TORONTO, Canada, December 22, 2002 — I started reading Lord of the Rings with the second book, The Two Towers, and, oddly enough, never regretted my accidental choice of beginning the story right in the middle.
The tale of the two hobbits trudging drearily through the ruined lands, shadowed by the treacherous Gollum, bearing the terrible Ring to its doom - it was a story I have never been able to shake. Only later, reading the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, did I discover how the Ring came to be so perilous and why it must destroyed, even though its destruction means the end of a magical age.
Tolkien was reluctant to talk much about the meaning of his work. He strongly believed that "meaning"is not something you can tear out of a story, any more than you can tear personality out of a person. He said that there were only a few basic facts about himself that were important for understanding his stories. One was that he was a Christian "which can be deduced from my stories."
| "...in The Two Towers, as in the other two books, you will find many examples of key Christian themes, particularly sin, faith, and the mysterious grace of God." |
He did not mean that his works were Bible stories, or stories about religion, or stories that contain a secret religious code. He did not write about people who have names like "Faith" or "Hope," who quote unexpectedly from the Bible. Tolkien did not even like that sort of writing.
However, in The Two Towers, as in the other two books, you will find many examples of key Christian themes, particularly sin, faith, and the mysterious grace of God. These realities are all woven into the story, so when characters talk about them, they sound quite natural.
"good and evil have not changed since yesteryear"
For example, in The Two Towers, someone asks the future king Aragorn how people can know what is right in such evil times as they are living in. Aragorn replies, "Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men."
You can read this idea in Romans 2:13-16 in the Bible: God uses the same standard to judge everyone's actions. The idea is opposed to the common belief you will hear from other sources that there is no one morality, and individuals must make up their own morality as they go along.
Similarly, the wizard Gandalf forbids Frodo (the hobbit who must destroy the terrible Ring) to kill) the evil Gollum, saying, "be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."
It would give away too much of the story to say how true this turns out to be. For now, let us say that Frodo, even though he is a "good" character, cannot save himself without the sort of help that Christians would call the grace of God. The evil creature Gollum plays a role that no one foresees.
| "The Lord of the Rings is a Christian epic. A Christian epic is a story about heroic actions that assumes a Christian view of life. The work was partly influenced by a much earlier Christian epic called Beowulf, written in the Anglo-Saxon language over a thousand years ago." |
The Lord of the Rings is a Christian epic. A Christian epic is a story about heroic actions that assumes a Christian view of life. The work was partly influenced by a much earlier Christian epic called Beowulf, written in the Anglo-Saxon language over a thousand years ago. Because Tolkien was a professor who specialized in Anglo-Saxon, the earliest form of the English language, he knew that poem very well.
Tolkien believed that the type of stories that he wrote-called myths-could tell ultimate truths. When he used the word "myth," he did not mean the same thing as magazine articles do, a story that is untrue. For him, a myth is a story that is so true that it can shed light on people's lives and situations more effectively than a simple recital of the facts can do.
He thought of the Gospel as a true myth, a story that has really happened, and gives people the power to really change their lives.
Even if a myth is admittedly a work of fiction, such as Tolkien's, it can give people strength to live worthy lives, even against apparently hopeless odds. That is probably the reason that so many ordinary readers in a number of surveys have voted for The Lord of the Rings as the greatest book of the twentieth century.
John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R.) Tolkien was a lifelong Roman Catholic. Born in 1892, he lost his father when he was four. His mother was abandoned by her relations when she converted to Roman Catholicism, and she died when he was 12, in poverty and distress. However, Tolkien was befriended by a priest, Fr. Francis Morgan, and was educated at Oxford, where he later became a professor of Anglo-Saxon.
The experience of serving in World War I and watching the destruction of the English countryside by industrialization gave Tolkien many ideas that you will see in the movie as well as in the book. In particular, he hated the needless destruction of trees, clean water, and clean air. Some people consider him a sort of Christian environmentalist. However, it is important to remember that he loved trees for their own sakes, not only as a benefit to the environment that you can reduce to a simple number on a chart.
The Two Towers is reasonably faithful to Tolkien's original plot. We meet the Rohirrim, a people who live on horseback on the grassy plains, the Ents, a race of treelike people who call an abrupt halt to environmentally destructive industrialization, and horrible winged creatures who provide a new form of transport for the Black Riders. (When the video/DVD comes out, it is best previewed by parents before a decision is made about letting children see the movie, which is rated PG-13. The monsters are very realistic.)
The movie is said to have cost US$63 million dollars to make, and it features such stars as Elijah Wood (hobbit Ringbearer Frodo Baggins), Sean Astin (Frodo's faithful friend Sam), Viggo Mortensen (future king Aragorn), Miranda Otto (warrior maiden Eowyn), and Christopher Lee (Saruman, the evil, treehating wizard). You can find out more about all this if you go to www.lordoftherings.net.
Tolkien told his son, who served in World War II in 1944, "You are inside a very great story." He did not mean only the war, of course. He meant that all of life is a very great story, and that it matters very much which side we are on.
|
