Happy Eleventy-First Birthday

To John Ronald Reuel Tolkien!

Requiescat in Pace

J.R.R.T. was born this day in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892; he was baptized in the (Anglican) Cathedral of St. Andrew and St. Michael in that city, January 31.

Allow me to refer you to a two-part article on The Lord of the Rings, published in Salon last June: The book of the century and A curiously very great book, which I recommend generally but with which I do not agree in all details. (From the Webseries Trove 06/24/02.)

The Boston Globe published an article last week by one Chris Mooney. It strikes me as subtly uncomprehending and somewhat mendacious (perhaps because the author has successfully fooled himself about certain things). For anybody who actually knows anything at all about Tolkien and his works — and I have an entire shelf of books by Tolkien, not counting the books about him and his works — it is simply indisputable — simply indisputable — that philosophically LOTR is a specifically Christian, and particularly Catholic, work. JRRT himself said so, explicitly, repeatedly. Anybody who attempts to argue otherwise is arguing from (1) ignorance or (2) prejudice or (3) both.

Domenico Bettinelli gave Mooney's article a quite good fisking the next day:

.... I have to write off the essay as another attempt by secularists to turn a blind eye to the fact that something they value is explicitly Christian in origin. For them to acknowledge the truth would be to challenge their worldview. And that’s another difference between Christians and secularists: Christians have always “baptized” non-Christian art, works, customs, and ideas, incorporating their truth into the One Truth, but secularists can’t without introducing a “poison” into their own world system. Or should I call it a “cure”?

I plan to blog some more Tolkien stuff later.

P.S. The Professor's memorial mass at the Oratory chapel in Pittsburgh gets a mention in this Chicago Tribune story today:

.... Some of the fans who plan to toast Tolkien are also organizing an effort to record the gatherings for a documentary about the milestone birthday. There is no shortage of locations, from Infinite Coffee in Monterrey, Mexico, to the Bilbo Baggins Cafe in Alexandria, Va. Fans in Pennsylvania have arranged a memorial mass at the Pittsburgh Oratory, as their beloved author was a devout Roman Catholic....

"Fans" would include — be? — St. Blog's own Nârwen. (Thanks Amy.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 01/03/03 09:45:00 AM
Categorized as Literary & Most Notable.