Tolkien in the Real World

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  Hey there fellow Tolkienian followers! It’s your boy NoahtheBlue2003 again, this time with a book suggestion for you! I recently stumbled upon Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity by Patrick Curry . I personally, loved this book and suggest it to all Tolkien fans and scholars alike, as I felt like it was a good way to learn more about the man himself, J.R.R. Tolkien and how his life influenced his creation of my home away from home, Middle-Earth. Seeing as this book directly analyzes the influences of Tolkien’s life on his creation of Middle-Earth it seems only fitting that it belongs in a blog dedicated to his writings. By reviewing the themes presented in this secondary source, this book review highlights the connections that are drawn by the author, Patrick Curry, between Tolkien’s life and upbringing and the liveliness and depth of Middle-Earth’s role in The Lord of the Rings .   “Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity” The intersect...

  THE TREES CAN TALK? Hey there fellow Tolkienians! It’s NoahTheBlue2003 here, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of nature recently in The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been spending more time outside this summer, and I’ve been sitting down in the woods waiting for the trees to tell me my shirt looks nice after I read the section in The Two Towers about the ents. The following piece is inspired by the entmoot where we find Tree Beard call an “entmoot,” or a council meeting of the ents to discuss the war raging between Mordor and the rest of the kingdoms of Middle Earth. I really liked the idea of the music that was representative of their constant debate over what the right decision is. At the beginning of the entmoot there seems to be great indecision as they are cited to be “chanting together in a long rising and falling rhythm… dying away there and rising to a great boom on the other side.” This long, inconsistent rhythm reflected the indecisiveness of nature as it conti...

The Dragon Comes , an original poem by Asher R. Go and look, and see its path, Barren, black, the trail of wrath, Its darkness consumes, both light and life, Insatiable hunger of draconic strife.   Produce, consume, discard, repeat, No matter the cost, or destruction you reap, The greed of the worm lives on in man, Its smog and annihilation from ourselves at hand.   Terrible fire, burning pits, Knowledge and hubris do not well mix, In pursuit of comfort, knowing and power, From hence does come our reckoning hour.   With wings of steel, and smokey breath, Now the dragon comes and brings death.   This poem was inspired by Tolkien's New Year's lecture on dragons, and particularly the following excerpt: If you want to see a dragon-trail just go and look. There they are smooth, slimed, blasted, barren – death to trees and hedges and green things: black with pitch of the nether pit, taking the local colour and the sunlig...

Book Review by LOTRfanMiguel I love fantasy novels as much as the next guy. When I get wrapped up in the lore of an author– especially when that author is J. R. R. Tolkien– I try to learn as much as I can, and that’s why this time around I dived into Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans’ Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien . In this book, the two scholars really get into the nitty gritty of Tolkien's love for nature manifested within Tolkien’s work, especially The Lord of the Rings . Dickerson and Evans’  main argument throughout the book is as follows: through his writings, Tolkien establishes a formula for environmental stewardship, and from this, we can add ways to preserve and conserve nature to the greater conversation of environmentalism. Although their argument is no surprise to Tolkien fans, these authors really shine in the depth of their research and their application to our world. All this being said, the book was far from perfect in th...

  The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth , by John Garth. A Review The landscapes and world of Tolkien’s legendarium, so brilliantly conceived and illuminated by the author’s words, inspire extensive commentary. John Garth’s new book The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien offers this and more, as it provides – along with an extensive collection of beautiful imagery including artwork from J.R.R. Tolkien himself - thoroughly researched insights into Tolkien’s life and experiences, and their inspirational power in shaping Tolkien’s fictional worlds. The beautifully constructed and informative final product is one that should be of interest to both casual fans of Tolkien’s work as well as Tolkien scholars, providing a background on Tolkien’s life and his development of his legendarium which should contain at least some new insights for any reader, whether they’ve read all Tolkien’s writings or only his most iconic. I would echo Garth’s own sentiment in his Introduct...

Hey y'all, LOTRfanMiguel here to show some art I've been working on. Pictured above, I used collage and acrylic paint on canvas in order to portray Tom Bombadil's discovery of Goldberry, the daughter of the River. As we all know, Tolkien  bathes Goldberry in waves of similes evoking imagery of nature including reeds, beads of dew, flowers, and water. Just look at this quote from page 134 of The Fellowship of the Ring : "Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feet in wide vessels of green and brown earthenware, white water-lilies were floating so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool." I wasn't really sure how to portray the river daughter herself, so I took on an abstract approach, portraying her as a blinding light, radiating past Bombadil ...