By Amanda Pizzolatto (Rated G)
J. R. R. Tolkien has gone down in history as one of the greatest minds in literature. He single handedly created a brand new language, complete with the grammar and vocabulary rules. He then created a world for this language, followed by some myths and stories. But the one line that will forever be connected to him was “In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.” And the rest is, of course, history.
It is the final sentence of the movie, Tolkien, a fictional biopic. However, unlike most fictionalized narratives about our favorite authors striking gold where we get to see both the story written out as well as the effects (as shown in Finding Neverland about J. M. Barrie and The Man Who Invented Christmas about Charles Dickens, and kind of for Miss Potter about Beatrix Potter), we only get to see his youth leading up to that first sentence. We don’t get to see much of his time in church, though that was another important part of Tolkien’s life, and the main reason why his guardian was cautious about Edith, besides the fact that she was two years older than him and he probably did not think it wise for an eighteen-year-old girl to be dating a sixteen-year-old boy, thus asking Tolkien to wait a few years. Those years he spent at college, and at war, both of which would change him. But while those experiences would play a part in the stories he told, they were not the only factor. In fact, years later, when he finally did write The Lord of the Rings, it was not just to his children that he read the books, but also to the Inklings. Tolkien’s friends from high school were equally as important to Tolkien as were his friends in his later years, as duly noted in his well-known friendship with fellow Inkling and author, C. S. Lewis.
The two had a friendship that soon helped to bring about each other’s works. If it were not for Tolkien, Lewis would not have walked into a forest on another world and planted a lamp post in the middle of the wood or written the character Father Christmas. He also would not have written his Ransom Trilogy, nicknamed his Space Trilogy. Likewise, Tolkien would not have finished or even published his works had it not been for Lewis’s insistence that he do so, nor would we have gotten the wise but slow moving guardian of Fangorn, Treebeard. We also wouldn’t have gotten such tales as the two arriving a black tie party dressed up as polar bears nor the grumbling and complaining about what Disney was doing to classic fairy tales. Granted, a movie can only show you so much, but while the movie Tolkien will make you look at The Return of the King differently, it really only covers such a small part of Tolkien’s life. Perhaps, one day, we may yet get a sequel, one in which we actually get to see Tolkien and Lewis interacting, constantly roasting each other, and sharing their stories. We would also get to see some more of the hope that the Inklings brought into Tolkien’s life.
While the friendships created in his youth, taken from him during the war, inspired some of the characters of The Lord of the Rings, it was the fellowship that came later in life that pushed him. This became one of the reasons why The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have continued to be so loved to this day, that underlying theme of friendship. The Inklings took up the role his childhood friends left, while also providing new insights, influences, and the inspiration Tolkien needed to finish his masterpiece. One group was not more important than the other, though the Inklings were definitely more instrumental in getting Tolkien published. But that could be another part of why Tolkien’s work is so beloved – like Tolkien, it went through stages, and each stage had its friendships, each had its ups and downs. Every one of us goes through stages in life and some people stick it out through thick and thin, others must change due to circumstances, while others drift apart and never speak to each other again. Tolkien and Cristopher Wiseman, the other surviving member of the original little band of brothers, did just that, as their lives took them in different directions. But the foundation was set; Tolkien just needed to find the rest of the building blocks to his world, and its characters.
The next building block, and probably by far the largest and most influential, was his passion for languages, especially Finnish and Old English. He even learned about languages during the war, opting to learn flag signals and anything else he was interested in. This, perhaps, might have led to his notion about escape, as learning those languages was his escape during the horrors of World War I. At least, partially escape; he would not get over his survivor’s guilt for many years, having been the only one of his platoon to get home alive, thanks to coming down with trench fever. This, unfortunately, was barely touched upon in the movie. Tolkien had become great friends with his platoon, and their deaths were as keenly felt as the deaths of his two high school chums. Yes, the “Sam” character in the movie was a hint of that, but like with the later, more influential fellowship of the Inklings, it was mostly absent as the main focus of the movie was on Tolkien’s friendships from high school. Nothing wrong with it, but it still felt like an incomplete story.
The next building block is, to no one’s surprise, storytelling and myths. The movie does feature two of the biggest influences of The Lord of the Rings, Der Ring des Nibelungen and Beowulf, but there were so many more. The Bible is one that Tolkien alludes to as being another big influence, as noted when comparing his Silmarillion to the first books in the Bible. Another is a lesser known book now, but what Tolkien admits his Hobbits and The Hobbit book were definitely inspired by, and that is The Marvellous Land of the Snergs by Edward Wyke-Smith. To focus on just two of the more popular stories does a disservice to what makes Tolkien’s work complete. His autobiography probably needs more of a miniseries than a movie, as do many authors, it would seem, though the autobiographies of Jane Austen and Beatrix Potter did just fine in movie format. But that could be because those movies focused on a few key moments in the authors’ lives as they wrote and published their books instead of just a few years before starting the first sentence. But a miniseries would still be better.
Overall, Tolkien the movie mostly did a good job for what it wanted to focus on, but it was, unfortunately, still lacking. It is by no means easy to pack a lot of key moments into three hours (even The Lord of the Rings movies had to leave out quite a bit, even to fit the extended cut time of four hours), yet the parts of Tolkien’s life shown do not do Tolkien’s life justice. Should you go watch the movie to form your own opinion? Absolutely; I still recommend it. But I also urge you to read and watch more about Tolkien to really know and understand the greatness of the man we now come to call the Father of Fantasy.
LogoSophia Magazine 