Tolkien, The Man

[Aikári Salmarinian]

This was the name of the illusive forum back in the old days. I used to look at times, but never posted there. I love his works, but don't know much about his personality. Still now much older myself, being 47, I wonder slight....

1. Who was the writer really as a person in character? At work in the university? And at home, with his wife and children?
2. Where did the spark come from to fantasize on the tales of Middle Earth, only knowing it was from a very early age?
3. Are traces of his personality found back in any characters from Middle Earth?

Thoughts of respect are welcome.

[Boromir88]

My apologies for not responding to other threads that you have commented in. I'm always busiest this time of year and will try to reply properly to you when I have the time. I must reply to your interesting questions here.

1. I'm afraid, this one, would take quite a bit of time to paint you a good picture. I can give you resources, written by others that I believe are good references...Humphrey Carpenter's Biography, Tom Shippey's Author of the Century, JRR Tolkien's Letters. I can only recommend them as good resources that were often discussed on the OP. I've only read Letters (and definitely not all of them). The general impression I get is, he was a 20th Century author (more on that in question 2) with a 19th Century sense of morals. I think Hobbits and The Shire tell something about Tolkien, the man. It is full of anachronisms, it all feels rather idyllic, pastoral, and nostalgic. It is not a medieval setting, nor a faerie setting. There is tea-time and waist-coat buttons, pocket-handkerchiefs, clocks...etc. The Shire is purposefully made to feel like "home" to us. I'm not sure what that tells, but it should reveal something about the author. Whether he was writing purely out of nostalgia creating a community that enjoyed things like him, waist-coats and pipe-smoking? Or he was trying to connect to 20th Century readers with a recognisable "home" before plunging into a fantasy epic?

2. This one I may be able to help more with, because I'm currently reading John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War. It might be of interest to you? It's not really about World War I, but how WW1 effected Tolkien's writing. Now, Tolkien, many times, denied he wrote allegorically (and I believe him). But he also writes that an author can not be wholly unaffected by his experiences, and specifically mentions being caught in World War I's horror (by the end of the war, Tolkien wrote "all but one of my close friends was dead" - The Foreward to LOTR). What I particularly like about Garth is he also looks at Tolkien's developmental years in King Edward's School and within the TCBS, (Tea Club, Barrovian Society). Two of Tolkien's friends in the TCBS died in the war and that grief stayed with Tolkien his entire life. I haven't finished it yet, but it's interesting to me the dreams of schoolboys to write a literature that would profoundly influence 20th century readers. Garth does an excellent job connecting the dots to how WW1 (and its horrific industrialization) shows up in Tolkien's writing. (Frodo's PTSD, the Dead Marshes, Sam's first encounter seeing a dead Haradrim soldier, as some quick examples).

Another thing that I find interesting is the trauma of experience WW1 is present in Tolkien's writing, but I think Tolkien goes a different route than some of his friends and contemporaries (CS Lewis or TS Eliot as examples). Tolkien doesn't write this fatalistic, grimdark fantasy. Evil will always continue to manifest itself in different ways, but a core theme (at least for me when I read it) is Tolkien telling me to not give into despair. To always have hope (even when it's a "Fool's Hope"), to work together for a common good, and to as Elrond says "fight the long defeat."

3. I recall one letter Tolkien saying he thinks he would be most like Faramir. I'm not sure if there's anymore details, or if it was just a passing thought when responding to a letter. @Romeran might know the specific reference.

[Romeran]

Impressive memory @Boromir88

Here's the relevant quotation:

"My chief reason for talking so, is to say that, of course, all these things are more or less written. There is hardly any reference in The Lord of the Rings to things that do not actually exist* on its own plane (of secondary or sub-creational reality): sc. have been written. The Silmarillion was offered for publication years ago, and turned down. Good may come of such blows. The Lord of the Rings was the result. The hobbits had been welcomed. I loved them myself, since I love the vulgar and simple as dearly as the noble, and nothing moves my heart (beyond all the passions and heartbreaks of the world) so much as 'ennoblement' (from the Ugly Duckling to Frodo). I would build on the hobbits. And I saw that I was meant to do it (as Gandalf** would say), since without thought, in a 'blurb' I wrote for The Hobbit, I spoke of the time between the Elder Days and the Dominion of Men. Out of that came the 'missing link': the 'Downfall of Númenor', releasing some hidden 'complex'. For when Faramir speaks of his private vision of the Great Wave, he speaks for me. That vision and dream has been ever with me -- and has been inherited (as I only discovered recently) by one of my children.

*The cats of Queen Berúthiel and the names and adventures of the 2 Wizards (5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.
**I am not Gandalf, being a transcendent Sub-creator in this little world. As far as any character is 'like me' it is Faramir -- except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage." (Letter 180, 14 January 1956, my bold).

Not only does he mention feeling the closest to Faramir as a person but also that Faramir's dream about the Great Wave is also his own (and later inherited by his second son Michael as clarified in the notes).

I also think it's curious that despite identifying with Faramir he was not a planned character (hence my Essay's name as Tolkien's noblest accident) as Tolkien elaborates in an earlier letter that "A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir -- and he is holding up the 'catastrophe' by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices -- where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone" (Letter 66, 6 May 1944).

As an aside is the "sc" supposed to be "sub-creation" or is it some other Latin abbreviation with which I am unfamiliar? I've always wondered about that.

[Eldy Dunami]

As an aside is the "sc" supposed to be "sub-creation" or is it some other Latin abbreviation with which I am unfamiliar? I've always wondered about that.

It is indeed Latin: sc. is short for scilicet and means "namely" or "to wit." In the context of the quote you give, Tolkien is clarifying that things which "exist on [The Lord of the Rings'] own plane (of secondary or sub-creational reality)" is a fancy of way saying things that "have been written" but do not necessarily appear in the book.

[Romeran]

Thanks for the clarification @Eldy Dunami I did try googling it but didn't stumble upon "scilicet"!

[Eldy Dunami]

@Romeran

[Silky Gooseness]

@Boromir88 is it not Galadriel who says “fight the long defeat”? I don’t have my book to hand right now but if I recall correctly Galadriel is speaking of Celeborn and says, paraphrased, that together through long ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.

[Boromir88]

@Romeran, whether you wanted it to or not, your Faramir thread left an impression after all this time.

@Silky Gooseness Oh, yep you are right. Apparently, my memory is only impressive when it comes to recalling Romeran's defense of Faramir's quality post. Unfortunately, it's been mushed by the movies, as well, because I know "fighting the long defeat" line isn't in the movies. However, Elrond's line from the books telling Frodo if "he does not find a way, no one will" is given to Galadriel in the films. Some lines aren't in the movies, others are said by different Elves, I get my wise Elvish advice quotes mixed up.

[Silky Gooseness]

That’ll teach you to go to the Elves for advice

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Boromir: Thanks, I'll read and respond later!