Tolkien & the Great War - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 11-10-2003, 03:42 AM

Just a quick note to make everyone aware of this amazing new biography of Tolkien & his service in WW1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...53890-3795826.

This period is covered in Carpenter's biography, but he only gives it 25 pages, whereas Garth gives it over 300.

I heard Garth talking about & reading from this at Oxonmoot (the Tolkien Society's gathering in Oxford) this September, & had been looking forward to reading this, but i was truly amazed by the work.

Garth has written a vital, serious biography, having had access to Tolkien's private papers, letters & diaries, & the advice of Christopher Tolkien. We get a real insight, not only into life on the Somme battlefield, but into the developing Legendarium. The stories of the TCBS members - Tolkien's three best friends, GB Smith, RQ Gilson & Christopher Wiseman, two of whom, Gilson & Smith, were killed during the battle.

What's fascinating is how Garth shows that without his time in the war we's probably never have had Middle Earth. It shaped his imaginative world, & in many ways the story of ME is a mythologising of that experience, as profound as his Catholicism & his love of Myth & Fairy Story. The way the languages develop under the influence of War is a totally new insight, where Qenya even has words which refer to the sound of gunfire & to the Germans. We see how the Fall of Gondolin is almost a mythologised account of the Somme battle he witnessed first hand.

But what comes across most strongly is the way the horror & loss was what gave the world Middle Earth, & that without it we would not have had the gift we have recieved.

11-10-2003, 03:42 AM	#1
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	Tolkien & the Great War Just a quick note to make everyone aware of this amazing new biography of Tolkien & his service in WW1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...53890-3795826. This period is covered in Carpenter's biography, but he only gives it 25 pages, whereas Garth gives it over 300. I heard Garth talking about & reading from this at Oxonmoot (the Tolkien Society's gathering in Oxford) this September, & had been looking forward to reading this, but i was truly amazed by the work. Garth has written a vital, serious biography, having had access to Tolkien's private papers, letters & diaries, & the advice of Christopher Tolkien. We get a real insight, not only into life on the Somme battlefield, but into the developing Legendarium. The stories of the TCBS members - Tolkien's three best friends, GB Smith, RQ Gilson & Christopher Wiseman, two of whom, Gilson & Smith, were killed during the battle. What's fascinating is how Garth shows that without his time in the war we's probably never have had Middle Earth. It shaped his imaginative world, & in many ways the story of ME is a mythologising of that experience, as profound as his Catholicism & his love of Myth & Fairy Story. The way the languages develop under the influence of War is a totally new insight, where Qenya even has words which refer to the sound of gunfire & to the Germans. We see how the Fall of Gondolin is almost a mythologised account of the Somme battle he witnessed first hand. But what comes across most strongly is the way the horror & loss was what gave the world Middle Earth, & that without it we would not have had the gift we have recieved. __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects."