Does LotR have cross-cultural appeal?

[Orofaniel]

SaucePan-

As far as I am aware, there are no Downers in China or in any strongly Islamic countries. Is this because the book has little appeal in these cultural traditions, or is this largely a function of language barriers? Does the book have any appeal to Hindus, Buddhists (and I know that there are a few Downers who at least have an interest in Buddhism) or among the indigenous people of the Americas and Australasia? Or does its really only appeal to those of the European and/or Judaeo-Christian tradition?

I think we should look at Tolkien's letters.

There are many theological themes underlying the narrative, the battle of good versus evil, the triumph of humility over pride, the activity of grace, Death and Immortality, Resurrection, Salvation, Repentance, Self-Sacrifice, Free Will, Humility, Justice, Fellowship, Authority and Healing. In it the great virtues of Mercy and Pity (shown by Bilbo and Frodo towards Gollum) win the day and the message from the Lord's Prayer "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" was very much on Tolkien's mind as Frodo struggled against the power of the One Ring (Letters, 181 and 191).

If you read this, I think you’ll see that the themes in Lord of the Rings aren't just of any great importance in Christianity, but also in many, if not all, religions. The basics in all religions are almost identical.( I have many examples, but I think I’ll leave it to you to figure out the resemblance between the world’s biggest religions. It really isn’t that difficult.)

So, even though Tolkien was catholic - and English- for that matter, I'm not surprised that the book appeals to members of other religions living in very different continents. I would only think it natural, since Lord of the Rings brings up the "basics" in Christianity. It is about good versus evil and more. It appeals to all of us, even though we have different beliefs. I actually find it a bit disturbing that one even can suggest that it wouldn’t appeal to people with different beliefs, because for me, there is such an obvious answer to it.

Perhaps there is a language barrier. But at the same time, perhaps people from non-English countries prefer to join Tolkien sites/froums in their own language. Or perhaps they don't feel like discussion books on the internet. Also, most people on the Barrowdowns are from England, USA, Australia & Europe. I guess it has something to do with the economical state in this world as well. Not a lot of people form the poor countries in Africa and Asia has the ability to be representative on this forum, due to, as I said, the economical situation. The Lord of the rings might not even be available certain territories, due to many reasons, something that has already mentioned. But it certainly doesn't mean that it wouldn't appeal to those people. I think it definitely would appeal to them, because they could relate too many of the themes in the book, as well as the atmosphere.

*


As for settings; wow. I'm amazed. What do we have books for? I certainly thought it was an excellent opportunity to create our own images and use our imagination.

Davem-

For instance, I've grown up in an area parts of which are still reminiscent of the Shire - ''woods, fields, little rivers' - so I've been able to wander in places which strongly reminded me of the books, & I've encountered people very like the Hobbits. So I have that connection with the books that people living in a different landscape wouldn't have.

I guess I'm lucky because I have seen a few hills during my life time - and a couple of rivers too. That way I can "relate" to LoTR more...is that what you think? Seriously, I don't think those images is that hard to imagine on our own. We are homo sapiens, the creatures with the highest IQs on this Eearth - I think. Hills, rivers, fields - that's a piece of cake. And so, I would say that your argument about your stronger connections with the books because you have seen/grown up in a "look-alike-LoTR-Landscape", is groundless. There is no right or wrong way to interpret scenery, or a book, in my opinion. (But perhaps some of us find it easier to interpret it because of their knowledge about what the writer is describing.) And I guess we all can feel the strongest connections to the book even though we don't have the same background as you do. I guess we've all felt like wandering the Shire every now and then, not necessarily just because of the scenery, but because of what seems to be a "Shire-like atmosphere". I even think small objects and/or buildings can give us a few hints what it would be like to live in the Shire.

I swear I’ve been in Mordor. I have. I swear it.

[Bêthberry]

Perhaps this thread on Engrish subtitles suggests that there is a cultural divide to be crossed?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Shwoa! I hope the poor individuals don't base any opinions on that translation!

[Lalwendë]

First of all, like SpM and Encaitare, I never thought twice about any possible links to Christianity within the text, not for a long time. It was only after I had spoken to Christians who had read LotR that I began to notice how certain aspects might be found within. I wonder how many other people also fail to pick up on the Christian links? Now, thinking about the early fandom, in the late 60's, I also wonder how many of those people picked up on the Christianity? I know that Tolkien is loved by many people who for want of a better word fit into 'alternative' culture which is often non-Christian; I've lost count of how many ex-hippies, goths and greenies that I've met who love LotR.

After hearing what Ronald Hutton said about Tolkien's work, I'm even more convinced that Tolkien did not set out to write a Christian story, but that those elements were found in there afterwards. Hutton said that using the Letters as a basis for Tolkien's meaning can be risky. Why? Tolkien was a committed Christian (albeit one who seemed to lose faith during the 1920's) after LotR was published, and he was keen to appear so. In answering letters filled with difficult questions, he emphasised this fact, which is quite understandable. It doesn't alter the fact that there are non-Christian elements within the books.

Maybe many of those elements which remind us of our beliefs are universal and shared between faiths and often equally as well understood by those who do not have a faith. I don't think LotR could be claimed as a Christian book, instead it was a book written by a Christian which is different. In that respect it has a wider appeal, and looking at it in that way helps me to understand why I (and many many others) love it despite not being a committed Christian. Maybe there ought to be a thread questioning and examining if it is the kind of text it is sometimes deemed to be?

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by SpM

would be interested to know whether it gained a greater following amongst the Slavic peoples of Russia than amongst those from the Muslim and other cultural traditions

I have no exact data of figures, but my impression is that yes, Tolkien gained greater following with Slavic peoples. Muslims I mention in my previous seemed more like an exeption to me, still more both persons I had in mind are well-acquainted with Russian cultural environment.

But, again, I have no statistics to lean on, justs impressions

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I don't think LotR could be claimed as a Christian book, instead it was a book written by a Christian which is different.

I couldn't agree more. But I do think that there are a few things that Catholics at least will pick up on, that the rest of us may not. Whether Tolkien intended them too is another matter, entirely.

[Bêthberry]

May I make a suggestion here? Sauce, since you raised the issue, perhaps you could provide some quotations or point to particular passages and events which you think might represent a Eurocentric cultural view rather than a 'universal' view (even if regarded by Caucasians as universal) which people of other cultures might not see as a universal truth?

It is all well and good to say that all peoples and all cultures and all faiths understand 'good vs evil', but there are very different ways of understanding those terms. I don't say this to discredit anyone's beliefs--and I apply here all of SpM's cautionary comments from his first post--but to consider more specifically how different events can be understood.

For instance, the entire framework of a march south to battle evil and repel it from Gondor: Does this read too much like the medieval crusades from some points of view? I mean, would it remind some readers of the crusades and battles to exclude the Muslims from Europe? We all have a certain understanding about Tolkien's methods in describing the Easterlings and men from Harad--we know he wasn't racist--but how do those descriptions at least initially impact on Asian or Middle eastern or African people? What does it mean for black readers to constantly see the words 'dark' and 'black' used for the evil side? And before any of you jump on me, let me suggest you read some of Toni Morrison's thought here, say, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.

Sauce, were you asking us to consider LotR through other eyes than our own?

[HerenIstarion]

What does it mean for black readers to constantly see the words 'dark' and 'black' used for the evil side?

But surely 'evil side' is rather defined by what it does, not how it looks. Or rather, it looks 'dark' (as in creepy cold black starless foggy night, not brownish warm chocolate colour) following what it does (clouds fogging both Orodruin and Thangorodrim expressing Sauron/Morgoth's brooding)

Than there is Sam reflecting upon fate, war and nature of evil over the dead body of the Southerner.

I don't suppose the employement of word 'dark' should be that repelling. Whatever the skin colour, people generally prefer bright day to the dead of night (despite what we down here play at, being skeletons and wights)

Most virtues are the same across cultures (courage, justice, mercy, kindness (even japanese 'obligation' incororates those) are good things, cowardice, threachery etc - bad things)

It should appeal therefore, on moral plane, even if it does not appeal on, per instance, with nature description (indeed, what if I prefer deserts, starry skies and the wind to rooks and hills? But my preferences are irrelevant, as if Aragorn and Co were Bedouins, Sauron would be Iblis/Shaitan trying to defile the silence of the desert itself, and there would be no quesiton which side should I be on)

Epic is an epic everywhere

Indeed, in this respect hobbits should be the major drawback for the 'cross-cultural appeal' (or at least, hobbits in the beginning of the book). If they serve the purpose of connecting modern (presumably, European) reader with the epic heroes of the past, for some cultures (Japanese, for hobbits have no obligations and seem lazing more often than not, Bedouins or Afghanis, for hobbits are gentle, not warlike at all etc) they may prove an entity, contrary to intention, reader is unable to feel for or associate himself with at all

But once we are on to High Epic, LoTR is less unlike any other national epos. Why should not it appeal?

[Bêthberry]

I know that sequential posts by one poster are usually regarded as bad form, but on rereading my above post, I decided that I should not attempt to speak for those Others but should provide some of their own words, an extensive act beyond a simple edit. I also just now found my copy of Morrison's book.

Here is an excerpt from the preface to Toni Morrison's work, Playing in the Dark:

The principle reason these matters loom large for me is that I do not have quite the same access to these traditionally useful constructs of blackness. Neither blackness nor "people of colour" stimulates in me notions of excessive, limitless love, anarchy, or routine dread. [Here she is alluding to her discussion of a passage from Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It, about a white French girl's thoughts on growing up in colonial Algeria.] I cannot rely on these metaphorical shortcuts because I am a black writer struggling with and through a language that can powerfully evoke and enforce hidden signs of racial superiority, cultural hegemony, and dismissive 'othering' of people and language which are by no means marginal or already and completely known and knowable in my work. My vulnerability would lie in romanticizing blackness rather than demonizing it; villifying whiteness rather than reifying it. The kind of work I have always wanted to do requires me to learn how to maneuver ways to free up the language from its sometimes sinister, frequently lazy, almost always predictable employment of racially informed and determined chains. (The only short story I have ever written, "Recitatif," was an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.)

. . . .

When does racial "unconsciousness" or awareness of race enrich interpretive language, and when does it impoverish it? What does positing one's writerly [or readerly, as she has suggested previously] self, in the wholly racialised society that is the United States, as unraced and all others as raced entail? What happens to the writerly[again, also, readerly] imagination of a black author [again, reader] who is at some level always conscious of representing one's own race to, or in spite of, a race of readers that understands itself to be "universal" or race-free? In other words, how is "literary whiteness" and "literary blackness" made, and what is the consequence of that construction? How do embedded assumptions of racial (not racist) language work in the literary enterprise that hopes and sometimes claims to be "humanist'?

EDIT: cross-posted with HI, so I guess my apologia here wasn't necessary. I think Morrison answers some of the points HI has raised in his post: the point is not that it cannot be done, but what goes on to make it 'done'?