Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings

Hobbits' handbook

TOLKIEN AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
A Guide to Middle-Earth
By Colin Duriez
Azure. 296 pages. £5.99
ISBN 1 902694 22 8

Who is the real hero of the 20th century's most popular book? Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien will need no urging to enjoy a revised handbook to his best-sellers and some of his professional writing.

Part 1 summarises the life, work and friendships of this extraordinary Oxford professor, adding a brief chronology. Part 2 summarises The Lord of the Rings and its own internal time-chart, relating it to 'The Silmarillion'. Part 3 is an 85-page A-Z of names and events, followed by a similar alphabet of themes in Part 4 where interpretation replaces cataloguing. The final short sections introduce real-life people and places, with Tolkien's main writings and a bibliography.

The real and fictional chronologies are fascinating; even more, the exploration of themes such as creation, temptation, providence, choice, sacrifice, power, death and eternity. At least four Christ-figures feature in the masterpiece, compared with just one in Narnia. Unlike C.S. Lewis, Tolkien is not allegorising. Only a Christian believer could produce such imaginative feats of 'sub-creation'. But encountering the intolerance of his mother's Roman Catholicism virtually ensured that he should loyally follow her path.

Colin Duriez has to be selective; it is still odd to find a page on Westron, and entries for Thrimidge or Winterfilth, in a list which has none under Brandywine, Butterbur, Ghan-buri-Ghan, Maggot, even Gwaihir. His spelling needs a double-check. Further problems are repetition and bean-spilling; 'Leaf by Niggle' and 'Farmer Giles of Ham' are among stories fully retold.

If you haven't read 'The Lord of the Rings', better not read Colin Duriez, let alone see the film, until you have. No guidebook can convey the beauty, variety, power and suspense of the writing. And we need new creative writers more than cult-enthusiasts dressed as Hobbits.

Christopher Idle

© Evangelicals Now - May 2002
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