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From 7 November 2009 - Awarded three out of a possible five Stars
The Battle for Middle Earth by Fleming Rutledge. William B Eerdmans, 2004
This is a frustrating book because it is well worth reading - and
perhaps could have been a classic of Tolkien criticism; but for the fact
that that the author's self-indulgence introduced so many jarring and
embarrassing anomalous elements.
The basic theme is very strong,
and the line of argument about how divine providence or fate permeates
Tolkien's world (and his world view) is extremely well argued.
But
the author gives the impression of being one of those people who likes
the sound of her own voice and airing her passing opinions. So the book
is too long, and the superb insights concerning the underlying religious
theme of Lord of the Rings are swamped by mere chit chat, or are padded
out with other very dubious, trivial or idiosyncratic Christian
parallels to the Tolkien.
The very striking and brilliant points, of which there are many, need to be mined out from the dross.
Worst
of all, the book was written in the early 2000s during the throes of
Bush-Derangement Syndrome (BDR) - in which `reality' for a female US
Episcopalian 'priest' comes filtered through the distorting lens of the
New York Times and National Public Radio - which are treated here as
having quasi-Biblical authority.
From her repeated use of
example, she really seems to believe that the USA under George W Bush,
the response to 9/11 and the behaviour of the US/UK allies in the Iraq
war, is a reasonable routine comparison with Sauron and Saruman, and
with the temptations and moral failings of the heroes.
By
contrast, Liberals, Democrats and their like are exempted from any
except positive mention. The political partisanship is truly stunning,
and indeed strikes me as pathological.
The author is utterly in
thrall to Political Correctness, which means that all (so far as I could
tell) of the (ridiculously over-pressed) examples she uses to draw
parallels between the evils of the Lord of the Rings and the evils of
everyday life are examples of the evils of US Republicans and
Conservatives; and all of the virtues of modern life are of people and
incidents which are approved by the Politically Correct.
She is
also either a Pacifist, or very close to being one; and to read LotR
from a pacifist perspective is to misunderstand it. Tolkien, like most
people, was anti-war - but he was not a pacifist; and indeed understood
that pacifism led to war and often to defeat - as with the appeasement
of Hitler.
The distortion is bad, because JRR Tolkien was himself
at the opposite pole from Political Correctness in his personality and
in his work: he was so Conservative that his views were even extreme for
the early 20th century and before the victory of Progressivism.
Tolkien
was indeed so Reactionary that his views are simply off the chart in
today's political climate. And he was of course a genius of intellect,
insight and creativity. So these views should not be ignored and cannot
lightly be dismissed without serious distortion: when the reader finds
that he disagrees with Tolkien, there is a distinct possibility that it
is Tolkien who was correct and the reader who is wrong, and that Tolkien
simply sees deeper.
So Rutledge's, book is worth reading for the
serious Tolkien scholar - but must be skim-read and unfortunately
cannot be fully enjoyed. However, if a second edition is ever on the
cards, this deeply-flawed book could be made into a superb one; simply
by the liberal use of a blue pencil to shorten it by half, remove all
contemporary references, and rein-in the garrulousness.
*
Note - In this version I have added scare quotes around the word Priest, for reasons of conscience. I did not realize three years ago that the flaws of this book are intrinsic to its having been written by a US Episcopalian Priestess. Although I gave it three stars, I have never (yet) gone back to re-read - which is very unusual for me in relation to Tolkien - so I would probably have to downgrade its rating to two stars, on reflection.
*
