to a film medium while ensuring that the movie remained profitable and accessible for a broader audience. Someone else asked why battle scenes were downplayed in the books, particularly their graphic details, while in contrast the battles were huge set-pieces in the movies. Shippey responded, “Everyone who Tolkien knew was a veteran—there were things you didn’t have to explain,” whereas audiences today are “civilianized.”

Speaking of profitable, Shippey quipped that Tolkien’s writing of The Lord of the Rings “must have been the biggest return on investment in the history of the universe,” noting that Tolkien used scrap paper and borrowed ink to write the early drafts, and only had to sacrifice a college professor’s spare time (which is essentially worth zero, joked Shippey, who is a professor himself).

Shippey said Jackson made some “very gutty decisions” with the script, including leaving the ending as-is, keeping its tone of sadness and loss when a Star Wars-like ending might have been more palatable for a modern audience. Fellow panelist Michael Swanwick commented that the end of The Lord of the Rings “breaks your heart,” in that it’s happy and sad all at once. One of my favorite moments was Shippey’s comment that Sam’s final line (“Well, I’m back”) is “such an Anglo-Saxon thing to say:” It’s all of three syllables and in one respect pointless (of course Sam is back!), but at the same time means so much more. Shippey noted that Sam paradoxically came back to die, but also to live with his family and as Mayor of Michel Delving.

The panel took some questions from the audience, including one from yours truly about the decision to remove the Scouring of the Shire. Other panelists than Shippey weighed in, but the general consensus was that there were already too many endings and that the Scouring was anti-climactic and works better in a book than on film (I don’t really agree, but there you have it).

As for whether or not these films still resonate, a member of the audience pretty much answered that with a story about a trip to New Zealand taken by his friend and friend’s fiancé. The two were pleased to discover that the country’s tourist maps are marked with all the sites from the films. The couple hiked up “Mount Doom” and brought him back a piece of igneous rock from its now legendary slope.

The second lecture/panel discussion I attended, The Problem of Glorfindel and Other Issues in Tolkien was a discussion of the minutea in Tolkien’s legendarium and some of its seeming inconsistencies. Panelist Mary Kay Kate of the Mythopoeic Society commented that, “We care about trivial things because [Tolkien] succeeded so well at creating his world—he can’t have just made mistakes.”

The panel opened with a discussion of Glorfindel. Elves in Tolkien’s legendarium do not reuse names, therefore the Glorfindel who died fighting a balrog in the First Age (as told in The Silmarillion) must have been reincarnated into the Glorfindel we know from The Lord of the Rings. However, it was unclear (and remains so) if Tolkien intended this, or whether he merely re-used an old name by accident. Shippey remarked that Tolkien had an uneasy attitude toward reincarnation—while he didn’t deny it, when asked whether he believed in its possibility Tolkien answered, “I’m a Catholic.”

There was a lot of conversation among the panel and the audience regarding Tom Bombadil, why this section of the book feels different, whether or not it’s important to advancement of the plot, etc. I admit that I’m rather ambivalent about this section of the book and so took few notes.

Shippey, who had been quiet for much of this discussion, then took off on a spellbinding 10 minute talk about Tolkien’s lifelong habit of revising and re-revising his work: “Niggling,” Shippey called it (Tolkien wrote a story entitled “Leaf by Niggle” which addresses this facet of his personality). This led to some problems and could have potentially wrought significant havoc with Tolkien’s creations. For example, Shippey stated that Tolkien was strongly considering a sixth revision of The Hobbit which would have significantly altered and softened the story, but fortunately reconsidered when a confidant said, “That’s all well and good John Ronald, but it’s not The Hobbit”). Shippey added that Christopher Tolkien told him that “his father never would have finished The Lord of the Rings if it were not for C.S. Lewis.” Shippey also noted that Tolkien went a large part of his latter academic career without publishing any scholarly works or papers, which was frowned upon by administration.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the session was the panel’s discussion of the problem of orcs. Some critics have called Tolkien’s depiction of the orcs racist; also troubling is the fact that orcs seem like an unredeemable race (whereas others in Tolkien’s legendarium choose evil, so they can theoretically repent their ways and be granted mercy).

Shippey noted that orcs share many human-like values: For instance, they value loyalty and abide by rough Geneva-like conventions of warfare (Shippey quoted the “regular elvish trick” line from the orc Gorbag who finds Frodo bound in webs and abandoned on the orc-path; Gorbag is at least outwardly appalled that a soldier would leave a wounded fellow soldier to die). “Orcs are all right!” Shippey said. But he also laid his finger on the root of the orcs’ evil: The problem of Ufthak. Ufthak was the unfortunate orc who was found by his comrades alive, emeshed in Shelob’s webs. Rather than freeing him, the other orcs laughed and left him hanging in a corner to die a horrible end. Saving him wasn’t their business.

Shippey made a compelling case that the problem of Ufthak demonstrates that the orcs have a thoroughly modern mindset: They know the difference between right and wrong and have a theoretical knowledge of good and evil, but don’t put into practice. They act self-centeredly, separate from standards of decency. This attitude resulted in the major man-made holocausts of the 20th century.

On a final note, when the moderator asked the panelists for closing remarks, Shippey with his booming voice told everyone that Tom Bombadil is “not a Maiar, or a Valar. He’s a land wight!”

Sounds reasonable to me, and who am I to argue?