Literary Giants Literary Catholics

by Joseph Pearce

  One is tempted to continue. The Christian applicability, like Tolkien’s proverbial “road”, goes ever on and on. I shall, however, desist from this seemingly endless tangent and, for the sake of brevity, return to the specific accusations leveled at me by Dr. Murphy. One particular statement of mine was, in Dr. Murphy’s estimation, “absurd even by Pearce’s standards”. My “absurd” statement reads as follows:

  Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings is a sublimely mystical Passion Play. The carrying of the Ring—the emblem of Sin—is the Carrying of the Cross . . . the Quest is, in fact, a Pilgrimage.

  “A pilgrimage”, counters Dr. Murphy, “is a journey to a sacred place; the quest leads to Mordor, hardly a shrine of holiness. . . . I fail to see how the quest can possibly be a carrying of the cross and a pilgrimage.” Although I shall (almost!) resist the temptation to suggest that this statement is “absurd even by Murphy’s standards”, I cannot help but be perplexed at how Dr. Murphy, who claims to be a Catholic, can fail to see how the carrying of the cross is not a pilgrimage. Doesn’t every Catholic believe that life itself is a pilgrimage during which we have to carry our crosses in imitation of Christ? Isn’t every Christian’s life a carrying of the cross and a pilgrimage? Is this not, in fact, the ultimate applicability of The Lord of the Rings—that we have to lose our life in order to gain it; that unless we die we cannot live; that we must all take up our cross and follow Him? And as for the assertion that “a pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place”, whereas “the quest leads to Mordor, hardly a shrine of holiness”, I might remind Dr. Murphy that all pilgrimages are designed to lead us to heaven, to our resurrection after death. The road to the Resurrection passes via the via dolorosa to Calvary. There is no other route. Thus the path to the Mystic West (Tolkien’s mystical vision of heaven inspired by the visionary voyages of Saint Brendan) passes via Mordor to Mount Doom. The parallels are obvious because they are intentional. Tolkien knew the way to heaven, and Frodo and Sam discovered it. The Way of Life is the Way of the Cross.

  Ultimately, Dr. Murphy’s assertion that “Tolkien was . . . creating a pre-Christian mythology” is nothing less, or more, than post-Christian revisionist nonsense.

  “Tolkien is more concerned with re-creating the darkness of a pre-Christian world than allowing his readers, Christian or otherwise, to feel safe”, opines Dr. Murphy. On the contrary, Tolkien is intent on showing the darkness of the real world—past, present and future—the darkness spread by the Shadow of Evil. Whether we call it the work of Satan or Sauron, the evil is the same. Sin, by any other name, would smell as foul. Neither is there anything “safe” about being a Christian. To lay down one’s life for one’s friends, to love one’s enemies, to choose poverty over worldly possessions—this is not the path that a coward would choose. The Way of the Cross is not an easy way, nor does it allow one to feel safe. The Christian, however, has no need of despair. His is the way of Theoden, not Denethor. In the final analysis, The Lord of the Rings is not about “the darkness of a pre-Christian world” but about the Christian Sun that never sets.

  “It is entirely understandable”, writes Dr. Murphy, “why neo-Pagans would find Tolkien’s work attractive and inspirational.” Yes indeed, but only because they have seen half the picture that Tolkien has painted and find that they like it. When they see the whole picture, they will like it even more!

  Tolkien wrote a story, continues Dr. Murphy, “in which hobbits live in holes, elves live in the woods, dragons live in caves, and the Creator lives beyond the boundaries of physical space.” Really? Is Dr. Murphy saying that God is outside of Creation? Is he implying that He has locked himself out of His own building, or that He has wandered off with indifference into the void? Perhaps He went for a walk and got lost. At any rate, Dr. Murphy’s singular view of the absence of the One in Middle Earth does not square with the all-too-obvious presence of providence in the unfolding of events. Neither, ironically, does it square with Dr. Murphy’s own words earlier in his article. Discussing Tolkien’s discussion of the climactic scene on Mount Doom, in which Tolkien had said that the key to understanding it was the words of the Lord’s Prayer (“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”), Dr. Murphy comments thus:

  To anyone acquainted with the book, the reason for this statement will be obvious. Frodo, acting on Gandalf’s advice, spared Gollum’s life when he could have killed him. Frodo thus forgives Gollum’s sins. At the end of his quest, Frodo is led into “temptation”, that is, he is placed in a situation where it is impossible for him to complete his quest by his own power. Gollum then, inadvertently, brings the quest to a successful resolution, destroying himself in the process. This escape from the moment of temptation was not planned by Frodo, it was a moment of grace, of divine intervention by the Creator, and defeat is suddenly turned to victory.

  Hallelujah! Dr. Murphy has seen how the words of the Lord’s Prayer are not only applicable but crucial to an understanding of the final moments of the Quest. Without Frodo’s act of mercy in sparing Gollum—if Frodo had sinned instead of acting virtuously—the Quest would have failed. Having done the will of the Creator, he is rewarded at the crucial moment with “a moment of grace, of divine intervention by the Creator, and defeat is suddenly turned into victory”. Hallelujah! But where does this leave Dr. Murphy’s assertion that the Creator is not to be found within His Creation but that, on the contrary, He “lives beyond the boundaries of physical space”?

  In patent contradiction of this assertion that defeat was turned into victory only by the intervention of God, Dr. Murphy still seems to insist that nontheistic readings of the book are valid: “I can accept that there are dragons and elves in the story, but not in the world, and still find useful applications. I do not see any reason why a non-theistic reader could not take the same attitude to Eru, the Creator.” This, from Tolkien’s Catholic perspective, would be to see the shadows but to deny the sun. It is to state, in perverse parody of Tolkien’s vision, that above all shadows there is no sun.

  “It seems to me”, continues Dr. Murphy, “that the way to find truth in myth is to find ways of applying that myth to reality.” I concur wholeheartedly, especially as this is possible only by making the allegorical connections, or applications, that Dr. Murphy had earlier sought to deny. I would, however, remind him that Tolkien believed, as presumably does he, that God is Reality. Without God, there is no reality. He is the Real Presence that makes all else possible. To seek reality without seeking Him is to seek nothing.

  Dr. Murphy concludes his “response” to my article by stating that “readers who want a deeper understanding of how Tolkien weaves his subtle magic would do better to turn to Shippey (1982) and Curry (1997) than Pearce (1998).” Speaking personally, I am a great admirer of both these studies of Tolkien offered as “alternatives” to mine. Shippey is a philologist who understands the linguistic dimension in Tolkien’s work better than any other living writer; Curry has much of interest to say about Tolkien’s challenge to the inanities of modernity. I would join Dr. Murphy in encouraging people to read both these studies. They are, however, not alternatives to mine. Neither writer is Christian, and neither pays enough attention to that aspect of The Lord of the Rings that its author thought the “most significant”, namely, its Catholic Christianity. I wrote my book precisely because there was no book paying due attention to that spiritual dimension that is of paramount importance in Middle Earth. Thankfully, however, my book has been followed by a veritable host of new Christian studies of The Lord of the Rings. I am aware of four new books published within the past year [2003], and I know of at least three more that are due to be published imminently. Readers really wishing to unravel the Christian mysteries in The Lord of the Rings have no need to read my book. There are plenty of others to choose from.

  I must conclude by returning to Dr. Murphy. He laments at the end of his own article that although “Tolkien is a subtle wri
ter, one might wish that Pearce shared some of this subtlety”. For once I find myself agreeing with Dr. Murphy. To have a mere modicum of Tolkien’s marvelous gifts would be a blessing indeed. Dr. Murphy then goes on to criticize my “obtuse” comparison of Chesterton with Tolkien. I might lack the subtlety of Tolkien but to be accused by Dr. Murphy of being as unsubtle as Chesterton is singularly gratifying. I thank him for his compliment. Indeed, I kiss the back of the hand that gave it to me.

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  THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

  The Successes and Failures of Tolkien on Film

  ADMIRERS OF TOLKIEN’S MYTHICAL EPIC, The Lord of the Rings, must have approached Peter Jackson’s film production with an uneasy trepidation, an anxiety born of a queasy combination of hope and fear. Would their hopes be realized and their fears be unfounded? Or, on the contrary, would their fears become reality and their hopes simply dissolve into disappointment and disillusionment? Would Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth by vindicated or vilified?

  The ultimate difficulty that Jackson had to overcome arises from the creative conflict between the media of literature and film. The former, at its best, probes psyche-deep in vivid detail and with an eloquent expressiveness that it is simply not possible to convey on film; the latter, at best, shimmers on the psychological surface, offering a vague impression of the truth and a suggestive sense of the spirit conveyed in its literary source of inspiration. Handicapped by the limitations of his chosen medium, there was never any prospect that Jackson’s film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the trilogy, could capture the richness and depth of Tolkien’s book. If this is so, it is clearly unfair to expect Jackson to achieve the impossible. Since we are dealing with an impressionistic medium, we should expect the film to convey only an impression of the truth and the spirit of Tolkien’s myth.

  Does the film achieve this? For the most part, and emphatically, it does. Jackson has resisted the temptation to take too many artistic liberties and has generally adhered closely to Tolkien’s text. He is not foolhardy enough to stray too far from a proven winning formula, though he does employ a degree of license that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. When it works, it is good, sometimes very good, occasionally masterful; when it fails to work, it is bad, sometimes very bad, and occasionally downright ugly!

  To begin with the good, Ian McKellen is an inspired Gandalf, exuding mystery and mysticism but also, and of equal importance, merging mirth with mysticism in equal proportion. Similarly, the characterization of the hobbits blends a keen sense of humility with an equally keen sense of humor. This blend of humor and humility becomes a paradoxically potent cocktail, the secret ingredient that makes the hobbits so lovable, both in Tolkien’s tale and in Jackson’s film. Viggo Mortensen is a convincingly mysterious Strider who metamorphoses into a suitably noble Aragorn. Sean Bean shines faultlessly as the faltering and all-too-fallible Boromir. A lesser-known Sean (Astin) shines—and perhaps even outshines Bean—as the lovable and huggable hobbit Samwise Gamgee.

  So much for the good. What of the bad?

  Unfortunately, the film fails miserably in its efforts to depict the elven characters. The elves, arguably the most sublime and most beautifully evocative of all Tolkien’s creations, are shown either as outrageously effeminate or as provocatively feminine. The male elves are as transexually impotent as their female counterparts are sexually charged. Elven “males”, as seen in Lothlorien, are so neutered that it is impossible to determine their sex. Are they supermodels or transvestites? Either way, they are unconvincing as elves.

  The choice of Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler to play, respectively, Galadriel and Arwen, could have worked well if the demands of cryptofeminist and sexist / sexual stereotyping had not dictated that their roles be beefed up. Galadriel, whom Tolkien likened to the Blessed Virgin, becomes a slightly disturbing (and disturbed) white witch, while Arwen teeters on the brink of becoming a reincarnation of Xena, the warrior princess. Seldom has the abyss between modern romance and its medieval namesake appeared so wide and unbridgeable. Whereas the medieval heroine remained chaste, her modern counterpart is merely chased. Tolkien, the medievalist and Anglo-Saxon scholar, would have been horrified at this deflowering of his maidens. And thus the mighty have fallen. The elves, in whose immortal eyes could be perceived glimpses of eternity, are reduced to a hybrid of Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson.

  If the good is really good, and the bad is really bad, the ugly is really ugly. The orcs are veritable masterpieces of ugliness. These relentlessly hateful servants of the Dark Lord, the products of infernally inspired genetic “modification”, are the visible, and visually violent, incarnation of evil. Genetically engineered in Tolkien’s imagination, via the perverse will of Sauron and Saruman, the orcs are brought sensationally and horrifically to life by computer-generated images and the ingenuity of makeup artists. The successful re-creation of the orcs in Jackson’s film represents the perfect marriage of ancient inspiration and modern technology.

  Ultimately, however, Tolkien’s book is not merely the product of ancient inspiration but of ancient wisdom. It is not the evil that can be seen in the eyes of an orc that is most hateful to the forces of good, but the invisible evil that lurks in the heart of each of us. The visualization of this invisible evil, and the equally potent visualization of good, was Jackson’s greatest challenge. On occasion, he succeeds triumphantly. The scene at the end of the film, when Frodo, weary and frightened, wishes that the Ring, his cross, could pass him by, is a moment of true brilliance. None but the most blind or most hard of heart could fail to perceive parallels with the Gospel. The scene, quite clearly, is the hobbit’s “Agony in the Garden”. There are other moments also. Aragorn’s reverence. Arwen’s “prayer” for grace. Gandalf’s wisdom and his hints that the hidden hand of providence is invisibly but omnipotently guiding events. Amid the good, the bad and the ugly, it is these magic, or miraculous, moments that represent the film’s saving grace.

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  WOULD TOLKIEN HAVE GIVEN PETER JACKSON’S MOVIE THE THUMBS-UP?

  AFTER THE RELEASE of the first of Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of Tolkien’s three-part epic, The Lord of the Rings, I acted as defending attorney in the “mock trial of Peter Jackson for the Desecration of The Lord of the Rings”. Great fun was had by all as we argued the relative merits of Jackson’s endeavors to bring Tolkien’s myth to the silver screen. On that occasion the jury found Jackson “not guilty”, indicating that the first of the movies had received a thumbs-up from the twelve good men and true.

  Much water has passed under the Brandywine Bridge since then. With the release of the third of the movies, we can finally judge Jackson’s efforts in their entirety. Does he still merit the thumbs-up?

  For my part, I am still happy to act as defending attorney I believe, on balance, that Jackson has done an admirable job. It is, however, not my judgment that is being sought. What would Tolkien himself have thought of the Jackson production of his myth? This is a much more interesting question and one that, in spite of the cautionary admonitions in my ear from the voice of my better judgment, I am foolhardy enough to try to answer.

  The first thing we need to understand is that Tolkien was a perfectionist. He worked on the great landscape of myth, upon which The Lord of the Rings is little more than a mere blip in the foreground, for more than half a century. At his death, the epic was still uncompleted. Such was his meticulous precision, such was his perfectionism, that a single lifetime was not enough to bring his creative vision to fruition. Something of the frustration that he felt at his inability to complete his magnum opus surfaced in his purgatorial allegory, “Leaf by Niggle”. The story’s chief protagonist, Niggle, had spent his life trying to paint a landscape but, at the time of death, had not finished even a solitary tree to his satisfaction. The only thing brought to perfection was a lone leaf. Perhaps, in Tolkien’s judgment, The Lord of the Rings was the lone leaf. To
illustrate the same point by switching metaphors, The Lord of the Rings was a sublime movement, of which the composer was justly proud, but the Great Music to which he aspired was elusive. The movement confirms the maestro’s immortality, but the symphony remained unfinished.

  All of this serves as a preamble to illustrate that Tolkien is not merely a hard act to follow but is also a hard judge to please. As such, Jackson was always going to be treading on perilous ground when he chose to follow in the master’s footprints. Whether his decision was the result of fearlessness or folly, or both, his bold ambition stumbles, inevitably, on the footfalls of the very footprints he follows. Quite simply, Tolkien would probably have judged Jackson in accordance with his own insurmountable perfectionism and, this being so, would have found the New Zealander wanting.