Moses. Buddha. Jesus. Muhammad. Tolkien?
Written: May 20 '03 (Updated Jun 18 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: On the one hand, long overdue.
Cons: On the other, it’s nothing new.
The Bottom Line: Tolkien proved "even the smallest person can change the course of the future."
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| panguitch's Full Review: Meditations on Middle-Earth Books |
Is it just coincidence that this book came out one month before the first installment of Peter Jackson’s film-adaptations? Even if it’s not, I guess there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Tolkien mania has made a swift lane-change in recent years. No longer is it for the fringe. Tolkien is now part of mainstream world culture. Publishers can hardly be blamed for thinking a collection of appreciative essays on Tolkien by major figures in speculative fiction would sell. And the authors themselves? Well, it’s clear they’re only too happy to give credit where credit is due. If there’s one good thing about this recent shift in popular opinion, it’s that due credit is finally being paid.
After all, Tolkien deserves a lot of it. An unassuming man who clung to the old-fashioned notion that actually teaching and researching were more important to academia than meeting your quota of scholarly publications, he should have been nothing more than a footnote, a little-known luminary of Anglo-Saxon philology. But his creative writings, begun as linguistic thought experiments, have gradually transformed him into a household name whose cultural influence is comparable to any of the twentieth century.
Meditations on Middle-Earth
This is a collection of reminiscences, literary theory, personal narratives, and history. The sixteen entries are as unique and varied as their authors, though commonalities abound. Several discuss the depth of Tolkien’s world-creation as his most distinguishing characteristic. Cracks are made at the inadvertent precedent of trilogies that Tolkien set for the industry. Many tell their personal stories, like Raymond Feist who describes reading Tolkien and then rushing to the bookstore. "What else has he written?" "Nothing." "What else have you got like this?" And so the fantasy genre was born, for good and ill. Cheap imitators are roundly harangued by several of these authors. Names aren’t mentioned but one can almost guess.
Karen Haber edits the volume and supplies a preface. This is followed by an introduction by George R. R. Martin. They provide context for the rest of the entries, briefly recounting the history of fantasy from the beginning of time to the present day, and alluding to some of the popular phenomena surrounding Tolkien’s work. Martin ends with an apt tribute: "The road goes ever on and on, . . . . But no matter how long and far we travel, we should never forget that the journey began at Bag End, and we are all still walking in Bilbo’s footsteps."
Raymond Feist offers the first essay. Like several others, he partially falls into listings of Tolkien’s predecessors and disclaimers intended to downplay Tolkien’s influence. There’s a love-hate tension here. And it’s understandable these authors sometimes feel the need to escape the inescapable Tolkien. Unfortunately this tension consumes Feist’s essay and all that can come of it is context for any unfamiliar with the genre’s roots beyond Tolkien. All of which is not to say that Feist doesn’t give Tolkien due credit as "the source of all wealth from which my bounty flows."
This volume in honor of Tolkien was ironically dedicated to the memory of another man, Poul Anderson, which is a significant indication of the latter’s own importance. I assume this essay is one of the last things Anderson wrote. As a true contemporary of Tolkien’s, Anderson’s well-written perspective is singular. The tone is collegial as opposed to the anxiety of influence discernable in some of the other pieces. It is neither too personal in describing Anderson’s experience reading Tolkien, nor too academic in briefly exploring Tolkien’s adaptation of mythic elves. Our loss is great in Anderson’s passing.
I was previously unfamiliar with Michael Swanwick, something I now regret. He writes personally with comfort, something not every fantasist here can do. His appreciation of Tolkien is ecstatic: "It rang me like a bell," and, "Long ago I ran away with the elves and I never came back." He fluidly shifts to a literary analysis, following Frodo and the Ring as they test the moral mettle of all whose paths they cross. At first I was discouraged as he started slipping into old Freudian analyses (Frodo as ego, can you guess the id and superego?). But rather than labor on such simplisms, he addresses Frodo’s quest as a mystic journey wherein he is "tested to destruction." Ultimately, "Frodo is given mercy, rather than victory." Swanwick understands the sadness of Tolkien’s work. "This is a tale in which everyone is in the process of losing everything they hold most dear." This essay alone is worth the price of admission. In a few short pages an insightful approach to The Lord of the Rings was delineated that for me was fresh and edifying.
Esther M. Friesner supplies a playful piece where she pleads guilty for writing fantasy and science fiction. Moreover, she has "written funny fantasy and science fiction. On purpose." While she’s unrepentant, she doesn’t hesitate to blame others for this failing. Foremost, she blames Tolkien. But there’s a little blame left over for Lieutenant Spock, the pointy-eared elf who won her heart. Marvelously successful, if not profound, this is another winning piece in the collection.
When litterateurs decry polls where Tolkien and his work are popularly ranked alongside the "classics," they reveal their frustration that the public is deciding for themselves what is good instead of following the establishment’s dictates. Terry Pratchett, himself familiar with the dismissal the elite make of fantasy, scathes this mindset with characteristic irony while narrating the role Tolkien played in introducing him to the world of fantasy.
Not that you asked, but I think Robin Hobb is the best fantasist out there right now. That said, her essay is somewhat dry. Hobb spares the artistry some of the others flaunt in favor of an unadorned, straightforward and honest recounting of her first experiences with Tolkien. In an unused meat cache in front of her parent’s home in Alaska she learned the hard fact that "in all my life, I will never write anything as good as this." She discusses the dilemma of ownership—the unease one can feel in having to 'share' Tolkien with other fans. Tolkien started her on a quest for Story which continues to this day.
Not surprisingly, Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay is the most academic in the collection. Her subject is Tolkien’s poetry, especially poetic rhythms in his narrative. Wisely, she narrows her focus to one chapter, "Fog on the Barrow Downs." What follows is an instructive close reading that only a fan would relish. Of course, only fans will read it. Her identification of a trochaic beat of tension and of Tolkien’s use of reversals is particularly interesting.
Douglas A. Anderson, an eminent Tolkienist, provides an informal bibliography of Tolkien’s creative work, comparing the scant publications of his lifetime to the remarkable posthumous corpus. He similarly highlights academic treatments of Tolkien and Tolkien’s own academic publications, addressing in particular the critical reception Tolkien’s creative work initially received. The detractors can usually be credited with narrow-mindedness, the only context within which they comfortably operate being modernity, while Tolkien wrote in an older (now marginalized) vein.
Often at odds with the academic literary establishment, Orson Scott Card takes up the thread Anderson started. He suggests that the conflict between Tolkien and the modernist litterateurs is centered in the contrast between Tolkien’s dislike of allegory and the modern approach to literature, which boils down to "inserting meaning into stories," or "decoding stories instead of experiencing them." Card mocks the "literadors" who duel with their "serious" literature, sticking their noses up at stories that expect you to "escape" into them, to cooperate rather than dominate. "My point is that Ulysses can be taught. But The Lord of the Rings can only be read." His final conclusion is that "'escapist' reading is by nature wild, while 'serious' reading is by nature domesticated," and that Tolkien’s greatness lies in his story being untamable. Your English professors would rile at this, but there’s a degree of truth to what he’s saying.
Other contributors include Charles De Lint, who at first made fun of his sister for reading The Hobbit. Lisa Goldstein discusses the human need for myth and the merits of an epic voice. Glenn Hurdling’s contribution is an interview with Tolkien artists Tim and Greg Hildebrandt. No one goes into greater detail than Harry Turtledove in describing the role Tolkien played in his own beginnings as a writer. Diane Duane worried her parents with her fascination for fantasy, or ‘escapism.’ But, as Tolkien himself noted, those who advise against escapism are only would-be jailors. Terri Windling closes the volume by recalling Tolkien’s essay "On Fairy-Stories" as an argument for Tolkien’s later masterwork.
Recommendation
235 pages and an almost-large font size. Add to that the fact that interspersed are some wonderful pencil drawings by John Howe, who also provides the cover art, and this is a quick read. But perhaps more meat would be overkill. The message is loud and clear.
Meditations on Middle-Earth is a tribute. While I’d be the last to say a tribute to Tolkien isn’t worthwhile, there is little here that’s groundbreaking. Pick it up to read the personal stories of your favorite authors and their opinions of Tolkien. Bask in the ebullience. It’s long overdue. And there are a couple gems in here. Swanwick’s piece. Anderson’s, Friesner’s, Pratchett’s. Le Guin’s will make you think. Card’s will make you argue. But at least a third of these essays are forgettable. Overall, that’s not a bad record for such a publication.
Fantasy is the most ancient of literatures. It’s always been there. And perhaps these authors would have written it in any case. But the most impressive fact remains that this one man, by telling a tale, has generated an undoubtedly immortal impact both on literature and on its authors and readers.
- Panguitch
My reviews of other Tolkieniana:
• The Two Towers (movie): http://www.epinions.com/content_84595936900
• The Return of the King (movie): http://www.epinions.com/content_122274745988
• The Tolkien Reader: http://www.epinions.com/content_83305205380
• J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century: http://www.epinions.com/content_72574733956
• Tolkien: A Biography: http://www.epinions.com/content_220187037316
• The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays: http://www.epinions.com/content_221694496388
• Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism: http://www.epinions.com/content_226921975428
• The Children of Hurin: http://www.epinions.com/content_374810250884
Recommended:
Yes
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panguitch
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"Realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience." -Ursula K. Le Guin
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