Brian D'Souza - 15 January 2004

Writer, clubLaurier.ca
Since everyone and their dog included the final instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in their ‘top 10’ lists for the year gone by, perhaps a brief and concise commentary on John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is in order.

The contents of director Peter Jackson’s films can be spliced, diced and cubed by the 101 film critics who make their livelihood by alternatively propagating and dismissing the mistakes and excesses of Hollywood. For a taste of their superficial and subjective opinions, look no farther than this quote from Philip Wuntch of the Dallas Morning News, “War scenes should leave the viewer exhausted rather than exhilarated, and Mr. Jackson accomplishes that feat masterfully.”

One suddenly wonders if Mr. Wuntch was exhausted after a screening of the 1994 film In the Army, which starred Pauly Shore.

Turning our focus back to Tolkien, let’s begin with the trivial details that comprise any introduction to a somewhat unknown quantity. He was born in South Africa, lived from 1892 to 1973, and wrote the LOTR Trilogy from 1954 to 1955. His work caught fire in the sixties in the face of societal upheaval, especially among disillusioned young Americans.

Toklien’s work, along with that master of tomfoolery, Harry Potter, can be conveniently studied in an English course offered at Laurier. Not having the time or inclination to begin such a study, I discovered an insightful and interesting spiel on Tolkien in a compilation of British author Anthony Burgess’ (author of A Clockwork Orange, Earthly Powers, A Dead Man in Deptford, Byrne) writings and essays.

Burgess tells us that “the flavor of the book is feudal rather than democratic: the theme is loyalty and the willingness to combat pagan enemies.” Sometimes a book or film tells us more about the era in which it was made rather than the fictionalized plot or setting. In the post-World War II days of 1954 and 1955, colonial wars pitted the developed world against masses of rag-tag Third World armies. Perhaps Tolkien is capturing the essence of these senseless struggles to maintain empires over the hordes of technologically inferior non-white and non-Christian peoples?

When the subject then turns to sex, unless one resorts to unlocking the myriad of symbolic images presented (phallic weapons, etc), the landscape of LOTR becomes barren and desolate. There are a few kisses and touches of homoeroticism, but according to Burgess, “ Tolkien is wholly clean…and there is something dirty about this cleanliness.”

For any feminists, or men who tack their names to the cause of feminism only to be rudely rebuffed by the ignorant, Burgess enlightens us by finally shining a light into the darkness within Tolkien’s “scholarly and sophisticated” writing, “The dark mystery of woman, which has it own logic and its fearful eruptions, is alien to so many of our British writers…Tolkien loved Anglo-Saxon literature because there were no women in it. The great epic poem Beowulf is entirely masculine, all warriors relaxing in meadhalls before going off to fight fearful enemies. Beowulf’s supernatural enemy is Grendel, a frightening monster, but Grendel’s mother is worse. Being female, she has to be.”

Looking back at the vicious attack of a giant spider against Frodo and Sam, the dialog of the Orcs takes on a new, sinister meaning. They paint the gender of the fearsome, flesh eating insect as female, validating Burgess’ idea that the LOTR is “untouched by the female spirit which Tolkien did not well understand.”

In summary, “The allure of Tolkien is one sided, sexless and ultimately destructive”, or so Burgess wrote in 1991. I share this opinion, and hope that others will believe in something better than over-hyped and under-analyzed images on a screen.


Brian D'Souza, aka "Chinese_MC", is both a History major and an tireless troll on the clubLaurier forums, where you can trade barbs with him on this, or any other, subject.

From:
http://www.clublaurier.ca/html/2004/01/15/tolkien.htm