A lesson of Numenor: Mortal life can only be partly enchanted, even in Faery

The sadness that underlies all the best accounts of the interactions of Men with elves, fairies and the like; is that the enchantment of Faery is only partly available to Men - either for a finite visit or by incomplete inklings.

Faery seems greatly desirable and greatly satisfying; in that its sense of beauty and pervasive life and consciousness is so powerful as to satisfy our cravings. 

Yet such satisfaction is always cut short, or diluted by a counter-current of self-consciousness and the ultimate inescapability of death. 

If Only, Men feel, we could live forever is such a situation of enchantment - that would be enough! Life might be complete. Our existential dissatisfaction would at last be stilled. 

It is this brevity and partiality that mislead; because Men never get to see the limitations of Faery life, the different intrinsic sadness of existence for even "immortal" elves or faeries dwelling in paradise. 

We clutch and cling to the hope of Faery enchantment - until the "if only" becomes an always increasing obsession. 

This is one significance of JRR Tolkien's story of Numenor; in which the more closely that Men attain to the enchanted life of elves, the more deluded they become concerning its ultimate sufficiency.  

The problem begins as a close friendship with the Eldar tinged by an envy of elves immortality - which was the only substantive difference between Numenorean men and the Eldar. 

But as the delusion gets a grip that elven immortality will complete Men's happiness; Numenorean Men become hostile to elves; thereby avoiding the kind of personal association that might disillusion them about the imagined "guaranteed bliss" of life as an elf. 

Tolkien was (it seems) strongly aware both of the impossibility of a wholly (or even mostly) enchanted life for mortal Men; and also aware that even if it were possible to live always in Faery, this would not provide a full answer to our existential yearning. 

This is because the happiness of immortal elves becomes overwhelmed by the nature and effects of continual living in a world where there is death and evil. This means that loss is both inevitable and cumulative; and the memory of times before loss is an increasing burden.  

To me, it seems that elven bliss could only be complete if elves lived in the here-and-now of a paradise but without memory - so that losses would be forgotten. This would mean that awareness, memory, intelligence would all need to be reduced to a bare minimum - if not deleted; and elves would decline to a lower, animal-like or plant-like, state of consciousness. 

For Tolkien; there were other possibilities for Men; and these included a escape of the spirit to a world without time or change; or else (or perhaps as well as) the life of spirits reborn into this earth but (somehow) purged of death and evil. 

(For me; the reason why mortal life is only partly enchanted is ultimately because mortal life is a transitional stage between life as pre-mortal spirits, and the possibility of a future of resurrected eternal life in the new creation that is Heaven.) 

Charles Williams Did influence JRR Tolkien's writing - The Place of the Lion and The Notion Club Papers

For the past fifty years it has been normal to assume that JRR Tolkien disliked (probably because he was jealous of) Charles Williams; and that Williams did not influence Tolkien's writing.

Despite that Tolkien personally claimed such things in writing; none of these are strictly correct. 

Tolkien was good friends with Williams, during Williams's life - it was only some years after Williams died, when Tolkien became aware of some aspects of CW's biography, that Tolkien turned against Williams and began to make misleading statements to play-down their friendship. 

The denial of Williams's influence on Tolkien is more complex. As a generalization, it is true to say that the two men had different minds, aims, and literary styles - and there is no striking influence of Williams noticeable in the works Tolkien published during his lifetime - especially not The Lord of the Rings. 

But more can be said. 

One major influence of Williams is not in The Lord of the Rings, but in the fact that it was attempted at all, and soon became a more ambitious book than The Hobbit, and directed at adults. 

This was - I believe - a consequence of the powerful effect - on CS Lewis as well as JRR Tolkien - of encountering Williams's novel The Place of the Lion in 1936. This led Lewis and Tolkien making a "deal" to embark on attempting to write "adult" fantasy or science fiction novels of a kind they especially liked reading. 

Lewis produced the Space Trilogy, and Tolkien produced two unpublished (in his lifetime) attempts at a time travel story: The Lost Road (attempted immediately), and The Notion Club Papers (attempted about a decade after Tolkien and Lewis's deal). 

And it is in an un-published  (and un-finished) work by Tolkien, The Notion Club Papers, that the influence of Charles Williams can be seen. 

Therefore, Williams did influence Tolkien's writing - and in a direct fashion - but the piece of writing Williams influenced was neither completed nor published by Tolkien.

Indeed, edited drafts of the Notion Club Papers did not appear in print until 1992, embedded in the Middle of the Sauron Defeated volume of Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle Earth - nearly fifty years after Williams's death, and nearly twenty years since JRR Tolkien's death.   

In the event; Williams's influence was invisibly absorbed-into The Lord of the Rings, but only via the secondary effects of the NCPs, which were mainly on Numenor and its use as a "backstory" for the Dunedain; and the Numenorean language of Adunaic (which evolved into the Common Speech of Middle Earth). 

It seems to me very likely that Tolkien's writing of The Notion Club Papers was a direct consequence of the death of Charles Williams. 

The Williams derivation is seen firstly in the origins of the NCPs as a playful "alter-ego" discussion group, explicitly referencing The Inklings, read to The Inklings as work-in-progress in instalments, and with characters loosely-based on the post-Williams membership. 

In this respect I regard it as significant that there is no Notion Club member who is described as based-on the just-deceased Charles. It is as if the NCPs was a tribute to Charles's memory, and as such to include CW among the somewhat facetious caricatures the NCP membership would have been disrespectful and altogether inappropriate. 

Yet, if I am right, The Notion Club Papers were developed as a creative celebration of Tolkien's friend and fellow Inkling Charles Williams, conceived in remembrance of the catalytic and transformative effects of The Place of the Lion, back in 1936. 

According to Christopher Tolkien's dating; The Notion Club Papers was written during a period from late 1944, a few months before the death of Charles Williams up to the summer of 1946 after which work on The Lord of the Rings was re-commenced, and the NCPs were set aside finally and irrevocably. 

These dates set a bound to work on the Notion Club Papers - they were written between late 1944 and mid 1946; but there is (I think) no reference to the NCPs until August 1946 (in Warren Lewis's diary), and my prediction would be that the Notion Club Papers was begun in mid 1945, some time after Charles Williams's death on 15th May.   

During this period when work of LotR was suspended; it is likely that the Notion Club Papers was Tolkien's major writing project - alongside preparing his essay On Fairy Stories for publication in a memorial Festschrift volume for Charles Williams. It seems that Tolkien's thoughts, and those of the Inklings as a group, were almost certain to be much occupied with Williams.  

Among Charles William's novels, The Place of the Lion is the only one that we know for sure was highly-rated and valued by Tolkien. 

And, among CW's novels, The Place of the Lion is distinctive in its structure. A group of modern people have formed a kind of spiritual research society, and these inadvertently open-up a "channel" to the ancient and primal world of Platonic Ideas or Archetypes. This channel to another world operates through the minds of group members.

The various Platonic Archetypes then flood-through the minds of particular people; enter into the modern world, and begin to wreak havoc. 

In broad terms; this is an exact analogy to the basic plot of the Notion Club Papers. A group of writers become deeply interested in viewing other times and places, making various attempts to attune their minds with the past and remote parts of the universe; and thereby the NC inadvertently establish a channel of contact with the persons and era of the downfall and drowning of Numenor.  

Once this channel has been opened among NC members, then the winds and tidal waves that had destroyed Numenor flood-through into the modern world, and wreak havoc. 

Therefore, in a general sense, The Place of the Lion offered Tolkien a model for building a relationship between the modern everyday world, and some other world with more profound and transcendent aspects; a model that involved the deliberate attunement of minds happening among members of a particular group. 

Or, to put it differently (and as explicitly stated within the NCP), The Place of the Lion provided for Tolkien a way of linking mundane history to mythic reality, on the assumption that the remote past was actually mythic in its reality. 

On such a basis; at one point, Tolkien considered using The Notion Club Papers as the framing for the Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings/ Silmarillion; as a way of explaining how knowledge of Numenor/ Middle Earth/ Arda, came to be transmitted to modern times.

In the end, Tolkien framed his stories with the fiction that ancient manuscripts (such as The Red Book of Westmarch) had survived through the millennia, and somehow come into his hands as their "editor"; but while writing the NCPs, he was exploring the idea that there was a direct, mind-to-mind, transmission of such knowledge via the Notion Club.   

In sum; a specific focus on The Place of the Lion among all of Charles William's work, and a consideration of the chronology and form of Tolkien's writing, and the inclusion of Tolkien's unpublished and unfinished works; leads to a recognition of a strong, and indeed decisive, influence of Charles Williams on JRR Tolkien.  

**

Note: As can be seen in the links above, I (as well as others) have fairly often commented that The Notion Club Papers was Tolkien's "Charles Williams novel" - in a general sense, and in an "atmospheric" way. 

I am now saying more than this, and in a much more specific sense: that the NCPs was not just "a" Charles Williams novel, but related to one particular novel: The Place of the Lion. 

And furthermore that this was purposively so: that Tolkien wrote The Notion Club Papers with Charles Williams and The Place of the Lion in-mind.  

Ramer contra Lowdham - comparing Tolkien's alter ego characters in The Notion Club Papers

Christopher Tolkien published the surviving material of The Notion Club Papers (in The History of Middle Earth - Volume Nine) in two parts, each of which has a particular character who serves as the main mouthpiece for Tolkien's own ideas; an alter ego. These characters are Ramer in Part One, and Lowdham in Part Two. 

Ramer and Lowdham divide between them several of Tolkien's major personal characteristics, motivations and interests - so that put-together they would represent something quite close to Tolkien himself. 

Furthermore, there is a progression between Ramer and Lowdham in the story which represents an imaginative possibility for Tolkien himself - albeit one that never happened "in real life".

Like Tolkien; Ramer is, apparently, a philologist (however Ramer's specialty is the Finnish and Hungarian language group); but "better known" as a writer of what would nowadays be termed fantasy fiction, including "science fiction". I think we are perhaps meant to infer that Ramer's heart is not in philology (that is what comes across in the reported conversations) - his interest in it is professional rather than personal - his heart is in his fiction writing. 

He is reported as having read a story to the club; then, after some preliminary "skirmishing", the NCP narrative takes-off when Ramer begins to describe his experiments in exploring the remote past and outer space with "parapsychological" methods such as telepathy, lucid dreaming and psychometry. 

The similarity of Ramer with JRRT is that internal evidence and some of Christopher Tolkien's notes suggests that his father had some experience of these paranormal-type experiences, and used the results in his writing.

Ramer could be described as having something like a travelers interest in other times and places - albeit this goes very deep; because he describes an extreme kind of sympathy with other places and "things" (such as a meteor) that amounts to near-complete identification of "what it is like" actually to be them. 

Yet, Ramer does not seem to want to do anything with these experiences more, or other, than to enjoy them; to remember and write about them.  

In sum, we could describe Ramer's "paranormal" experiences as being essentially contemplative - he desires to visit and mentally-explore remote space and time - partly from curiosity, but also implicitly to "use" such information in his fictional writing. This was also Tolkien's practice - to some extent; but it leaves-out some of Tolkien's other distinctive characteristics - in particular his lifelong passion-for, and profound expertise-in, philology. 

While Ramer is a somewhat lukewarm philologist; Lowdham is - like JRRT - a vocational philologist; and with similar specific interests in Germanic, Scandinavian and ancient English languages. Furthermore, Lowdham (and Lowdham's father, by report) articulates Tolkien's own special affinity for Anglo-Saxon. 

In Part One, Lowdham comes across as a rather facetious character, who protects his real nature and deepest enthusiasms by a "tortoise-shell" of bumptious behaviour, vulgar singing, and a stream of witticisms and jokes. Tolkien, likewise, was often defensive, and deliberately misleading, about the depth and passion of his unusual interests and strange beliefs. 

Yet, Lowdham's friends realize that this protective carapace is beginning to crack under the influence of Ramer's revelations and the themes that are emerging. As the story progresses and especially in Part Two, Lowdham comes to the fore as an intensely emotional man; almost volcanic in his energies and will. 

Indeed (like Tolkien as a keen rugby playing youth) Lowdham is a very physical man - loud of voice (his name was originally spelled Loudham) - albeit Lowdham is described, quite unlike Tolkien (fair haired, nimble), as physically large and dark-complexioned.   

Lowdham's core interest is (like Tolkien's) primarily in remote times; in ancient history rather than the further reaches of outer space. 

And indeed he seems most attracted to the uttermost West, beyond the British Isles - the mythic land of Faery and of "Atlantis"/ Numenor - which, he suspects, may have been the intended destination of his father - lost at sea. 

If Ramer's aims are those of a visitor, an historian - with intent to use the material in writing fiction; Lowdham's interest is more philological than historical. And more "therapeutic" than literary; in the sense of Lowdham desiring to follow his father Westward, or at least discover what happened to him and perhaps re-open a channel of communication between here-and-now and then-and-there. 

While some of this is - no doubt - a scholarly drive; the fact that Lowdham goes off on an actual quest with Jeremy, sailing along the Western coasts of Britain and Ireland, and exploring the countryside - a magical quest, indeed, where Lowdham's mediumistic ability to hear ancient language in states of lucid dreaming, is combined with Jeremy's complementary talent for experiencing visions of that which Lowdham hears.

Jeremy's developing partnership and alliance with Lowdham brings a focus on myth, about which Jeremy has much to say; and as the story proceeds mythic considerations tend to transcend Ramer's more mundane interests in the geography and history of strange places and remote times. 

Jeremy therefore brings-in yet another aspect of Tolkien. And Jeremy is another fantasy fiction writer - indeed that is his special interest as a literary scholar and critic. 

So; why do Lowdham and Jeremy desire so much to re-open communications with Numenor, and via Numenor with the ancient world of the elves (as understood by Tolkien), that they risk their lives in its pursuit? Risk death in that the two men are nearly killed by first walking into the teeth of a hurricane, then later sailing a small boat into the residue of terrible storms that have come-through into the times of the Notion Club from the downfall of Numenor?

What I perceive, overall, in the Notion Club Paper fragments and (by inference) from behind them; is a transformation from the somewhat detached, contemplative, non-interventional perspective of Ramer; through to a more active, participating and (potentially) world-transforming engagement with the reality of myth. 

This would represent a movement of intent from the mundane and aesthetic, into the spiritual and indeed divine purposes: It is (implicitly) Tolkien's acknowledgement of the need for the modern world of the Notion Club (and of the Inklings) to be rescued, or redeemed, by the realities of Tolkien's mythic world - as represented by first Ramer, then Lowdham - complemented by Jeremy. 

The Notion Club Papers can be seen as a sketch of how this epic task might be begun - if not accomplished altogether. 

 

Numenor and the insufficiency of mortal life in this-world

The recent collection of Tolkien's Numenor material into a single volume The Fall of Numenor (edited by Brian Sibley, 2022) has triggered considerable further thought concerning one of Tolkien's most profound mythic themes. 

The significance of Numenor is something that I only gradually recognized, and which has increased over the years. 

The reason is not hard to discover; because Numenor addresses Tolkien's core theme of "death"; because Numenor enables Tolkien to explore Man's response to death in a very pure situation of this-worldly bliss: an earthly paradise. 

In Numenor, Men are given an ideal life in material terms: the "land of gift" bestows strength and stature, immunity from illness and the decline of age, greater intelligence and skill; and the best possible land and climate for humans to thrive. 

The point is that in the rest of the world outside Numenor (as in our own world) there are always material 'reasons' to explain the insufficiency of life: things like sickness, violence, famine, old age etc. Men can therefore assume that "if only" the material conditions of life could be sorted-out - then Life would become completely satisfactory. 

But Numenor is a world in which the material conditions have already been sorted-out; and yet Life is still insufficient!

In other words, in Numenor we are able to observe Men in a situation where all the solvable problems of life have been solved; and what remains are intrinsic features of the Human Condition. 

We are thus invited to reflect upon: whether or not the situation of ideal Men in an ideal world is sufficient to satisfy our soul's need? 

And Tolkien's answer is: No. 

That is Tolkien's answer and I agree, as have many Men back (at least) to the times of the Ancient Greek philosophers. Numenor is an illustration of the fact that this mortal life is insufficient - no matter how ideal its circumstances. Men are not ultimately satisfied by paradise. 

My understanding is that Man's eventual and decisive dissatisfaction with the life of Numenor was not itself evil: it was, indeed, an inevitability; and the fact that the Valar (and the Eldar) did not anticipate this dissatisfaction, and could not understand it once it had become evident - was evidence of the angelic powers' and the elves' limited sympathies when it came to Men: their limited understanding of The Nature of Reality. 

Men's dissatisfaction with their life and this world is actually a consequence (albeit indirect and expressed by opposition) of their ultimate spiritual superiority to the Valar and the Eldar; and the reason why The One brought forth this second wave of 'humans beings': why the Followers (Men) were always intended and designed to replace the Firstborn (elves). 

Death - in Tolkien's world - is called the Doom of Men; the word "Doom" covering both sides of the matter: that death was the ineradicable gift of Eru (God: the prime creator), and also that death was experienced as an inescapable and terrifying fate. 

One lesson of Numenor is that the inescapable reality of death means that there can be no ultimately adequate life for Men - not even in Paradise. That recognition is wisdom. 

But what then? If this mortal life is insufficient, if Paradise is not enough... What Then? How should Men understand their situation in the world; what should Men do?

Here is where the Men of Numenor went wrong - most obviously those who delusionally tried to attain eternal life by force of arms, but probably even those who were of "the faithful" - those who obeyed the Valar, and respected (and, it seems envied) the Eldar. Because Tolkien implies that "the faithful" wished in their hearts to be as the Eldar were, "immortal", but correctly recognized this was not possible. 

This desire for elvish longevity made the faithful, and their Middle Earth descendants in Arnor and Gondor, a sad people, prone to childlessness and an excessive (also counter-productive) concentration on health and longevity.   

Clearly it was a deep sin for the Men of Numenor to worship Morgoth and to assail the Valar. But; the Big Question is: what should the Men of Numenor have done instead? 

Because, on the face of it: Men seem to be in a no win situation. 

Men know that they are "doomed" to die, and know that their discarnate souls will leave "the circles of the world"; but Men have no idea (and have never been told by the Valar) what then (if anything) happens to their discarnate souls. 

Is the future of all Men utter annihilation - or... something else?

This is indirectly addressed by Tolkien in his "Marring of Men" narrative - in which he has his protagonists allude indirectly to what we are intended to infer is the incarnation of Jesus. 

Jesus is therefore put forward as being the - as yet unknown and apparently unknowable except by inference - answer to the problem of mortal Men and a world that has been "marred" ineradicably by Morgoth. 

Yet it is important to realize that the answer "Jesus" - the resurrection and eternal life he brings that is only accessible via death -  is, in Tolkien's universe, both unknown and unknowable to the Numenoreans. The Numenoreans have no foresight of Jesus, and neither do the Valar or the Eldar (who might, in principle, have informed Men). 

It is assumed that only Eru foreknew the coming of Jesus, and Eru (apparently) did not tell anyone. 

Men in Numenor are (in effect) asked to accept the insufficiency of mortal life on earth; and to hope without reason - to hope, based purely upon faith in the goodness of Eru. 

This was the challenge of the Men of Numenor; and clearly they failed to respond rightly to that challenge; and in failing, brought nearly-complete ruin upon themselves and their civilization.  

We can ask, however, whether (in Tolkien's world) it was reasonable of Eru to expect otherwise; given that He had not provided any of his creatures with any clue as the to eventual advent of Jesus Christ? 

Was it, therefore, reasonable of Eru to expect Men to live by faith and hope yet without knowledge or assurance? 

I sense that Tolkien was troubled by this aspect of his world; and was at least sympathetic with the Men who failed this high and ascetic task. And that Tolkien wondered why God did not provide his Men of Middle Earth and Numenor with foreknowledge of Jesus - which was indeed the situation for all Men except a tiny minority of Jews, in the ages before Christ. 

Space travel in The Notion Club Papers by "Incarnation. By being born" - What does Tolkien mean?

[Guildford] "For landing on a new planet, you've got your choice: miracle; magic; or sticking to normal probability, the only known or likely way in which any one has ever landed on a world." 

"'Oh! So you've got a private recipe all the time, have you?" said Ramer sharply. 

"No, it's not private, though I've used it once." 

"Well? Come on! What is it?" 

"Incarnation. By being born", said Guildford

From The Notion Club Papers; page 170 of Sauron Defeated (1993) by JRR Tolkien. 

Note 15 expands on this: In the original text... [Dolbear adds] "Then try reincarnation, or perhaps transcarnation without loss of memory."

**

This is the exact point at which JRR Tolkien's Notion Club Papers (NCPs) takes a turn from mundane conversation among club members; towards the supernatural, or more accurately the occult.

Yet, I found this important passage to be very confusing at the time I first read it; and I am still unsure why Tolkien used the term "incarnation" in reference to the aim of space travel, of visiting another planet. I usually understand incarnation to refer to a spirit taking-on a body - and this is usually assumed to be irreversible except by death. 

"Being born" seems to confirm this. Being born onto another planet can hardly be described as a viable way of 'landing' on a new planet - even if memory of one's previous life was retained. It means becoming somebody else. Incarnation seems not to be equivalent to visiting another planet - implicitly temporarily, so one could come back and tell other people! - by means of spaceship, miracle or magic (the previously discussed possibilities)

I turned to the earlier draft note, which mentions reincarnation - usually meaning the same soul being clothed by a series of at least two bodies. But again, this is a linear and irreversible process - and seems unsuitable for visiting other worlds. 

Transcarnation may be a neologism: that is, a word here invented by Tolkien; which probably was intended to convey the idea of a soul transferring from one body to another without death. 

By this, I presume he must have meant that someone's soul might go to another planet; either by temporarily inhabiting the body of someone being already there (something of this kind, a 'body swap' is mentioned in CS Lewis's unfinished Dark Tower, which Tolkien had heard); or perhaps by (temporarily) clothing itself in a body (or appearance of a body) while on that planet. 

What actually emerges as the way in which members of the Notion Club visit other places, and times, has aspects of this (presumed) transcarnation, in the case of Ramer; and something like reincarnation in the case of Lowdham and Jeremy. 

Ramer's soul or spirit seems to leave his body and visit other places during sleep. Ramer does not seem physically to incarnate; but he does report being present, aware and localized - rather as if he had condensed spatio-temporally, maybe clothed himself with a 'spirit body'. 

This is sometimes called Astral Projection - for example Rudolf Steiner regarded this as what happened to us all, every night, during dreams. Our Astral body leaves the sleeping Physical and Etheric bodies; to go and do 'dream things' in another actual but spirit-realm of reality. 

And (according to Steiner) the Astral body 'carries with it' our Ego, or sense of self, or 'I' - which is how we are self-aware during dreams. 

Because the spatio-temporally limited Physical body (and its attached Etheric body) are left-behind (although still connected, as it were by an infinitely elastic thread) - the Astral body can be assumed to move freely through space; and perhaps also time. 

These ideas are compatible with what Ramer reports; including his comment that "Dreaming is not Death. The mind is, as I say, anchored to the body."

(It is quite possible that Tolkien may have known of these ideas, either from general reading and converstaion, or specifically via Inkling-member Owen Barfield, who was Britain's leading Anthroposophist - i.e. Steiner follower. Indeed; the obviously referenced "Ranulph Stainer" is listed as a member of the Notion Club!) 

By contrast; Lowdham and Jeremy were (probably) intended to be something-like (but perhaps not exactly, according to Tolkien's comments) reincarnations of paired souls; who had descended 'genetically' through history - including having inhabited Numenor, experienced its downfall, and been among those who escaped to Middle Earth. 

This narrative plan was something Tolkien carried over from his earlier draft story The Lost Road - but there it involved father-son pairings.   

In other words; Ramer's journeys were focused on space travel while Lowdham and Jeremny were primarily engaged in a kind of time travel. In her brilliant and inspiring monograph A Question of Time; Verlyn Flieger convincingly argues that Tolkien's idea of time travel was rooted in JW Dunne's ideas of the simultaneity of time. This enabled the mind to survey the past and indeed future. 

The idea was probably that Lowdham and Jeremy's connection of heredity was activated - partly by purposive dreaming - such that the simultaneity of the downfall of Numenor, and the 'modern' activities of the Notion Club, became superimposed. The Numenorean catastrophe then overlapped with contemporary Oxford in this condition of simultaneity; leading to the massive storm experienced by the South and West of the British Isles that forms the climax of the second part of the NCPs. 

Lowdham and Jeremy therefore do not engage in any kind of 'transcarnation' or Astral travelling; but instead become a kind-of simultaneous combination of their Numenorean and modern selves. 

For clarity, it would perhaps have been easier for the reader if Tolkien had dropped the term 'in-carnation' and stuck with his original terms of re-incarnation and trans-carnation; and maybe given them at least a bit of definition. Something like this may have happened, had the Notion Club Papers been taken any further. But in the event, we are left to complete the jig-saw ourselves, using the clues JRRT left-behind and which his son Christopher assembled and published - nearly half a century after the NCPs had been abandoned.

Legolas and Gimli were - ultimately - wrong about Men

There is a brief yet marvelous conversation in The Lord of the Rings, when Legolas and Gimli walk together through Minas Tirith and talk of the race of Men. 

**

'We will come', said Imrahil; and they parted with courteous words. 'That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,' said Legolas. 'If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising'. 'And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,' said Gimli. 'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.' 'Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,' said Legolas. 'And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.' 'And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,' said the Dwarf. 'To that the Elves know not the answer,' said Legolas.

**

I have long regarded this as one of the most significant passages in the LotR; yet now I realize that while the exchange gives a correct understanding of Men as it seems from the perspectives of Elf and Dwarf - the Elf-Dwarf perspective is restricted to Men in this world. 

Elves and Dwarfs have an existence in both life and after death that is - so far as they know - wholly of this world, this 'planet'. Their lives are therefore bound-up with the life of 'the earth'. 

Tolkien links this to the great arts and crafts of these races. Elves and Dwarves can achieve higher standards of work than Men because they both care more about this world, are wholly invested-in this world; and the permanent link to this world means that their interest and commitment to their work does not fade. 

Men are relatively much more fickle, easily distracted, more readily bored than either Elf or Dwarf; and therefore Men's work, even when it starts-out very well, is less invested-in and tends to decline. And ultimately this is because Men's souls leave this-world after death.  

Knowing this innately, Men feel - and behave - like 'visitors' to the world. Visitors are not so much 'at home' as permanent residents. 

For Tolkien's Men, and for us - this world does not feel like home, and is not enough. 

Consequently, Men are less engaged with the world, and with their work - they do not take this-world as seriously as Elves and Dwarves - and for Men there is a tendency to become dissatisfied, to daydream and lose focus on the work at hand; and to aspire after something beyond the world... 

To understand the perspective of Men, therefore, we must take into account Aragorn's words on his deathbed: "Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory." 

For Men, but not for Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves, this mortal life is a phase and a preparation; and can be a temporary prelude to something greater and eternal. 

It is this that explains many of Men's most characteristic weaknesses. 

Therefore Legolas and Gimli's understanding is incomplete, and they cannot comprehend the fate of Men as including something that lies beyond this-world. 

Gimli seems to regard Men as 'merely' shorter lived, less serious and less skilful Dwarves! Legolas balances this with approval of Men's capacity to bounce-back after disaster defeat and to start over again - in a way that Elves - burdened by their long lives and accumulated memories - cannot.  

Tolkien did not wish to make the fate of Men any plainer than the 'negative' statement that their souls left this world after death. At the time of LotR, the salvation brought by Jesus Christ was imagined to be a long way in the future; not known by revelation, yet perhaps vaguely intuited...

But Men such as Aragorn who trusted  The One (Eru Illuvatar - the prime creator) already knew that there 'must be' some very good reason why Men died and their souls left this world; which was why mortality was called The One's Gift to Men.

Even the Valar could not take this form of death from Men; albeit afte the fall of Morgoth, the Valar extended the lives of Numenorean Men several-fold compared with their earlier ancestors.

Yet even this life extension - which was kindly intended, as a reward and to allow for greater (more Elvish, or Dwarf-like!) levels of skill and achievement in this world - backfired and led ultimately to Men of Numenor desiring the unending life-in-this-world of the Elves and Valar; and to their ultimate corruption and downfall. 

Tolkien's lesson, overall, seems to be that Men are what they are - not second-rate elves or Dwarves! - and Men have their own distinctive destiny.

And 'what Men are' includes a perspective larger than that of Elves and Dwarves: a perspective that ought-to extend beyond the death of the body, and beyond the circles of this world. 

Review of The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien (2021; edited by Carl F Hostetter)

The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien; edited by Carl F Hostetter. HarperCollins: London, 2021.

This book is significant as being the first collection of mostly-unpublished JRR Tolkien writings to emerge since the death of his son Christopher; being edited by Carl Hostetter. It is a book that serious Tolkien readers will want to own and use; because it is something like a cross between The History of Middle Earth Volume XII and an addition to Unfinished Tales. 

Therefore, those who regard HoME and/ or UT as important, will not want to miss this one: there are many things here which I regard of permanent value; and I am very grateful to know them. 

These are too many to list. Perhaps the essay Osanwe-kenta may take pride of place (I had already read this, but it was previously only available in a small circulation magazine). This is a detailed consideration (relevant to both Middle earth and our own world) of the 'communication of thought' by what might be termed telepathy, including the implications for free will. This was of extraordinary depth and interest to me.   

Another section is given the title of Description of Characters, and is Tolkien's commentary on Pauline Baynes's illustrated map of Middle Earth from 1970. For example, Tolkien regarded the back-view of Boromir as an almost perfect representation of his imagination; while Sam and Gimli were 'good enough'. On the other hand he was critical of several (most!) others including Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Shelob and the Black Riders; and in making these criticisms he gives further detailed accounts of how he saw them.

The bulk of the book is about elves; including a great deal about their different types (also why they ended up different) and very large scale considerations of the justice and wisdom of the Valar in their dealings with elves. All this was absolutely gripping, and operates at a very deep spiritual level. 

 

The book does, however, have a significant flaw in that it begins badly - i.e. boringly. There are 166 pages under the section title of Time and Ageing - with repeated developing drafts of Tolkien's consideration of the time-lines, time-experiences (relative between the undying lands and Middle earth, and between races), movements of elves; and a lot about the elves rates of growth and reproduction. These are often presented in terms of tables of figures, and lists.

There was a great deal to interest me among these 166 pages; but there is no denying that there is a great deal of repetition and minutiae. There is considerable relevance - even here - for those of us fascinated by Tolkien's mind and creative processes. But I think it was - I believe - an error to begin the book with this material; because some readers who open and start reading at page one, will probably get no further. I would have placed this material in the middle of the volume; and probably relegated some of the repetition and tables to an optional appendix.   

The last section of the book, entitled The world, its lands, and their inhabitants - may have the broadest appeal to those whose interest is focused on Lord of the Rings. It consists of 100 pages of extra 'snippets' about all kinds of things. I was particularly pleased to learn more about Numenor (everyday life, reproductive life, ageing etc).

In general; this volume is (I think) the first to provide abundant new authorial material on what might be termed demographic, social and organizational aspects of Middle Earth (and the undying lands) - which are often stated to be neglected by Tolkien because they are omitted from Lord of the Rings. The Nature of Middle Earth proves that Tolkien had indeed considered such matters, often in considerable detail - albeit often after the publication of LotR. 

Overall, this is a book aimed at Tolkien aficionados such as myself; but for us it takes its place alongside John D Rateliff's two volume History of The Hobbit - valuably supplementary to the many earlier (and uniquely, filially, authoritative) volumes edited by Christopher Tolkien. 

What Numenor can teach us about the value of life and death

I am fascinated by the descriptions of Tolkien's Numenoran Men; and how one of their gifts was to know when it was that they should die. This evoked one of the most beautiful passages Tolkien ever wrote:

Then going to the House of the Kings in the Silent Street, Aragorn laid him down on the long bed that had been prepared for him. There he said farewell to Eldarion, and gave into his hands the winged crown of Gondor and the sceptre of Arnor, and then all left him save Arwen, and she stood alone by his bed. 

And for all her wisdom and lineage she could not forbear to plead with him to stay yet for a while. She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her. "Lady Undómiel," said Aragorn, "the hour is indeed hard, yet it was made even in that day when we met under the white birches in the garden of Elrond where none now walk. And on the hill of Cerin Amroth when we forsook both the Shadow and the Twilight this doom we accepted. Take counsel with yourself, beloved, and ask whether you would indeed have me wait until I wither and rail from my high seat unmanned and witless. Nay, lady, I am the last of the Númenoreans and the latest King of the Elder Days; and to me has been given not only a span thrice that of Men of Middle-earth, but also the grace to go at my will, and give back the gift. Now, therefore, I will sleep. 

"I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men." 

"Nay, dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear the hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Númenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive." 

"So it seems," he said. "But let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!"

The Numenoreans had been gifted (by the Valar, the gods) with a lifespan several-fold greater than ordinary Men; and they were also immune to both illness and the degenerations of ageing. So they would (unless killed) remains healthy and vigorous until they became aware that their proper lifespan was ended; and at this recognition they - willingly, by choice - ought-to embrace death, as did Aragorn. 

If they rejected death, the Numenoerans could indeed live about a decade longer; but at the cost of rapid decline in physical health and the onset of what we would term dementia. But more significantly, by clinging to life, they had succumbed to spiritual corruption. And this corruption itself shortened their life span.  

It was when the Numenoreans, especially their Kings and Queens, began clinging to life; that the corruption of the race began to get a grip and to accelerate. Because this clinging represented their rejection of the divine will that Men (but not elves) should naturally die and their souls would then leave the circles of the world. 

I feel that there is a deep lesson here about life and death. Our life is of value, as a time of experience and learning, and for so long as this life continues it is ordained by God. Death is inevitable for men - however, the inevitability can be accepted or rebelled-against; can be embraced at the proper time, or delayed for a while. 

There will come a time when we know that Christians ought to surrender life willingly - and more with faith and hope onto the next stage. 

But - for this choice to be a real choice, it is possible to refuse to die now and move-on - and it is possible that death can be delayed. There is no guarantee of successful delaying of death, for those who choose that path - but the spiritual crux is whether we accept timely death, or whether we strive to delay it. 

We can either acknowledge that this mortal life has now fulfilled its divine purpose and that it is now best to undergo the transformations of death and resurrection... 

Or, we can refuse death, and remain alive for some while longer - but at the cost of physical and mental degeneration and spiritual corruption. 

In other words, we can - at death - align our-selves with God's purposes; or we can turn-away-from God's purposes and hold to our own.

 

When I talk of willing embrace of death at the right time, I mean more than a stoic acceptance of the inevitability of death; and more than the acceptance of death as the least-worst of alternatives - for someone worn-down by pain and weariness. In other words, the willing embrace of death means more than death as analgesia, sleep and rest. 

Death should go beyond mere passive acceptance to a voluntary and positive choice. When a Christian follows Jesus through death to resurrected life eternal; this is an active and conscious matter - which entails repentance (recognizing and discarding the sins that are incompatible with Heaven).   

The willing embrace of death was modelled by Jesus in the Gospel accounts; but it follows naturally from a desire for salvation - which can only come via death.  

It may be of vital importance to know the point at which the price of life becomes too great. 

A Man may find himself confronted with the possibility of 'clinging to life' at the cost of doing, saying or thinking some-thing that he knows to be a deep and damning sin. At such a point; a Christian needs to be able to recognize that this is the time to die. 

Such a situation may become more frequent in the world as it has become. In this totalitarian world of surveillance and control, ruled by powers of evil; more and more Men are in a position analogous to the slave of a wicked master. 

Ultimately a slave may be compelled to do his master's will, or else die: there may be no other alternatives.

Therefore, we need to be prepared to die, prepared willingly to accept death; when what we are being asked to do is would destroy our own capacity for repentance. 

Each Man will know when this point is reached (God will make sure of this) - although he may, of course, choose to pretend that he does not know. 

Obedience and death-delayed; or refusal and death-now... 

The devil delights in presenting such a choice when he feels confident of the outcome; and he must surely be confident that most modern Men would do or destroy literally anything when they believe it may delay their own death - as the 2020 birdemic made crystal clear. 

If that choice comes to us, and when the price of obedience is damnation; a Christian needs to acknowledge the fact, and the irreversibility of the decision. To refuse martyrdom may be to embrace damnation.

It is as well to be prepared. The cost of wrong choices we can see depicted in the History of Numenor.   

The shamanic creativity of JRR Tolkien

Note: This is cross posted from Superversive Inklings

Tolkien's remarkable creative method has been elucidated by TA Shippey in his Road to Middle Earth; and amply confirmed by the evidence from the multiple volumes of The History of Middle Earth (HoME) edited by Christopher Tolkien. What happens is that Tolkien treats his 'first draft' as if it were an historical text of which he is a scholarly editor. So when Tolkien is revising a first draft, his approach is similar to that he would take when preparing (for example) an ‘edition’ of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Beowulf.

Thus, as Tolkien reads-again his own first draft, he is trying to understand what 'the author' (i.e. himself) 'meant', he is aware of the possibility of errors in transcription, or distortions that may have occurred during the steps of historical transmission. He is also aware that 'the author' was writing from a position of incomplete knowledge, and was subject to bias.

This creative ‘method’ leads to some strange compositional occurrences. For example, in the HoME volume The Return of the Shadow (covering the writing of the first part of The Lord of the Rings - LotR) Tolkien wrote about the hobbits hiding from a horseman who stopped and sniffed the air. The original intention was that this was to be Gandalf, and the hobbits were hiding to give him a surprise 'ambush'. However, in the course of revision, the sniffing horseman became a 'Black Rider'; and the hobbits were hiding in fear of him. The core incident remained but its significance was inverted.

Furthermore; the nature and intention of the Black Riders was originally a mystery to Tolkien; only later, over the course of many revisions and as the story progressed, did these horsemen develop into the Ringwraiths, wearers of the Nine Rings, and the most powerful servants of Sauron.

This is a remarkable way of writing! It think it probable that most writers know what they mean in their first draft, and in the process of revising and re-drafting they try to get their expression closer to that known meaning. But Tolkien did the reverse: he generated the first draft, then looked at it as if that draft had been written by someone else, and he was trying to decide what it meant - and in this case eventually deciding that it meant something pretty close to the opposite of the original meaning: with hostile Nazgul substituting for friendly wizard; hiding from fear replacing joke ambush.

In other words, Tolkien's ‘original intention’ counted for very little, but could be - and was, massively reinterpreted by editorial decisions. The specifics of the incident (rider, sniffing, concealed hobbits) stayed the same; but the interpretation of the incident was radically altered. This pattern is often seen throughout the HoME - specific details are retained, while the meaning of these is transformed throughout the process of revision. By contrast, I suspect that most authors maintain the interpretation of incidents throughout revisions, but change the specific details.

This sequence corresponds to the transmission of texts through history - specific and striking incidents tend to be remembered and preserved - while (due to historical changes in culture, assumptions, background knowledge etc) these incidents get hugely re-interpreted in 'anachronistic' ways. So the incident may stay the same, but its meaning may be reversed.

I have seen this with a couple of folk tales during my life. When I was a child King Midas - everything he touched turned to gold - was regarded as a cautionary tale of greed leading to (potential) death, since food and drink were also turned to metal. But nowadays, the Midas Touch is regarded as something desirable - it means the ability always to make money in every situation. Presumably the benefits of wealth are now regarded as greater than mere life!

"Shooting yourself in the foot" used to mean a deliberate act of self-wounding with the aim of being invalided away from the front line of a war. Someone shot themselves in the foot on purpose, but pretended it was an accident. But it now means almost the reverse - an accidentally self-inflicted wound; such as when a politician makes a ‘gaffe’ during a press conference, and ends-up being sacked.

In both cases a striking image (the gold-transforming touch, the firearm discharged at the boot) is preserved, but its meaning is transformed.

Tolkien's compositional technique recognizes this process - and Tolkien approached his first draft of composition as if the draft were the end product of this type of misinterpretation or distortion. So, his draft containing the striking detail of the ‘sniffing rider'; but it is as if Tolkien assumed that the meaning of the detail had been misunderstood by one or more of the copyists and clerks via whom the text had been transmitted to Tolkien.

But why did Tolkien write in this way? I think there are two reasons. The first is that he was by profession a philologist: a scholarly editor, a man concerned with old and fragmentary and distorted texts - and he brought this skill and perspective to his fictional writing.

But secondly it relates to Tolkien's creative processes. This relates to the key question – ignored so far: How did Tolkien arrive at his first draft? And this is where the ‘shaman’ aspect of the title comes in. Because Tolkien’s way of arriving at a first draft could be described as 'shamanic'.

Shaman is a term used to describe spiritual practitioners of tribal people that do their work in a state of altered consciousness – such as trances, fasting, frenzies or lucid dreaming. By calling Tolkien shamanic; I mean that much of Tolkien's primary, first-draft creative, imaginative work was done in a state of altered consciousness – either an awake 'trance' state or using ideas from exceptionally clear and memorable (sometimes recurrent) dreams. The altered state generated the first draft; then re-writing was done in normal everyday ‘clear consciousness’, with his full critical faculties brought to bear.

Clues to this being Tolkien’s practice are scattered throughout his biographical material; but I became aware of it particularly when studying the disguised autobiographical aspects of The Notion Club Papers (in Volume 9 of HoME, Sauron Defeated). There are descriptions of lucid dreams, detailed visions of history, overpowering imagination, hallucinations of mysterious languages, ghosts, psychometry (knowing the history of an object by touching it) and many other altered states of consciousness and ‘paranormal’ experiences. The supporting notes by Christopher Tolkien link several of these fictional descriptions to JRRT’s real life incidents and experiences.

This combination of first creating a dreamlike first draft, then using it as the basis for scholarly and meticulous revisions, is not unusual among creative people, perhaps especially poets. Robert Graves wrote about the ‘poetic trance’ a great deal; and Graves’s ideas of proleptic (historical) and analeptic (predictive) thinking were what enabled him to ‘inhabit’ imaginatively, and he would say in reality, another time and place: that is, to be an inspired prophet.

The first draft - if it truly has been inspired - is interpreted as coming from elsewhere, beyond the mind of the artist; for instance coming from divine sources, from 'the muse', or perhaps from the creative/ collective unconscious. At any rate, the job of the alert and conscious mind of the artist is to 'make sense' of this inspired material without destroying the bloom or freshness deriving from its primary source. In this respect, and others, Tolkien wrote more like a poet than a novelist.

This is, I believe, the psychological basis of the fact (often cited) that Tolkien did not see himself as inventing, rather as discovering. He was not consciously inventing his first drafts but rather 'transcribing' material which came to him during altered states of consciousness, by a process of inspiration which was not under his control. When revising this primary material, if he found that key evidence was missing, he could try and interpolate it like a historian by extrapolation from other evidence, linking between the inspired material; or he could await further poetic inspiration to be validated by intuition. Sometimes he did one, sometimes the other.

This interpretation is also consistent with Tolkien's oft-stated remark that the essence of his Legendarium originally came from the languages he had made – what became called Quenya and Sindarin. I think he meant that words were often primary data, attained in an intuitive trance state; and these words required to be understood. This is where his professional philology and his spare-time creative writing fused.

For example, Tolkien came across the Anglo Saxon word Earendil in a poem called Crist. Then, over the decades as Tolkien's Legendarium evolved, the meaning of Earendil (the myth behind the word) gradually changed – as Tolkien ‘learned’ about the history of Middle Earth - but the same word remained (although subtly re-spelled; since philologists are .

Or, if we read the early Lost Tales (written during the First World war) and through the drafts of the Silmarillion over the next forty plus years, we can observe that the meaning of the Beren and Luthien story changed. For instance, Beren was originally an elf; but later the special significance of the story was that Beren was the first mortal Man to marry, and have children, with an immortal elf-maia. Yet the key ‘first draft’ detail of Luthien dancing for Beren among the flowers in the woods remained constant – and this was based on a real life magical experience of Tolkien with his wife. In this case; the shamanic state of altered consciousness was, apparently, a shared one.

A further well known example is Tolkien’s recurrent ‘Atlantis’ dream of a great green wave, rolling over the land – a dream which independently also occurred for his son Michael. This primary image, from an altered conscious state; was eventually embedded into the complex Silmarillion narrative of Numenor and its downfall, and the dream itself was given to Faramir in The Lord of the Rings – as well as being discussed by the Inklings-like club members in the (unfinished) Notion Club Papers

Tolkien regarded key words, images and story elements that came to him in ‘shamanic’ states as his primary source material. The interpretation of these emotionally-charged, entities might change, might even reverse; but the entity should be kept the same throughout all these changes, because that element was what had been 'given' to Tolkien during the altered consciousness of his most profound creative states.

Given to Tolkien by whom? …it might be asked. Well, insofar as these primary story elements were true and good; Tolkien would have assumed that they came as a gift of God. And this, I think, was the deep reason that such story elements absolutely needed to be preserved throughout even decades of revisions.

The Once and Future Charles Williams

The Once and Future Charles Williams

Bruce G Charlton

Journal of Inklings Studies. 2016; 6 (1): 151-6

Like most people, I came to Charles Williams via my interest in J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis; specifically, via Humphrey Carpenter's group biography The Inklings (1979).

The problem is that none of Williams's works is a real masterpiece, or at least not generally regarded as such; and all of the best work is difficult. The big question, then, is: what is the argument for a continuing engagement with Williams?

Grevel Lindop’s main reason is that he regards Williams’s last two collections, Taliessin through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, as remarkable works, and Williams as a great poet. I myself think Taliessin over-edited and artificially-contrived (betraying its origins as a line-by-line collaboration with the poet Anne Ridler); and while I find Summer Stars to be more fluent and effective, I don't very much like it.

My own reason for a continued interest in Williams, rather, has been his status as a Christian. He was, indeed, one of the four main literary Christians of the mid-twentieth century Anglican revival, which was the most recent significant Christian revival in England. The others were C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and Dorothy L. Sayers, who were all friends and strong admirers of Williams – to whom might be added W.H. Auden as a less direct and more ‘last minute’ Christian figure (he converted late in 1940 and never took a public apologetic and evangelical role).

Reading this biography, it becomes clear that whether one is interested in Williams primarily as a poet or primarily as a Christian turns out to make a very big difference, because Lindop reveals clearly and unambiguously, for the first time, the extent to which Christianity and poetry were at war in Williams's life - and in particular, the extent to which Christianity was sacrificed to poetry.

Before Lindop, it was generally known that Williams was adulterously in love with Phyllis Jones in his last two decades; that he also had warped sexualized interactions with Lois Lang-Sims during his wartime years in Oxford; and that there were other, rather imprecise, accounts of ritual magical-sadism with young female ‘disciples’. But the sheer extent and intensity of Williams's activities along these lines was never before explicit.

Before this new biography, I did not realize, for example, that CW had had intense love relationships with both his main early biographers, Anne Ridler and Alice Mary Hadfield. Furthermore, Lindop quotes extensively from the correspondence between CW and Phyllis Jones, and I never before realized how sexualized the relationship was.

Indeed, in my interpretation, it was primarily sexual, even though the sex was not consummated in the biological sense. The relationship strikes me as deeply maladaptive, in that it was apparently a case of mutual dependency. Both Williams and Jones were mostly unhappy, and frequently wretched, in the relationship; but neither could find the strength to break away. It was apparently addictive: Williams was addicted to the sexual frisson and seductive teasings of the young woman - she gave him energy; Phyllis was addicted to the attention and worship of the older, clever, creative man - he made her feel special.

To summarize the problem for those of us who primarily value Charles Williams the Christian, Lindop’s revelations make clear that Williams strategically used the role of confidante and spiritual adviser for young women to 'groom' them into gratifying his desire for ritualistic, petty sadism. He did this in order to become sexually excited, and then he channelled this excitement to write poetry. This was done, or attempted, time and again with multiple women.

In general, it seems the sadism was, as I said, petty – involving stuff like pinching and slapping palms, back, or buttocks with pencils and rulers. There was quite a bit of master-slave-type play-acting, including by letter and telephone; and an authoritarian / bullying element in his advising and teaching. In general, the record indicates that the young women did not much object to this, and most remained on good terms with him, often very good terms.

Of course there may well be others we don't know of - indeed I would expect that there would have been many young women who must have been appalled, frightened or disgusted at the turn of conversation from this previously kind and charming and spiritual man; women who immediately fled, and left no trace on the records. Nonetheless, whatever the young women felt personally about being sexually used as poetry-stimulants; there is no doubt that this kind of behaviour was dishonest, manipulative and categorically un-Christian.

The evidence presented by Lindop is consistent with Williams's assertion that he engaged in this ritual sadism with attractive young women mainly in order to write poetry. And for whatever reason, it apparently worked: it achieved its goal. Williams thought of it as a magical process, to do with the generation and transformation of sexual into creative energies.

So this was the Poetry versus Christianity trade-off to which I referred. In order to write poetry, or write better poetry, Williams deliberately, strategically, repeatedly behaved in an un-Christian manner. And this is, inevitably, potentially very significant for an evaluation of Charles Williams as both a public Christian teacher and a theologian.

At the same time, Williams had remarkable qualities as a man. Many regarded him as something like a saint - or if not, then someone of exceptional spiritual experiences and insights, and therefore capable of providing great help to many people, of whom Lewis, Eliot and Sayers are merely the best known. All this was what I first heard about Williams, and it remains true.

What of William’s role in the Inklings? Probably the mainstream understanding is of Williams as very much the third Inkling, far behind Lewis and Tolkien; or maybe the fourth, coming behind that oldest important collaborator of Lewis’s, but infrequent Inklings attender, Owen Barfield. Williams’s earlier biographers and memorialists have downplayed the significance of the Inklings for Williams himself, pointing out that he had completed most of his main work before 1939; and this is reinforced by Williams’ lack of attention to the meetings in his surviving wartime letters to his wife, and memories emanating from his older friends and disciples.

But on the other side of the coin there is considerable albeit indirect evidence that during the period between 1939 and William’s death in 1945, he was the spiritual and intellectual leader of the Inklings: the de facto ‘President’ of these informal meetings (with Jack Lewis as ‘Chairman’ and Warnie as ‘Secretary’).

In all regular groups of friends there is a dominant figure - one who is the main authority, the final court of appeal, who controls the discourse. And I think this is the role that Williams took over from Jack Lewis. In support of this idea, Warnie Lewis’s diary records Williams as the most regular attender at Inklings meetings (presumably after himself and Jack); Warnie says he knew Williams better than any other of the Inklings, and he was clearly central to the group.

After 1945, when the young John Wain attended Inklings meetings as an undergraduate, he said that the group had been permanently wounded by the death of Williams - which is further indirect evidence for Williams' key role.

But the first reason to believe this is that Williams was a dominant man: someone who (in his own distinctive way) dominated almost every human situation in which he found himself. On top of this, Williams was (1) the oldest of the regular Inklings; (2) by far the most published - the senior author among those present; (3) the best connected of the Inklings, with friends and colleagues among major and famous literary figures of the era; (4) a ‘metropolitan’ figure, prestigious in London intellectual circles - in this sense a wordly man, compared with the 'ivory towered' dons; (5) in effect, a ‘professional’ theologian, whose books were read, pondered, discussed, by academic theologians and eminent priests – Williams had for some time been invited to contribute essays, books, reviews and plays on theological matters.

And Williams was a successful poet, regarded at the time as one of the most important of that era. Tolkien and Lewis had both intended to be poets (first and foremost) in their early adulthood. Neither had succeeded; but Williams had.

Finally, when Jack Lewis and Tolkien first read William’s The Place of the Lion in 1936, it may have been the single most important catalyst for their later success as writers of ambitious, intellectually serious, adult fantasy; leading immediately to their embarking on what became Lewis’s Space Trilogy and Tolkien’s (unfinished and in his life unpublished) Lost Tales / Notion Club Papers (which was eventually absorbed into the Numenor aspects of The Lord of the Rings) – all of which works have clear Williams-esque influences.

Thus Williams’s membership of, and position in, the Inklings was something that had been pre-prepared for at least three years. So, if that was the past; then what is a probable and desirable future for Charles Williams’s reputation?

He could, of course, continue more or less as he has for the past half century – being invisible to the mainstream except as a minor Inkling; with a tiny, albeit prestigious and devoted, following as a poet and/or a Christian theologian. Indeed, if Williams continues to be remembered for his published books, I think this almost must be the case; since none of these have passed the test of posterity to become regarded as first rate of their kind.

But I can imagine a different and much more exciting future, which involves Charles Williams as a personality, a character; the lynch-pin around whom revolved the most significant intellectual figures of what was the last (and may be the final) significant Christian revival in Britain – a nation that was still ruler of the largest empire the world has yet seen.

This would regard Charles Williams as a phenomenon far bigger than his books; and in that respect of a similar nature as, although lesser stature than, Ben Jonson, Lord Byron, or Ezra Pound, all of whom (though their published work does not perhaps equal that of their greatest contemporaries) psychologically dominated their intellectual and literary circles.

Among people such as Eliot, Sayers and the Inklings, Williams was, I think, acknowledged as The Master: the final authority on the deepest matters: a living, breathing, inspiring, creative exponent of spiritual and mystical Christianity as it affected the modern world. And he achieved this, as I said, not mainly through his writing, but firstly by his teaching and secondly by his conversation: by personal interactions.

In other words, Charles Williams exerted his most important role by charisma: this is where the essence of Charles Williams’s influence resided. Consequently, the most hopeful future for Charles Williams – the future I would most like to see - is, I believe, in works of creative imagination.

I can imagine Williams as the semi-fictional protagonist of novels, ‘biopic’ movies, television series or some other narrative art. Done well, such media offer the best and only possibility of re-capturing the charisma, the full impact and fascination, of Charles Williams; and perhaps even restoring him to a central position in the intellectual and spiritual life of those wartime years of Christian revival.

It is this future which Lindop’s biography has made possible. The core written legacy of those vital Inklings years certainly belongs to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien; but we now have enough facts, hints, and clues to recreate a dynamic picture of the essential facilitator: Charles Walter Stansby Williams.

Heaven and the Human Condition in ‘The Marring of Men’ (‘The debate of Finrod and Andreth)

By Bruce G Charlton. The Chronicle of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society, 2008; Vol 5, Issue 3: 20-29

The Argument from Desire

One of C.S. Lewis’s most famous arguments in support of Christianity is that the instinctive but otherworldly yearning emotion of ‘joy’ (in German, Sehnsucht) implies that there exists some means of satisfying this urge; otherwise humans would not experience it.

This is sometimes termed the ‘argument from desire’. In brief, it states that because humans profoundly and spontaneously desire something not of this world, the experience suggests the reality of the supernatural. Lewis used the argument in many of his best known Christian writings. In Mere Christianity, he argues that ‘[i]f I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world’. In ‘The Weight of Glory’, he notes that ‘we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy’. And in the autobiographical Surprised by Joy, he comments that ‘[i]n a sense, the central story of [his] life is about nothing else’.

But Lewis is not the only among his friends to formulate an argument from desire. Perhaps the idea’s most powerful and compelling exposition can be found in a little-known and recently-published (1993) story by Lewis’ great friend J.R.R. Tolkien; a tale which was written in about 1959 and appears in the middle of Volume X of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien and published in twelve volumes between 1983 and 1996 [1]. Since The History of Middle-earth is read only by Tolkien scholars and enthusiasts, this wonderful dialogue is at present little known or discussed.

It is, of course, no coincidence that both Lewis and Tolkien should write of the argument from desire, since Lewis’s own conversion to Christianity was shaped by this argument: both Tolkien and Hugo Dyson used it in the famous late night conversation of September 1929 on Addison’s Walk in Magdalen College – an event which was recorded by both Lewis and Tolkien. Tolkien’s epistolary poem ‘Mythopoeia’ (addressed to Lewis) outflanks the counter-argument that this is mere wishful thinking or day-dreaming by asking the question: ‘Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream?’ And Tolkien used the argument again in a letter to his son Christopher dated 30 January 1945, in reference to the human yearning for the Garden of Eden:

…certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’ [2].

But in ‘The Marring of Men’, Tolkien makes the argument from desire the basis of a fiction – and, as so often, Tolkien’s most personal concerns are most powerfully expressed in the terms of the mythic ‘secondary world’ he created.

‘The Marring of Men’

Tolkien’s story was never formally named – but probably the most compelling of its alternative titles was ‘The Marring of Men’ which I have adopted here . In the History of Middle-earth, the story is given its Elven name, ‘Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’, translated as ‘The Debate of Finrod and Andreth’. The text of J.R.R. Tolkien’s story is about twenty pages long, with a further forty pages of notes and supplementary material compiled from other writings by J.R.R. Tolkien and notes by Christopher Tolkien.

‘The Marring of Men’ is part of the Silmarillion body of texts, which were composed over many decades, from Tolkien’s young adulthood during World War I right up until his death in 1973. This body of texts is sometimes referred to in its totality as Tolkien’s ‘Legendarium’, to distinguish it from the single volume Silmarillion selected by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, and published in 1978.

The situation in ‘The Marring of Men’ is that of a conversation between Andreth, a mortal human woman, and Finrod Felagund, an immortal Noldo, a ‘High’ Elf. The explicit subject of their conversation is the nature and meaning of mortality, and its implications for the human condition – a subject which is probably the most fundamental of all religious topics, and which is certainly the single main interest and underlying theme of most of Tolkien’s fiction, including The Lord of the Rings. The implicit subject of the conversation is original sin and the fallen nature of Man – which is why the title ‘The Marring of Men’ seems appropriate.

But the conversation between Andreth and Finrod is not simply an abstract philosophical debate: It is fuelled both by world events and by personal experiences. The protagonists are aware of the imminent prospect of Middle-earth being irrevocably overrun and permanently destroyed by Morgoth. (The selfishness and assertive pride of Morgoth, the corrupt Vala or ‘fallen angel’ analogous to the Christian devil, are the primary origin of evil in Tolkien’s world.)

The personal element comes from the fact that the now middle-aged woman Andreth had fallen mutually in love with Finrod’s brother Aegnor in her youth, and had wished to marry the immortal Elf; but she was ultimately rejected by the Elf, who left to follow the call of duty and fight in the (believed hopeless) wars against Morgoth. It emerges during the conversation that Aegnor’s most compelling reason for rejecting Andreth was that he did not want love to turn to pity at her advancing age, infirmity and ultimate mortality – but (in Elven fashion) wished to preserve a memory of perfect love unstained by pity.

The ‘marring’ referred to in the title is mortality. The first question is whether Men were created mortal, or whether Men were originally immortal but lapsed into mortality due to some event analogous to original sin.

Immortal Elves and Mortal Men

While mortality is a universal feature of the human condition as we know it in the primary world, the Elven presence in Tolkien’s secondary world brings to this debate a contrast unavailable in human history. Tolkien asks in which ways the issue of mortality would be sharpened and made inescapable if mortal Men found themselves living alongside immortal Elves – creatures who, while they can be killed, do not die of age or sickness, and, if killed, can be reincarnated or remain as spirits within the world.

Tolkien’s Elves are fundamentally the same species as Men – both are human in the biological sense that Men and Elves can intermarry and reproduce to have viable offspring (who are then offered the choice whether to become immortal Elves or mortal Men). Elves are also religious kin to Men in that both are ‘children’ of the one God (Elves having been created first). But Elves seem, at the time of this story, to be superior to Men, in that Elves are immortal in the sense defined above. Elves do not suffer illness; they are more intelligent (‘wise’) than men, more beautiful, more knowledgeable and more artistic; Elves also have a much more vivid, lasting and accurate memory than Men.

The question arises in the secondary world: If Elves are immortal and generally superior in abilities, what is the function of Men? Why did Eru (the ‘One’ God) create mortal Men at all, when he had already created immortal Elves? Implicitly, Tolkien is also asking the primary world question why God created mortal and imperfect Men when he could have created more perfect humans – like the immortal Elves?

Tolkien’s answer is subtle and indirect, but seems to be related to the single key area in which the greatest mortal Men are superior to Elves: courage. Most of the ‘heroes’ in Tolkien’s world, those who have changed the direction of history, are mortal Men (or indeed Hobbits, who are close kin to mortal Men); and there seems to be a kind of courage possible for mortals which is either impossible for, or at least much rarer among, Elves. Elves have (especially as they grow older) a tendency to despondency, detachment and the avoidance of confrontation. On a related note, Tolkien hints that Men are free in a way in which Elves are not, and that this freedom is integral to the ultimate purpose of Men in Tolkien’s world – and by implication also in the real world.

C.S. Lewis once stated (albeit from the pen of a fictional devil!) that courage was the fundamental human virtue, because it underpinned all other virtues: Without courage other virtues would be abandoned as soon as this became expedient:

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky." [3]

At any rate, courage seems to be one virtue in which the best of Tolkien’s mortal Men seem to excel.

The Fall of Men

The first question is whether Tolkien’s One God ‘Eru’ originally created immortal Men, who had been ‘marred’ and made mortal by the time of Andreth (and, by implication, our time). This is Andreth’s first view – the mortal woman suspects that Men were meant to be immortal but have been punished with mortality:

‘[T]he Wise among men say: “We were not made for death, nor born ever to die. Death was imposed upon us.” And behold! the fear of it is with us always, and we flee from it ever as the hart from the hunter’ [4].

‘We may have been mortal when first we met the Elves far away, or maybe we were not.... But already we had our lore, and needed none from the Elves: we knew that in our beginning we had been born never to die. And by that, my lord, we meant: born to life everlasting, without any shadow of an end’ [5].

Naturally, this prompts the Christian reader to think of parallels with the Fall of Man and original sin; and this analogy is clearly intended by Tolkien.

Andreth talks of a rumour she has heard from the wise men and women among her ancestors, that perhaps in the past Men committed a terrible but undefined act which was the cause of this marring. The implication, never made fully clear, is that Men in their freedom may have deviated from their original role as conceived by ‘the One’, and been corrupted or intimidated into worshipping Morgoth, or at least into doing his will and in some way serving his purposes. This, it is suggested, may be the cause of Men’s mortality as such, along with a progressive shortening of their lifespan and a permanent dissatisfaction and alienation from the world they inhabit and even their own bodies. In the dialogue, Finrod asks:

‘[W]hat did ye do, ye men, long ago in the dark? How did ye anger Eru?... Will you not say what you know or have heard?’

‘I will not’, said Andreth. ‘We do not speak of this to those of other race. But indeed the Wise are uncertain and speak with contrary voices; for whatever happened long ago, we have fled from it; we have tried to forget, and so long we have tried that now we cannot remember any time when we were not as we are’ [6].

Men’s Lifespan

By contrast to their uncertainty about the origin of mortality, the decline in mortal lifespan caused by Morgoth’s corruption of the world seems certain to both Andreth and Finrod. Later in Tolkien’s history, those Men who help defeat Morgoth are rewarded with a lifespan of about three times Men’s usual maximum, i.e. about 300 years; greater strength, intelligence and height; and a safe island off the coast of Middle-earth on which to dwell (Numenor, Tolkien’s Atlantis).

It seems possible that the enhancements of ‘Numenorean’ Men are simply a restoration of the original condition of Men. Or it may be that these enhancements are compensations of Elvenness, rendering Men more Elven (though still mortal), perhaps with the ultimate aim of a unification of Elves and Men. At any rate, the majority of Numenoreans eventually succumb to corruption and evil, and are destroyed by Eru in a massive reshaping of the world, which drowns the island and the vast Numenorian navy that is landing on the shores of the undying lands.

For Tolkien, it is a characteristic sin of Men to cling to life, and it is this clinging which corrupts the mortal but long-lived Numenoreans who try to invade the undying lands – either in the mistaken belief that they will become immortal by dwelling there, or with the intention to compel the Valar to grant them immortal life.

While Men are characteristically tempted to elude mortality – to stop change in themselves – the almost-unchanging Elves are tempted to try to stop change in the world – to embalm beauty in perfection. This Elven sin is related to the first tragedy of the Silmarillion, when ultimate beauty – the light of the primordial trees – is captured in three jewels; and it later leads to the creation of the Rings of Power, which are able to slow time almost to a stop, and thereby to arrest the pollution and wearing-down of Middle-earth.

As well as having an increased lifespan, Numenoreans surrender their lives voluntarily at the appropriate time, and before suffering the extreme degenerative changes of age. This voluntary death (or transition) at the end of a long life is described in the most moving of the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, when Aragorn (the last true Numenorean) yields his life at will to move on to another world. His wife Arwen pleads with him to hold on to life for a while longer to keep her company in this world; however Aragorn kindly but firmly refuses her request:

‘Let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!’ [7]

Arwen’s fate is tragic, because she is one of the ‘half-elven’ who may choose whether to become Man or Elf; she chooses to become mortal in order to marry Aragorn and share his fate. However, her resolve to accept mortality at the proper time is undermined by her ‘lack of faith’ in Man’s destiny of life after death. In the appendix, she is portrayed as regretting becoming a mortal instead of an Elf; and as having succumbed to the sin of clinging to mortal life rather than accepting mortality and trusting that there is life after death.

"…and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter than comes without a star." [8]

The half-elven Arwen has failed to embrace the mortal need for courage to underpin all other virtues; and one possible interpretation of this passage is that this has consequences for her fate in the next world.

At Home in the World, or Exiled?

For Tolkien (and Lewis), the sense of exile is a ‘desire’ which implies the possibility of its gratification; in other words, it reflects the fact that Men have indeed been ‘exiled’ from somewhere other than this world.

Finrod makes clear that Elves, by contrast, feel fully at home in the world to which they are tied:

‘Each of our kindreds perceives Arda differently, and appraises its beauties in different mode and degree. How shall I say it? To me the difference seems like that between one who visits a strange country, and abides there a while (but need not), and one who has lived in that land always (and must)’. [9]

‘Were you and I to go together to your ancient homes east away I should recognize the things there as part of my home, but I should see in your eyes the same wonder and comparison as I see in the eyes of Men in Beleriand who were born here’. [10]

Elves therefore care for the world more than Men, and do not exploit nature as Men do, but nurture and enhance the world. And indeed Elves are not truly immortal, since when the world eventually ends, they will die; and to Finrod it seems likely that this death will mean utter annihilation:

"You see us...still in the first ages of being, and the end is far off.... But the end will come. That we all know. And then we must die; we must perish utterly, it seems, because we belong to Arda (in [body] and in [spirit]). And beyond that what? The going out to no return, as you say; the uttermost end, the irremediable loss?" [11]

Partly because of this prospect, the almost-unchanging Elves become increasingly grieved by the ravages of time upon the world, and cumulatively overcome by weariness with their extended lives. Hence the characteristically Elven temptation to try to stop time, to arrest change.

By contrast, Men seem to Finrod like ‘guests’, always comparing the actual world of Middle-earth to some other situation. This opens up the question of Tolkien’s version of ‘the argument from desire’. Finrod thinks that Men have an inborn, instinctive knowledge of another and better world. Hence, he thinks that they never were immortal, but have always known death as a transition to another, more perfect world – not as the prospect of annihilation which Elves face. Thus, he considers the possibility that Men’s ‘mortality’ is ultimately preferable to Elven ‘immortality’.

But even in this world Finrod suspects that the destiny of Men may eventually be higher than that of Elves. He acknowledges that at the time of his debate with Andreth the Elves are the superior race in most respects; but he can envisage a time when mortal Men will attain leadership, and the Elves will be valued mainly for the scholarly and artistic abilities fostered by their more accurate and vivid memories. This projected role of Men will be related to the healing of the world from the evil that was permeated through it by Morgoth.

One possible interpretation of this is that Elves cannot heal the marred world because they are tied to, part of, that world; but that mortal Men may be able to heal it because, although they themselves share the marring of the world, they are ultimately free from that world through death.

Tolkien’s Vision of Heaven

Building on hints by Andreth, Finrod intuits that if things had gone according to Eru’s original plan, there would have been no need for Men. The first-born, immortal Elves would have been the best inhabitants and custodians of an unmarred world, because their very existence was tied to it.

But since the demiurgic Morgoth infused creation with evil at a very early stage, Eru made a second race of mortals – Men – who lived in the world for a while, then passed on to another condition. Because mortals were not tied to the world, they had the freedom to act upon the world in a way that Elves did not. This freedom of Men could be misused to exploit the world short-sightedly; but it could also be used to heal the world, to the benefit of both mortals and immortals alike.

[Finrod]: ‘This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the marring of Arda’.

Indeed, Finrod perceives that to clarify this insight may be the main reason for their discussion: so that Andreth may learn the meaning of mortality from Finrod, and pass this knowledge on to other Men, to save them from despair and encourage them in hope.

[Finrod]: ‘Maybe it was ordained that we [Elves], and you [Men], ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news to one another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you; ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds’. [12]

Andreth suggests that Eru himself may intervene for this hope.

[Andreth]: How or when shall healing come?…To such questions only those of the Old Hope (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.… [T]hey say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end’.[13]

Finrod cannot at first understand how this could be, and Andreth herself seems to regard it as highly implausible – a wishful dream. But on reflection, Finrod argues:

‘Eru will surely not suffer [Morgoth] to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than [Morgoth] save Eru only. Therefore, Eru, if he will not relinquish His work to [Morgoth], who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him’. [14]

The Christian parallels are obvious. Indeed, ‘The Marring of Men’ can be seen as part of Tolkien’s lifelong endeavour to make his legendarium (originally conceptualized as a ‘mythology for England’) broadly compatible with known human history, particularly Christian history [15].

Andreth’s hints inspire Finrod to a vision which offers ultimate hope to the immortal but finite Elves as well as to mortal Men:

‘Suddenly I beheld a vision of Arda Remade; and there the [High Elves] completed but not ended could abide in the present forever, and there could walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps’.

‘We should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils. We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones’. [16]

This, then, is Tolkien’s vision of Heaven, pictured in the context of Arda, his sub-created world.

Myth and reality

The conversation of Andreth and Finrod occurs during a lull before the storm of war breaks upon Middle-earth; and Finrod foresees that the next stage of war will claim the life of his brother Elf Aegnor, whom the mortal woman Andreth loved in her youth and loves still. The fragment ends with Finrod bidding Andreth farewell by reaffirming, ‘you are not for Arda. Whither you go you may find light. Await us there, my brother – and me’. Andreth’s destiny lies beyond the world, and Finrod dares to hope that this is true for the Elves also.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, loss or transmission of knowledge is always a matter of concern. The message we take away from ‘the Marring of Men’ is hopeful. We are called to infer that this conversation has ‘come down’ to us today: that it was remembered, recorded, and has survived the vicissitudes of history, possibly because we modern readers need or are meant to know this.

Just as Morgoth’s marring of the World and of Men is analogous to the Christian account of the Fall of Satan and of original sin, Finrod and Andreth’s intuitions and hopes, Tolkien implies, were vindicated in real history by the coming of Jesus Christ. And Tolkien’s sub-creative vision of heaven, as explicated by Finrod, is meant to be taken seriously as an image of true heaven, in which Tolkien believed as a Christian. It is entirely characteristic that Tolkien’s heaven should have a place for Elves as well as for Men.

Tolkien’s story ‘The Marring of Men’ – though so brief a tale – seems to me one of his most beautiful and profound: a product of deep thought and visionary inspiration. It encapsulates nothing less than Tolkien’s mature understanding of the human condition and the meaning of life. Scholars and admirers of C.S. Lewis, who are unfamiliar with Tolkien’s legendarium, may find a way into his magnificent fantasy by reading it as complementary to Lewis’s great idea of ‘joy’ and his characteristic ‘argument from desire’: Tolkien engaged in developing and completing themes which underpin much of his old friend’s best and most serious work.


1. J.R.R. Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring: The History of Middle-Earth, Volume X, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2002[1993]), pp. 301-366.
2. Humphrey Carpenter (ed.), Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), p110.
3. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p148.
4. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 309.
5. Ibid., p. 314.
6. Ibid., p. 313.
7. The Return of the King (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 309.
8. Ibid., p. 309.
9. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 315.
10. Ibid., p. 316.
11. Ibid., p. 312.
12. Ibid., p. 323.
13. Ibid., p. 321.
14. Ibid., p. 322.
15. This is the subject of Verlyn Flieger’s book Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2005).
16. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 319.

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