Apocrphyal Tolkien

Just a reminder: for those who have the luxury of leisure and can loll in front of their computers awhile, don't forget to watch both Born of Hope and The Hunt for Gollum. Both productions, while borrowing the northern air and gestalt of Peter Jackson's films, are done as acts of love and on extremely low budgets. They are apocryphal to J. R. R. Tolkien (some can argue Jackson's films are equally apocryphal), but "fill in the gaps," so to speak, of events that the producers, directors, and casts deem important enough to devote their time and energies. Enjoy.

Tolkien - BBC

For all who love J. R. R. Tolkien, this link has been making the rounds: an interview with Tollers from 1968 re-issued by the BBC. (Well I remember the bizarre kind of sound tracks chosen unnecessarily by the BBC to accompany the piece. Try your best to ignore such absurdity and wade through to the interview that begins just past three minutes.)

Take Your Tolkien

Have you read your Tolkien lately? Don't settle for watching Peter's Jackson's film version, extraordinary as it is for lending you images for your imagination. Rather, delve into the long conversations and deep, poignant thoughts, and mythopoeic narrative of a thorough-going Catholic thinker and writer, devoted to the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.

Here is not "escapism" so-called. Here is sub-creation and magic that comes not from without relationship, but from within that which we call Providence.

Much That is Fair

THE WORLD IS INDEED full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

- Haldir of Lothlorien (FOTR)

Beginning of a New Age

For those paying attention: today is the Feast of the Annunciation. Interestingly, J. R. R. Tolkien chose this day to be the moment when Frodo and Same reached the Cracks of Doom, Gollum seizes the ring of Sauron and plunges with it into the molten chaos, beginning a new age.

Fancy that.

Wood - The Flight of Sparrows

Ralph C. Wood in his paper, "Tolkien the Movie and Tolkien the Book," writes profoundly about moderns' attitude toward life and antipathy toward mortality using a "distant mirror":

In Tolkien’s estimate, we moderns have been inveigled by the lure of life as an end in itself. In this regard, we are not far removed from our pagan forebears of ancient Germany and Scandinavia.The 7th century English theologian and historian called the Venerable Bede likened their view of human existence to the flight of a sparrow into one end of a blazing mead-hall and out the other: from black emptiness, briefly into warmth and light, back into cold oblivion.

Like our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, most of us are mortalists. With the philosopher Bertrand Russell, we believe that when we die we do nothing other than rot. Our mortalism has thus caused us to deny the deepest of Christian paradoxes: the paradox that the death which was originally meant as our curse and punishment can be transformed into the supreme gift—if we can learn to die aright…

Here, I believe, lies the perennial appeal of Tolkien’s great book, the reason why readers repeatedly return to it—not to escape from but into Reality. We learn from the hobbits and their allies that the drama of everyday life is full of fantastic adventure and challenge, that it contains epic horrors and blessings, that our smallest deeds belong to a huge universe of meaning, that we are working out nothing less than eternal destinies, that we have hope of victory only through courage and trust, love and loyalty, friendship and faith.

Read more here.

Our Lady's Statue

ONE SPRING YEARS ago now, I stood talking with a CCD class of sixth graders. At least three of them were obviously well past the expiration of the effects of their meds for the day. "Bouncing off the walls," as they say. Having two clinically diagnosed ADHD sons myself, I knew the signs. They were seeming stunt doubles for bat boy, and just as attentive. But I glanced out of the Catholic school basement window to the small courtyard. There stood a lovely and serene statue of Our Lady of Grace.

In an instant of insight I knew why I was glad to be there with an unruly, indifferent class of sixth graders who would rather be home playing video games waiting for dinner. It was the sense of antiquity associated with statuary, heroism, sacrifice, and a culture not entirely of this world.

Tolkien knew this, too, of course. He could tell his son,

Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)

The Catholic Church is not a transcendent Gift from Our Lord because of the people, high and low, who populate it. The Catholic Church is that grand, shimmering Vessel cutting through the storms and high seas of history promised to St. Peter, his Vicar; that she would not succumb to the Gates of Hades (Mtt 16, 18), nor be swamped (Mk 4, 37-41), but bear Our Lord's sacramental Real Presence until He comes again (Mtt 28,20).

Like Elrond's Rivendell, the statues, the monuments, the ageless Liturgy are the bedrock and foundation of faith, the stuff of legends, the absolutely needful place of repose and mission and chivalry for us poor mortals.

I did not despair teaching those sixth graders. Instead, I used clips from Peter Jackson's film version of Tolkien's master opus to illustrate catechetical points. I also recalled a very young Athos who was isolated from the other children during Sunday School class because I was rambunctious (ADHD wasn't invented yet).

And I looked out the basement classroom window up at Our Lady's statue.

Zmirak - Generosity of Tolkien

John Zmirak on discovering Tolkien as a boy, dis-enchantment by a Catholic sophisticate teacher, and rescue to re-enchantment. A must-read:

Tolkien spent his scant free hours constructing the parallel world found in his books, "Middle-Earth." He acted as its loving father, peopling it with a vast array of species. Instead of doing what most writers (trust me) settle for, the minimum needed to move the story forward, Tolkien showed all the Liberality of those medieval craftsmen who would carve even the backs of pillars that no man would ever see -- since they worked for the glory of God, Who would. Tolkien crafted for his creatures' use entire languages with alphabets and whole continents with maps. He limned out their history for thousands of years, from the mists of our own faded legends (such as Beowulf and the Brothers Grimm) all the way back to Creation. The opening of The Silmarillion describes the fall of a mighty angel and his expulsion from heaven. It begins:

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.

Tolkien didn't see his work as a piece of Catholic apologetics, but as something more ambitious. Tolkien hoped to create for the English-speaking peoples a literary myth -- as the Germans had in the grail legends, and the French in chivalric romances. The stories of King Arthur, Tolkien sniffed over his pipe, were actually Celtic, and too mixed up with French infusions for his Anglo-Saxon tastes. So he spent his life creating a replacement -- which, to his cackling delight, took root. Let's test that assertion: If you're reading this in English, write down the names of as many knights of the Round Table as you can think of. Now name all the hobbits you can. Case closed.

Read all of The Generosity of Tolkien

Eucatastrophe - Tolkien

Eucatastrophe is a neologism coined by Tolkien from Greek ευ- "good" and καταστροφή "destruction".

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."

– Letter 89

In his On Fairy-Stories Tolkien describes eucatastrophe further:

"But the 'consolation' of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite — I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the “turn” comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality."

– On Fairy-Stories

Born of Hope

Of all the film projects surrounding the epic sub-creation of
J. R. R. Tolkien, my favorites are those still in production via Actorsatworkproductions.com, Kate Madison, Producer. These works of love are available solely on-line.

The latest, and best, Born of Hope, in words from the website is "a 60 minute Lord of the Rings inspired film being produced in the UK. A low budget production, the entire cast and crew are giving their services for no financial gain. The subject matter and quality has attracted people from around the world to join the team, even gaining support and interest from some of the original New Line Trilogy cast and crew members including Richard Taylor and the Oscar® winning team at Weta Workshop, New Zealand."

To view Born of Hope, go here. (Click on subtitles; the soundtrack is iffy.)

J. R. R. Tolkien and the Eucharist

"The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."

- Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien

'Edoras' - Mt. Sunday, Canterbury

The magnificent site of Tolkien's Edoras for Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers: Mt. Sunday, New Zealand.

Not all who wander are lost

Hat tip to Sean Dailey at the Blue Boar. Behold, The Hunt for Gollum! Billed as "A film by fans for fans" and completely legal, the premiere is this Sunday, May 3rd. Here is the most recent trailer.