Fans of British Writers discussion

One of the notable features of Tolkien's monumental Lord of the Rings trilogy is the highly developed pre-history he created for his Middle Earth, hints of which appear in the trilogy. (One of these refers to "the Great Enemy, he of whom Sauron of Mordor was but a servant," and how "the elves made war against him, to regain the Silmarills which he had stolen.") The author left voluminous private notes on which aspects of this pre-history were written, and after his death his son Christopher edited them together into the volume we call The Silmarillion. I think it promises to be a very distinctive and fascinating read, and I'm personally looking forward to it!

Since Ashlyn and I are sharing a book, I began The Silmarillion earlier this week. I confess that I feared it would be too challenging or perhaps not compelling enough to read before the month ended, but so far I'm really enjoying it. I chose not to read the prefatory material (including a letter from J.R.R. Tolkien) but to dive right into the history. I plan to return to that material after I finish, however.

I'm about a hundred pages into The Silmarillion. The cadence and language is remarkably similar to that of much older epics and the Old Testament. I feared that it would be dry or that I'd get lost in the names, but I'm rather enjoying the scope (though I am still a little lost in some of the names). So many contemporary stories that I read feel so much smaller, even the fantasy. The world building in many modern stories reminds me of old movie sets: not very deep and rather vague in the details. (One reason that I found the LOTR movies so fascinating was the level to which Peter Jackson went to embody the world of Middle-Earth. My family visited a museum exhibit of the costumes and other movable paraphernalia from the LOTR movies. It was astounding in variety and richness -- like an exhibit from real cultures!)

The term "Eldar" which Tolkien gave to the Elves reminded me of "elder," which I assumed he'd meant, but Ashlyn, who studied Tolkien's linguistic choices, tells me that he couldn't decide whether it was a cognate for "elder" or should mean something like "people of the stars." Ashlyn, if I got that wrong can you correct me?

Another thing: some of the earliest history reminds me a lot of Greek mythology. Some of the Valar have Greek/Roman counterparts (Manwe, for example, might be Zeus). I'm not very familiar with Norse mythology, however. Maybe Tolkien drew from that when he created his Valar? I learned somewhere that Tolkien wanted to supplant the teaching of certain English standards (Shakespeare maybe) with the The Prose Edda.

Prefacing my comment is the fact that I haven't yet started to read the Silmarillion, but I do know quite a lot about it from my Tolkien linguistic class.

Mom is correct that Tolkien couldn't quite decide whether or not it should be a cognate of "elder" or should mean eldar-el(stars)+dar(~of the). He had originally chosen the "people of the stars" but eventually decided the first "elder" was another good connotation as the elves were the first born. If anyone cares about what Tolkien had to say about his nomenclature they could read http://www.tolkien.ro/text/JRR%20Tolk... , which is a piece Tolkien wrote to help translators.

I can't say much about what he drew from the Norse mythology except Myrkviðr or as it is anglicized form, Mirkwood.

Ashlyn, thanks for that link! As time permits, I'm definitely going to check that one out.

Tolkien absolutely captures a mytho-poetic tone that's perfect for the type of work he's creating here. The Bible, of course, is his major inspiration. Iluvatar is clearly God, the Creator; Melkor (Morgoth) is just as clearly Satan, and the Valar are archangels. The latter are mentioned in one of the appendices at the end of The Return of the King, which gives a capsule history of the kings of Numenor: they "renounced their guardianship" and "called upon the One" when Ar-Pharazon presumptuously set foot on the Undying Lands, and those lands were lifted out of the mortal world. It's fascinating to see here who the Valar (in Tolkien's invented cosmology) actually are, and the origin of the idea of the remote West as a place for an eternal life after sundering ties with this world, and of the connection of the elves to this.

The role of music in the creation of the world and the universe here is intriguing. It reminds me of the scene in The Magician's Nephew where Aslan sings Narnia into existence, and I'm sure Lewis was influenced by Tolkien in that. (Though the Narnia books were written before The Silmarillion as we have it here was published, Tolkien had much of the basic material for it written long before the Narnia books, and no doubt discussed the ideas in it with Lewis many times.)

Tolkien and Lewis use the harmony of music as allegorical frequently. In Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet the "Satan" character is pictured as the angelic being on earth. All the other planets have angelic beings and the universe sings together...except for Earth. It's the "silent planet".

Tolkien pictures music as a means of creation here with discord intruding.

Interestingly (at least I hope it will be) there is a composer in our denomination who's had some success (though I don't know if many outside our particular denomination would have heard of him). He has done a presentation where he points out the use of music and harmony in the Bible. I talked to him afterwards, and he'd never read Tolkien or Lewis. Hope he takes a look.

It makes sense to me to envision music as the means of creation. And the link between music and math ... just today I read a Facebook post from a young friend who "sees the Golden Ratio" everywhere.

A couple of years ago, I read an article by a music educator who wrote about the spiritual feelings she feels (and she believed many of her fellow musicians feel) when she plays orchestral music. I wondered then if classical music is more likely to engender these feelings in musicians (I think that it's true of me anyway) than other types of music.

You've probably seen this but it's worth seeing again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qT5B...

No, Mike, I hadn't seen that before. Thank you! I do have two classical violinists among my children; one of them also sings classical soprano for the New England Conservatory Youth Chorale. The director told the group that they'd be singing a lot of religious/church music -- there's no way around it if you sing classically. So please let me share with you a recent concert (my daughter is in the back left, too tiny to see) in which Mozart's Missa Breva was presented (it's almost 23 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZxck...

Beautiful. Thank you.

Also, this blog post on World Literature Day is (a little) relevant to our discussion because it mentions The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Apparently, they're the second and third bestselling books in the English language.

"Some group" (I forget which) voted The Lord of the Rings the book of the 20th century. Of course this bookThe Silmarillion is the "history" of those and tells some of the stories mentioned in The Lord of the Rings.

How many readers who love the LOTR have read and loved The Silmarillion? I was just at Amazon looking through some of the recommendations based on the fact that I'd purchased The Silmarillion. One was Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth, which intrigued me so I read some of the reviews. More than one reviewer denied the Christian basis for LOTR, one going so far as to say that it was equally pagan because Tolkien had a special interest in northern mythologies.

Well, you have to realize the variations in Christians. many people deny the Christian basis of Narnia because it has a witch in it. We still have people who will only read the King James Bible saying it's the inspired version 9apparently not realizing it's also a translation).

Tolkien worked very hard to make sure that there were no overt Christian references in LotR. In the Inklings the members would read their works to each other and he thought Lewis' was far to obvious in his allegorical writing of Narnia.

God loves all people and many humans are very closed minded. Sadly they tend to injure other Christians. Many Christians seem to think their place is to limit access to God instead of teaching the Gospel.

I've led Bible studies where my primary function was to pour oil on the water when doctrinal discussions got...acrimonious. God loves us all, even the closed minded among us. Our challenge is to not get angry or "self righteous". LOL

I'd assumed the reviewer wasn't Christian, but I don't recall if there was more to the review to support that conclusion. I knew Tolkien and Lewis disagreed about how to embody the Christian story within their own stories, so that's part of what led me to wonder how many non-Christian fans of LOTR would go so far as actually denying its Christian underpinnings.

Tolkien said his story was "applicable" (I think that's in the introduction he wrote to a later edition. I had it in a paperback I haven't checked to see if the same one is in the current hardback i have). At the time people were trying to find WWII symbology in the books. He said each reader would find what applied to himself in the book.

Remember the "firestorm" in Christian circles (and Christian book stores) over the Harry Potter books? I was constantly tell people, "it's a story".

I haven't read the prefatory material yet nor anything Tolkien wrote regarding his fiction. I suspect that I have a lot to read.

I understand what you're saying, but I know when I read stories that seem to be just stories and when I read others that clearly have more going on beneath the surface. Authors can and do influence these deeper stories, but I don't think they can control what readers take from them. Anyway, this is a personal challenge for me as an author of fiction. What do I imply versus what do I address directly? And how do I feel about what readers take away, especially what I didn't intend? Ashlyn says Tolkien as a linguist had very strong opinions about the meaning of the words he created and how they were translated. Something tells me he wouldn't want readers to turn his stories into primarily pagan ones even if they're not overtly Christian.

No, but he probably expected it. You know he created an entire language for the Elves and I believe other minions of Middle Earth. he wrote volumes on things like that. He was a philologist and studied philosophy and majored in European myth, especially Icelandic, Norse etc. as did Lewis.

He knew I'm sure that people would infer things from his stories he never intended.

I think that for Tolkien, his faith was so ingrained into him that it would have been impossible to write a story that didn't have some Christian elements. I think that he would be very unhappy to find that readers were deciding his stories. Indeed, in one of the books I am reading at the moment J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth, he is quoted as saying " The Lord of the Rings is 'a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision" (3, Birzer). However, he was not averse to using pagan elements and "sanctifying" them as it where. Indeed, Tolkien, whose lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" is according to some (including Elizabeth Solopova) "a formative work in modern Beowulf" (Solopova), was influenced by the author/authors of Beowulf.

Going back to the earlier discussion on music, I think it is interesting to note that in one of Tolkien's invented languages, Quenya, there is a specific word, Lámatyávë, which can be translated as either the phonetic fitness of words or rather the taste of sound (I like the second translation better). Tolkien received pleasure (he described it as the pleasure one gets from colour or music) from beautifully crafted words and languages.Tolkien was a linguist first and foremost but he found that as he created his languages they bred a mythology. So it seems to fit that in a world that was based around languages, should in universe be created by sound.
-Ashlyn

Great discussion so far! I've just changed the name of the folder in which this thread appears from "Analysis of individual books" (which might sound super-intellectual to some people, as if a PhD. is required to participate) to the more user-friendly "Discussion of individual books." (After all, anybody can discuss things! :-) ) Hopefully, this will make participation more inviting, on this thread and others.

One question that's come to my mind so far is a theological one. Jesus commented, in passing (Matt. 22:30), to the effect that angels do not marry. The role of the Valar in the Ainulindale is clearly that of archangels; but the Valaquenta speaks of several pairs of them as married couples. Does anybody have any thoughts as to how Tolkien looked at this seeming contradiction?

I think it was just a fictional license thing. He also positions several layers of "being" between the angelic beings and humans. Elves start out as I believe it's the third level in the hierarchy. They are more mortal than the groups closer to the God figure (Eru Ilúvatar) but not quite as mortal as humans. There are also the original humans who "lose their place" (like the Nu'menorians who rebelled against the Valar).

God doesn't spend a lot of time on that statement, but he says they "don't" marry. I always thought that implied that the Kingdom of God offered a level of closeness and even intimacy that transcends the flesh.

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "I think it was just a fictional license thing. He also positions several layers of "being" between the angelic beings and humans. Elves start out as I believe it's the third level in the hierarchy...."

Ashlyn and I discussed your question, Werner, while waiting in line at the post office (where I checked my smartphone and read your comment). Mike summed up what we talked about pretty nicely.

Werner wrote: "It's fascinating to see here who the Valar (in Tolkien's invented cosmology) actually are, and the origin of the idea of the remote West as a place for an eternal life after sundering ties with this world, and of the connection of the elves to this. ..."

Do you think Tolkien was borrowing from Celtic mythology? The Irish had a mythical island in the west, Hy-Brasil. There's also the isle of Avalon where Arthur goes after death. In searching for the name of the place I recall reading about in some Celtic mythology, I also came across Mag Mell, a mystical isle west of the coast of Ireland associated with the afterlife (which was listed on Wikipedia in the same list with Tolkien's Aman) and then there is there is the Land of the Young, or Otherworld, of Irish mythology, Tir na nOg, reached by a voyage.

The Wikipedia entry for The Fortunate Isles of Greek mythology (also called the Elysian Fields or Elysium) specifically mentions Tolkien at the end of the entry.

Tolkien had a weird relationship with the Celts. He thought the Welsh was beautiful, in fact he based the sound of one of his invented language Sindarin after it. But Irish Celtic (which to most people sound a lot like Welsh) he found awful and uncouth. That being said I thing the isle of Avalon is probably the better guess. Speaking of islands, I think it is interesting to note that (view spoiler)[ Numenor is based on Atlantis (hide spoiler)]

I think (view spoiler)[ Atlantis may have been a partial inspiration for Tolkien also at least location wise. It was supposed to have divided the eastern world from the western world. (hide spoiler)]

With heroic self-control, I won't click on the spoilers, since I'm only into Chapter 15, "Of the Noldor in Beleriand."

Yes, I think the explanation for our married archangels is "fictional license," too; Tolkien was conscious that he wasn't writing an actual theological treatise. Then too, in their time on Ea (Earth), they had taken on a physical form, which wasn't their normal purely spiritual form. One could argue that while celibacy is appropriate for the latter state, marriage is more natural for physical beings (since it has a physical component).

The association of the West with the afterlife is a pretty common idea in mythology the world over, so it doesn't necessarily have a single historical source here (one could argue that it's sort of an archetypal idea). It's probably rooted in the universal observation that the sun rises in the East (hence an association with daybreak, beginning, birth), while it sets in the West --hence the direction of night, culmination, and death.

One thing that gives a reading of The Silmarillion a particular resonance, if you've read the LOTR trilogy first, is the way that elements of this book explain things in the trilogy. I always thought that Sauron seemed more than human, especially given his ages-long life; here, we find that like Morgoth, he's a demon (fallen angel). We also get an explanation of what Balrogs are; see the origin of the dragon species; and learn that the orcs originated as elves corrupted by Morgoth. (Tolkien's point that the devil can't create anything himself, only corrupt and pervert what's already created, is a very sound one theologically.) And having read Galadriel's statement to Frodo and his companions that she "came from Gondolin before its fall," we now learn where and what Gondolin was.

I'm enjoying the read; but the multiplicity of both personal and place names to keep track of, especially similar names, is a challenge, even with a large glossary and the two maps this edition has!

(view spoiler)[ Galadriel was sort of a repentant rebel. That's one reason her not taking the "Ring" when it was offered was important. (hide spoiler)]

Is there anybody but me who's feeling that Tolkien's Iluvatar, and by the middle of the book the Valar as well, come across as too detached from events in Middle Earth (while Morgoth, of course, is anything but detached)? What do some of the rest of you think about that?

I've sort of "felt" that even back ti LotR. Even the Elves have a sort of "above it all" feel in some ways. I would guess some of that may go back to Tolkien himself and his own way of viewing God, maybe informed by his church or his education. It seems a view of holiness that stays a bit clear of the "ickyness" of mortality at times is the way it struck me.

Look at the times relationships spring up between humans (even Numanorians [did I spell that right]) and elves. The Elf gives up her or his "immortality" and becomes mortal. (I can only recall 2 times Tolkien writes of this there maybe others).

Ashlyn has something she can add about Tolkien's efforts to keep Iluvatar engaged in his creation (from the book she's reading), but I have to say I agree that he seems strangely absent since the first pages -- I think that the last thing that I can recall him actively involved in is putting the Dwarves to sleep until after Men arrive in Middle Earth.

Perhaps it has something to do with Fate (which constrains the Valar and Elves) and Free Will (which Men have)? I still haven't gotten to the point where Hobbits enter into the picture, but it does seem that, when it gets down to it, those with real power to act in Middle Earth don't use magic but ordinary choices and actions.

My comment in message 29 stemmed from reaction to the many personal tragedies in the book, as well as the devastation wrought by Morgoth on a huge scale. On reflection, this could be seen simply as a literary expression of the real-life problem of theodicy, God's seeming inaction in the face of tragedy and grand-scale devastation, in the context of a world where there is meaningful free will and where God's response to humans is often predicated on their response to Him.

Back in the 90s, I wrote a short article for a theological journal on the Neo-Platonic view of death in C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. His fellow Inkling Tolkien obviously held the same view, given the idea here of death as a gift from Iluvatar to humans, permitting them to escape from the physical world to a higher and better destiny. I would argue that this conception (which of course has historically been very widespread in Christian circles) owes much more to Platonism than it does to the Biblical tradition, where human death is viewed as a punishment for sin and spoken of as the "last enemy" to be overcome by the triumph of the resurrection.

Werner, your reflection sounds reasonable. You wrote that "God's response is often predicated on their response to him." So if Iluvatar is strangely absent from the events of The Silmarillion, it must be because He intended to be absent -- the Vala and Elves are constrained by Fate.

It's not only that Iluvatar is strangely absent from Middle-Earth, however. The Elves, His Children, seem strangely uninterested and unaware of Him! Though the Noldor lived among the Vala, I didn't read anything that suggested that this communal life was lived consciously in praise of Iluvatar or that Iluvatar was in any way present in Valinor; nor did any of the Elves seek in some way to understand or discover Iluvatar's wishes or plans for them. I haven't read enough to know for certain that Men are equally unaware and uninterested. Maybe when you have direct interaction with beings such as Elves, many of whom have interacted more directly with angels, you're inclined to care more about them than a distant, impersonal Creator? The Elves and Men to a lesser extent also yearn for the West, not reunion with Iluvatar.

Thank you for the insight about C.S. Lewis's Neo-Platonic view of death (and likely Tolkien's view as well). I'm not sure I'm going to make any sense here, but aren't the Neo-Platonic and the Christian tradition two sides of the same coin? That is, once death as a punishment for sin has been overcome by the resurrection, physical death could be seen as an escape from the physical world to heaven (at my present place in The Silmarillion, it's unclear where the souls of Men go once they die, although I suppose I should assume a higher and better destiny). Do you think that the early Christians, the ones who "saved" Plato by reconciling him with Christian beliefs, went too far?

Perhaps the problem is that Middle-Earth really isn't Earth. In Middle-Earth, death really is a gift and not a punishment because the triumph of the resurrection happened here on our Earth. I don't know what Tolkien intended. I know that he quarreled with Lewis over how overtly Christian Narnia is; Lewis's Aslan is clearly a Christ figure. The only Christ-like figure I can think of in Tolkien is Gandalf, who sacrifices himself to save the fellowship of the ring and returns as Gandalf the White. (view spoiler)[But Gandalf is a maiar, a lesser angel, so he's clearly not the Word made flesh. (hide spoiler)] Elves and Dwarfs are beings not present in the real world or Christian tradition. If I understood correctly, Elves have physical bodies that can die, but they can get new physical bodies. Isn't that reincarnation? Or did I get that wrong?

LeAnn, interesting post; lots of food for thought there! Good point about the fact that the elves and men here don't display much personal interest in Iluvatar or in finding out and fulfilling His will for them (which, conversely, means that they don't have any real claim to His special help with the problems they get themselves into!). A shrine to Iluvatar is set up on Numenor at its beginning, but it becomes neglected in the latest generations.

The opening lines of The Hobbit make it clear that Tolkien wants us to see Middle Earth as this world, but long, long ago. In the Germanic languages of the ancient and Dark Ages, "Middle Earth" was the term for this world, the abode of humans. (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Middle-e... .) But to be sure, it's a very fictionalized version of our world. As you noted, the real world doesn't have elves and dwarves. The sun and moon are explained here in ways that don't jibe with scientific fact (and I think the same is true of Venus, the morning/evening star, though Tolkien doesn't make that identification of Rothenzil explicitly). And the plot here doesn't correspond much to the primeval history in Genesis; any account of the Fall, for instance, is absent. You're also right that Tolkien's whole corpus doesn't have a Christ figure as such (of course, it's set in the time long before the birth of Christ).

So far, I haven't run into anything that suggests that elves who die are reincarnated in new bodies. Their role in the eternal future is said at the end of Chapter 1 to be something that Iluvatar hasn't yet revealed.

IMO, the worldviews of the Judeo-Christian Biblical tradition on the one hand, and of the Hindu-Gnostic tradition in which Plato was a pivotal figure on the other, are fundamentally opposed and alien to each other --polar opposites in basic attitudes. In that view, the attempt of the Hellenistic intellectuals of the post-apostolic era to marry the two was deeply misguided, and resulted in a warping and damaging of the "mainstream" Christian intellectual tradition in ways that are still felt. (In other words, I think Tertullian was wiser in his estimate of pagan philosophy than, say, Clement of Alexandria or Origen were.) But that's a thought I'll need to expand in another post!

Well, I'm clearly at a real disadvantage here. It's been some time since I read The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy, all of which I read purely for pleasure (and like most readers unaware of any deeper meaning or potential symbolism). Also, I did study (on my own) the beginnings of the Christian intellectual tradition but not very deeply or well -- as with The Silmarillion, I got bogged down with all the early theological disputes and factions. (On something of a related note here, have you read Umberto Eco's Baudolino? I'm probably most like the early medieval Christians in my ignorance and would be likely to believe in Prester John and the wildly fantastic people who lived in his mythical kingdom.)

As for the idea that the Elves will be reincarnated, I got that from the end of the chapter on Beren and Luthien, which I only just finished. (view spoiler)[So in looking at it again, I see that I misunderstood -- and still misunderstand, I'm afraid -- the choices that Manwe offered Luthien in the end. I don't really comprehend the difference between the halls of Mandos and Valimar (Valinor? Aman?), the Blessed Realm. The Blessed Realm seems to be part of the real world because Manwe offers to let Luthien leave Mandos and dwell in Valimar "until the world's end." Or Luthien could choose to return to Middle-Earth as a mortal (not a Man?) and then die a second time.

Either way, wouldn't Luthien's spirit need a physical body? And if she returned to Middle-Earth, this body would eventually die. It's not clear to me whether Luthien's spirit would then follow Beren's to whatever destiny that Iluvatar had appointed. Beren, whose spirit had fled his physical body (which sounds like Death but apparently wasn't), somehow had the ability to wait to say one last goodbye to Luthien, who "bid" him to wait on the shores of the Outer Sea. Before Beren's spirit could continue on to whatever destiny Iluvatar had for him, Manwe intervenes. However, Beren still must die (for the first time? again?) because Manwe couldn't withhold Death with a capital D from Beren. Maybe all of this intercession happens on the spiritual level, so that neither Beren or Luthien are dead physically for long, like those stories of people who die on the operating table but are told it's not their time yet. (hide spoiler)]

***

Ashlyn explained to me that Middle-Earth really is supposed to be a primeval Earth. I don't mind the details not matching up to our understanding of either the Biblical Genesis or science, but given that, I guess I don't understand why Tolkien would choose to make death a gift from Iluvatar unless it is as you say from a belief in neo-Platonic ideas.

No, Leann, I've never read any of Eco's books. (I do have The Name of the Rose on my to-read shelf, though.)

Beren and Luthien are presented as a unique special case. (view spoiler)[What they experience is more in the nature of a resurrection, like Lazarus or the widow's son at Nain, than a reincarnation; and as you said, apparently neither of them had been dead very long. (hide spoiler)]

In the Bible, the physical world and the human body are clearly seen as the creation of God, which He pronounced good. The world is the sphere where people are to serve Him by their actions; enjoyment of married sex and other physical pleasures, temperately and with gratitude to the Creator, are wholesome. Humanity's main problem is sin, for which death is a punishment; but for those redeemed by Christ's sacrifice, death will be defeated by bodily resurrection to eternal life in the redeemed physical creation ("the new heavens and new earth").

In Hindu thought, however, the physical world and the human body do not really exist; they are harmful illusions that distract people from the passive, desire-free state (Nirvana) of disembodied merger with the pantheistic "god" that should be our true goal. Humanity's main problem is letting ourselves be trapped in this illusion. Supposedly, we should ignore the "illusory" physical world as much as possible, in order to break free from its mental chain and allow death to finally release us to Nirvana (instead of getting "reincarnated" back into the physical all over again).

In the 6th century B.C., the Greek philosopher Pythagoras traveled to India to study with the sages there, and returned with the basic idea of this worldview. In his own lifetime, his ideas weren't all that widely influential; but he was a big influence on Plato, whose influence on later thinkers, in turn, was a lot bigger. In the Hellenic world of the 1st century A.D., various forms of this way of thinking were already widespread (there are passages in the New Testament Epistles that are clearly written to refute them), and would develop in the succeeding centuries into Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Docetism, the heresies of Marcion and Mani, etc. (Some of these would allow that the physical world/body DO exist --but they're horrible, icky, defiling prisons for the human soul, created not by God but by the Demiurge or the devil.)

"Mainstream" post-apostolic Christianity didn't go so far in embracing these ideas as, say, Marcion did; it never abandoned the idea of God as Creator or the fact that Jesus had a body, and never denied the promise of the resurrection. Nevertheless, it absorbed a lot of attitudes and prejudices from this current of thought: notably, the ideas that the physical world is a prison for the soul, from which death is a wonderful release to purely "spiritual" life, the sooner the better (they retained the idea of the resurrection, but didn't know exactly what to do with it :-) ), and that the best response to the physical world while we're stuck in it is withdrawal into monasticism, mystical contemplation of the "spiritual," and asceticism --the more ascetic, the more glorious. To that mindset, death would be seen as a gift, a ticket out of the limiting prison of the body that God incomprehensibly stuck us in in the first place.

I finished Chesterton's book on Thomas Aquinas not long ago, and if I understood him, Aquinas rejected those heresies that claimed the physical world didn't exist or if they did they're defiling prisons for the soul -- I'm sure he believed that Creation was real and good. Aquinas had a good deal of influence on Christian thinking, so I find it curious that Tolkien would describe death as Iluvatar's gift to Men.

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that the "mainstream" Christian tradition was monolithic in this respect; there were always strands of thought that were more biblically-oriented (and different strands interacted and influenced each other). Aquinas (and Tolkien and Lewis) definitely believed in the reality of the material creation, for instance. He was, if I recall correctly, one of the first major Christian thinkers in the West to be more influenced by Aristotle than by Plato. In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Plato was by far the more influential of the two with Christian intellectuals, partly just because his writings were much more available. But over the subsequent centuries, his influence has lost ground, and his thought tends to be diluted even where it persists. Tolkien and Lewis, for instance, saw themselves as in some sense Platonists (as did Lewis' friend Owen Barfield); but neither of them was particularly ascetic in their lifestyle.

We recently got a copy of Chesterton's book on Aquinas at the college library where I work; and of course we've always had a copy of Aquinas' own Summa Theologica. If I didn't already have 354 books on my to-read shelf, I'd add those two (maybe after I make more of a dent in what's there now...).

Earlier this week, I finished the book. If anyone's interested, my review is posted here: www.goodreads.com/review/show/251300094 .

Sorry, Werner, I read your review on my Kindle Fire, but there's no "like" button there! I'll go do that now ....

Thanks for the "like," LeAnn (I just saw it in my updates)!

Mike, regarding your comment in message 25, (view spoiler)[it's instructive that near the end of Akallabeth, Tolkien says that Numenor was named Atalante "in the Eldarin tongue." (hide spoiler)] (Of course, for anyone who's read the history of Numenor in the LOTR trilogy, that's not really a spoiler; I suspected that connection when I read the latter!)

The epics and sagas of northern Europe, insofar as they come from pagan times or retain pagan concepts, are dominated by the Germanic idea of wyrd, or immutable fate. These were a significant influence on Tolkien in both the style and content of the Silmarillion, but he consciously tried to reconcile it with the Biblical idea of free will. I think that's why, as was noted above, his Valar and elves are constrained by Fate (explained as embodied in the descriptive songs of creation that were sung before the world was formed, and which envisioned what it would be), but humans "should have a virtue to shape their life... beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else...."

Both Tolkien and Lewis thought that early sagas and folklore probably had some roots in truth. It would be interesting to talk with them. There are works from both that explore the concept. Lewis and Tolkien didn't agree but both had views that touched on these things.

I've never read any of Tolkien's non-fiction, nor Lewis' writing about medieval literature. That's a lapse I need to remedy one of these days!

J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth and The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature are a good place to start.

The Sanctifying Myth book is actually by a Bradley Birzer, not by Tolkien himself. We have The Discarded Image at the Bluefield College library; and I've just added it to my to-read shelf. (After all, when you've already got over 350 books on that shelf, one could argue that one more doesn't make very much difference! :-) )

AMAZING!! All of you are so very knowledgeable on Tolkien and his writing! It is very impressive.

I do admit to the very certain cause of my absence from the book-read discussion this time around. "It is not my cup of tea." The fantasy world is not the same as fantasy in the world, and too much fantasy pushes me to a very certain loss of attention.

Or course, I have read The Hobbit. It's thirty years ago now. It was a very personal book. I enjoyed it.

I wanted to briefly comment of the success of the book-read this year while it was still underway. I wish you the best of luck in completing your philosophical discussion. Once again, I apologize for my absence.

I hope to find a future opportunity to comment on a title closer to the center of my normal reading. Thanks!

Especially in a group like this, which includes quite a wide variety of literary genres and types in its scope, not every book selected for a group read will be every member's cup of tea. (And even when they are, reading them right then won't always fit into everybody's schedule.) That's why participation is voluntary, so you never have to apologize for not taking part. (I sit out on common reads myself at times --in some groups nearly always, or more often than I take part!)

I'm finished with the actual Silmarillion story and have begun the story of Numenor, so I hope to finish before the end of March. I'm glad our common read isn't monthly or I'd have no hope of joining in.

Yes, my objection to monthly reads is that if that schedule is followed (as it is in a couple of groups that I'm in --I usually don't even attempt to take part in those reads!) some of us would never have time to read anything of our own choosing! Then too, in one of my other groups, we tried doing a monthly read a few years ago, and found that when it was so frequent, people lost interest in the idea. (And going through a selection process that often was a nuisance, too!)