How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front

NY Times ^ | June 30, 2016 | Joseph Laconte

[C19fan]

IN the summer of 1916, a young Oxford academic embarked for France as a second lieutenant in the British Expeditionary Force. The Great War, as World War I was known, was only half-done, but already its industrial carnage had no parallel in European history.

“Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute,” recalled J. R. R. Tolkien. “Parting from my wife,” he wrote, doubting that he would survive the trenches, “was like a death.”

[marron]

Good article.

[Pelham]

Another echo of Tolkien’s wartime experience at the Front is the Hobbit’s obsession with food. Tolkien wrote that the soldiers in the trenches were always hungry and food was always on their mind.

[Louis Foxwell]

The author ignores completely the most important element of Tolkien’s life, his deep and abiding faith in Christ. With his devoted friend, C.S. Lewis, they nurtured the spirit of Christ and His teachings not just in Oxford but in all of England. Wherever The LOR has touched a mind the knowledge of Christ has entered and taken root.

[Pelham]

The Inklings. Tolkien, Lewis and Charles Williams.

Tolkien was instrumental in CS Lewis becoming a Christian.

Tolkein and Lewis Debate Myth & Christianity :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ds1fmgB3g4

[Envisioning]

For later......

[T-Bird45]

This also shows why Ralph Bakshi’s animated interpretation of Tolkien was very much on the mark with what the author was conveying in his books.

[kalee]

Thanks for posting.

[exDemMom]

Very good article. Usually, the NYT is trash, but this one is superb.

Beside the courage of ordinary men, the carnage of war seems also to have opened Tolkien’s eyes to a primal fact about the human condition: the will to power. This is the force animating Sauron, the sorcerer-warlord and great enemy of Middle-earth. “But the only measure that he knows is desire,” explains the wizard Gandalf, “desire for power.”

The elements of lust for power that Tolkien recognized then are even more prominent today-witness just about any leftist politician. Tolkien also captured the deceptive language that the power-hungry use to mask their true motivations. For example, the language that Sauron's lieutenant used when parlaying with the representatives of Gondor. It was full of self-serving dissembling: how Sauron is merely minding his own business, and all the people of Middle Earth are unfairly arraying themselves against him, yada yada yada.

I started reading The Hobbit in 6th grade, but it wasn't until high school that I really was able to read it with comprehension. I was fifteen the first time I read The Hobbit and LOTR all the way through--my, what an exciting adventure! And I read it again every few years. Each time, I pick up on a new nuance that I've never seen before. Those books are truly classics.

[BipolarBob]

“I don’t like anything here at all.” said Frodo, “step or stone, breath or bone. Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid.”

[notdownwidems]

I started reading The Hobbit in 6th grade, but it wasn't until high school that I really was able to read it with comprehension. I was fifteen the first time I read The Hobbit and LOTR all the way through--my, what an exciting adventure! And I read it again every few years. Each time, I pick up on a new nuance that I've never seen before. Those books are truly classics.

I agree, I remember the first time I read the entire trilogy (sophomore in high school) I was so moved I cried when it was over. Truly the greatest classic of fantasy fiction I've ever read, if not of all time!

[BipolarBob]

“The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”

[exDemMom]

I was so moved I cried when it was over.

I still cry every time I finish those books. Poor Frodo wanted for so long nothing more than to go home to the Shire--but when he finally did go home, he was so damaged by the entire experience that he could not stay and enjoy the comfortable life he longed for.

I have a friend who looks at it a little differently. She thought that Frodo was very fortunate, since he was leaving to go live with the elves. Since the elves always seemed arrogant and condescending to me, I never thought that a very good deal.

[SueRae]

Excellent reading.

[notdownwidems]

I have a friend who looks at it a little differently. She thought that Frodo was very fortunate, since he was leaving to go live with the elves. Since the elves always seemed arrogant and condescending to me, I never thought that a very good deal.

It wasn't that so much; just that the whole story was so overwhelming and was wrapped up so neatly at the end, especially the sadness at the end of the hobbits going after each other due to Saruman's treacherous revenge...I don't know, it was emotional lol

[GOPJ]

Another echo of Tolkien’s wartime experience at the Front is the Hobbit’s obsession with food. Tolkien wrote that the soldiers in the trenches were always hungry and food was always on their mind.

Interesting... thanks for sharing.

[sneakers]

It’s been years since I read the books. I, too, first read them when I was 14 or 15 years old. I’ll have to get them out again.

[notdownwidems]

It’s been years since I read the books. I, too, first read them when I was 14 or 15 years old. I’ll have to get them out again.

I would recommend it! The story never gets old and as another freeper mentioned, every reading uncovers previously undiscovered nuances that just reveal more brilliance from the author.

[RayChuang88]

If you have read Humphrey Carpenter's authorized biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, one thing that was strongly seared in Tolkien's mind was the loss of two of his closest friends in the Battle of the Somme--a battle that in many ways essentially ended the supremacy of Europe as a power because so many of the brightest university students from the UK, France and Germany were killed in that bloody four-month battle. And it was battle that in the end changed nothing in terms of the location of the front lines.

It was only the arrival of the Americans in 1917--backed by the industrial might of the USA--that finally turned tide in favor of the Allies by 1918.

[Lurker]

For later.

L