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A review by tomunro
J. R. R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend by Colin Duriez
4.0
I find it fascinating to see how an author's life shaped his work and Duriez patiently draws out the many real life influences and events that - in different ways - surfaced in Tolkien's great works.
There is his long courtship of his wife Edith including a 3 year enforced separation when his guardian forbade him to have any contact with her. There is more than one middle earth romance that has echoes of that hardship. With her singing in a forest clearing - Edith may have been an inspiration for Luthien and Tolkien cast himself as Beren so that the mythic couple's perilous courtship against the backdrop of Morgoth's war with the elves and men, mirrors the trials and tribulations that Edith and Tolkien himself fought through against the backdrop of the first world war. At the sane time, the interdict set by Elrond on Aragorn, that he should first secure his inheritance before taking Arwen for a wife, mirrors in some ways the dictat of the otherwise supportive Father Francis - Tolkien's diligent guardian once he was orphaned after his mother's death.
There are other parallels, the muddy sea of dead bodies that Tolkien waded through in the Somme battlefield making a grim inspiration for the Dead Marshes that Gollum guided Sam and Frodo through.
Then there is the importance of fellowship to Tolkien - a habitual former of societies - of men it must be said - that sought to promote thinking, and mutual support. The habit started with TCBS society from school and following through to the Inklings at Oxford who were the fortunate first audience for the many episodic instalments of Lord of the Rings. The TCBS had some significant gatherings - councils - to decide the group's purpose and future and in this we see perhaps a foreshadowing of the great council of Elrond.
The fact that he lost many dear friends from his fellowships must have stained a character and the experience built a yearning for the shirelike perfection of his youth in the midlands.
There are other things made clear in this tome that I had not seen before. Tolkein and C.S.Lewis were both devout Christians (the latter largely through exposure to Tolkien's influence). But where C.S.Lewis's allegories are more obvious in the land of Narnia and the person of Aslan, those of Tolkein are deliberately more opaque. There is no explicit religion, no temples, no priests in Middle Earth, but nonetheless Tolkien insisted that Lord of the Rings is a "Christian and Fundamentally Catholic work." Simply knowing that puts a different slant on the story for me - another light turned on to illuminate the story from new angles and cast different shadows.
The other thing that comes through is Tolkien the philologist, whose deeply intertwined love of languages and myth reflects his belief in the inseparability of the two.
There is his long courtship of his wife Edith including a 3 year enforced separation when his guardian forbade him to have any contact with her. There is more than one middle earth romance that has echoes of that hardship. With her singing in a forest clearing - Edith may have been an inspiration for Luthien and Tolkien cast himself as Beren so that the mythic couple's perilous courtship against the backdrop of Morgoth's war with the elves and men, mirrors the trials and tribulations that Edith and Tolkien himself fought through against the backdrop of the first world war. At the sane time, the interdict set by Elrond on Aragorn, that he should first secure his inheritance before taking Arwen for a wife, mirrors in some ways the dictat of the otherwise supportive Father Francis - Tolkien's diligent guardian once he was orphaned after his mother's death.
There are other parallels, the muddy sea of dead bodies that Tolkien waded through in the Somme battlefield making a grim inspiration for the Dead Marshes that Gollum guided Sam and Frodo through.
Then there is the importance of fellowship to Tolkien - a habitual former of societies - of men it must be said - that sought to promote thinking, and mutual support. The habit started with TCBS society from school and following through to the Inklings at Oxford who were the fortunate first audience for the many episodic instalments of Lord of the Rings. The TCBS had some significant gatherings - councils - to decide the group's purpose and future and in this we see perhaps a foreshadowing of the great council of Elrond.
The fact that he lost many dear friends from his fellowships must have stained a character and the experience built a yearning for the shirelike perfection of his youth in the midlands.
There are other things made clear in this tome that I had not seen before. Tolkein and C.S.Lewis were both devout Christians (the latter largely through exposure to Tolkien's influence). But where C.S.Lewis's allegories are more obvious in the land of Narnia and the person of Aslan, those of Tolkein are deliberately more opaque. There is no explicit religion, no temples, no priests in Middle Earth, but nonetheless Tolkien insisted that Lord of the Rings is a "Christian and Fundamentally Catholic work." Simply knowing that puts a different slant on the story for me - another light turned on to illuminate the story from new angles and cast different shadows.
The other thing that comes through is Tolkien the philologist, whose deeply intertwined love of languages and myth reflects his belief in the inseparability of the two.