Like many who smoke pipes in the modern world, I was drawn to them by the works of Tolkien. Neither of my parents were smokers of any sort, and while my stepfather smoked cigarettes during the first year or two that I knew him, he quit and has remained tobacco free ever since, almost thirty... Continue Reading →
In preparation for rereading The Silmarillion this summer, I reread Tolkien’s Letter 131, most of which is included in the front matter of my copy of the book. It has been many, many years since I read this letter—often called the most important of his letters, certainly the longest, to understand Tolkien’s thinking. When I... Continue Reading →
After taking a little break, I have begun reading The Lord of the Rings aloud to my wife and daughter again. We picked up in Fangorn forest, and just this weekend I read to them of the healing of Theoden. It is one of those passages that I am surprised by time and again because... Continue Reading →
In three recent posts, I have been discussing Gandalf's words at the end of The Hobbit: 'You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?" As I was copying the passage out into my Tolkien Commonplace Book, I thought to myself that... Continue Reading →
In my previous post, I discussed a possible interpretation of Gandalf's words to Bilbo at the end of The Hobbit: "You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventure and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?" In that post, I argued that Gandalf was here referring the higher idea... Continue Reading →
In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien lays out his understanding of how fairytales and all fantasy literature works (or ought to work). There are many ways in which the modern fantasy genre has deviated from this understanding, but then Professor Tolkien was not speaking prescriptively but descriptively. That is to say that while Tolkien does,... Continue Reading →
Boromir’s arc in The Lord of the Rings is tragic and yet there is glory in it. I am really eager to learn, next year, how my students react to this most noble of men—I’ll be teaching the novel for the first time. It’s already in the planning! On the one hand, Boromir is a... Continue Reading →
A personal one today. I tell my students when we begin reading The Hobbit that I am sharing this story with them to really illustrate the power of literature and stories to impact our lives. This is usually the last novel we read in the year, and as a senior English teacher, this means it... Continue Reading →
As the Fellowship is travelling south down the River Anduin, they come upon the towering statues of the Argonath, their massive arms and hands held up in silent warning. As Frodo looks at Aragorn who is looking at the "kings of old," Frodo has a sort of vision: "The Argonath" by John Howe Frodo turned... Continue Reading →
It is easy to forget that the Wizards, or Istari, of Tolkien's works are a kind of lower-order angel. Then again, Christians love to point this out, so perhaps it's not so easy to forget. In a passage that Christopher Tolkien dates to 1972, Tolkien writes, "We must assume that they [the Istari] were all... Continue Reading →
Something Tookish 