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Good Afternoon, Penny, or is it still morning over there? It's rainy and gloomy over here like (dare I say it?) the day the hobbits spent at Tom Bombadil's.

I think Tolkien mentions in his letters or somewhere that LOTR was at its heart a "catholic" work, at first unconsciously and later on consciously (I have mangled that terribly, my memory just isn't what it used to be). So I think it's fair to see some of these parallels. They are wonderfully subtle, which I think was important to Tolkien--he didn't want anyone to have the parallels forced on them as allegory does.

I found the quote in Letters, #142

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. Fro the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.

THAT is a great quote!!! Thank you!

Nothing like having something to throw in the faces of those who endlessly protest the religious symbolism and themes of the book. :) I was reading just the other day some diatribe about those annoying Christians who keep claiming LOTR as "theirs." Hehehe, sorry, folks, the author did that, not us. ;)

Thanks for joining me, everyone, I was off reading my chapters and I come back and here you'all are! :)

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work"

I would say, in reference to other letters which state that LOTR is not any sort of retelling of the Christian story, that LOTR is a Catholic work in the same sense that Tolkien was a Catholic man. That is, as a Catholic, his life and his work were inevitably framed by his religion. Therefore, while I see LOTR as a Catholic work since it was written within the framework and morality of Catholicism (as the man led his life), I do not see it as specifically "pushing" Christianity.

I also suspect (without any real knowledge) that Tolkien's Catholicism may have been quite different from the more modern "reborn" and evangelical variety of Christianity.

In spite of these thoughts, I found Jackson's interpretation to be, at times, religious in feeling, particularly with usage of a boys' choir, etc. Frodo's first sight of Arwen, for instance, might have well been a vision of the Virgin Mary.

I'm not particularly religious, though I do find inspiration on the ocean and in the woods. I did, however, enjoy what I considered to be the almost overt religious overtones in the movie (which I had not noticed in the book).