 [Larger view] | J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth
| ||||||||||||
| |
Average user rating:  | |
| Tolkien on Theology | |
| This is an excellent study of the theology of J. R. R. Tolkien as beautifully expressed in his mythological subcreation, Middle-Earth, popularized in The Lord of the Rings. Birzer does a wonderful job, in my opinion, of unfolding how Tolkien's Christian-Catholic world-view shaped his writings. He deals with topics such as Heroism, The Nature of Evil, Modernism, and Grace. While I am not Catholic and would not share many of Tolkien's sentiments, I am enthralled with his work and this book helped me understand it better. Birzer avoids drawing superficial parallels from Tolkien's stories or turning them into allegories (something Tolkien would have abhorred); but rather gets into the fabric of Tolkien's own thought (with excellent documentation in both the fiction of Tolkien and his letters), uncovering HIS vision of Middle-earth. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to really understand Tolkien better. | |
 Splendid Critical Examination of Tolkien's Religious Views | |
| I've deliberately shied away from trying to read works which emphasize the religious aspects of Tolkien's work, merely because I haven't found them too helpful in the past in describing Tolkien's thinking, but instead, using his work as a means of justifying their own religious views. However, Bradley J. Birzer's "J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth" is a refreshingly different, indeed, almost novel, look at the man and his writing, drawing more upon Tolkien's actual correspondence than his fiction. To his credit, when Birzer does describe Tolkien's Middle-Earth mythology, he does it without sounding heavy-handed, by offering ponderous analogies between aspects of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy with Christian belief. Instead, such examples are used to show persuasively that Tolkien is part of a Catholic Christian humanist tradition that falls squarely in line with the likes of Dante, among others. Birzer's brief tome is a captivating, insightful look at how Tolkien viewed Evil, Grace and the nature of the Hero, among others. Without question, it will appeal to Tolkien fans and anyone else interested in religious symbolism in contemporary fantasy. | |
| Fascinating, persuasive, and worth reading. | |
| My initial reluctance to read books that might equate Tolkien's work too directly (read allegorically) with any religion, philosophy, world event, or social order was quickly overcome by the approachable 'readability' of this book. Quoting myriad sources, the footnotes and bibliography for which account for 71 pages of this slim, yet rewarding volume, the author provides a convincing analysis of the spirituality of Tolkien's work. Initially, as I read he author's preface in which he cites "nuances" within the story that he had missed when he'd first read the book as an eleven year old, I very nearly put down the book. The author claims some of those nuances as "the Ring representing sin, lembas representing the Blessed Sacrament, and Galadriel representing the Blessed Virgin Mary" (page xvi) it all seemed to go directly against Tolkien's insistence that the work was not allegorical. For whatever reason, I continued to read it, and I realized that the author did not mean these things were allegorical representations, but rather were influenced by these experiences and beliefs in Tolkien's own life. Tolkien's strong belief in God could not help but come through in his work though Tolkien himself admitted this was "subconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision" (quoted within the text, page 45.). The author makes a persuasive argument for the influence of Toklien's Catholicism, and indeed, makes it hard to understand why so many critics of the time asked Tolkien directly about the absence of God in his books. Tolkien's replies to such questions are certainly worth reading, as is his answer to the seemingly innocuous question, "What makes you tick?" Well-written and engrossing, the text never becomes overly dry or scholarly, and the reader will find it hard not to reach for a copy of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or any other quoted work in order to reread key passages. If you have never thought of the Lord of the Rings in this light, this book will make you wonder why. |
