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Dread Horseman
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Re: Book of the Century?
Bridges of Madison County?!! Surely you jest.
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Quote:<hr> Likewise, I think, it is fair to say that Tolkien was writing a work that was (and I really must find the quote) religious (specifically Catholic) in its nature. The beauty and the genius of LOTR is that it is not OVERTLY religious. I think it is INTRINSICALLY so. It does not preach. It demonstrates.<hr></blockquote>Quite so. I heartily agree. I am sympathetic to the Christian subtext and symbolism contained in the works. I do not deny JRRT's faith and beliefs are clearly reflected therein. I do not even deny that JRRT consciously molded certain symbols to reflect his beliefs.
However, I still maintain that it is inaccurate to say that the prof saw the Sil or LotR as "primarily religious". In his own words he said he was "primarily writing an exciting story in an atmosphere and background such as I find personally attractive." He was writing the type of story he wanted to read but couldn't because it didn't exist (at, least, not in sufficient quantity or quality for his appetite).
Here's the quote you're looking for, Gil: <blockquote>
Quote:<hr> I have been cheered specially by what you have said, this time and before, because you are more perceptive, especially in some directions, than any one else, and have even revealed to me more clearly some things about my work. I think I know exactly what you mean by the order of Grace; and of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded. The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it.<hr></blockquote>I take this mostly to mean that his work necessarily reflects his Christian beliefs and upbringing, and his statements that the letter of his correspondent (a Catholic priest) revealed to him more clearly some religious parallels in his own work, and his statement that he has "consciously planned very little", only reinforce that he didn't sit down to write a "primarily religious" story (or stories). He rather shuddered at the idea. Here's a few more from
Letters to show that I wasn't exaggerating above: <blockquote>
Quote:<hr> I cannot understand how I should be labelled 'a believer in moral didacticism'. Who by? It is in any case the exact opposite of my procedure in The Lord of the Rings. I neither preach nor teach. (Letter 329, written less than two years before his death)
As such the story is (I think a beautiful and powerful) heroic-fairy-romance, receivable in itself with only a very general vague knowledge of the background. (of the story of Beren and Lúthien)
The darkness of the present days has had some effect on it [Lotr]. Though it is not an 'allegory'. (I have already had one letter from America asking for an authoritative exposition of the allegory of The Hobbit).
I think that there is no horror conceivable that such creatures [Hobbits] cannot surmount, by grace (here appearing in mythological forms) combined with a refusal of their nature and reason at the last pinch to compromise or submit. But in spite of this, do not let Rayner suspect 'Allegory'. There is a 'moral', I suppose, in any tale worth telling. But that is not the same thing. Even the struggle between darkness and light (as he calls it, not me) is for me just a particular phase of history, one example of its pattern, perhaps, but not The Pattern; and the actors are individuals – they each, of course, contain universals, or they would not live at all, but they never represent them as such.
The Lord of the Rings as a story was finished so long ago now that I can take a largely impersonal view of it, and find 'interpretations' quite amusing; even those that I might make myself, which are mostly
post scriptum: I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point.<hr></blockquote>I think these and other quotes show that the prof viewed his works "primarily" as exciting (moving, beautiful, rousing, etc.) romantic adventure stories.
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