Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien: “It is no bedtime story”

Today is the birthday of JRR Tolkien. He was born in South Africa on this day, in 1892.

I love that picture – mainly because it was the author photo on the back of my dog-eared copy of The Hobbit – read multiple times when I was a kid. I still have that same copy.

So in honor of Mr. Tolkien, I’ll post some excerpts from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. I went through a huge Tolkien phase during the LOTR mania. I know some of you LIVE in that mania and have no “phases” with Tolkien. This is awesome. I happen to not share it – but I understand it. (See: Cary Grant.) I read all of Tolkien’s letters – which are absolutely WONDERFUL. Addictive stuff.

So here are some excerpts. Enjoy! Some of them are QUITE long. But I think they are worth it.

And raise a glass of ale this evening, in honor to a writer who has given us all so much!! What an imagination! What a mind!

I’ll start with perhaps my favorite of all of his letters.

The German publishing firm of Rutten & Loening contacted Allen & Unwin in 1938 (the publishers of The Hobbit) and wanted to negotiate with them for a German translation of the book. But first and foremost, they wanted to know if Tolkien was of “arisch” origin. (Aryan) Tolkien wrote a brief note to Stanley Unwin, saying that he wanted to refuse to give them an answer – He didn’t want to add to “the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine” by comfirming or denying. However – he didn’t want to ruin his chances of The Hobbit being read in Germany. He submitted to Mr. Unwin two drafts of letters to the German publishers, and left it up to Unwin to decide which one to send.

Here is one of the drafts:

25 July 1938
To Rutten & Loening Verlag
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter … I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware noone of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully

J.R.R. Tolkien

It just makes me want to cheer.

Letter of JRR Tolkien to Allen & Unwin, his publisher, 31 August 1938:

“I have begun again on the sequel to the ‘Hobbit’ – The Lord of the Ring. It is now flowing along, and getting quite out of hand. It has reached about Chapter VII and progresses towards quite unforeseen goals. I must say I think it is a good deal better in places and some ways than the predecessor; but that does not say that I think it either more suitable or more adapted for its audience. For one thing it is, like my own children (who have the immediate serial rights), rather ‘older’. I can only say that Mr. [C.S.] Lewis (my stout backer of the Times and T.L.S.) professes himself more than pleased. If the weather is wet in the next fortnight we may have got still further on. But it is no bed-time story.”

Hahaha I love that: “getting quite out of hand”.

Letter JRR Tolkien wrote to his son, Michael, in June of 1941:

“People in this land seem not even yet to realize that in the Germans we have enemies whose virtues (and they are virtues) of obedience and patriotism are greater than ours in the mass. Whose brave men are just about as brave as ours. Whose industry is about 10 times greater. And who are – under the curse of God – now led by a man inspired by a mad, whirlwind, devil: a typhoon, a passion: that makes the poor old Kaiser look like an old woman knitting.

I have spent most of my life, since I was your age, studying Germanic matters (in the general sense that includes England and Scandinavia). There is a great deal more force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine in the ‘Germanic’ ideal. I was much attracted by it as an undergraduate (when Hitler was, I suppose, dabbling in paint, and had not heard of it), in reaction against the ‘Classics’. You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil. But no one ever calls on me to ‘broadcast’, or do a postscript! Yet I suppose I know better than most what is the truth about this ‘Nordic’ nonsense. Anyway, I have in this War a burning private grudge – which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

“You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil.”

This is a letter JRR Tolkien wrote to his son Chistopher, in November of 1943

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston and his gang,’ it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari [‘I do not wish to be made a bishop’] as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop …

Well, cheers and all that to you dearest son. We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water. Also we have still small swords to use. ‘I will not bow before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.’ Have at the Orcs, with winged words, hildenaeddran (war-adders), biting darts – but make sure of the mark, before shooting.”

Letter written to his son:

30 January 1945
Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) created by Germany, be necessary and inevitable. But why gloat! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well – you and I can do nothing about it. And that shd. be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter – leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereached or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?

“But why gloat?” An excellent question indeed. When you gloat – you lose a tiny bit of your humanity. Just a tiny bit. Gloating chips away at that most valuable of commodities – compassion. There are people whose entire lives are made up of gloating. I have gloated before – as we all have, over this or that, and it’s amazing how small and nasty it makes one feel.

Here is a letter Tolkien wrote to a Michael Straight, then editor of “The New Republic.” Straight wanted to review LOTR and had sent Tolkien a list of questions to answer. This is only part of Tolkien’s reply.

January 1956
I will try and answer your specific questions. The final scene of the Quest was so shaped simply because having regard to the situation, and to the ‘characters’ of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, those events seemed to me mechanically, morally, and psychologically credible. But, of course, if you wish for more reflection, I should say that within the mode of the story, the ‘catastrophe’ exemplifies (an aspect of) the familiar words: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

“Lead us not into temptation &c.” is the harder and the less often considered petition. The view, in the terms of my story, is that though every event or situation has (at least) two aspects: the history and development of the individual (it is something out of which he can get good, ultimate good, for himself, or fail to do so), and the history of the world (which depends on his action for its own sake) – still there are abnormal situations in which one may be placed. ‘Sacrificial’ situations, I should call them: sc. positions in which the “good” of the world depends on the behavior of an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal – even, it may happen (or seem, humanely speaking), demand a strength of body and mind which he does not possess: he is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his “will”; that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under the duress.

Frodo was in such a position: an apparently complete trap: a person of greater native power could probably never have resisited the Ring’s lure to power so long; a person of less power could not hope to resist it in the final decision. (Already Frodo had been unwilling to harm the Ring before he set out, and was incapable of surrendering it to Sam,.)

The Quest: was bound to fail as a piece of world-plan, and also was bound to end in disaster as the story of humble Frodo’s development to the “noble”, his sanctification. Fail it would and did as far as Frodo considered alone was concerned. He “apostatized” – and I have had one savage letter, crying out that he shd. have been executed as a traitor, not honored. Believe me, it was not until I read this that I had myself any idea how “topical” such a situation might appear. It arose naturally from my “plot” conceived in main outline in 1936. I did not foresee that before the tale was published we should enter a dark age in which the technique of torture and disruption of personality would rival that of Mordor and the Ring, and present us with the practical problems of honest men of good will broken down into apostates and traitors.

But at this point the “salvation” of the world and Frodo’s own salvation is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injurty. At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum would certainly betray him, and could rob him in the end. (Not quite “certainly”. The clumsiness in fidelity of Sam was what finally pushed Gollum over the brink, when about to repent.) To “pity” him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity even if disastrous in the world of time. He did rob him and injure him in the end – but by a “grace”, that last betrayal was at a precise juncture when the final evil deed was the most beneficial thing any one cd. have done for Frodo! By a situation created by his “forgiveness”, he was saved himself, and relieved of his burden. He was very justly accorded the highest honors – since it is clear that he and Sam never concealed the precise course of events. Into the ultimate judgement upon Gollum I would not care to enquire. This would be to investigate “Goddes privatee,” as the Medievals said. Gollum was pitiable, but he ended in persistent wickedness, and the fact that this worked good was no credit to him. His marvellous courage and endurance, as great as Frodo and Sam’s or greater, being devoted to evil was portentous, but not honourable. I am afraid, whatever our beliefs, we have to face the fact that there are persons who yield to temptations, reject their chances of nobility or salvation, and appear to be “damnable”. Their “damnability” is not measurable in terms of the macrocosm (where it may work good). But we who are all “in the same boat” must not usurp the Judge. The domination of the Ring was much too strong for the mean soul of Smeagol. But he would have never had to endure it if he had not become a mean sort of thief before it crossed his path. Need it ever have crossed his path? Need anything dangerous ever cross any of our paths? A kind of answer cd. be found in trying to imagine Gollum overcoming temptation. The story would have been quite different! By temporizing, not fixing the still not wholly corrupt Smeagol-will towards good in the debate in the slag hole, he weakened himself for the final chance when dawning love of Frodo was too easily withered by the jealousy of Sam before Shelob’s lair. After that he was lost.

There is no special reference to England in the “Shire” – except of course that an Englishman brought up in an “almost rural” village of Warwickshire on the edge of the prosperous bourgeoisie of Birmingham (about the time of the Diamond Jubilee!) I take my models like anyone else – from such “life” as I know. But there is no post-war reference. I am not a “socialist” in any sense – being averse to “planning” (as must be plain) most of all because the “planners”, when they acquire power, become so bad – but I would not say that we had to suffer the malice of Sharkey and his Ruffians here. Though the spirit of “Isengard”, if not of Mordor, is of course always cropping up. The present design of destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars is a case. But our chief adversary is a member of a “Tory” Government. But you could apply it anywhere else in these days.

Yes: I think that “victors” can never enjoy the “victory” – not in the terms that they envisaged; and in so far as they fought for something to be enjoyed by themselves (whether acquisition or mere preservation) the less satisfactory will “victory” seem. But the departure of the Ringbearers has quite another side, as far as the Three are concerned. There is, of course, a mythological structure behind this story. It was actually written first, and may now perhaps be in part published. It is, I should say, a “monotheistic” but “sub-creational” mythology. There is no embodiment of the One, of God, who indeed remains remote, outside the World, and only directly accessible to the Valar or Rulers. These take the place of the “gods”, but are created spirits, or those of the primary creation who by their own will have entered into the world. (They shared in its “making” – but only on the same terms as we “make” a work of art or story. The realization of it, the gift to it of a created reality of the same grade as their own, was the act of the One God). But the One retains all ultimate authority, and (or so it seems as viewed in serial time) reserves the right to intrude the finger of God into the story: that is to produce realities which could not be deduced even from a complete knowledge of the previous past, but which being real become part of the effective past for all subsequent time (a possible definition of a “miracle”). According to the fable Elves and Men were the first of these intrusions, made indeed while the “story” was still only a story and not “realized”; they were not therefore in any sense conceived or made by the gods, the Valar, and were called the Eruhini or “Children of God”, and were for the Valar an incalculable element: that is they were rational creatures of free will in regard to God, of the same historical rank as the Valar, though of far smaller spiritual and intellectual power and status.

Of course, in fact exterior to my story, Elves and men are just different aspects of the Humane, and represent the problem of Death as seen by a finite but willing and self-conscious person. In this mythological world the Elves and men are in their incarnate forms kindred, but in the relation of their “spirits” to the world in time represent different “experiments”, each of which has its own natural trend, and weakness. The Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aesthetic and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a higher level than is actually seen in Men. That is: they have a devoted love of the physical world, and a desire to observe and understand it for its own sake and as “other” – sc. as a reality derived from God in the same degree as themselves – not as a material for use or as a power-platform. They also possess a “sub-creational” or artistic faculty of great excellence. They are therefore “immortal”. Not “eternally”, but to endure with and within the created world, while its story lasts. When “killed”, by the injury or destruction of their incarnate form, they do not escape from time, but remain in the world, either discarnate, or being re-born. This becomes a great burden as the ages lengthen, especially in a world in which there is malice and destruction (I have left out the mythological form which Malice or the Fall of the Angels takes in this fable). Mere change as such is not represented as “evil”: it is the unfolding of the story and to refuse this is of course against the design of God. But the Elvish weakness is in these terms naturally to regret the past, and to become unwilling to face change: as if a man were to hate a very long book still going on, and wished to settle down in a favorite chapter. Hence they fell in a measure to Sauron’s deceits: they desired some “power” over things as they are (whcih is quite distinct from art), to make their particular will to preservation effective: to arrest change, and keep things always fresh and fair. The “Three Rings” were “unsullied”, because this object was in a limited way good, it included the healing of the real damage of malice, as well as the mere arrest of change; and the Elves did not desire to dominate other wills, nor to usurp all the world to their particular pleasure.

But with the downfall of “Power” their little efforts at preserving the past fell to bits. There was nothing more in Middle-earth for them, but weariness. So Elrond and Galadriel depart. Gandalf is a special case. He was not the maker or original holder of the Ring – but it was surrendered to him by Cirdan, to assist him in his task. Gandalf was returning, his labor and errand finished, to his home, the land of the Valar.

The passage over the Sea is not Death. The “mythology” is Elf-centered. According to it there was at first an actual Earthly Paradise, home and realm of the Valar, as a physical part of the earth.

There is no “embodiment” of the Creator anywhere in this story or mythology. Gandalf is a ‘created” person; though possibly a spirit that existed before in the physical world. His function as a ‘wizard” is an angelos or messenger from the Valar or Rulers: to assist the rational creatures of Middle-earth to resist Sauron, a power too great for them unaided. But since in the view of this tale & mythology Power – when it dominates or seeks to dominate other wills and minds (except by the assent of their reason) – is evil, these “wizards” were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains of both mind and body. They were also, for the same reason, thus involved in the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of “fall”, of sin, if you will. The chief form this would take with them would be impatience, leading to the desire to force others to their own good ends, and so inevitably at last to mere desire to make their own wills effective by any means. To this evil Saruman succumbed. Gandalf did not. But the situation became so much the worse by the fall of Saruman, that the “good” were obliged to greater effort and sacrifice. Thus Gandalf faced and suffered death; and came back or was sent back, as he says, with enhanced power. But though one may be in this reminded of the Gospels, it is not really the same thing at all. The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare to write. Here I am only concerned with Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees. That is why I regard the tale of Arwen and Aragorn as the most important of the Appendices; it is part of the essential story, and is only placed so, because it could not be worked into the main narrative without destroying its structre: which is planned to be “hobbito-centric”, that is, primarily a study of the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble.

Here is a draft of a letter that Tolkien wrote to an unidentified reader, and in it Tolkien describes his affinity with Faramir. He thought of Faramir as his alter ego.

14 January 1856
… There is hardly any reference in The Lord of the Rings to things that do not actually exist on its own plane (of secondary or sub-creationary reality): sc. have been written. (The cats of Queen Beruthiel and the names and adventures of the other 2 wizards (5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.) The Silmarillion was offered for publication years ago, and turned down. Good may come of such blows. The Lord of the Rings was the result. The hobbits had been welcomed. I loved them myself, since I love the vulgar and simple as dearly as the noble, and nothing moves my heart (beyond all the passions and heartbreaks of the world) so much as “ennoblement” (from the Ugly Duckling to Frodo). I would build on the hobbits. And I saw that I was meant to do it (as Gandalf would say – I am not Gandalf, being a transcendent Sub-creator in this little world. As far as any character is “like me” it is Faramir – except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage), since without thought, in a “blurb” I wrote for The Hobbit, I spoke of the time between the Elder Days and the Dominion of Men. Out of that came the “missing link”: The “Downfall of Numenor”, releasing some hidden “complex”. For when Faramir speaks of his private vision of the Great Wave, he speaks for me. That vision and dream has been ever with me – and has been inherited (as I only discovered recently) by one of my children.

Tolkien responded to many letters from fans and reviewers about the “failure of Frodo”, in the end, to complete the Quest. Here’s an excerpt from one of those letters:

26 July 1956 Draft of letter to Miss J. Burn
If you re-read all the passages dealing with Frodo and the Ring, I think you will see that not only was it quite impossible for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power, but that this failure was adumbrated from far back. He was honoured because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and then had done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do. He (and the Cause) were saved – by mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness of injury.

Corinthians I x. 12-13 may not at first sight seem to fit (“Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”) – unless “bearing temptation” is taken to mean resisting it while still a free agent in normal command of the will. I think rather of the mysterious last petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. A petition against something that cannot happen is unmeaning. There exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power. In which case (as I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected: the general sanctity (and humility and mercy) of the sacrificial person. I did not “arrange” the deliverance in this case: it again follows the logic of the story. (Gollum had had his chance of repentance, and of returning generosity with love; and had fallen off the knife-edge). In the case of those who now issue from prison “brainwashed”, broken, or insane, praising their torturers, no such immediate deliverance is as a rule to be seen. But we can at least judge them by the will and intentions with which they entered the Sammath Naur; and not demand impossible feats of will, which could only happen in stories unconcerned with real moral and mental probability.

No, Frodo “failed”. It is possible that once the ring was destroyed he had little recollection of the last scene. But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however “good”; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.

Here’s another letter he wrote to someone who asked him about Frodo’s failure.

27 July 1956 Letter to Amy Ronald
By chance, I have just had another letter regarding the failure of Frodo. Very few seem even to have observed it. But following the logic of the plot, it was clearly inevitable, as an event. And surely it is a more significant and real event than a mere “fairy story” ending in which the hero is indomitable? It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome – in themselves. In this case the cause (not the “hero”) was triumphant, because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed and disaster averted. Gandalf certainly foresaw this. (“Pity? It was pity that stayed [Bilbo’s] hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”) Of course he did not mean to say that one must be merciful, for it may prove useful later – it would not then be mercy or pity, which are only truly present when contrary to prudence. Not ours to plan! But we are assured that we must be ourselves extravagantly generous, if we are to hope for the extravagant generosity which the slightest easing of, or escape from, the consequences of our own follies and errors represents. And that mercy does sometimes occur in this life.

Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), “that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named” (as one critic has said). (Gandalf to Frodo: “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-Maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.”)

A third (the only other) commentator on the point some months ago reviled Frodo as a scoundrel (who should have been hung and not honoured), and me too. It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, “brainwashed”, and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and righteous.

This is a short letter to a fan, who had written asking him if he was working on a sequel to LOTR. Tolkien replied

I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall of Mordor, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless – while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors – like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a center of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going round doing damage. I could have written a thriller about the plot and its discovery and overthrow – but it would be just that. Not worth doing.

Hah. Peace never lasts. No such thing as “happily ever after”.

Here is another long draft of a letter to a fan. He got into long long philosophical and mythological conversations with all of his readers – and his letters (as you can see) are immense – Many of them were never sent.

Check this out. Only Tolkien freaks will probably be able to get through this – but if you’re into those books, and if you’re into those stories – it is a fascinating analysis:

September 1963 Draft of letter to Mrs. Eileen Elgar
Very few (indeed so far as letters go only you and one other) have observed or commented on Frodo’s “failure”. It is a very important point.

From the point of view of the storyteller the events on Mt Doom proceed simply from the logic of the tale up to that time. They were not deliberately worked up to nor foreseen until they occured. But, for one thing, it became at last quite clear that Frodo after all that had happened would be incapable of voluntarily destroyoing the Ring. Reflecting on the solution after it was arrived at (as a mere event) I feel that it is central to the whole “theory” of true nobility and heroism that is presented.

Frodo indeed “failed” as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end; he gave in, ratted. I do not say “simple minded” with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and the absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. Their weakness, however, is twofold. They do not perceive the complexty of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God. For finite judges of imperfect knowledge it must lead to the use of two different scales of “morality”. To ourselves we must present the absolute ideal without compromise, for we do not know our own limits of natural strength (+ grace), and if we do not aim at the highest we shall certainly fall short of the utmost that we could achieve. To others, in any case of which we know enough to make a judgement, we must apply a scale tempered by “mercy”: that is, since we can with good will do this without the bias inevitable in judgements of ourselves, we must estimate the limits of another’s strength and weigh this against the force of particular circumstances. (We frequently see this double scale used by the saints in their judgements upon themselves when suffering great hardships or temptations, and upon others in like trials.)

I do not think that Frodo’s was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly reqarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.

We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man’s effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached. (No account is here taken of “grace” or the enhancement of our powers as instruments of Providence. Frodo was given “grace”: first to answer the call (at the end of the Council) after long resisiting a complete surrender; and later in his resistance to the temptation of the Ring (at times when to claim and so reveal it would have been fatal), and in his endurance of fear and suffering. But grace is not infinite, and for the most part seems in the Divine economy limited to what is sufficient for the accomplishment of the task appointed to one instrument in a pattern of circumstances and other instruments.)

…Frodo undertook his quest out of love – to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of the body would have been …

That appears to have been the judgement of Gandalf and Aragorn and of all who learned the full story of his journey. Certainly nothing would be concealed by Frodo! But what Frodo himself thought about the events is quite another matter.

He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (“And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will nor madness, nor any fear … ‘The Quest is achieved, and now all is over,'”); he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and one can observe the disquiet growing in him. Arwen was the first to observe the signs, and gave him her jewel for comfort, and thought of a way of healing him…Slowly he fades “out of the picture”, saying and doing less and less. I think it is clear on reflection to an attentive reader that when his dark times came upon him and he was conscious of being “wounded by knife sting and tooth and a long burden”, it was not only nightmare memories of past horrors that afflicted him, but also unreasoning self-reproach: he saw himself and all that he done as a broken failure … And it was mixed with another temptation, blacker and yet (in a sense) more merited, for however that may be explained, he had not in fact cast away the Ring by a voluntary act: he was tempted to regret its destruction, and still to desire it. “It is gone for ever, and now all is dark and empty,” he said as he wakened from his sickness in 1420.

“Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,” said Gandalf – not in Middle-earth. Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him – if that could be done, before he died…Bilbo went too. No doubt as a completion of the plan due to Gandalf himself. Gandalf had a very great affection for Bilbo, from the hobbit’s childhood onwards. His companionship was really necessary for Frodo’s sake – it is difficult to imagine a hobbit, even one who had been through Frodo’s experiences, being really happy even in an earthly paradise without a companion of his own kind, and Bilbo was the person that Frodo most loved. But he also needed and deserved the favour on his own account. He bore still the mark of the Ring that needed to be finally erased: a trace of pride and personal possessiveness. Of course he was old and confused in mind, but it was still a revealation of the “black mark” when he said in Rivendell, “What’s become of my ring, Frodo, that you took away?” and when he was reminded of what had happened, his immediate reply was: “What a pity! I should have liked to see it again!”…

Sam is meant to be lovable and laughable. Some readers he irritates and even infuriates. I can well understand it. All hobbits at times affect me in the same way, though I remain very fond of them. But Sam can be very “trying”. He is a more representative hobbit than any others that we have to see much of; and he consequently has a stronger ingeredient of that quality which even some hobbits found at times hard to bear: a vulgarity – by which I do not mean a mere “down-to-earthiness” – a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness (in varying degrees) and cocksureness, and a readiness to measure and sum up all things from a limited experience, largely enshrined in sententious traditional “wisdom”. We only meet exceptional hobbits in close companionship – those who had a grace or gift: a vision of beauty, and a reverence for things nobler than thmselves, at war with their rustic self-satisfaction. Imagine Sam without his education by Bilbo and his fascination wtih things Elvish!…

Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable – except in his service and loyalty to his master. That had an ingredient (probably inevitable) of pride and possessiveness … In any case it prevented him from fully understanding the master tha the loved, and from following him in his gradual education to the nobility of service to the unlovable and of perception of damaged goods in the corrupt. He plainly did not fully understand Frodo’s motives or his distress in the incident of the Forbidden Pool. If he had understood better what was going on between Frodo and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end.

For me perhaps the most tragic moment in the Tale comes in II 323 ff. when Sam fails to note the complete change in Gollum’s tone and aspect. “Nothing, nothing,” said Gollum softly. “Nice master!” His repentance is blighted and all Frodo’s pity is (in a sense) wasted. Shelob’s lair becomes inevitable.

This is due of course to the “logic of the story”. Sam could hardly have acted differently … If he had, what could then have happened? The course of the entry into Mordor and the struggle to reach Mount Doom would have been different, and so would the ending. The insterest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that would have gone on between his repentance and his new love on one side and the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But “possession” satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo’s sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.

I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron, and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep it in Sauron’s despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destory it and himself together – and in a flash he may have seen that this would also be the greatest service to Frodo. Frodo in the tale actually takes the Ring and claims it, and certainly he too would have had a clear vision – but he was not given any time: he was immediately attacked by Gollum. When Sauron was aware of the seizure of the Ring his one hope was in its power: that the claimant would be unable to relinquish it until Sauron had time to deal with him. Frodo too would then probably, if not attacked, have had to take the same way: cast himself with the Ring into the abyss. If not he would of course have completely failed. It is an interesting problem: how Sauron would have acted or the claimant have resisted. Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring. The wearer would not be invisible to them, but the reverse; and the more vulnerable to their weapons. But the situation was now different to that under Weathertop, where Frodo acted merely in fear and wished only to use (in vain) the Ring’s subsidiary power of conferring invisibility. He had grown since then. Would they have been immune from its power if he claimed it as an instrument of command and domination?

Not wholly. I do not think they could have attacked him with violence, nor laid hold upon him or taken him captive; they would have obeyed or feigned to obey any minor commands of his that did not interfere with their errand – laid upon them by Sauron, who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills. That errand was to remove Frodo from the Crack. Once he lost the power or opportunity to destroy the Ring, the end could not be in doubt – saving help from outside, which was hardly even remotely possible.

Frodo had become a considerable person, but of a special kind: in spiritual enlargement rather than in increase of physical or mental power; his will was much stronger than it had been, but so far it had been exercised in resisting not using the Ring and with the object of destroying it. He needed time, much time, before he could control the Ring or (which in such a case is the same) before it could control him; before his will and arrogance could grow to a stature in which he could dominate other major hostile wills. Even so for a long time his acts and commands would still have to seem ‘good” to him, to be for the benefit of others beside himself.

The situation as between Frodo with the Ring and the Eight (the Witch-king had been reduced to impotence) might be compared to that of a small brave man armed with a devastating weapon, faced by eight savage warriors of great strength and agility armed with poisoned blades. The man’s weakness was that he did not know how to use his weapon yet; and he was by temperament and training averse to violence. Their weakness that the man’s weapon was a thing that filled them with fear as an object of terror in their religious cult, by which they had been conditioned to treat one who wielded it with servility. I think they would have shown “servility”. They would have greeted Frodo as “Lord”. With fair speeches they would have induced him to leave the Sammath Naur – for instance “to look upon his new kingdom, and behold afar with his new sight the abode of power that he must now claim and turn to his own purposes.” Once outside the chamber while he was gazing some of them would have destroyed the entrance. Frodo would by then probably have been already too enmeshed in great plans of reformed rule – like but far greater and wider than the vision that tempted Sam (“Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-due.”) – to heed this. But if he still preserved some sanity and partly understood the significance of it, so that he refused now to go with them to Barad-due, they would simply have waited. Until Sauron himself came.

In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact. Its result was inevitable. Frodo would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave. Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himsefl. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of “mortals” no one, not even Artagorn. In the contest with the Palantir Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructivle form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.

Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master him – being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form. In the “Mirror of Galadriel”, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. IF so, so also were the other guardians of the Three, especially Elrond. But this is another matter. It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power. But this the Great had well considered and had rejected, as is seen in Elrond’s words at the Council. Galadriel’s rejection of the temptation was founded upon previous thought and resolve. In any case Elrond or Galadriel would have proceeded in the policy now adopted by Sauron: they would have built up an empire with great and absolutely subservient generals and armies and engines of war, until they could challenge Sauron and destroy him by force. Confrontation of Sauron alone, unaided, self to self, was not contemplated.

One can impagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position. It would be a delicate balance. On one side the true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also because he was weakened by long corruption and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end.

Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained “righteous”, but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for “good”, and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which would have remained great.

Thus while Sauron multiplied evil, he left “good” clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good destestable and seem evil.

And lastly – another draft of a letter to a fan. This one gets me a bit verklempt. Gotta admit it.

Autumn 1971 Draft of letter to Carole Batten-Phelps
I am very grateful for your remarks on the critics and for your account of your personal delight in Lord of the Rings. You write in terms of such high praise that [to] accept it with just a ‘thank you’ might seem complacently conceited, though actually it only makes me wonder how this has been achieved – by me! Of course the book was written to please myself (at different levels), and as an experiment in the arts of long narrative, and of inducing ‘Secondary Belief’. It was written slowly and with great care for detail & finally emerged as a Frameless Picture: a searchlight, as it were, on a brief episode in History, and on a small part of our Middle-earth, surrounded by the glimmer of limitless extensions in time and space. Very well: that may explain to some extent why it ‘feels’ like history; why it was accepted for publication; and why it has proved readable for a large number of very different kinds of people.

But it does not fully explain what has actually happened. Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication – beginning at once with the appearance of Vol. I – I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? and Why?

I think I can now guess what Gandalf would reply. A few years ago I was visited in Oxford by a man whose name I have fogotten (though I believe he was well-known). He had been much struck by the curious way in which old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time. He brought one or two reproductions. I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures, as it clearly had been by certain kinds of literature and languages. When it became obvious that, unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. Suddenly he said, “Of course you don’t suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?”

Pure Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with Gandalf to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: “No, I don’t suppose so any longer.” I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement. But not one that should puff any one up who considers the imperfections of “chosen instruments”, and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose.

You speak of “a sanity and sanctity” in the L.R. “which is a power in itself.” I was deeply moved. Nothing of the kind had been said to me before. But by a strange chance, just as I was beginning this letter, I had one from a man, who classified himself as “an unbeliever, or at best a man of belatedly and dimly dawning religious feeling … but you”, he said, “create a world in which some sort of faith seems to be everywhere without a viable source, like light from an invisible lamp.” I can only answer: “Of his own sanity no man can securely judge. If sanctity inhabits his work or as a pervading light illumines it then it does not come from him but through him. And neither of you would perceive it in these terms unless it was with you also. Otherwise you would see and feel nothing, or (if some other spirit was present) you would be filled with contempt, nausea, hatred. “Leaves out of the elf-country, gah!” “Lembas – dust and ashes, we don’t eat that!”

Of course The L.R. does not belong to me. It has been brought forth and must now go its appointed way in the world, though naturally I take a deep interest in its fortunes, as a parent would of a child. I am comforted to know that it has good friends to defend it against the malice of its enemies. (But all the fools are not in the other camp.) With best wishes to one of its best friends. I am

Yours sincerely
JRR Tolkien

Yes. It does have “good friends to defend it”. The book lives.

Thanks, Tolkien!! Thank you to “the Hobbit of Oxford”! And happy birthday!

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15 Responses to Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien: “It is no bedtime story”

  1. Cullen says:

    Cool! Happy birthday to him. Happy birthday to me!

  2. red says:

    Happy birthday, cullen! :)

  3. Emily says:

    Happy birthday to everybody!

  4. Dave J says:

    Happy birthday, JRR; happy birthday, Cullen!

    I love these letters, and I love that picture. He really is SUCH a Hobbit there, isn’t he, smile, pipe and all?

  5. Jen says:

    “Things have gotten a bit out of hand.” What an understatement! I love to hear that he had a plan for this, that he really set out to be so fully detailed in the books and minute in his descriptions. I’ll bet he was a pretty cool dad and granddad. Imagine the bedtime stories!

  6. red says:

    Jen – totally – his letters are FASCINATING. People wrote to him from all over the world with questions – and sometimes they would receive, like, a 40-page response from him!!! And sometimes the letter also “got out of hand” – too long, too convoluted – he would do major research for just ONE LETTER about the … Anglo-Saxon linguistic root for some word in Elvish or whatever – and he would go off on that tangent, for months at a time – and so the letter never got sent. OR – he would just send it off as it was – so sometimes YEARS had gone by since the person had written the letter – and then, randomly, they would recive a 40 page (unfinished) response. He was kind of an absentiminded brilliant professor that way. I LOVED reading his letters – especially because I was also re-reading the Ring trilogy at the time. Gave me a whole new perspective on Tolkien and how he worked.

  7. red says:

    dave j – totally – it’s just the perfect author photo!!

  8. Today in History

    George Washington at the Battle of Princeton by Charles Wilson Peale Today is the anniversary, in 1777, of the Battle of Princeton, in which Gen. Washington, following up on his post-Christmas Day victory over the Hessians at Trenton, made…

  9. I liked the last one too, where the unbeliever guy could kind of feel what faith must be like through the stories. Probably any direct attempt at evangelizing would have turned him off like a switch.

    Regarding that first letter, I want to mention that this morning I was reading this fascinating article about stem cells, which brings in the story of Hercules fighting the hydra, and so forth, and I found this blurb: “…Germans accept embryonic stem cells as long as they are not German….” They can’t help it, can they – they’re just more human than everybody else.

  10. Dave J says:

    Since I can hardly help myself when the subject comes up, here’s a semi-random inspired link to a bit of stuff on Tolkien’s Elvish languages, their relations to real ones, and to each other:

    http://freespace.virgin.net/m.poxon/quensind.htm

  11. Tolkien died three years before I happened upon him!! and when I read the hobbit it so affected me, I can still remember to this day the old little library where we went to see if we could find his mailing address, and the young woman at teh front desk telling me that he had passed away and the utter let down that information was for me…and how, like one of his euchatastrophes’ she raised my spirits by adding “…you do know he wrote more about hobbits?” And so my particular obsession began.

    I had to laugh about the “getting quite out of hand” hand statement too. I have not done enough reading of his bio or the process he went through or his numerous letters, but I like to think that one of the characters that was part of that amused frustration was MY favorite LOTR character, Peregrin Took. He went through almost as many transformations as Frodo, and I *do* remember Tolkien explaining how he tried to “drop him off” several times in the whole formulation of the hobbit portion of the Fellowship, and how the character that eventually became Pippin REFUSED. I like to think the scene he causes in Rivendell and his declaration is Tolkien’s white flag of surrender to the character constantly telling him “you will not leave me behind!”

    Which leads me to believe that when a writer says he/she is ‘hearing voices’ — its a GOOD thing!

  12. Moshe says:

    Sheila, great post!
    there’s no other place to go for this kind of stuff. You made my day.

  13. Dan says:

    That author picture was on the back of every volume of my first copy of LotR. I loved the C.S. Lewis blurb/quote that went with it:

    “Here are beauties which pierce like sowrds or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart, good beyond hope.”

  14. sarah says:

    of course i spell it wrong. seymour… don’t ask me where seymore came from, heh. i promise i’m not stupid ;)

  15. red says:

    sarah – hahahahaha I love your comment!! how did you find me?

    I am totally with you on the seymour – introduction thing. Salinger just … I can’t even talk about him too much. it’s too personal for me.

    do you have a blog?

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