"Pick someone at random & convince them they’re the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune—say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence." -- Hakim Bey, "Poetic Terrorism"


So, speaking of random picks and useless fortunes, I received an interesting offer by e-mail this morning, regarding my MA thesis, CHICK BASSIST: A ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY. Here it is in full:

Dear Ross Lockhart,

I am writing on behalf of the German publishing house, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller AG & Co. KG.

In the course of a research on the San Francisco State University, I came across a reference to your thesis on "Chick bassist : a rock and roll fantasy".
We are a German-based publisher whose aim is to make academic research available to a wider audience.
VDM Verlag would be especially interested in publishing your dissertation in the form of a printed book.

Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards,

Sandrine Fabre
Acquisition Editor

VDM Publishing House Ltd.


I'll admit it, for a few moments, I believed something extraordinary had happened. The Germans want my book! Alas, sober realization soon followed, and I Googled the company's name. A bit of looking around revealed that VDM Publishing is a legit publishing company, technically speaking, but one created strictly to fulfill a requirement in German academia (and one that doesn't do any proofing or editing). Not really the right publishing company for CHICK BASSIST (or, frankly, any work of fiction).

But they do have some great titles, even if all their books seem to be priced right around the hundred dollar mark (way out of my budget). Glancing at the list over at Buy.com reveals the following titles:

Aircraft Performance Explanation for Takeoff from a High Altitude Airport ($82.43)
Hardboiled Heores, Deadly Dames ($153.23)
The Impacts of International Terrorism on International Trade: Global Business Strategies for Multinational Corporations ($94.70)
Bullies and the Parents Who Raise Them ($85.34)
College Drinking ($153.23)
Becoming the New Man in Post-Postmodernist Fiction - Portrayals of Masculinities in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club ($82.23)

So nothing extraordinary here, merely some wide-net fishing (or phishing, you be the judge). But it is a good reminder that I need to query the small press publisher that's had my manuscript for the better part of a year and see if they're planning to do anything with it. Maybe I should tell them that a major German publishing company's made me a offer, something about 5000 square miles of Antarctica, and see if they're willing to make me a counter-offer. Then again, where would I keep an aging circus elephant?

And now, for a quick recap of that last voice post: "Mumble... mumble... mumble... (traffic sounds) Mumble... mumble... mumble...."

We're back in Petaluma. Hurrah! We had a good time in San Diego, doing as much and seeing as many as we could in a week, but I'm glad to be home. Next time, San Diego, it's your turn to visit us.

We made great time on the drive home. Nine Eight and a half hours, which may be a new record. No traffic tangles, unless you count a burning truck and trailer on the Grapevine (and when isn't there a burning truck and trailer on the Grapevine?

On the drive, we listened to more than half of Michael D. C. Drout's Of Sorcerers and Men: Tolkien and the Roots of Modern Fantasy Literature, which I'd found in a bargain bin at the Barnes and Noble in Escondido. Ten bucks well spent; in fact, I think I found more value in four CDs worth of lecture than the entire semester spent in George W. Tuma's "The Lord of the Rings as Epic" class at SFSU. Why? Tuma's approach was dogmatic, broaching the subject from the standpoint of a True Believer; Drout's is critical, considering Tolkien within the continuum of fantastic literature, and far more willing to point out the brushstrokes and nits in Tolkien's worldbuilding.

But then again, I find myself this morning looking through the reader from Tuma's class, realizing what a great resource it is. Sure, it's like trying to take a sip from a firehose, but there's a lot of good stuff in here. And then there are the papers, written in the context of the class:

Midterm 1: Verisimilitude in The Lord of The Rings
Midterm 2: Is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings an Epic?
Midterm 3: The Creation Myth and The Lord of the Rings
Brief note
Yrch! Tolkien’s Orcs: Villainy’s Footsoldiers, Ethnic Others, or Mere Cannon Fodder?

So perhaps I got more out of the class than I remembered... interesting.

A few days ago, I referred to the SFSU class for which I TA as "The Bad Advice Business of Creative Writing class." I should probably clarify this statement.

One of the rules of thumb by which I live my life is this: "Be wary of the advice given by successful people; they don't crave company." Likewise, one should exercise caution when considering advice given by the less-than-successful, particularly those people who affect a pretence of expertise and authority in any given field; not only do these people crave company, but there are generally good reasons why they are less-than successful.

Sure, it's a cynical weltanschauung, but it's served me well. Your mileage, as always, may vary.

The specific bit of bad advice that prompted my comments comes from statements made by a panel of speakers, all editors of San Francisco-based (non-paying) literary and poetry journals (a couple of which you might even have heard of, so I’m not naming names). These well-meaning folks essentially recommended that the students take to carpet-bombing editors with their material, ignoring all restrictions against simultaneous submissions.

While this may very well be the expectation within the realm of poetry, that sort of behavior doesn’t cut it in the real world. But it’s not my class, so what can I do but bite my tongue, grit my teeth, and write haikus on my PDA while bad advice is freely dispensed?

Amateurs give bad
advice. Sure, they've got mags, but
ain't like they send checks.

Giving poetry
away for free is a piss-
poor buisness model.

And it’s not like the class is all bad advice, all the time. Most nights are quite informative; last night, for example, Jennifer Joseph of Manic-D Press was one of our panelists, and she had some great things to say about the financial realities of small press publishing (and she wasn’t shy about giving her co-panelists, one of whom was essentially nailing poems to trees, plenty of food for thought). It’s just that the class is more about Selling the Dream (Kinda like Oprah!) than it is about the essential things students should understand about the business end of the creative writing field, things like manuscript formatting, cover letters, proposals, editing, and presenting a professional image. Ah well, I guess that’s all stuff to go into my syllabus.

"And no smoking, Mister Bear." (i.e. I'm not quite sure what to make of the new stuffed polar bear at Rex Ace Hardware.)

Long week, and it's only Tuesday. Throwing around boxes in the engine room of the 'Shade all Monday, learning InDesign all day today. I should be playing around with InDesign, but unfortunately, I don't have the right version of it (so I'm having to rely on a book rather than the template I'm supposed to be working with). Ugh. Tomorrow, it's Our Best Friends in the morning followed by Donna de la Perriere's SFSU Business of Creative Writing class (I'm GIAing) at seven. Maybe I can find time to go through my InDesign book in between, so that I'm ready to work with it more on Thursday.

Item the first:

This morning, amid e-mails screaming “Live Better With C1@lis!”, “Great Cas1no Bonus!”, and “若い子には負けません！” (whatever the heck that means*) came one with the subject line “heteronormativity.” I almost deleted it, thinking it was just more of the usual spam. Fortunately, I didn’t, as the e-mail turned out to be from K.J. Bishop, author of one of my favorite recent reads, The Etched City. Ms. Bishop, it seems, stumbled onto my review of her novel, and, as she explains, I “must have hit a nerve,” as she has written a “huge long post” entitled “Not Enough Gay?” responding to some of the concerns I bring up in my review. Check it out, it’s a great read.


Item the second:

I watched the movie Idiocracy yesterday afternoon and when it was over I discovered that Anna Nicole Smith had died. Though the two events may not be at all related, the coincidence begs the question: What movie do I need to watch in order to get rid of the Olsen Twins? Paris Hilton? The guys from Jackass? No malice here, I'm just trying to do my part to build a better tomorrow.


Item the third:

Recent reads have included Tim Pratt’s The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl and Jay Lake’s Rocket Science. Both books are these authors’ first novels, both feature incredibly detailed locale building (modern-day Santa Cruz and post WWII Kansas, respectively) and both are easy recommendations. The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl does some neat new tricks with the old fantasy convention of world-to-world portals (enigmaticae take note), and Rocket Science has Nazis, G-Men, Commies, and a talking space ship named Pegasus. How could you possibly go wrong with a combination like that?

Current reading includes Richard Calder’s trilogy Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things, M. John Harrison’s Light, and Jay Lake’s Dogs in the Moonlight.


Item the fourth:

I printed out Chick Bassist, the novel I’ve been working on for the last couple of years and my thesis project, yesterday afternoon in order to take it down to school and show it to my First Reader, Dodie Bellamy. While the trip itself was a bit excessive (an hour each way for a twenty minute meeting and flip-through, and since I got there twenty minutes early we were done right about the time I was supposed to go in), it was quite a rush to finally hold my (still as yet unfinished) manuscript in hand and be able to say “I wrote this.” Now I’ve got a deadline, March 8. I’ve got a month to finish it. Wish me luck.





* According to Babelfish, “若い子には負けません！” translates to “It is not defeated to the young child.” Needless to say, I still have no idea what it means.

Yrch!
Tolkien’s Orcs: Villainy’s Footsoldiers, Ethnic Others,
or Mere Cannon Fodder?

“And where is the Orcish Fire in the Lake? The book that sees things from the Orcish perspective? It will never be written. The Orcish historian who was going to write that book was crushed by a large piece of cement outside Minas Tirith. History is written by Elves. And this history would have us believe that Bilbo Baggins was a brave Hobbit who had wonderful adventures, rather than a thief, a liar, and a primary agent of genocide.”
- “Howard Zinn” (Alexander and Bissell)

“History is written by Elves,” claims the illustrious historian’s fictional doppelganger that I’ve quoted for my epigram, and the high fantasy tone of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth cycle, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, bears out that sentiment, if in spirit. The history of Middle-earth, though scribed by an Oxford Professor rather than an honest-to-goodness Elf, is an Elf-centric document, favoring the “First-born” (Carpenter 147) Elves among all Middle-earth’s humanoid races. Elves are fair, wise, and ageless examples of all that is right with civilization, an enviable culture valuing above all those virtues which Tolkien himself most prized: speech, song, and poetry. Not only does the narrative voice guiding a reader through The Lord of the Rings affect an Eldar-centric position in chronicling the struggle against Sauron in the War of the Ring, but Elvish mythology and folklore saturates the saga. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, old Elvish songs are sung and old Elvish tales are told. J.R.R. Tolkien loves his Elves, and once admitted that had he been writing for his own pleasure rather than for an audience, “there would have been a great deal more Elvish in the book” (216).

The other humanoid races of Middle-earth, hospitable Hobbits, stalwart Dwarves, and rugged Men, are all measured against the immortal shadow of untainted and elegant Elves. It is from these ranks that Tolkien gathers his heroes, for these are the races that will ascend to prominence as the Elves depart Middle-earth, and these heroes will shape Middle-earth’s political landscape and future according to Elvish design. Heavily drawn from examples and archetypes set deep in Western European mythological traditions, Tolkien’s heroes embody the aspects and elements of European culture, values, and history that Tolkien valued, and he has hand-picked these aspects in order to best showcase his imagined world. Tolkien’s are strong, handsome heroes, ripe for the reader to identify with. Tolkien could not have focused on a better group of characters through which to frame his attempt to “restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own” (231). Because of this keen focus, the reader connects with the struggle against an Enemy shared by Elrond, Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo and nearly every other humanoid character that he meets along the way. Along with these humanoid protagonists, the reader fights an Enemy vile, dark, foreboding, and overwhelming (but not unbeatable). And in the camp of that Enemy we find the least favored of Middle-earth races, that uncouth, ill-mannered, dark-skinned goblinoid people known as Orcs.
( Cut for length... )

III.4.: Tolkien was not only influenced by other mythic constructs, but he also appropriated them and provided them with new form. Appropriation is perhaps most evident in his reworking of the biblical creation myths and the fall narrative and the two creation myths in the Silmarillion, the Ainulindale and the Valaquenta; and his reworking of the myth (legend) of Kullervo in his myth (legend) to Turin/Turambar myth. Choose one of the above (either the Silmarillion creation myths or the Turin/Turambar myth) and carefully compare and contrast Tolkien’s new “myth” with the one he has “appropriated.” Specific similarities and dissimilarities should be considered.


L. Sprague de Camp, in Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers, shares an anecdote regarding a question he once asked of the author of The Lord of the Rings: “Why did the Middle-Earthians have no formal religion, as all historical peoples have had, with temples, priests, rituals, and a hierarchy of gods?” Unfortunately, Tolkien’s reply that “good and evil had not become so mixed up as they were later” only puzzled de Camp at the time. Later, however, once de Camp became aware of J.R.R. Tolkien’s devout Catholicism, he theorized that, unlike the authors of “prehistoric or other-world fantasy, like Dunsany, Lovecraft, Howard, and Leiber,” who, being “skeptics,” could “freely invent all the gods they pleased and give those gods whatever qualities their stories required,” Tolkien was bound by his monotheistic beliefs. For a true believer to conceive of gods, theorized de Camp, he must “make it plain that these gods are either demons in disguise or nonexistent, even though such a story could often make use of a nice if fallible little godlet.” De Camp further explained that Tolkien “sidestepped the issue,” through “few and subdued” references to “Eru, or the one—that is, God,” a Deistic and “otiose deity” (245).

That was 1976, a year before the publication of The Silmarillion, which would present the world with Middle-earth’s paired creation myths, “Ainulindalë” and “Valaquenta.” What these accounts illuminate is that, rather than the impotent, otiose deity imagined by de Camp, Tolkien’s Eru is actually a complex, dynamic, and personal god, one wholly active in the creation, if not the maintenance, of the universe. Furthermore, “Ainulindalë” and “Valaquenta” reveal that, as a devout Christian, J.R.R. Tolkien must have felt driven to fashion his sub-creation, Middle-earth, in a way that was compatible with his personal beliefs in a created, well-ordered, and sustained Universe; i.e., one that located its genesis in Genesis.

“In the beginning,” states the authoritative narrative voice of Genesis, “God created heaven and earth.” Tolkien’s Valaquenta begins by echoing the scripture: “In the beginning Eru, the One.” Tolkien embellishes the Biblical account’s simple tapestry by following Middle-earth’s name for God with its Elvish equivalent: “who in the Elvish tongue is named Ilúvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great music before him” (Silmarillion 25). This deity is revealed as a powerful creative force, shown somewhere between his creation of heaven and earth, as he conjures for himself companions, the Ainur, who will later be known as Valar or Maiar, independent-willed beings crafted from thought alone. Tolkien expands upon this cosmogony in his complementary creation myth, “Ainulindalë”: “There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made” (15).

The Valar, or most powerful beings among the Ainur, Tolkien identifies in the “Valaquenta” as “the Powers of Arda, and Men have often called them Gods” (25). Rather than be faced with the conundrum poised by de Camp, that the gods of his sub-creation must be proven false in order to integrate with theology, Tolkien anticipates the paradox and subverts it by making the beings identified in myth and legend as gods subservient to Eru, the One, his renamed, re-imagined monotheistic Creator.

Eru then sets the Ainur into motion, declaring “to them a mighty theme,” causing them to burst into song, making “in harmony together a Great Music.” The broad concord produced by the Ainur is no mere music, but a creative force of beauty that spills forth from the “dwelling of Ilúvatar” and “out into the Void, and it was not void” (15). This Music of the Ainur, as Tolkien calls it, not only fills the universal void, but manifests into the very stuff of creation. Like Adam of the Genesis account, who, once created, is quickly set to the sub-creative task of naming the animals, the Ainur, by virtue of their inclusion in the act of creation, simultaneously realize the will of their creator and are affirmed as co-creators implicitly invested in the welfare of the world that they have called into being.

But the Ainur are free-willed beings, and as tends to befall creation narratives, at least one such being must be expected to act other than according to plan. Here, that one is Melkor, the single individual among the Ainur that “had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and […] a share in all the gifts of his brethren.” It is Melkor, seeking “to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself,” that brings discord into The Music of the Ainur. This attempt at self-aggrandizement, rooted in discontent with his role as mere sub-creator and desire to “bring into being things of his own” (16), leads to the inevitable fall. According to Tolkien, in a letter to Milton Waldman, “there cannot be any ‘story’ without a fall – all stories are ultimately about the fall – at least not for human minds as we know them and have them” (Carpenter 147). Much as Adam and Eve in the Genesis account are tempted and fall based on the Serpent’s promise that they, by eating forbidden fruit, “shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil” (KJV, Gen. 3:5), Melkor tries to be as Eru, insinuating his vainglorious strain of discord into the grand celestial melody, tainting it with a violent music “loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated,” with “little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes” (Silmarillion 17).

Melkor’s fall, however, is intended by Tolkien to be of a different order than that of Adam and Eve, “a fall of Angels” (Carpenter 147), which Tolkien expanded upon in an unsent draft of a letter to Rhona Beare. The “Fall of the Angels,” wrote Tolkien, was “a rebellion of created free-will at a higher level than man.” Furthermore, this rebellion “precedes creation of the World, (Eä); and Eä has in it, subcreatively introduced, evil, rebellions, discordant elements of its own nature already when the Let it Be was spoken.” The “Fall of Man,” therefore, “is subsequent to and a consequence (though not a necessary consequence) of the ‘Fall of the Angels’” (286).

While a monotheistic, lapsarian universe lacking the organically-evolved social institutions of church, clergy, and ritual may have confounded L. Sprague de Camp, testing his sense of verisimilitude and, ultimately, his ability to enjoy The Lord of the Rings, Professor Tolkien sought in crafting the tale to reveal a far different sort of “truth” than that de Camp had expected to find, the “truth” of the Fall of Man. “After all,” wrote Tolkien to Milton Waldman, “I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.” (147) In building his universe based on the conceit of this belief, J.R.R. Tolkien the storyteller reveals himself as a mythmaker extraordinaire, co-creator of a universe that integrates the imaginary with the sacred.



Works Cited

Carpenter, Humphrey. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. 1981. Boston: Houghton, 2000.

de Camp, L. Sprague. Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy. Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976.

Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. Tuma 74.

The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Ed. Wayne E. Meeks. New York: Harper, 1993.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Tuma 148-150.

Tolkien, J.R.R. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Tuma 87-105.

---. The Fellowship of the Ring. 1965. Boston: Houghton, 1993.

---. The Return of the King. 1965. Boston: Houghton, 1993.

---. The Silmarillion. 1977. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton, 2001.

---. The Two Towers. 1965. Boston: Houghton, 1993.

Tuma, George, comp. The Lord of the Rings as Epic: Course Reader. San Francisco: SFSU, 2006.

II.1.: For what specific reasons can the LOTR be considered as an “epic?” For this question, you should carefully review the various definitions of epic provided in the handout on epic. Is there an epic model that seems to best “fit” the LOTR? For what reasons?


Is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings an Epic? If one adheres to the Harmon and Holman definition of Epic as “a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race,” the answer would be no.

The Lord of the Rings, while poetic, is not a poem. While it attempts to dress itself in the traditions and material of Epic, it is not an exact fit. Forcing the literary masterpiece into the garment of Epic would undoubtedly risk damaging both. Just as the heroes of The Lord of the Rings, although outfitted with Elvish cloaks, are not themselves transformed into Elves, The Lord of the Rings is not itself an Epic, even though it does exhibit an impressive affectation of Epic tropes, devices, and conventions.

But we are here to consider the manner in which the garment that we call “Epic” fits over The Lord of the Rings’s frame, revealing where it might be taken in, let out, and otherwise adjusted to better complement Tolkien’s elegiac fantasy. To do so, we must look at The Lord of the Rings through the lens of Harmon and Holman’s lists of Epic Conventions, leaving the list of Epic Devices for another discussion.

Epic Conventions

1. The hero is of imposing stature, of national or international importance, and of great historical or legendary significance
2. The setting is vast, covering great nations, the world, or the universe
3. The action consists of deeds of great valor or requiring superhuman courage
4. Supernatural forces—gods, angels, and demons—interest themselves in the action
5. A style of sustained elevation is used
6. The poet retains a measure of objectivity

First, there are several heroes present in The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Éomer, Faramir, and Éowyn might all be considered heroes suitable to the typical Epic. Aragorn is, after all, the lost king returned, Legolas and Gimli are celebrated warriors, Éomer and Faramir, each a legendary figure in his own right, are the rare men who achieve power and manage to use it wisely for good, and Éowyn is the only one capable of dealing a death blow against the terrifying Witch-king of Angmar. But as imposing as each of these heroes is, it is the Hobbits, diminutive, unobtrusive everymen, that are central to the narrative. It is their very lack of stature, significance, and importance that allows Frodo and Sam to slip past the Enemy’s defenses and, ultimately, destroy the Ring. The Hobbits are not the typical heroes celebrated in Epic; therefore, based on this point alone, it should be clear that we are dealing with something other than Epic, something analogous to a tale that follows Wiglaf instead of Beowulf, Achilles’s shield-bearer instead of Achilles, Ulysses’s second-mate instead of Ulysses.

On the next few points, the seams of Epic are far more flattering. Middle-earth is vast, and the clash central to The Lord of the Rings draws people and creatures of many nations throughout this world to ally with the forces of civilization or indenture themselves to the despotism of darkness. Likewise, there is great valor on display in The Lord of the Rings. The superhuman courage required by the Hobbits on their quest to destroy the Ring is the obvious paradigm, but perhaps a better example would be Éowyn’s challenge to the Witch-king, a monstrous supernatural being that “no living man may hinder,” as she defends Théoden’s fallen body: “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him” (RotK 116). The Witch-king of Angmar is but one of the supernatural forces invested in the outcome of The Lord of the Rings. From Elves to Orcs, from Ents to Ogres, from well-meaning Wizards to nightmarish Nazgûl, all the powers of Middle-earth are drawn into the climactic conflict that marks the end of the Third Age.

When we consider the next point on our list, however, a wrinkle in the fabric of Epic is revealed. Yes, Tolkien utilizes “a style of sustained elevation” frequently in the course of The Lord of the Rings: kings talk in the high, formal manner of kings, and most characters are apt to quote ancient poetry, or sing time-honored songs, in the context of their travels. But this elevation is not sustained throughout the narrative. Hobbits have their own, perhaps class-oriented informal cadences, as evidenced by Sam’s stammering “I heard a deal that I didn’t rightly understand, about an enemy, and rings, and Mr. Bilbo, sir. I listened because I couldn’t help myself, if you know what I mean. Lor bless me, sir, but I do love tales of that sort. And I believe them too, whatever Ted may say” (FotR 73). Likewise, Orcs such as Uglúk have their own martial cadences, based on tribal loyalties and keeping the rabble in line. “Let the fighting Uruk-hai do the work, as usual. If you’re afraid of the Whiteskins, run! Run! There’s the forest. […] Off you go! And quick, before I knock a few more heads off, to put some sense into the others” (TT 54).

Another race that exhibits a notably non-elevated manner of speaking is the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods that “haunt Druadan Forest.” As observed by Merry, these squat, bearded primitives speak in a “halting” and “uncouth” fashion: “We fight not. Hunt only. Kill gorgûn in woods, hate orc-folk. You hate gorgûn too. We help as we can. Wild Men have long ears and long eyes; know all paths. Wild men live here before Stone-houses; before Tall Men come up out of water” (RotK 106). The unrefined language of Hobbits, Orcs, and Wild Men alike, while not typical of the high style of Epic, goes a long way in filling out Middle-earth, realistically peopling it with all manner of linguistic social strata.

As for objectivity, Tolkien does not in any way attempt to weave his tale with the sense of impartiality and detachment that the scop must bring to his Epic. Tolkien is not simply reporting facts as they happened; rather, he entices the reader to care about his characters. Through Tolkien’s careful use of a subjective viewpoint, the reader fears for Frodo’s life when he is injured by Ringwraiths on Weathertop, nearly impaled in the Mines of Moria, or poisoned by Shelob on the approach to Mordor. It is this very subjectivity, and the connectivity it provides to the protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, that compels the reader to go on, as agonizing as the suspense may be.

Tolkien himself, in his essay “Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics,” shied away from affording the classification “Epic” to the celebrated Old English poem. “Beowulf,” wrote Tolkien, “is not an ‘epic’, not even a magnified ‘lay’. No terms borrowed from Greek or other literatures exactly fit: there is no reason why they should. Though if we must have a term, we should choose rather ‘elegy’. It is an heroic-elegiac poem” (100). Perhaps it would be best to consider The Lord of the Rings, like Beowulf, as an elegy, a lament for the end of the fictitious Third Age, for the passing of the Elves, and the expulsion of magic from the world of Middle-earth.

I.4.: One of Tolkien’s artistic gifts is his ability to blend the natural with the supernatural so that the reader does not feel that the supernatural invades the natural or that the natural invades the supernatural. In this sense, he utilizes a creative interplay between two “realities,” i.e., the “real” physical world on the one hand and a mythological, “historical” world on the other. In short, he uses elements and images that not only support and enhance the “real” but also the underlying mythos and thus provide the LOTR with a real sense of verisimilitude. Using a few carefully-selected examples from the LOTR, analyze how Tolkien is able to create this pervasive sense of verisimilitude in the LOTR.


As a quartet of Hobbits, diminutive people fond of eating “six meals a day (when they could get them)” (FotR 11), is central to The Lord of the Rings, it is no surprise that food is present throughout the narrative, providing the world of Middle-earth with a measure of the verisimilitude necessary to make it feel real. From the “three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper)” (FotR 35) served at Bilbo’s birthday party to the spoils uncovered at Isengard by Merry and Pippin to the herbs and stewed rabbit eaten by Frodo and Sam on the road to Mordor, food, along with the communal experience of comrades breaking bread with one another, provides not only sustenance to the tale but contrast and symbolic weight to the supernatural foodstuff: Elvish waybread, or lembas.

It has been said that an army marches on its stomach, taking its meals while on the march. By that token, an army of Hobbits would hope to do so at least six times a day. The promise of food alone, thanks to the “enormous open-air kitchen” and “draught of cooks, from every inn and eating-house for miles around,” is enough to create excitement among the residents of the Shire in the days leading up to Bilbo’s birthday party. At the party itself, guests indulge in “eating and drinking—continuously from elevenses until six-thirty when the fireworks started” (FotR 35).

While Tolkien does not inventory the culinary fare available at the party in detail, he strategically brings in that sort of description later, saving it for once the expedition is far underway and food has become scarce. This technique highlights the dire circumstances of our hungry heroes; after all, hunger itself is a powerful weapon of the Enemy, “a weapon that has brought low many places since the world began” (RotK 96).

At Isengard, for example, Merry and Pippin, who have only recently escaped from a group of captor Orcs and their nightmarish gastronomic sensibilities, uncover a cache of “man-food”: wine, beer, bread, butter, honey, and “first-rate salted pork.” They help themselves to the plunder, picnicking by the gate as they await the arrival of their comrades. Once Gandalf and the others show, Merry not only offers to “cut […] some rashers of bacon and broil them” for Gimli but humorously apologizes for the lack of “green stuff” as “the deliveries have been rather interrupted in the last few days” (TT 166). This lighthearted treatment of bounty, on the heels of a rough diet of “orc-draught,” “stale grey bread,” and “raw, dried flesh” better left uneaten (TT 54-55), starkly contrasts the two polarities, using famine and feast to offset one another, allowing both extremes to feel more real to the reader.

Likewise, after a hungry Frodo and Sam stop to rest while approaching Mordor, Sam sets to cooking a pair of rabbits procured by Gollum. As he does so, Sam longs for the missing ingredients that could turn mere sustenance into a meal: “some herbs and roots, especially taters—not to mention bread” (TT 262). It is potatoes, “the Gaffer’s delight, and rare good ballast for an empty belly” (TT 263), that Sam misses most, but still, he cooks the rabbits, letting them “stew for close to an hour, testing them now and again with his fork, and tasting the broth” (TT 263). As with the above contrast, Sam’s desire for more involves the reader in his predicament, allowing the reader to hunger for more right alongside the two heroic Hobbits.

Once Pippin, who has “ridden long and far with a tight belt,” reaches Gondor, he experiences the divergent ends of the sustenance scale within a matter of hours. In the “storehouse and buttery” of Minas Tirith with Beregond, Pippin enjoys a meal of “bread, and butter, and cheese and apples: the last of the winter store, wrinkled but sound and sweet; and a leather flagon of new-drawn ale” (RotK 35). However, the following morning, as Gondor falls under siege, Pippin finds that his ration is “now doled out by order” and has been decreased to a “small loaf” of bread, a “very inadequate pat of butter,” and a “cup of thin milk” (RotK 79). While his previous meal was not opulent by any means, the limited offerings that make up Pippin’s breakfast help make real the encroaching threat posed by Mordor’s blockade, and his subsequent rueful mood is, in the context of the imposing threat, wholly understandable.

If only Pippin had still had a morsel of waybread, a piece of the Elvish lembas given to the adventurers as they left Lothlórien, perhaps he wouldn’t have felt so let down by his meager ration. Of all the foods mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, it is evident that lembas is the most important, the most life-sustaining. After all, it is lembas that Merry and Pippin eat immediately after their escape from the Uruk-Hai, hoping to cleanse their pallets after days of Orc-food and forced marching. “The cakes were broken, but good, still in their leaf wrappings. The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away” (TT 61). These lembas-inspired memories, and the peace they offer, are a good part of what inspires Merry and Pippin to go on. In much the same way, Sam and Frodo supplement their meal of stewed rabbit with lembas allowing “themselves half a piece of the Elvish waybread each. It seemed a feast” (RotK 263).

Lembas with stewed rabbit may seem like a feast to Sam and Frodo, but as they struggle toward the climax of The Lord of the Rings, and their provisions dwindle to lembas alone, the act of sharing waybread becomes one of Eucharistic import, the ceremonial breaking of bread binding the two together and giving them strength as they pursue their mission to destroy the Ring. It is here that the supernatural quality of lembas is revealed: its “virtue without which [Sam and Frodo] would long ago have lain down to die.” Lembas, it seems, does not satisfy desire, and it is that insatiable desire, “the longing for simple bread and meats,” that pushes the lembas-eater onward, feeding his will and giving him “strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure or mortal kind” (RotK, 213).

In his June 1958 letter to Forrest J. Ackerman, J.R.R. Tolkien attempted to clarify the function of lembas within The Lord of the Rings. Least important, explained Professor Tolkien, is its function as “a ‘machine’ or device for making credible the long marches with little provision, in a world in which […] ‘miles are miles.’” Far more important is the implication Tolkien attached to the substance’s Eucharistic qualities, giving these qualities significance “of what one might hesitatingly call ‘religious’ kind” (275). While lembas alone might not seem plausible, through his strategy of contrasting it with other foodstuffs (and the lack of foodstuffs), J.R.R. Tolkien makes lembas, though infused with the supernatural, seem to be a natural part of a large and beautiful world.

What follows is a response essay written for a California Ethnic Literature class at Sonoma State University. It's just past halfway through the class. I'm bored with argumentative essays. I just want to write something fun that connects to my own real life. Something like this:

"Angry Chic's Music is Offensive"

My boss was waiting for me when I got to the record store this morning. "I've got a favor to ask you," he said. I looked around quickly, hoping for a clue to what the favor might be, but nothing seemed out of place. Behind the counter, Jonathon's ten-year-old son sat reading a joke book. I gritted my teeth, hoping he wouldn't ask me to baby-sit. "Somebody tagged us last night," Jonathon continued, handing me a can of Goff Off and a towel. "You think you might be able to clean it up?"

"Sure," I replied, relieved that I wouldn't be stuck keeping an eye on the kid. "Where is it?"

"Out front, on the sidewalk, right in front of the door." It struck me that I'd walked right past it without seeing it, but then I noticed that Jonathon had covered the graffiti with the worn mat that typically sat just inside the front door. I cautiously approached the scene of the crime, Goff Off and towel in hand, wondering what sort of offensive word was concealed beneath the dirty carpet.

There were three possibilities that came to my mind. The first was a simple obscenity, a rude shock, some dirty word that some punk kid wanted to share with the world.

The second possibility, the most likely, was someone's gang sign, the sort of graffiti I'd grown up seeing constantly in Southern California. Maybe it would be a cool sounding name like "Ghost" or "Killjoy," hopefully it wasn't the tagger who hits the stop signs of Petaluma with the worst gang name imaginable, "Cow Udder." I thought of the protagonist of Danny Santiago's "The Somebody," making his mark on the world in the only way he could, and of Santiago himself, forced to give back awards and apologizing for the crime of being a Caucasian that had assumed a Hispanic nom de plume and achieved success.

The third possibility was the one I dreaded most. I thought of the last day I'd worked, and of Jonathon's story of an angry customer, one that had been ranting about injustices perpetuated on Palestinians by the Israeli government. "I know I shouldn't have said anything," said Jonathon, a Canadian Jew who had fought in the Israeli army, "But she pissed me off and I gave it to her with both barrels."

With this story in mind, I knew that the third possibility had to be true, that I'd pull back the mat to reveal something horrible, a clumsily scrawled, "Canadians go home," a swastika, or something even worse. Instead, it was something I hadn't even imagined.

"Angry chic's music is offensive," read the top line of the purple spray-painted words. Below that, "were wounded," was written followed by a final word, which was illegible. I looked around and noticed that just up the street, every newspaper machine, from the Press Democrat to the Chronicle to Apartments for Rent had been tagged with the word "lies" in the same purple paint. In addition, each flagpole hole along Main Street had been filled with concrete, presumably in order to interrupt Sebastopol's upcoming Veteran's Day celebrations. The rampant vandalism, coupled with the vandal's awkward grammar all seemed so ridiculous that I had to laugh.

"Angry chic's music is offensive." I considered these words, knowing that they were meant as a reaction to the "Angry Grrl Music" card we'd set up several months ago in the punk section of the store, and had since taken down. This subsection, containing groups like Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and the Butchies, had been very popular, and the groups represented within typically had a strong, pro-feminist message. Unfortunately, someone missed the message. Someone who thought they might be making a difference against the injustices of the world had decided to strike out at us, and at the rest of the town, rather than directing their energies towards efforts to create any real change. As I sprayed the words with Goff Off, they began to blur and I rubbed them away. I thought of a line from Gerald Haslam's essay "Oil Town Rumble: The Young Men of Taft:" "One sad attribute of the rowdies is that most remain convinced that they are victims." Our vandal, I'm sure, looks in the mirror and sees a victim, but never sees the possibilities that exist for changing their world.