Two Visions of the Racial Politics of *The Lord of the Rings*

I was sitting in a coffee shop this morning getting my daily dose of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings when I came across this passage from The Return of the King. Some context: the battle of the Pelennor Fields is waging and the battle rage of the Rohirrim has been stoked due to the death of their king and Eowyn, a princess of Rohan. The Rohirrim ride forward and confront many "evil" races of men who serve Sauron in the War of the Ring. Here is how they are described:

"Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues" (132).

This description is disturbing for its overt racism. We have here non-European races allegorically figured as evil. From the east, from the south, dark-skinned: any "man" who is other is here part of the "evil" host. And even more disturbing, they are compared to monsters with the simile "like half-trolls."

Passages like this are disturbing and difficult to wrap my mind around as a modern. Obviously, I cherish The Lord of the Rings, but passages like this--which are undoubtedly blots--give me pause. The allegorical logic is laid bare here that transmutes orcs and trolls into other human beings. The City of the White Tree, fighting the dark masses of the east, takes on a different connotation in light of this passage.

Such passages are indeed sad reminders that the writers and artists we love were living in a time of great misunderstanding, when other human who looked and lived differently (who were outside of their lived experience--at least on an intimate level) scared them.

I wonder if rather than see a passage like this as confirmation that Tolkien was a racist (a kind of low blow, I think) we could see it more constructively, as symptoms of an ideologically troubled modernity that was demanding that intelligent people come to terms with multi-valence, poly-vocality, and the juxtapositions of many worlds. Let me explain. At the same time Tolkien is writing of "half-troll" black men he is also writing about the relationship of Gimli and Legolas, their coming to terms with cultural/racial differences. In contradistinction to the passage above there is a later passage that becomes relevant. Commenting on the city of Gondor, Gimli the dwarf states,

"'There is some good stone-work here,' he said as he looked at the walls; 'but also some that is less good, and the streets could be better contrived. When Aragorn comes into his own, I shall offer him the service of stronewrights of the Mountain, and we will make this a town to be proud of.'

'They will need more gardens,' said Legolas. 'The houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad. If Aragorn comes into his own, the people of the Wood shall bring him birds that sing and trees that do not die.'" (163).

So, in opposition to the overt comparison of black men to half-trolls, we have this image of multiple races making plans to bring together multiple cultures to create a better community. To compare these passages is to remind me that these works are "undecided" on the level of ideology. They are not decided on "race" or "cultural hegemony." Rather, they are sites where racial contradictions are considered, negotiated, and ultimately are tested and solved and hopefully brought out of the fantasy world and into the real world to make things better.

Scaling Down War: the Narrative Function of Hobbits

I was reading  The Return of the King this morning and I came upon a passage that I believe demonstrates a key narrative strategy if not pioneered at least put to good work by J.R.R. Tolkien, namely, the act of suturing together two distinct narrative scales: the epic and the mundane. Consider the passage. Pippin is conversing with a guard of Minis Tirith, Beregond, and he's complaining about his serving duties to Denethor, Steward of Gondor:

"I have kicked my heels at the door of my master's chamber for many slow hours, while he has debated with Gandalf and the Prince and other great persons. And I'm not used, Master Beregond, to waiting hungry on other while they eat. It is a sore trial for a hobbit, that. No doubt you will think I should feel the honour more deeply. But what is the good of such honour? Indeed what is the good even of food and drink under this creeping shadow?" (89, Ballantine Trade Paperback).

I love this image of Pippin standing off as Denethor absently eats a spread of delicious food amid an important conversation with Gandalf. I imagine a look of sincere frustration on the poor hobbit's face.

We have here two separate worlds brought together through the experience of the hobbit: (1) the epic world of politics and cities and dark lords and armies being debated by Denethor and Gandalf, and (2) the quotidian world of food and drink and boredom experienced by Pippin. We have here two scales brought in contact with each other: the global-political and the local-experiential. Denethor and Gandalf are concerned with politics and the logistics of fighting a war; Pippin is concerned with grabbing an ale and some food. But both Gandalf/Denthor and Pippin are reacting to the same historical situation, the coming of the great war of the ring.

This juxtaposition of multiple narrative scales in the same scene makes, I think, Tolkien's portrayal of the experience of war--in spite of it being fantastical--somewhat realistic. In reading these novels, you're not simply dwelling on the level of the epic, a narrative mode that somewhat cruelly relates the death of thousands and political backs and forths with scant a comment. You also get to connect with the participants in the war on the level of their personal experiences. For example, the reader is introduced to Beregond's son in the previous chapter. He is not simply one of the many guards of Minis Tirith who die in the approaching seige.

To put it simply: Tolkien uses the mundane perspective of the hobbits looking onto great things, important meetings, in order to "humanize" the experience of the war of the ring, to scale it down to an accessible level for his reader.

A Book Review of Lin Carter's *Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers* (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976)

I've recently been reading Lin Carter's famous essay collection about the pioneers of sword and sorcery, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976). It's a fun book, a relaxing read, but in terms of analysis, it falls short. It's more and less a biographical reference guide for a variety of heroic fantasy writers. I came to it specifically because of the chapter on Clark Ashton Smith. I'm trying to write a chapter in my dissertation about Smith, and locating basic biographical material has been difficult.

The most interesting essay in the anthology, I think, is the opening one: "The Sword of Faerie." In this essay, De Camp surveys imaginative literature from its mythical "origin" to its most recent incarnations. He effectively binds together the classical manifestations of heroic fantasy like Ancient Greek and Anglo-Saxon epic poetry to the modern manifestations, e.g. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Further, he binds together the Gothic novel, the historical novel, the novel of romantic primitivism, in an attempt to portray imaginative literature as a kind of thread running through literary history.

Other essays are worth reading for their information but I was reluctant of some of the analysis. The one on Robert E. Howard offers an unsympathetic view of the writer's life and deals in suspicious armchair psychology. Of particular note is Carter's essay on J.R.R. Tolkien. He states that the The Hobbit comes close to "universal appeal" and rightly observes that "few works can be read with pleasure" by both adult and young readers (224). I completely agree. To corroborate Carter's idea, I'll say that The Hobbit was a profound experience for me as a young kid. I read it in the 5th grade and have had a habit of reading and re-reading it since. I return to the book often.

Carter also claims that Tolkien was what he calls a "rurophile," a worshiper of an idealized vision of nature. He states that, for Tolkien, "life in the Industrial Age had some of the qualities of life in prison" (234). I find that intriguing, this notion that a sense of the cruelty and inhumanity modern life shades Tolkien's work; however, Carter seems to criticize or at least poke fun at Tolkien for his apparent negative vision of modernity. There's a strange propensity in Carter's work to interpret or morally censure the personalities and lives of the writer's he is studying (writer's he ostensibly enjoys).

This is a classic text, I'd say, worth the money and the time; however, Carter's style of literary criticism is just strange. It hybridizes basic historical literary research with psychological case studies. At the same he's relating for you essential information about these writers--in bald "info-dump" fashion--he's also "judging" them, speculating about whether they were psychologically sound.

To an extent, as a literary criticism, it's kind of a parody of the Freudian psychoanalytical literary criticism that was vogue in the 40s and 50s.

December and the Tolkien Ritual

December brings with it a desire to read Tolkien. For years now, a holiday season ritual of mine has been to return to The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings.

I think this began in December of 2001 when Peter Jackson's films began to come out. I was a freshman at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio at the time, but I was home for break. Everyone was still reeling from the September 11th horror. I remember I saw the first Peter Jackson adaptation with my father, uncle, and brothers. The sequence of Gandalf the Grey seemed to key into so much of my anxiety at the time, centered not just on 9/11 but on my still fresh new experiences as a college freshmen. This image of a solitary grey pilgrim standing before a smoking demon gave simplistic allegorical shape to what I was feeling like at the time.

After watching the movie--which blew me away--I started reading through the books, book I hadn't read since early high school. I don't think I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, stalling somewhere at the point after the Battle of Helm's Deep and the beginning of the domestication of Gollum. But of course I made my way through The Hobbit. It's such a quick read! An elegant little book!

The following year, when Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers came out, I felt compelled to try the cycle again. This time I finished in full both the LOTR and The Hobbit. I saw the second movie. I was thrilled by the battle of Helm's Deep. And I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I had established a kind of tradition. The following December, as the release of Jackson's Return of the King approached, I re-read LOTR and The Hobbit. Since then, I've read this books every December.

It is very satisfying, going on this journey over and over. I don't know why. People who have "high" literary tastes will probably raise an eyebrow at this need to read and re-read, at this this spiral that might appear to be a pathological compulsion to repeat and experience something over and over. How many times does the One Ring need to destroyed until we've vanquished the Dark Lord?

In any case, the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has become associated in my mind with December, with the end of a long year. When Frodo and Sam and Gollum finally reach the crack of doom, my year is over, and it's ready to return to the Shire and start the whole thing over again.

An Homage and Critique of Michael Saler's *As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality* (Oxford UP, 2012)

I'm reading a book of literary history, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality  (Oxford UP, 2012) by Michael Saler. He treats the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. To really simplify his argument: he is pushing back against literary historians/critics who see genre fiction (i.e. mystery, science fiction, and fantasy) as problematically escapist, as completely severed from this reality. He asserts that these writers created alternative worlds that allowed readers to come to see their own realities as contingent, as "fictional" in a way. He attempts to make a case that the fictional worlds created by these writers opened up a space for their readers to imagine Reality with a capital R as malleable, as subject to change.

Let me just say, I loved Saler's book! For all intents and purposes, this is an homage to Saler's book! A recommendation for you to buy it and read it!

His reading of H.P. Lovecraft's biography and its relationship to the overarching thematic trends in the Cthulhu mythos is very convincing and compelling. I am so inspired by the idea that such an intelligent and serious scholar has turned his sights on Doyle, Lovecraft, and Tolkien. He even talks about Dungeons and Dragons in this monograph, something that delights considering it was published by the Oxford University Press. As a researcher struggling with many of the issues broached in this book, I can truly say it put wind in my sails. And, admittedly, there's a lot in Saler's book that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.

And yet--

I get the sense Saler wants to see genre fiction and the alternative worlds that emerge from them as pseudo-"didactic" texts, texts that teach a lesson. I don't think he sees genre fiction as didactic in a direct, allegorical way (e.g. the orcs of Middle Earth aren't supposed to represent fascist Germany; Cthulhu is not supposed to be an alienating modernity; Sherlock Holmes is not performing as a perfect modern citizen, etc.). Saler is much more subtle. However, in spite of his subtlety and very convincing analysis (as well as the obvious respect he has for genre), I find his overarching framework slightly unpalatable. He seems to be describing (in a highly sophisticated way) what genre fiction allows its readers to do.

I guess a part of me doesn't prefer thinking about genre fiction in an instrumental context, as if its only worth studying because it serves an important social function. It's seems an obvious, kind of "throwback" argument. "Reading pulp fiction will rot your brain!" says the elitist. "You should read mature art that's truly beautiful." "No," responds Saler, "pulp fiction will make me a better person."


I think all art serves a social function. From an anthropological perspective, art is function. For me, that's a given. But by focusing on this function, some very important elements of art are thrown out of focus. How do I want to approach science fiction, supernatural horror, fantasy?

Uhh... let me get back to you on that.

The Two Experiences of the Lord of the Rings: the Novels, the Films

I've started rereading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I'll confess. I've read The Hobbit many more times than LOTR. Also, I've watched Peter Jackson's movie versions, the Ralph Bakshi animated versions, many, many times, to the extent that I sometimes conflate those narratives with the original narrative. And so,  rereading this novel (last time I read it was in undergraduate) some of its original strangeness shines through.

One thing that strikes me about reading the novel is how feasible the world of Middle Earth is in the novels and how epic and somewhat grandiose it is in the Peter Jackson films. There's a kind of concreteness and ontological weight, if you will, to the Middle Earth of the novels that just it not there in the films. For me, in the Jackson films, the world is so colorful, so vibrant, and so artistic--beautiful, sublime, horrifying--that it seems unreal. Middle Earth in the Jackson films is so intense makes me focus on the technology and production value. What I mean is, I can't forget the bluescreens, the CGI, the props.

With the novels, the strangeness of the world, its tangibility, its history subordinates the prose style. In other words, the story being related seems to have a life of its own that precedes any narrative or literary stylistic acrobatics Tolkien might be able to pull off.

I know you're waiting for it! I'm not going to recite that lame adage, "The books are so much better than the film!" Why? Because I don't think such a move is very useful or interesting, comparing the books to the film. The only thing they share are single narrative. Artworks are composed of many, many things aside from narrative. Narrative is just one element that creates emotion.

For me, the books and the films are two separate experiences, two different media that evoke in audiences qualitatively distinct aesthetic responses. You watch films with lots of people; you read books by yourself. The dialog in a novel can be charged with lyrical beauty, and yet--the action passages can only achieve a certain amount of excitement. In the films the battle scenes are astonishing and exciting while the dialog, though intriguing, loses is nuance through truncation and needs to be bouyed by a soundtrack of emotionally charged music.

Long story short: two seperate experiences.

But I will give you this: rereading LOTR makes me realize how much the various film versions of Tolkien's masterpieces have taken liberties with the narrative.

The Illustrations of J.R.R. Tolkien: Authoritative Visualizations of Secondary Worlds

I recently disovered the social network, Pinterest. It's really interesting. It allows you to pin images you find around the internet onto virtual "pinboards." And these pinboards are available to your friends and those who follow you on pinterest. Also, you can link to your pins.

I recently created a pinboard focused on the illustrations of J.R.R. Tolkien. Here's the link to it: The Illustrations of J.R.R. Tolkien

I find these illustrations extremely intriguing. This has a lot to do with my feelings about "secondary world fantasy." In "secondary world fantasy" a writer creates an alternative world within which to tell stories. This world is completely seperate from our world and, to a large extent, has no influence on our world save any allegorical lessons it might teach us. The interesting possibility, I think, that creating a "secondary world" holds out for any of us is the possibility of "playing god," or being a creator. Sure, all art offers this possibility. But with secondary world fantasy you, like a kind of god, are creating a world.

But what does this have to do with illustrations? Well, when you imagine something it's always great to visualize it. There's something visceral and immediate about a drawing of a mountain over a description of a mountain. But, often, secondary world fantasists have to give over the "visualization" of their worlds to other artists who are technically skilled. And so, any visual representation of that world is less the author's vision--the vision of the "god" of that secondary world--and more an interpretation of that author's vision.

For some reason, an interpretation of the author's vision ring's less true in my mind. Sure, there are great stories of collaborations between artists and fantasy writers. I can imaging fantasy writers stating to their artist, "Wow! That painting! It's great! It's just like I imagined it!" And yet, I can't believe that any interpreation of the thing can be coequivalent of the thing. Also, there is the risk that a certain visualization of a fantasy comes to contaminate the original author's vision. I am thinking of J.K. Rowling and how she said eventually, as she wrote, she imagined the faces of the actors who were depicting her characters in film.

What does this have to do with J.R.R. Tolkien's illustrations? Well, it's pretty obvious. With these illustrations you have the originary source of "Middle Earth" letting us know, in a more precise way, what "Middle Earth" looks like. I find this so intriguing! It makes me wonder if all "secondary world fantasists" should spend time learning how to draw, paint, design, etc.

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 4): Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

So, this afternoon I begin teaching *The Hobbit* in my history of the novel class. I feel like this is an important moment because that book is what got me into reading and writing in the first place. I purchased a copy of it from a book fair in the 7th grade on a whim. I'd read novels before that, but none of them stirred me the way this one had. After *The Hobbit* fantasy literature had become one of the major obsessions in my life.

***

Realism and Mythology

Where does *The Hobbit* fall in the history of the novel? Well, I think *The Hobbit* represents an important innovation in the history of a novel. In *The Hobbit* you have a mixture of two styles: realism and mythology. For me, *The Hobbit* (along with a lot of other texts--particularly Robert E. Howard's Conan stories) inaugurates a tradition of literature that combines realist conventions with mythological conventions.

What do I mean by "realism"? In terms of literary art we can perhaps mythologize the beginning of realism in the first book we looked in my history of the novel class, namely, Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe.* We can think of realism as both a style and a thematic content.

The Style of Realism

In terms of style, we have a slow narrative pace. Defoe spends a lot of time in his novel talking about the surface texture of the world. He refers to measurements and the quantities and the texture of the sea. I'm not saying this sort of reference didn't take in past literature. I am suggesting, though, that the way Defoe refers to the surface texture of the world is unique here. He just describes it baldly and not through allusion or simile: "e.g. the wine-dark ocean". He does not use the flourished style of the epic poet; rather, he uses the "journalistic" style of a natural philosopher or surveyor.

The Thematic Content of Realism

In terms of content, we have a narrative focused on a "normal guy." Robinson Crusoe is a middle class guy who attempts to make a fortune through an entrepreneurial enterprise. He gets stranded on the island and has to survive. Thus, we hear nothing about gods and goblins but a lot about how he gets his food, what he wears, the weather, his attempts to build a shelter. Sure, there are elements where he talks about his spiritual thoughts; and yet--these thoughts suggest less the epic mode and more the introspective, inner-focused psychologizing of later Victorian novelists.

Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

To a large extent Bilbo Baggins is a perfect parallel to Robinson Crusoe. Bilbo is "well to do" but he's not royalty or aristocracy. He lives in a comfortable, secure environment; Crusoe begins his life in England to parents who are going to set him up in law. In terms of style, the first part of *The Hobbit* hews pretty closely to the realism pioneered in *Robinson Crusoe*. What do the first passages relate? Dinner plans. What the dwarves and company eat, drink, and talk about. To a large extent the first chapter of *The Hobbit* ("A Unexpected Party") is more a "novel of manners" suggestive of Jane Austen's works than any epic poem or adventure fiction.

There is an important moment, however, when the dwarves begin singing their song about the coming of Smaug. Here we have the epic mode entering into the narrative. These passages are versified. There are strange, lyrical syntaxes and rare words are used. Dragons show up and exaggerated emotions are evoked. When the dwarves start singing about the desolation of Smaug we have left the novel of manners and moved into the epic.

Conclusion

I'm going to write more about *The Hobbit* as I spend time on it in class. I have this week and next set aside for it. But here's my hunch at this  point: the aesthetic power of *The Hobbit*--why it is an important "stop" on the journey of the history of the novel--derives from its "mixture" of two distinct narrative registers, the mythological and the realistic.

The Animation Masterpieces of Rankin and Bass (Part 1 of 3): The Hobbit

Today I want to do something significantly less academic. I’m reviewing one of my favorite films, Rankin and Bass’s, The Hobbit. This will be the first of a series of reviews. I'm going to review two more Rankin and Bass films, which I believe are masterpieces. And so, you know which way the reviews are going to go. Think of them as less reviews and more homages. To two films I aim to celebrate in the coming weeks are Flight of Dragons (1982) and The Last Unicorn (1982).

This is a great film filled with adventure, excitement, wonder, and, believe it or not, action (it was 1977 and swordfights and stabbing giant spiders was still o.k. for wee folks).

I don’t think I need to summarize the widely known plot of The Hobbit, which is very much hewed to by this film. That’s perhaps one of the greatest characteristics of this film: its commitment to accurately relating the plot of the novel. I can’t think of any glaring revision and only one omission (spoiler: the Beorn episode before Bilbo and the dwarfs enter Mirkwood is left out).

To begin, there’s some strange quality about Rankin and Bass’s animation style. It has an authenticity, a kind of realism, that other animation styles (say, for example, Disney’s style in The Black Cauldron), completely lack. There’s a strangeness to the way certain things are drawn. For example, the wood elves. Their legs are really long. They have green skin. Their features are inhuman: wide cheek-bones, flat brows. In juxtaposition to the humans that appear in this film, they look completely different; indeed, they look like a completely different species.

The voice acting, too, is wonderful. John Huston as the voice of Gandalf is absolutely amazing. His smoky, intense voice relates a sense of wisdom and knowledge of other worlds. There’s a kind of tone to his expression, a steadiness that makes it seem as if he is reciting his dialog or expressing an incantation as opposed to merely speaking. Usually this would probably be chalked up to bad voice acting, hewing too closely to “reading the script” as opposed to “acting the script”. But, for Gandalf, it truly works.

Other memorable voices are Brother Theodore’s voice for Gollum. Brother Theodore shows up in a lot of Rankin and Bass’s productions. His strained, high accented voice, sounds exotic and otheworldly. And his screaming of, “Baggins! We hates it! Forever!” kind of creeped me out as a kid. I remember him as the assistant, Ruhk, to Mommy Fortuna in Rankin and Bass’s famous adaptation of Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn.

The music is worth mentioning. It has a very “1970s folk musicy” feel to it that I love. Many of the songs are adaptations of songs written by Tolkien (lyrics only, of course); and to this day, when I’m reading through The Hobbit, I read the lyrics with those melodies in mind.

A more subtle characteristic endears me to this film: its color palette. I don’t know if it’s just my old VHS, but there is a subdued quality to the film’s color palette. The range of colors is softer, more natural, than, say, the intense variety of a Disney film, even an early one like Snow White. I’m not going to try and explain why, but I prefer this subdued color palette. It truly creates a wonderful effect. An important character in The Hobbit is the wildland itself; and when the large natural vistas are portrayed—forests, river valleys, the desolation of Smaug—their coloring and the fine detail of their rendering makes them feel authentic.

The best compliment I can make of this film is that my wife and I, both adults, fall asleep to this film whenever we’ve had a stressful day. It’s an enduring source of comfort, a true "safety-blanket" of a movie, that, through some strange alchemy of the right style of animation, the right voice actors, and the right music, truly stirs in me a sense of wonder.