Thoughts on Tolkien

Oops....sorry it's been a few days since I last blogged. In the last 3 days, we've had 3 different excursions, leaving not much time for writing. Here's a day by day, somewhat lengthy catch-up of what I've been doing in England (I apologize ahead of time for the length!) I'll try to break it up:

Wednesday -- Finally, a relatively tame day. I listened to two lectures, one on "Discovery of the Past", prepping us for our visit to the British Museum in London, and one on "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings" by Dr. Clerici, prepping us for our attendance of Lord of the Rings, the musical on the London stage right now. Both were quite wonderful, but being a huge Lord of the Rings fan, I definitely keyed in on the 2nd lecture. Other than that, nothing exciting to report for the day. Here are some random facts:

* Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Tolkien are the 4 most popular checkouts in British libraries -- Tolkien is the most popular by FAR (although strangely enough, here at Oxford, there are many who revile his writings as being "anti-intellectual" and say that Lord of the Rings is "Winnie the Pooh as an epic" -- I have no idea where they get that thought from -- apparently fantasy writings are not looked upon as highly as more academic ones. Pooh on them, I say). Dr. Clerici thinks they are all jealous and they don't like it because it is full of hope and belief -- they'd rather be depressed all the time :0)

* Tolkien was a great fan of old Nordic and Icelandic type epics, quite different from Greek and Roman mythologies. He used to open his classes in his big, booming voice speaking to them in Old English. Sweeeeeeeeet! He created the elvish language while in the trenches of the war, as well as in his hospital bed after he was injured. Can't remember which war.....Anyway, if you read Lord of the Rings, its mythology follows the more traditional Nordic form of myth, rather than the others, because he was obsessed with learning about it. i.e. the idea of courage -- In a Christian story, the hero is inspired by the idea of paradise and hope waiting for him, also by the concept of right and wrong -- thus they do the right thing. In a Nordic story, heroes just do it because they must. There is no other choice, no great reward to look forward to. The task just must be done. So they do it. Tolkien combines both in Lord of the Rings.

* The Inklings were the discussion group made famous because 2 of the members were Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.). There were a few other members as well, but all were unified by the fact that all were Christians, academics, specialists in English Lit, conservative, interested in myth, particularly Nordic, and all were alienated from mainstream modern literature. In fact, both Lewis and Tolkien did not get along at all with T.S. Eliot. They met in a pub every week to discuss stories, ideas, controversies, etc.