70 years ago on 29 July 1954: The Fellowship of the Ring is published.
The first part of J.R.R. #Tolkien‘s The Lord of Rings, it tells of Frodo Baggins leaving the Shire on a quest to destroy the One Ring. #LOTR is one of the world’s most-loved books – what does it mean to you? pic.twitter.com/7Wh1DDw3dZ
— Tolkien Society (@TolkienSociety) July 29, 2024
The Lord of the Rings changed my life.
I read it in 7th grade. It coalesced several factors, including foreign languages (by this time German and Russian), playing and listening to Classical instrumental music and opera, chess, etc. (not sure I can include hockey), into a fledgling receptive world view which would, with elements to come later (Latin and Greek and a car that wouldn’t start) lead me into the Catholic Church.
I resent enormously the gratuitous and even malicious changes made by the Peter Jackson crowd in the movies. While some of the production elements and action were great, some were explicable only because they must have hated the characters and what they stood for.
I feel genuine pity people who saw the movies first, before reading the books, thus spoiling their first impressions… their first “printing”. I was talking to a young fellow not long ago, who really had no idea of what Tolkien created, knowing only some things through the movieses and video gameses, precious. He didn’t think it all that important to read the books. How sad.
I warmly recommend getting a set of the books and, if you have children, reading them aloud before you go anywhere near the movies.
Ah, that Philip Neri and his English sons!
Tolkien’s legendarium has been a solid source of enjoyment and consolation ever since I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in fourth grade, way back in what I guess I could call my own personal Elder Days. The Silmarillion came later, and then Unfinished Tales. (“Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin” in UT is one of Tolkien’s most beautiful pieces, would that he had finished it.) I’ve read LotR many times (lost count at 35), and there are parts of it that I remember where I was when I first read them. I noticed over the years that I’d read Tolkien at bedtime in times of distress — certainly on an almost constant basis over the last 4-5 years especially.
The movies have a few meritorious points, but they don’t compare to the books, and there are changes to plot and characters that are a travesty and can’t have anything to do with the constraints of film. No doubt the Professor would have resented them, as he did film adaptations made during his lifetime.
I don’t know if Jackson et al. hated the characters so much as they didn’t understand the beliefs of the man that created them. In some behind the scenes stuff, Jackson freely admits that he decided Faramir would be tempted by the Ring because he didn’t think it was “realistic” for him not to be; that he couldn’t possibly be THAT good. They didn’t really believe in that kind of virtue and holiness.
Thank you for this reminder! Psalm 89 comes to mind: “dies annorum nostrorum in ipsis septuaginta anni” (“The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years”) – those who had to wait until the second volume appeared are probably getting fairly few, but how fresh and seriously delightful it remains (and The Hobbit). I heartily concur with your excellent recommendation of, “if you have children, reading them aloud before you go anywhere near the movies.” And it can be fun to try one or another of the unabridged audiobooks, too, time and opportunity permitting.
Cratchit says: I don’t know if Jackson et al. hated the characters so much as they didn’t understand the beliefs of the man that created them.
I disagree. They understood. They aren’t stupid. Tolkien wasn’t mysterious or equivocal. Briefly…
They hated Aragon’s purity and singular will so they had him be tempted by Eowen. They hated Faramir’s purity and singular will so they had him be tempted by the Ring.
Gandalf and Galadriel, non-humans, have a hard time, but they prevail. Not humans.
I am reminded of Amoris laetitiae, which proposed that we cannot possibly resist carnal temptations (thus denying the role of grace) and therefore we have to let adulters who have “struggled” but “discerned” receive Communion.
We started our kids out on Rob Inglis’ excellent audiobook recording of The Hobbit. My older son in particular was fascinated by it at the age of 7. After listening to it twice, and as his reading skills improved we got him a hardcover copy of the book. It’s still a bit beyond his reading level, but I read it for him, and it will be there on his shelf any time he feels drawn to revisit it.
They might still be a bit young for Lord of the Rings, but I’m tempted to try reading it to them.
At one point, the older son asked us if anyone ever made a movie of The Hobbit.
I had watched the first installment of the movie trilogy, had heard the other two were even worse, and couldn’t bear the thought of letting him see that mess, but also knew he wouldn’t understand if I didn’t let him watch it. I rationalized that I wasn’t lying by telling him, “no,” because the Jackson version really isn’t the same story.
Since then, I learned about fan edits. I believe I will eventually show them one of the better regarded edits. The “M4 book edit” version is reported to be one of most faithful to the books. In the process of removing all the nonsense and even some of the added scenes that Tolkien fans have praised, M4 cut out over half of the extended edition runtime.
I was not introduced to LoTR until high school. this was likely a good thing as i was an immature impulsive child. i composed melodies for many of the songs. i remember specifically writing one at about 1900 MST on 19791231 — likely one of the last melodies composed in the 1970s. went to the first Jackson film and walked out less than an hour into it. phooey.
Just recently bought my six year old grandson a bound copy of The Hobbit with many of Tolkien’s original illustrations. He’s still a bit young for Lord of the Rings, but my daughter and her husband are reading a little of The Hobbit to him at bedtime.
“…through the movieses and video gameses, precious.”
Haha!
Great post.
Timing caught me out with LOTR so I did not start at the beginning carry on to the end and then stop. I was first alerted to it by a review in Astounding, and the British edition was five months behind the US edition. By this time the BBC radio dramatisation had already broadcast the first 6 of 12 episodes, the waiting list for the books in the public library was very long, and I was a student reluctant to invest in hardback books. So my introduction was Gandalf riding to the relief of Helm’s Deep! I was immediately hooked, but having listened to the very selective episodic broadcasts, I read the books in the same order, which meant that I got to study the appendices, thus hooking this nerd even more firmly, before the first volume.
I think it unsurprising that print, sound broadcast, and film (or television) tell different stories. As McLuhan said “the medium is the message”, and clearly the print tale is what Tolkien wrote. I enjoyed all three versions of LOTR for different reasons, but the first film of the Hobbit series was so farcical I have not bothered with the other parts.
And there is Mark Walker’s 2012 translation, Hobbitvs Ille avt Illvc Atqve Rvrsvs Retrorsvm – which I got way back on the last Feast of St. Eusebius of Vercelli but have not yet tried to start – I suspect I will need to be referring frequently to the original as I go along…
Reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was 10 years old lead to an interest in languages and classical music and eventually to my baptism when I was 23 years old (by Msgr Schuler!), so I guess we have something in common. I suppose Professor Tolkien didn’t know that his “secret vice” was a kind of evangelization.
Two things — something in an introduction to _The Fellowship of the Ring_ that said people were painting “Frodo LIVES!” as graffiti, and the first chapter of The Hobbit where it talked about Bilbo as a thief — absolutely CALLED to me as a middle schooler, when I had virtually no exposure to religion… CALLED to me like the Ring called to the characters.
They were definitely strong signs from our gracious and merciful Lord, to be followed at all costs.
Also Narnia, same call.
Hearing their quiet, sweet, persistent “song” for a long time as an atheist adult, I followed them many years later into the arms of the Catholic Church and then to traditional Catholicism.
Thank God for JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis!
MUST-read/listen at LifeSiteNews: “J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ prophecy of coming AI tyranny uncovered”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/j-r-r-tolkiens-lord-of-the-rings-prophecy-of-coming-ai-tyranny-uncovered/ (or on the podcast)
It’s a discussion about a new book by Paul List & Ali Ghaffari, _Mount Doom: The Prophecy of Tolkien Revealed_, that details how LOTR predicts artificial intelligence-driven totalitarianism AND how LOTR is a fascinating allegory.
Excerpt:
“List [the author of the new book] said that Tolkien, as a leading philologist at the time, ‘was recruited by the British government to be a member of a 50-person core code breakers called the “government code and cypher school,”‘ a group tasked with cracking the encryption method of the Nazis.
In this role, Tolkien worked with Alan Turing, the man who invented the first computer and helped crack the Nazis’ encoded messages, which helped the Allies defeat the Axis powers during World War II.
List said Tolkien saw that this new invention would turn into what we know as AI today, and that some would attempt to replace the human mind with an artificial mind. He explained that Turing’s ultimate goal was to create a machine that could house the soul of his dead best friend, to whom Turing was homosexually attracted.”
The _Mount Doom_ book & the episode also speak of LOTR as a loose allegory of the human psyche as described in Thosist philosophy (ex: Aragorn is high reason, the dethroned king, and the elves are faith, etc)!
Do not miss this fantastic episode!
*Thomist philosophy (forgot the M in Thomist)
From Celebrating the Epochal Publication of “The Fellowship of the Ring” 70 Years On
Dr. Holly Ordway
July 29, 2024
Excerpt:
The secondary world of modern fantasy novels might be dark and disturbing, or energized by hope; the author might share Tolkien’s Christian ethos or not; the book might be written well or written badly; it might even be deliberately challenging or resisting Tolkien’s approach to fantasy. Whatever might be the case, Tolkien cannot be ignored. Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld books and one of the giants of modern fantasy literature, put it this way:
J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.2
Quoting Father Z: “They hated Aragon’s purity and singular will so they had him be tempted by Eowen. They hated Faramir’s purity and singular will so they had him be tempted by the Ring.”
Perhaps. I can’t say whether it is hatred or simply an inability to believe in such virtue. Hollywood has become very cynical about heroes in general, and I generally default to interpreting it as such a lack of faith in virtue, as suggested by Hanlon’s razor.
I read the first volume, the Fellowship, at around 9, was immensely attracted to Tolkien’s story, but didn’t quite get it. Had no access to the other volumes. I got the whole thing at age 12, and lapped it up like a man in a desert coming across an oasis. It forever helped me keep my eye on moral realities as part of the fabric of the universe and as something known, not just another opinion. (I think this is probably what Lewis referred to as building up the moral imagination.)
I also read the appendices forwards and backwards, and from them decided I just had to get my hands on the Silmarillion. I looked for months in bookstores, to no avail. Then in libraries. Finally, a librarian invited me to look through the list of titles in print, which did not list it. My heart sank. It wasn’t until a year or two later that it was published, posthumously I think, and I finally realized that the reference in the appendix was more of a literary aspiration than a fact.
Jackson’s film does some things spectacularly, e.g. the Williams music. But his absolute butchering of various plot and character elements is, in my estimation, utterly execrable and inexcusable and should have gotten him banned from civilized society. How can a man that nobody considered to be comparable to the premier English-writing author of the 20th century, who had essentially created single-handedly a new literary genre, have the insufferable hubris to “improve” on the life-shaping work of such a top-flight genius? I insisted (and enforced) that my kids read the books before they watch any movies of it.
I should like someone with more humility and a great deal of ability undertake to do the work as a group of movies, on a subscription basis for funding, tapping a couple of million of true Tolkien fans around the world for a couple hundred dollars apiece, gaining them exclusive rights to receive the product (and other benefits), rather than spend 200M of a studio’s money on the making and 600M on marketing and be under some studio’s thumb on what they think will sell best.
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