Kieran Healy

Ringoism

I’d been hoping that the release of The Two Towers wouldn’t trigger a wave of comparisons between the War of the Ring and the War on Terrorism, but that’s probably too much to wish for. Warbloggers seem likely to emerge from cinemas dazed but excited, ready to recite their favorite stirring bit—- “War is upon you whether you wish it or not!”, “Those who do not take up swords can still die upon them!”—- in defence of the lands of the West. After all, Tolkien is easily applicable to our present situation, right?

I’ll be going along to see the film and I expect to thoroughly enjoy it, having been steeped in Middle Earth myself from the ages of 12 to 16 or so. Yet Tolkien’s genius is an odd and ultimately unsatisfying one. Anthony Burgess’s assessment of him is crabby but, I think, has a good deal of truth in it:

The flavour of the book is feudal rather than democratic: the theme is loyalty and the willingness to combat pagan enemies. Clearly, it is the work of a scholarly and sophisticated writer, but there is something childish about it, and this childishness is best seen in a total eschewal of the erotic… Tolkien is wholly clean, like his fellow Inklings [Charles] Williams and [C.S.] Lewis, and there is something dirty about this cleanliness… a certain personal insufficiency is all too evident in The Lord of the Rings. To indulge in fantasy is probably shameful. But there rests Tolkien’s remarkable scholarship and devotion to Anglo-Saxon. … But the marriage of North Sea and Mediterranean is what gives English its peculiar allure. The allure of Tolkien is one-sided, sexless, and ultimately destructive.

A bit like the ring itself, really.

Science fiction author David Brin wrote a playful analysis of the politics of the Two Towers for Salon. He notes that the saga resembles a history as written by the victors, and that the Bad Guys build their power on a kind of science, technology, industry, and more egalitarian values (anyone can wield the power of the rings), as opposed to the elitest magic and royalty backing the Good Guys. In a nutshell: engines of modernity vs. a romantic feudalism.

See http://salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/print.html

Do you have a source for that, Kieran? Burgess
is an acute critic, and I’d like to read the
whole piece.

Sure, it’s in his (posthumously published) One Man’s Chorus, which is out of print but should be available second hand.

Zebedee says… time for bed! Boing!

For another view of sex in Tolkien, read the essay Warm Beds Are Good: Sex And Libido In Tolkien’s Writings.

I completely concur on the point about Tolkien’s childish attitude toward sex. His view often does seem to be that of a little boy’s, although I suppose it beats misogeny by a lot.

I’m not sure, though, if I agree that he’s as much of conservative nativist/feudalist as Burgess and Brin suggest. Note that the self-governing hobbits—who owe fealty to no one—rise up against the attempt to turn them into serfs/slaves at the end of ROTK.

Anyway, if Tolkien is a conservative, then he at least seems to be an environmentally and multiculturally friendly (and woman friendly—or at least woman bedazzled) one…

I’m not sure, though, if I agree that he’s as much of conservative nativist/feudalist as Burgess and Brin suggest. Note that the self-governing hobbits—who owe fealty to no one—rise up against the attempt to turn them into serfs/slaves

This is true—- though I’m hard pressed to describe the basic Master-Servant relationship between Frodo and Sam as anything other than Feudal at root. Sam is Frodo’s loyal, rustic servant.

[...] Update: As predicted, both Kevin Drum and Atrios are amazed at the idea of an interviewer giving an important political figure a hard time over a vital issue of the day. It’s a sign of how bad things are on the American political scene. As I’ve mentioned before, some of this can be traced to a complete absence of vigorous parliamentary debating societies at U.S. universities. What passes for debating over here is a kind of roboticized, high-speed version of the real thing. Many British public figures, including Jeremy Paxman and Tony Blair, would have cut their teeth at their local Debating Union. Believe me, you don’t know what it means to think on your feet till you’ve stood up in front of 400 easily bored Undergrads, a substantial number of whom are sharper and funnier than you and who won’t hesitate to shred you into little bits if they don’t feel like you’re worth listening to. [...]