I finished my 1.5 year adventure in reading the Lord of the Rings once more this morning. It's something I'd not done in its entirety since the films came out, and I do find that I had trouble picturing anything but the actors as each of the characters. Thankfully, they were cast well enough and that wasn't too much of a problem. I'm always struck by how well Tolkien handles language. What he could do with a narrative, characters, and a cosmic-personal interplay is essentially unparalleled. The reader doesn't, by any means, fall in love with the characters the same way one generally does with Hermione, Harry, and Ron. Nor does the total experience transport the reader to a different intellectual plain like Joyce. But even so, he's somewhere in between, and much like my praise for Rowling, he created a world with sheer creativity most can only hope to approach.
The last two chapters, "The Scouring of the Shire" and "The Grey Havens" are among my favorite in all of literature. At it's best, The Lord of the Rings makes the reader long for a home somewhere dearer, grander, more real than anywhere of this world. In some ways, it's a strength of the series that Middle Earth could be our own world in a different age, but in a different sense, it's at its best when the ideals can become so real and otherworldly. Even as the shire is under the influence of evil when the protagonists return, the overwhelming power of good over evil wins out, and Frodo, having been transformed, even urges his friends "not to kill anyone if you can help it." My own ideological issues with the Lord of the Rings generally derive from how Christians use it to further our misguided support of real wars and use battle metaphors in a spiritual sense. But I was reminded these past few days as I finished the book that Tolkien was arguing against that in his own subtle way. The "War of the Ring" is a defensive battle as Mordor is assailing Gondor, as is Helm's Deep. Ultimately, the only offensive action taken by characters in the book is the attack on Isengard by the Ents, and their goal is to destroy the machinery destroying their homes, whilst allowing Saruman and Grima to survive. It is the destruction of the ring, the casting of the source of Evil to it's doom, that wins the war, and nothing else. There is violence involved, but Tolkien never really suggests that any amount of bloodshed is justified unless purely out of self defense. Even Frodo's decision to spare Gollum is redeemed. This speaks to both Tolkien's control of his narrative, but also betrays his deepest feelings about war and violence. With that in view, it compels me to keep up my own ideological fight against Christian millitantism. I didn't expect that when I embarked on this classic saga last March. I am glad to have found it, in the end. To think that Hillsdale holds these books that speak strongly against their interpretation of their own world view, in so high a regard, it is humorous. There is an enemy among their camp, from a most unexpected source.
Though they are dense and I didn't think it would take so long to get through all four, I am glad, as I have always been, to have experienced Middle Earth all over again. I will assuredly wait to go through them again, maybe ten years once more. But I will return, of that I am sure.
-Zack
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