Literary Giants Literary Catholics (43 page)

Garth’s approach is as welcome as it is unusual. His prose is never boring, and he is never bored by, nor boorish toward, his subject. Neither is his book the sort of hackiography (written by hacks who hack to pieces the reputation of their subjects / victims with the machete of scandal and the cudgel of scorn) that is all too common in our meretricious age. “I do not claim any divine insight into Tolkien’s mind,” Garth declares in the preface, “and I do not pretend to put him on the psychiatrist’s couch. I have not gone hunting for shock and scandal, but have focused at all times on matters that seem to me to have played a part in the growth of his legendarium.”

If, however, the author’s positive approach to his subject is laudable, the narrowness of his historical perspective is less so. His declared belief that World War I was “the crisis of disenchantment that shaped the modern era” is too sweeping in its generalization and too trite in its general understanding of history. It is simply too simplistic to suggest that the “wasteland” of modernity, as epitomized by Eliot’s poem of that name, arose from the no-man’s-land of the Great War. The wasteland predated the war and was parodied by G. K. Chesterton in his prewar novels, most notably perhaps in
The Man Who Was Thursday
and
The Ball and the Cross
, both of which are peopled with “hollow men” every iota as vacuous and venal as Eliot’s postwar counterparts. And if World War I is alleged to have heralded the hedonism of the “bright young things” satirized in the poetry of Eliot and the prose of Waugh, what is to be said of the hedonism of the decadent 1890s reflected in the work of Wilde or Aubrey Beardsley? Similarly, it is a little too easy to state glibly that “disenchantment” began with the protest poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. What about the “disenchantment” of the aforementioned Decadents? And what of Romantic disenchantment? Byron, Shelley, Keats? What of these? And what of the disenchantment of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the aftermath of the Great Terror of the French Revolution, a terror as terrible as the “animal horror” of World War I, to employ Tolkien’s description of the latter conflict? And then, of course, there is the cynicism of the so-called enlightened eighteenth century. Finally, and in fact, firstly, there was the Reformation, the mother of all disenchantments, which fractured and fragmented the comparatively unified civilization of medieval Europe. In truth, it would be more accurate to insist that the Reformation was “the crisis of disenchantment that shaped the modern era”, compared with which the impact of the First World War was merely a later manifestation of the disunity caused by this greater debacle four hundred years earlier.

In spite of this fundamental flaw, Garth’s book has much to recommend it. He provides little-known yet fascinating insights into the literary tastes of the youthful Tolkien, such as his indifference to Milton and Keats and, by contrast, his “passionate approval” of Francis Thompson, the Catholic mystic and poet who died at a young age in 1907 when Tolkien was in his early teens. According to Garth, Thompson’s “metrical and verbal accomplishments, his immense imagery, and the visionary faith underpinning his work” was a significant influence on Tolkien’s earliest efforts at poetry. We also learn that Tolkien believed that Thompson had successfully bridged the “divide between rationalism and romanticism”, a divide that, as a Catholic Christian, Tolkien would see as not merely unhealthy but ultimately even unnatural. The mystical and philosophical marriage of the romantic and the rational, translated more formally as the relationship between faith and reason,
fides et ratio
, would become the kernel of Tolkien’s own philosophy as a writer.

Garth is less insightful in his insinuation that Rupert Brooke’s famous poem “The Soldier” was the product of “pessimism”. In reality, Brooke’s self-sacrificial sentiments were the pouring forth of the optimistic naïveté, nourished on jingoism, which typified the British public’s attitude toward the war in its earliest days. One suspects that Garth has confused pessimism with melancholy, the latter of which does indeed permeate Brooke’s poetry and is an expression of the influence of his poetic mentor, Hilaire Belloc.

Far from representing pessimism, the “Rupert Brooke period”, as it has been called, would become a byword for the period of glib pro-war optimism that would be pricked only by the full horror of the realities of trench warfare. By the time the genuine pessimism of the poetry of Owen and Sassoon burst like bombs of protest on a shell-shocked public, Rupert Brooke had already spilled out his life as a martyr to jingoism in “some corner of a foreign field that is forever England”.

The discussion of Brooke, Owen and Sassoon, and the struggle between jingoism and protest, raises the whole thorny subject of patriotism. Is it good or evil, right or wrong? The question had been addressed memorably by Chesterton in his witticism that the patriotic boast of “my country, right or wrong” is like saying “my mother, drunk or sober”. We might love our mother, but should we condone or encourage her drunkenness? The English nurse Edith Cavell, murdered by the Germans during World War I, had stated that “patriotism is not enough”, a phrase that is often used unthinkingly to suggest that patriotism is in some way wrong. This is not, of course, what Cavell was saying. To state that a thing is not sufficient is not to say that it is wrong. Oxygen is not sufficient for the sustenance of human life in the sense that other things, such as food and drink, are necessary also. It would, therefore, be true to say that oxygen is not enough, but not to imply from such a statement that oxygen is harmful! Tolkien’s contribution to the thorny question is recounted succinctly by Garth, who relates his defence of nationalism at a college debate shortly before the war began.

Tolkien’s version [of nationalism] had nothing to do with vaunting one nation above others. To him the nation’s greatest goal was cultural self-realisation, not power over others; but essential to this were patriotism and a community of belief. “I don’t defend ‘Deutschland über alles’ but certainly do in Norwegian ‘alt for Norge’ [All for Norway]”, he told Wiseman on the eve of the debate. By his own admission, therefore, Tolkien was both an English patriot and a supporter of Home Rule for the Irish.

In distinguishing between
Deutschland über alles
and
Alt for Norge
, Tolkien is essentially distinguishing between imperialism and nationalism and insisting that the former is always a negation of the latter. An imperialist is a “patriot” who tramples on the patriotism of others; a nationalist is a patriot who respects other nations as he wishes his own nation to be respected. The former is pernicious and finds expression in Tolkien’s legendarium in the expansionism of Mordor and Isengard, whereas the latter is a blessing and finds expression in Rohan, Minas Tirith and, most memorably of all, the Shire. Hobbits are nationalists; orcs are imperialists.

And this, of course, brings us back to the purpose of John Garth’s book. Since it is his intention to show the connection between Tolkien’s wartime experience and his writing of
The Lord of the Rings
thirty years later, the final judgment on his book should rest on his success or failure in doing so. If this is the criterion, it must be said that his book is of only limited value. Tolkien stated that the most important influence on the writing of his magnum opus was religious. His work was “fundamentally religious and Catholic”, and the fact that he was “a Christian . . . and in fact a Roman Catholic” was at the top of the “scale of significance” that governed the relationship between himself, as author, and his work. Nowhere in Tolkien’s scale of significance is the war even mentioned.

It would be wrong, however, to dismiss the impact of the war—and, in consequence, the relevance of Garth’s book—entirely. Nobody could have lived through the “animal horror” of the Somme without its indelible scar being left somewhere on the psyche. Perhaps in the desolation of Mordor we see the desolation of no-man’s-land; perhaps in the very darkness of much of the chronicles of Middle Earth we see the shadow of the war and its horrors. Perhaps. Ultimately, however, the shadow of the war is only a dim shadow of the Shadow itself, a shadow that represents not war but the evil that causes war. The work, at its deepest, is a theological thriller, “fundamentally religious and Catholic”. As such, and to reiterate, Garth’s work is of limited value, especially when compared to those works on Tolkien that concentrate on the more important influences on his life and work. Nonetheless, and this important caveat aside, the work is well written, entertaining and informative.

Anyone seeking a definitive exposition of the depths of Tolkien’s life and work will not find it here. If, however, like the present reviewer, he has an insatiable appetite for all things Tolkien, this book will make a valued addition to his presumably already burgeoning collection.
Tolkien and the Great War
is not the main course—it is not even an appetizer—but it certainly makes a very palatable side dish.

43

_____

P
ETER JACKSON’S BLOCKBUSTER FILM ADAPTATION
of
The Lord of the Rings
has been watched by millions of moviegoers throughout the world, most of whom will be unaware that they are watching a film version of “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work”.

The work’s author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was a lifelong devout Catholic who poured his Catholic heart into the writing of the myth that is now captivating a new generation, half a century after its first publication.

Yet, if the Catholicism is indeed as “significant” as its author claimed, where exactly are the Catholic signs that bestow this significance?

This is too large a question to answer in a solitary article. Indeed, there are now several whole books dedicated to the Christian heart of Tolkien’s myth. This being so, we will concentrate on one aspect of the Christian dimension. Let us examine the manifestation of divine mercy in
The Lord of the Rings
.

“Above all shadows rides the sun”, proclaims Samwise Gamgee amid the perilous gloom on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol in
The Two Towers
, declaring his faith and hope in a power beyond the reach of the Shadow. The hopeful hobbit, like the hope-filled Christian, has no need of despair, even in the midst of the greatest evil. Darkness can never ultimately prevail in the presence of the Sun that never sets.

Sam and Frodo are led into the gloom of Cirith Ungol, and into the lurking presence of the monstrous Shelob, by the treachery of Gollum. And it is, ironically, in the relationship between Sam, Frodo and Gollum that we find the key to understanding the role of divine mercy and the workings of divine providence in the whole work.

Throughout the story, Gollum is seeking to betray Sam and Frodo in order to regain possession of the Ring, his “Precious”. Knowing his treacherous intent, Frodo initially wished that Gollum had been killed: “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!”

“Pity?” replied Gandalf. “It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy.” Gandalf then went on to say that he believed that Gollum was mystically bound up with the fate of the Ring. “My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not least.” These words are recalled later by Frodo when he too has the chance to kill Gollum. Like Bilbo, Frodo also chooses the path of mercy over vengeance, and like Bilbo, his charitable choice comes to “rule the fate of many”. At the climactic moment on Mount Doom, Frodo finds that he cannot, at the very last, cast the Ring into the Fire. On the very brink of success, he finds himself on the verge of final, and fatal, failure. It is at this crucial moment that Frodo, the Quest and Middle Earth itself are saved by Gollum, who rushes forward and bites the Ring from Frodo’s finger before losing his balance and falling into the abyss, destroying himself and the Ring in the process. The scene is not only a triumph of divine providence over fate, it is the triumph of divine mercy, in which free will, supported by grace, is fully vindicated. According to Tolkien himself, Frodo was saved “because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and had then done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do. He (and the Cause) were saved—by Mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness and injury.”
¹
And as for Gollum, he fell into the Fire, clutching his Precious. He made his choice and he has his reward.

The greatest manifestation of divine mercy is, of course, the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, and at its deepest, Tolkien’s myth serves as a reflection of this archetypal mercy. The journey of Frodo and Sam into the very heart of Mordor in order to destroy, or unmake, the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom is emblematic of the Christian’s imitation of Christ in carrying the Cross. At its most profound level,
The Lord of the Rings
is a sublimely mystical Passion play. The carrying of the Ring—the emblem of sin—is the carrying of the Cross. This is the ultimate applicability of
The Lord of the Rings
—that we have to lose our life in order to gain it; that unless we die we cannot live; that we must all take up our cross and follow him.

All of this would be deducible implicitly from the story itself, but Tolkien makes the parallel even more explicitly. “I should say”, he wrote, explaining the final climactic moments on Mount Doom when the Ring is finally unmade, “that within the mode of the story [it]
exemplifies
(an aspect of) the familiar words: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’.” Tolkien makes the Christian dimension even more unmistakable, and unavoidable, in the fact that the climactic destruction of the Ring, and in consequence the destruction of the Dark Lord who had forged it, occurred on “the twenty-fifth of March”. The significance of this date will not escape the attention of Catholics.