{"id":122876,"date":"2023-09-12T12:15:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T16:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=122876"},"modified":"2023-09-12T18:03:55","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T22:03:55","slug":"nyt-ross-douthat-the-subtlety-of-j-r-r-tolkien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=122876","title":{"rendered":"(NYT) Ross Douthat–The Subtlety of J.R.R. Tolkien"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here, from Sebastian Milbank, in an\u00a0essay<\/a>\u00a0making a counterintuitive but compelling case for Tolkien\u2019s place among the literary modernists, is a useful summary of the argument over the portrayal of good and evil in \u201cLord of the Rings,\u201d which has been ongoing since the saga first appeared:<\/p>\n

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The often ferocious response of many critics perhaps stemmed from the apparent anachronism of the book, combined with its massive popularity. It was published in 1954, at a time when literary modernism was dominant and pervading the academy. Modernist writers were obsessed with interiority, broke with prior literary convention, and traded in irony, ambiguity and convoluted psychology. Literary critics of the time were taking up the \u201cNew Criticism,\u201d which dispensed not only with the previous generation\u2019s fascination with historical context in favor of close reading, but also with the traditionalist concerns for beauty and moral improvement, which were regarded as subjective and emotionally driven. Spare, complex prose, focused on the darker side of society, was in vogue. Into this context dropped 1,200 pages of Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits in a grand battle of good and evil. They were greeted with the sort of enthusiasm one can imagine.<\/p>\n

Edmund Wilson called the books \u201cbalderdash,\u201d a battle between \u201cGood people and Goblins.\u201d The book\u2019s morality was a sticking point even for the most sympathetic critics, with Edwin Muir lamenting that \u201chis good people are consistently good, his evil figures immovably evil.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve read many variations on Muir\u2019s claim over the years, especially once George R.R. Martin\u2019s \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d became a dominant cultural influence, and it never ceases to be puzzling. There are various ways in which Tolkien refuses realism, and his books are in no way gritty or sexy in the contemporary style. But the idea that he wasn\u2019t interested in the territory between good and evil is belied by even the most superficial reading of the story.<\/p>\n

Yes, there is a mostly offstage villain, Sauron, whose evil seems fixed; yes, Sauron\u2019s Orcish armies are fairly described as immovably depraved; yes, there is a set of characters who are unfailingly heroic despite various doubts and temptations. But between the \u201cconsistently good\u201d and the \u201cimmovably evil\u201d lies the zone in which most of the trilogy\u2019s drama takes place \u2014 the corruption of the wizard Saruman, the fatal temptation of Boromir, the despair and subsequent redemption of Th\u00e9oden, the curdled conservatism of Denethor and above all the complicated and tortured relationship between Frodo and Gollum, and within Gollum\u2019s own divided consciousness. The Frodo-Gollum dynamic certainly\u00a0features<\/em>\u00a0goodness and heroism, but not in any na\u00efve way, and it ends with divine providence engineering the world\u2019s salvation (though not its full redemption) through and despite their mutual corruption by the ring.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A while back I wrote some brief thoughts on Tolkien & his possible influence on English stasis. Here @DouthatNYT<\/a> notes that I perhaps "[undersell] how much Tolkien subjected his own pastoral nostalgia to critique", which is a fair amendment, I think. https:\/\/t.co\/yKApbFAJhp<\/a><\/p>\n

— Niall Gooch 👍🇻🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🚅🏏✒ (@niall_gooch) September 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n