You're probably thinking:
1) Aren't you embarrassed? You're an adult, for fuck's sake. That's got things unironically called "hobbits" in it and ZERO SEX. It's clearly for children. It's fine if you like that I guess, or at least liked at as a child when you read it, but ranking it at the top of your list doesn't do anything to clue the person asking the question in to what level of cultural sophistication you're operating at. And what is the question "what is your favorite book?" between adults meant to do but begin a status contest wherein one wins when the other one has to pretend to have heard of the painfully obscure post-war Czechoslovakian existentialist proletarian folk-poetry the other one casually drops. The only acceptable counter is something in Quechua or immediate, humiliating surrender.
To which I reply: look, I spent a lot of time when I was a stay-at-home parent on a program of self-improvement through literature, alternating classics from the Western Canon with German philosophy and/or (to save my brain from cracking) Terry Pratchett Discworld novels. By the time I got to Gravity's Rainbow,* I realized the only actual outcome of such a narrowly defined course of action was going to be a defensive middle-class snobbishness, where I hold my arsenal of conquered tomes in reserve, to be released in violent flurries at the types of dinner parties or post-work semi-professional social gatherings where I already hate everyone there.
2) That can't be your favorite book when it's three books, not one. Well, the joke's on you Mr. I-Had-Sex-In-High-School, because every nerd knows it's actually SIX books collected in three volumes. Plus appendices! Does that information make it fit the criteria for "favorite book" better or worse? Arguably the latter, but until they invent two-way real-time blog-response voice technology, I can't hear any of your arguablies, so I'm just going to pretend there are no objections and move on.
I'm not just a fantasy nerd, I'm also a sports nerd, which brings me to the terrible cliche: to be the champ, you have to beat the champ. I've read a lot of books between the summer of sixth grade (when I read Lord of the Rings) and now, and I just haven't come across anything I liked more. Now, it's likely cheating as LotR got me at a time when the only real competition it had for my reading attention were X-Men comics and the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. Getting through something that dense (I mean physically), with its arch English-ness and archaic English, both supported by a bedrock of utterly alien Scandinavian literary and folk storytelling tradition, brought with it a sense of accomplishment I haven't been able to match since, especially since I actually enjoyed it. Maybe that is, again, more cheating as the gap between the books targeted at people my age at the time and LotR was always going to be wider than any other readerly achievement I'd arrive at just by dint of the stupefying totality of my naivete, but that's not LotR's fault.
I told a lie before, though: I'm not a fantasy nerd. Not really. I've read some, sure, but all modern fantasy flows from the source of Tolkien, all fading echoes of one shouted voice. My adoration for Terry Pratchett isn't a secret, but that's more straight satire than fantasy, though I'm sure the late Sir Terry would object. All I know is what I found in Discworld when I went looking. Mostly puns. But good ones.
The fact that LotR holds up when fantasy holds no particular sway on me I think says something. Probably that I was right before to suspect my own snobbishness.
The best thing about it is that the more I consider it, the more I like it. Plenty of things I read when I was younger fade in my estimation as I discover things I simply enjoy more or other things that put that first thing into a context that no longer seems as flattering. If you can get past the names (of people and places) and the preciousness of the language (both English and invented) and the Manichean absolutes of the characters,** overall, it's a very Catholic story about hope. The "good" characters are able to recognize and (most importantly) hold onto it. Only Sauron is actually evil. Every other character either soldiers on despite the odds and the evidence before his/her eyes or succumbs to despair and becomes a servant of actual evil. Unlike the movies, Saruman sees no way to resist and so turns to the tools of the enemy to meet darkness with darkness. Denethor goes mad because he has a seeing stone that robs him of his hope, driving him to suicide. As a fosterling among the Elves of Rivendell, Aragon is literally called Hope. The Nazguls' superpower is to drive those nearby to thoughts of despair, free of warmth and hope. Even Frodo ultimately fails because, right at the end, before they walk into the mountain, he tells Sam he's lost the ability to hope. And then he decides, logically, that he's going to become a hobbit dark lord, only to have his plans dashed by a greedy junkie frog-weasel who gave up on that bullshit like a thousand years ago.
And only two characters who give in to despair are redeemed: Theoden (restored by Gandalf, not from being literally possessed like he was in the movie, but corrupted to paralysis being convinced of his own impotence) and Eowyn (who isn't cowed by the Lord of the Nazgul-actually laughs at him-because he doesn't realize she's already way ahead of him on her suicidal death-wish mission, again unlike the movie). The only thing those two ever achieve is to totally save the day.
It's a Catholic idea that despair is a mortal sin. When they say it, I think they mean despairing of God's love and acceptance*** or even of His existence at all. Despair is the handmaiden of Wallowing, which is all unrecoverable spilt action. There's plenty of awful worse than my (or your, probably) awful and plenty of those people are out there still doing shit. Some people find this inspiring, but the right response is probably embarrassment. And if that isn't a motivation to fix something, the only things left south of that are either cash payments or rehab.
This is not a Donald Trump post. I did it! Well, right until this last line...
*Which I actually finished. Less a sign of intellectual prowess or discipline and more just proof of the depth of my own masochistic self-loathing.
**These are things people site as stumbling blocks to enjoying Tolkien. I went on to study medieval and early modern British history. I did OK with those parts of it.
***Hard to do as these are pretend things.
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2 comments:
Lordy, Pops. I’ve tried at least 3 times to get through that damn trilogy (sextalogy?), to no avail. Your description makes me want to try again. Well, and this:
In the nerd’s version of a mid-life crisis, I recently Googled the 200 books EVERYONE MUST READ. Of Human Bondage and everything ever written by Dickens are checked off the list. In the midst of Rebecca. Those Brits sure can make an everyday social situation mortifying in the extreme. No Orcs necessary.
Look it's certainly not for everyone. It skews to a specific kind of nerd-dom. I can see how it might make anyone not operating on that particular frequency to glaze over. For me it just happens to come in loud and exceptionally clear.
As for keeping up with the canon, I found that the only way to maintain a pace through those books is to make sure you're doing it only for yourself. Otherwise it's homework. We're adults. Fuck homework. There's no shame in Netflix.
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