I finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring over the weekend. One can’t really review a work of this eminence. I can only write appreciations. One thing I noted was a detail I’d forgotten, one that was left out of the movies, and it’s no mystery why. It’s when Gandalf meets with Saruman at Orthanc, and learns his former master’s perfidy:
‘”For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!”
‘I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
‘”I liked white better,” I said.
‘”White!” he sneered. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”
‘”In which case it is no longer white,” said I. “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”’
This is an amazing passage. Saruman the White, whose white color had symbolized his supreme wisdom, has broken the white color down into its constituent prismatic hues.
He’s made it into a rainbow.
We see rainbows all the time today, in churches that believe they’ve “deconstructed” traditional morality and theology.
Was Tolkien an actual prophet? Did he foretell the future of the church?
My close personal friend (well, I’ve met him in actual space and time, which makes us pretty close by 2020 standards) Hunter Baker, of Union University, has a useful article in Touchstone in which he discusses an issue a lot of us are thinking about these days — is liberal democracy failing? Is the experiment over?
Nevertheless, let me, without rehearsing all the relevant developments, simply say that many of those structural limitations have now been overcome, through either amendment, expansive court decisions, or shrewd use of the powers to tax and spend. As a result, a constitution designed to embody Cicero’s wisdom for harmonizing diverse interests and avoiding the excesses of the various classical forms of government has been substantially transformed into something much closer to an ordinary majority-rule democracy. When one notes the calls for the termination of the electoral college, the politicization of the Supreme Court, and the discrediting of federalism due to the South’s intransigence with regard to both slavery and civil rights, it becomes clear that we are reverting to the mean as our Ciceronian (and even Calvinistic, as I’ve written elsewhere) constitutional democracy becomes more typical.
Another chapter in Carl Trueman’s 2010 book Republocrat deals with Fox News and many people’s uncritical support of it. You’ve heard some of this before; it’s a common complaint that people are not more discerning of their news consumption, just as it is common to praise someone’s wisdom when they agree with you. Trueman begins his critique from a more British angle.
He says he grew up conservative in the British sense and began to question that when conservative leaders showed themselves to be just as self-servingly corrupt as the opposition party was supposed to be. Then the UK had to turn Hong Kong over to the Chinese in 1997. The last governor of Hong Kong as a British colony was Chris Patten, and he pressed as hard as he could to move the region into safe, democratic territory before he left. Everyone knew it was an uphill struggle, and Patten intended to publish his thoughts in a book (entitled East and West when finally published).
His contract was with HarperCollins, a publisher owned by Rupert Murdoch, a man Trueman believed to be a champion of free speech and the free world. His news empire would help guard the world against the Soviet Union and all the evils therein. But Murdoch got Patten’s book cancelled under the guise that it was substandard and boring. That caused what The New York Times called “a week of relentlessly bad publicity” and provoked the publisher to issue a public apology.
The apology represents an unusually public embarrassment for Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.’s chairman, who ordered that the book be canceled because of its highly critical stance toward China, a country in which Murdoch has considerable business interests and even more considerable financial ambitions.
The top brass ordered Patten’s editor to make excuses and cancel the book, because it could threaten Murdoch’s relationship with people Rush Limbaugh calls “the Chi-Coms.” Editor Stuart Proffitt was already on record praising the book, calling it a upcoming bestseller, so a public 180 would embarrass him personally. He refused and was suspended.
This event and others like it caused Trueman to question what the good guys were up to. Were they really standing up for freedom or their business interests? As we’re seeing in the NBA and Disney Studios today, Trueman writes, “Freedom, it seems, was only important so long as it did not do damage to profit margins.”
This is the man behind Fox News and many other news organizations, including Britain’s popular tabloid The Sun, which delivered nude photos to its readers daily on Page 3 and spurred its competitors to do the same. That’s enough to raise serious questions about Fox’s moral authority and general objectivity, particularly to those who think it is the one unbiased news source on the air.
The lone Viking at the bridge, by the great Angus McBride
More Viking stuff tonight.
Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, traditionally (though somewhat arbitrarily) reckoned as the end of the Viking Age. It happened near a village not far from York, in the year 1066. King Harald Hardrada of Norway, who was getting on in years, had made a pact with Toste, the estranged brother of King Harald Godwinsson of England, to conquer the country. Harald believed he had a technical right to the throne as legal heir to his nephew, who’d had a slim claim.
According to the saga, Harald brought a fleet of 300 ships from Norway. On September 20 they defeated an English army at Fulford, and then accepted the submission of Northumberland. They were on their way to receive hostages on the 25th when they were suddenly attacked by the army of King Harold Godwinsson, who had made a forced march from the south.
The English must have been exhausted, while the Norwegians would have been relatively fresh. However, the Norse were not prepared for battle and many had left their mail shirts behind, because the day was warm and they expected no trouble. The battle, by all accounts, was nevertheless a hard-fought one.
An interesting detail is a story found in English sources (but not, surprisingly, in Norwegian ones as far as I know) about a warrior who defended the bridge with an axe all alone for an extended period of time, giving the Norwegians time to form up their ranks. He was killed at last by a spear thrust from below.
According to the saga, the Norwegians might have won if King Harald Hardrada had not taken an arrow in the throat, finishing on English soil a military career that had stretched from Norway to Russia to the deserts of the Middle East. But that’s how saga writers tell stories – I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth was more complicated. In any case, it’s undisputable that Harald was killed there.
One final item, often overlooked, might be of interest to our readers. There was a final (third) stage of the battle, after Harald’s death, remembered in Norway as Orri’s Storm. A young man named Eystein Orri, who was betrothed to the king’s daughter, had been left at Riccall to guard the ships. When he learned of the army’s peril, he and his force set off at a dead run to join the battle. There was really little they could do for the cause except die with their king, and that’s what they did. According to the saga, they were wearing their mail. But the weight and the heat exhausted them so that they were nearly played out when they got to the battlefield. But then (if you can believe the saga), they went into such a berserk frenzy that they threw off their mail shirts and fought unarmored. This made them easy targets (some, according to the saga, died from sheer exhaustion).
Eystein Orri was Erling Skjalgsson’s grandson, through his daughter Ragnhild.
According to the sagas, of the 300 ships that sailed to England with Harald, only 24 returned home. The English said that whitening bones could still be seen on the battle ground 50 years later.
An old friend of mine, Brad Day, mentioned on Facebook that today (actually yesterday) was the anniversary of the death of an author I’ve talked about a lot on this blog – Snorri Sturlusson (your spelling may vary), author of Heimskringla, the Prose Edda, and (very likely) the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson).
Snorri is an author I identify with, not because of his genius, but because he wrote better than he lived. Born to a powerful Icelandic family and well-educated in the home of a learned relation, he grew up to cherish both literary and political ambitions. These sometimes overlapped. His great historical saga, Heimskringla, was clearly composed to gain favor with the Norwegian king. His Prose Edda was an effort to present the myths of the old religion in a way acceptable to the Church, so that the tradition of Norse poetry might carry on.
He sailed to Norway twice, and got to see a lot of the country. That familiarity comes out in Heimskringla. Lacking the gift of prophecy, he made a bad tactical mistake, attaching himself to the powerful Duke Skuli, uncle of the king, Haakon IV Haakonsson. This would prove fatal, as Skuli and Haakon fell out, and Haakon won the war. Snorri’s second visit to Norway turned out badly, and he actually offended the king. This led eventually to his murder at the hands of his enemies, one of whom was his son-in-law. It is thought that the killers were acting on Haakon’s orders.
Snorri did not die like a saga hero. We are told he was speared to death while cowering in his cellar, crying “Don’t strike!”
It is believed that Snorri also connived in Iceland’s loss of independence to Norway.
But he was a literary genius. Every Viking and mythology buff owes Snorri a tremendous debt. Tolkien’s work would have been vastly different without Snorri – perhaps it might not have been written at all.
Crime novelist Martin Edwards recommends ten Golden Age mystery authors he believes should be more widely known than they are. Henry Wade, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, and C. Daly King are his top three.
Our top three begins with another American, a psychiatrist whose extraordinarily convoluted puzzles are at times maddening, but occasionally breathtaking. The Curious Mr Tarrant is a famous collection of short stories, but his three ‘obelist’ novels, each with an elaborate ‘cluefinder’ at the end, highlighting the clues in the text, fascinate me most. Obelists Fly High is a book I’ve always enjoyed—so much so that I pay tribute to it in a couple of different ways in my own latest novel, Mortmain Hall, a novel which revives the concept of the ‘cluefinder’.
I’m in the middle of Carl Trueman’s 2010 book, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, which sounds like a more political book than it has been so far. His chapter on the secularization of the church suggests secular British society is similar to religious American society with mainly different comfort levels with religious words.
[David Wells] argues that many churches are as secular in their ambitions and methods as any straightforwardly secular organization. The difference, we might say, is the the latter are just a whole lot more honest about what they are doing.
This reminds me of the way some ministry leaders talk of doing big things for God, maybe pulling down a miracle or dreaming a dream only God can fulfill. I don’t want to judge the motives of people I barely know, but I’m skeptical of how much glory God receives from the city’s largest and brightest Christmas display or filling a stadium for what amounts to a religiously themed civics event.
Is it really a big dream for God’s glory when the results hit all the marks for secular success?
‘Yes sir!’ said Sam. ‘Begging your pardon, sir! But I meant no wrong to you, Mr. Frodo, nor to Mr. Gandalf for that matter. He has some sense, mind you; and when you said go alone, he said no! take someone as you can trust.’
‘But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,’ said Frodo.
Sam looked at him unhappily. ‘It all depends on what you want’ put in Merry. ‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid – but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.’
No major revelations from my reading of The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. Just a thought on a subject I’ve touched on before – The Lord of the Rings as veteran’s literature.
What struck me in the scene above – which takes place at Frodo’s new house in Crickhollow, before the adventure even properly begins – is how different the tone is from what we see of the hobbits in the films. Merry and Pippin are pure comic relief in the movies – up till the moments when they’re forced to grow up.
And there’s certainly an element of that in the books too. But in this scene we see them in a different light. Here they are Frodo’s comrades – his buddies in the military sense. They’re freemen and equals, under no illusions, and loyal to their officer. There’s a time for games and laughter, but when it comes to the point, we all know what we’re here for, and we’re in to the end. Whatever the cost.
If we were privileged to have access to Tolkien’s memories, I think we’d find that this scene echoes some moment (or moments) in his wartime career. He’s memorializing men he served with – most of whom would probably have never come home. Jack Lewis would have recognized it right off.
There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed from under her feet as she danced.
What are we to make of Tom Bombadil? He’s a riddle inside an enigma inside a mathom, which is probably just what the author intended. The narrative of the epic can endure without him, as the movies demonstrated. But every reader knows he belongs, somehow, in Tolkien’s world. Every reader will think of Tom in his own way. I’ve stated my view before on this blog, but I’ll repeat it here:
Tom seems to me to be a representation of Adam, or at least of unfallen Man. Adam tended the Garden, and he named the animals; whatever he called the beasts, that was their name. Tom Bombadil controls all nature within his domains, and when he names the hobbits’ ponies, those are the names they answer to ever after. Tom says of himself:
“Eldest, that’s what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn.”
Remember how important “subcreation” was in Tolkien’s artistic/religious vision. Man in fellowship with God becomes a kind of little god – he can’t create ex nihilo as God does, but he creates in a smaller way that brings glory to his Master. In the same way, I think, unfallen Tom Bombadil glorifies his Creator by ruling the Garden that’s been set under his stewardship.
Tom Bombadil, incidentally, began as a toy, a Dutch doll owned by Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla. She lost it down a sewer, and was distraught. Her father comforted her with tales of how Tom floated along the river and had numerous adventures, overcoming all kinds of dangers through his magical powers. Eventually he even overcomes the powerful River-woman, and marries her daughter, Goldberry (herself a rather sinister figure until Tom tames her).
Which brings us to Goldberry. Goldberry has a very special place in this reader’s heart.
The year must have been 1973; I was in college, and my roommate was an even bigger Tolkien geek than I was. We agreed that I would read the Hobbit and the Trilogy to him, one chapter a night (I love to read aloud). And we did that – straight through. It took a while.
During that same period I went out on my first date, with a girl who was very Goldberry-esque. I fell hard for that girl, and have never quite gotten over her. She’s a grandmother today, and lives far away, but to me she’ll be forever young and slender and graceful.
Whenever Tolkien tells us of a woman dancing, and how her feet tinkle on the grass (as in the case of Luthien), I’m pretty sure he’s harkening back to Edith Bratt and how she danced for him in the woods the day he fell in love with her. For my own part, I always look forward to seeing Goldberry again.
He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.
This quotation, concerning Frodo Baggins in the Barrow Downs, from The Fellowship of the Ring, seems to me a good epitome of what I’ve found in my current reading of the Lord of the Rings
Actually, the thought was mainly inspired (to my shame, I suppose) by watching the movies twice through recently. I’ve found them inspirational as I wrestle with my Work in Progress. It’s a remarkable thing, as I see it, that in spite of the movie industry’s well-earned notoriety for messing with original sources, the Peter Jackson movies managed – overall – to preserve the heart of the story. Even though most of the people involved must surely have been a thousand miles away from Tolkien’s beliefs.
Anyway, what struck me as I watched and read was this. It hardly needs saying that we’re in perilous times. I never thought I’d live to see a day when I worried about the breakdown of civil society and the loss of our republic, but such things don’t seem unthinkable now.
I’m not a man known for confidence and courage. I reserve heroism for my books. I know heroism when I see it, and I salute it from a safe distance. I’m pretty sure that if the day comes when I must raise my sword in defense of my rights, I’ll probably trip over the scabbard.
But it occurred to me that maybe this isn’t the end. That’s the thing about stories.
In every good story, there comes a moment when the main character thinks the tale is told – and that he’s lost. A moment when his strongest instinct is to lay his weapon down and surrender.
But that’s not really the end, in a good story. It’s only the Final Crisis. It’s the hero’s test. The climax is yet to come – and at the climax, the hero either triumphs or fails in a way that means something.
So this is my message. Not the message of a prophet, or the son of a prophet, but of a storyteller.
This isn’t the end. It’s the crisis. Hold on. Carry on doing your service, at the station where God has set you. As Sam Gamgee said:
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
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