Tolkien and Psychedelics

[Faramir Jones]

I agree with this:

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Though by today's attitudes towards cigs, booze and stodge, he was quite decadent If Tolkien saw the state of Oxford pubs today he'd be mortified - having to lurk on the pavement for a rushed intake of nicotine instead of actually enjoying a langorous smoke of a cigar or pipe while sitting by the pub fire; being monitored on your intake of beer and hectored to get up and do 50 star jumps in every TV ad break...I think he'd be horrified at the freedoms we have given up.

In support I quote the famous hobbit drinking song:

Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
And many miles be still to go
But under a tall tree I will lie,
And let the clouds go sailing by.

Even when reading this as a young teenager in the early 1980s I thought this praise of alcohol somewhat excessive! But we have to remember that Tolkien's Shire, and even the real world he grew up in, are and were quite different from our own. For example, the massive and near-ubiquitous increase in the use of motor transport in the UK and many countries in his lifetime led to the need for regulation, including drink driving laws.

I think the main criticism that could be leveled against Tolkien today would be toleration, indeed encouragement, of obesity! As evidence I give part of the poem 'Perry-the-Winkle', where a kindly troll, grateful that a young hobbit was nice to him, invited him to tea every Thursday, with the following result:

Now Perry-the-Winkle grew so fat
through eating of cramsome bread,
his weskit bust, and never a hat
would sit upon his head;
for Every Thursday he went to tea,
and sat on the kitchen floor,
and smaller the old Troll seemed to be,
as he grew more and more.

What do people think?