Status
Available
Call number
Call number
B Tol
Collection
Publication
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2003), 415 pages
Description
A new biography exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's wartime experiences and their impact on his life and his writing of The Lord of The Rings. The period of Tolkien's life in which he fought in The Great War has remained largely unexplored and unresearched by his many and various biographers - this volume concentrates specifically on this period of his life and relates it to his creation of some of the world's best-loved literary works. Written specifically for a general audience, and not just Tolkien fans, this book allows Tolkien's life, work, inspiration and success to be viewed from a new and exciting viewpoint. Having lost many of his friends from school and University in the First World War, this, coupled with his time spent as a signaller in the Royal Lancashire Fusiliers, had a profound impact on him. As did, it would seem, the writing of G. B. Smith, a close friend who was sadly lost in the War. Invalided home from the Somme,Tolkien was able to reflect on his life, and John Garth agues that, far from being a flight of fancy, The Lord of The Rings is, in fact, a product of his wartime experiences and stands as a great war novel.… (more)
Subjects
Original publication date
2003
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User reviews
LibraryThing member kukulaj
I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings forty years ago or so. I have also watched the recent movie version of The Lord of the Rings. I am not really any kind of Tolkien fan. I liked those books well enough but just never chose to plunge in to any kind of serious study. My sweetheart
Actually even more than WW1, this book focuses on a small circle of friends, formed in their teenage years, that included Tolkien. The core was just four young men. They surely had high ideals and high hopes, which were all quite badly treated by the war.
So the point of the book is to show how Tolkien expressed those ideals and their fate in the world through the legendary world he created. The focus is not on The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but on the early predecessors, even before the Silmarillion. Garth walks us though many of these stories in enough detail that one can follow along with no prior exposure to them, at least for the most part. From time to time I did start to feel a bit left out, as Garth shows how story elements foreshadowed later Tolkien works that I am not familiar with. But for the most part this book demand too much Tolkien-ology of its reader.
I must say that I think Garth is quite successful with his argument here, that Tolkien was not running away from the harsh reality of his time but rather presented it in a medium that allowed him to get his points across effectively. Garth puts Tolkien in the company of Milton and Blake - they all created fabulous epics to portray the crises of their times.
The crisis that Tolkien was confronting is one that we are still confronting, though probably we are now in a different phase of the progress of industrial domination. WW1 was probably the most dramatic rise of industrial might. E.g. the British fleet was converted to petroleum shortly before the war. WW2 must have been the triumph, with nuclear weapons etc. Now we are in the decline of industrial power, with the desperate struggle to maintain power that it entails. Maybe this makes Tolkien even more important today. Tolkien portrayed an alternative. Now that some alternative or other is becoming inevitable, not merely possible, our challenge is to choose, to steer our path toward some one of the better alternatives open to us. The noble virtues latent in the common man, this vision of Tolkien might show us a priceless vital way forward.
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recommended this book to me, and that mostly because of the focus on WW1. Actually even more than WW1, this book focuses on a small circle of friends, formed in their teenage years, that included Tolkien. The core was just four young men. They surely had high ideals and high hopes, which were all quite badly treated by the war.
So the point of the book is to show how Tolkien expressed those ideals and their fate in the world through the legendary world he created. The focus is not on The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but on the early predecessors, even before the Silmarillion. Garth walks us though many of these stories in enough detail that one can follow along with no prior exposure to them, at least for the most part. From time to time I did start to feel a bit left out, as Garth shows how story elements foreshadowed later Tolkien works that I am not familiar with. But for the most part this book demand too much Tolkien-ology of its reader.
I must say that I think Garth is quite successful with his argument here, that Tolkien was not running away from the harsh reality of his time but rather presented it in a medium that allowed him to get his points across effectively. Garth puts Tolkien in the company of Milton and Blake - they all created fabulous epics to portray the crises of their times.
The crisis that Tolkien was confronting is one that we are still confronting, though probably we are now in a different phase of the progress of industrial domination. WW1 was probably the most dramatic rise of industrial might. E.g. the British fleet was converted to petroleum shortly before the war. WW2 must have been the triumph, with nuclear weapons etc. Now we are in the decline of industrial power, with the desperate struggle to maintain power that it entails. Maybe this makes Tolkien even more important today. Tolkien portrayed an alternative. Now that some alternative or other is becoming inevitable, not merely possible, our challenge is to choose, to steer our path toward some one of the better alternatives open to us. The noble virtues latent in the common man, this vision of Tolkien might show us a priceless vital way forward.
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LibraryThing member picardyrose
The author says Tolkien wasn't inspired to write :Lord of the Rings" because of the war. He had returned to his lifelong interest, the creation of language and myth. But I think the loss of his friends in the war is the reason he didn't kill off Merry and Pippin, as I would have.
LibraryThing member JNSelko
Fills a gap in the understanding of J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
LibraryThing member ianclary
Awesome book, I couldn't put it down!
LibraryThing member waltzmn
J. R. R. Tolkien created the most detailed mythology of the twentieth century. But no mythology can exist in isolation; people won't understand it. It must have roots in human experience.
There are many books on Tolkien's sources, historical, folkloric, and philological. This book is rather
And all four ended up as officers in World War I. Three served in the army; two were killed and Tolkien ended up the victim of disease.
This is the most detailed study of the TCBS and of Tolkien's war service now in print. It includes a careful attempt to show how Tolkien's early writings arose from the conditions of the time -- and looks at how these early influences led to his more mature writings. As such, it is perhaps of the greatest interest to the readers of The Silmarillion rather than The Lord of the Rings.
That the war was a great influence on Tolkien can hardly be denied. And this book brings that out. It is, perhaps, less successful at bringing out the full panorama of the war. Although it discusses the fates of Tolkien and his friends Gilson and Smith, there isn't much general perspective on the war, or even on the way the British army was organized, with the upper and middle classes supplying the officers and the lower classes the cannon fodder. And this matters, because the upper classes were by no means guaranteed to contain the brightest minds....
At the end, author Garth tries to sum it all up and show how the Great War influenced Tolkien's finished writings. Many will find this the most valuable part of the book. The rest, sadly, is neither fish nor fowl -- neither a "man in the trenches" view nor a full biography of Tolkien. Others have praised it highly, but I sometimes found myself lost. In the end, this is a piece of the puzzle of where Tolkien's writings came from. But the puzzle is much larger than this one piece.
There are many books on Tolkien's sources, historical, folkloric, and philological. This book is rather
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different; it addresses a personal source: World War I. It also looks at his relationship with three other man of his age who called themselves the "TCBS." They were four bright literary men who set out to see the world in a new way (or, perhaps, revive an old way, but in any case, to shake things up).And all four ended up as officers in World War I. Three served in the army; two were killed and Tolkien ended up the victim of disease.
This is the most detailed study of the TCBS and of Tolkien's war service now in print. It includes a careful attempt to show how Tolkien's early writings arose from the conditions of the time -- and looks at how these early influences led to his more mature writings. As such, it is perhaps of the greatest interest to the readers of The Silmarillion rather than The Lord of the Rings.
That the war was a great influence on Tolkien can hardly be denied. And this book brings that out. It is, perhaps, less successful at bringing out the full panorama of the war. Although it discusses the fates of Tolkien and his friends Gilson and Smith, there isn't much general perspective on the war, or even on the way the British army was organized, with the upper and middle classes supplying the officers and the lower classes the cannon fodder. And this matters, because the upper classes were by no means guaranteed to contain the brightest minds....
At the end, author Garth tries to sum it all up and show how the Great War influenced Tolkien's finished writings. Many will find this the most valuable part of the book. The rest, sadly, is neither fish nor fowl -- neither a "man in the trenches" view nor a full biography of Tolkien. Others have praised it highly, but I sometimes found myself lost. In the end, this is a piece of the puzzle of where Tolkien's writings came from. But the puzzle is much larger than this one piece.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jen.e.moore
This was an utterly excellent book, following Tolkien's own biography and the development of his mythology with excellent detail and attention to nuance. I expect it's all but incomprehensible to someone unfamiliar with The Silmarillion, but I've only read the first part of the Book of Lost Tales
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andI managed quite well. Insightful, interesting, and illuminating. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member sonofcarc
I got hold of a copy of this after seeing the recent Tolkien biopic -- for which it was obviously the principal source. Its main interest is as an exhaustive group portrait of Tolkien and his three friends in the "TCBS." Unfortunately Tolkien's wife Edith remains as faceless within its pages as in
As a Tolkienist whose interest is pretty severely restricted to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the book was not much help to me (through no fault of the author's). Tolkien's experiences in the War were certainly crucial to his work, but the influences ran underground for many years before they surfaced. The worst fault of the movie, to my mind, was that it drew thick lines with a grease pencil that do not stand up to analysis. Take the heavy thud with which the word "Fellowship" is plunked down. In the book the word "Fellowship" does not even occur until quite late in Book II (of six). The phrase "the Fellowship of the Ring" appears exactly once, and not until the "Many Partings" chapter (Aragorn says it). It never occurred to Tolkien that it should be the title of Volume One, because in his mind there wasn't a Volume One until the publishers convinced him that breaking the book into three was commercially expedient.
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the Humphrey Carpenter biography. The charming and intelligent person played by Lily Collins in the movie was apparently made up of whole cloth by the screenwriters, and an excellent job they made of her.As a Tolkienist whose interest is pretty severely restricted to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the book was not much help to me (through no fault of the author's). Tolkien's experiences in the War were certainly crucial to his work, but the influences ran underground for many years before they surfaced. The worst fault of the movie, to my mind, was that it drew thick lines with a grease pencil that do not stand up to analysis. Take the heavy thud with which the word "Fellowship" is plunked down. In the book the word "Fellowship" does not even occur until quite late in Book II (of six). The phrase "the Fellowship of the Ring" appears exactly once, and not until the "Many Partings" chapter (Aragorn says it). It never occurred to Tolkien that it should be the title of Volume One, because in his mind there wasn't a Volume One until the publishers convinced him that breaking the book into three was commercially expedient.
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LibraryThing member octoberdad
Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Tolkien as an artist.
LibraryThing member sarahlh
A brilliant, absorbing, and detailed look at Tolkien's life with of course most emphasis on his life during World War One. A must read for anyone interested in the background of the man behind Middle-earth.
Pages
415