LOTR – Breakaway Consciousness

#Book Review: J.R.R. Tolkien – A Biography by Humphrey Carter | #SmartReads

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
April 14, 2019

With his high fantasy literature, J.R.R. Tolkien has provided the tinder that stokes the imagination of millions. His books are known around the world, and for great reason, for they resonate the journey of the individual.

In that sense, J.R.R. Tolkien – A Biography by Humphrey Carter provides some illumination into the underlying reasons that drove Tolkien to write what he wrote and create what he did.

The biography is split up into 8 parts, some of which are more interesting than others. Admittedly, autobiographies can run quite dry many times, but this still did a reasonable job of showing us Tolkien in his most authentic form and that’s the most important thing.

Tolkien’s growth, his early years, his friendship with C.S. Lewis, and even his penchant for countless revisions are all catalogued within the book. It was particularly interesting to see what a perfectionist Tolkien was. In a sense, this allowed Tolkien to fine tune his writing process while at the same time expanding his Legendarium.

The Legendarium was created by Tolkien to serve as the fictional mythology about Earth’s remote past, and is composed by The Simarillion, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, The History Of The Middle-Earth and more. This however, is not discussed in the book. I only mention it to supply the fervent reader for additional avenues to explore Tolkien’s unbounded work.

My favorite parts of the autobiography were about the creation of his books. Be that as it may, Tolkien’s skill in poetry, in conjunction with his relentless passion as a philologist to pursue the roots of language and learn everything about it was also highly intriguing.

In fact, regarding his penchant for writing Lord Of The Rings and linguistics, Tolkien had this to say:

“One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one’s personal compost-heap; and my mould is evidently made largely of linguistic matter.”[1][Bold Emphasis Added]

In its entirety, the book provides ample latitude of background while still providing enough fascinating components of Tolkien’s life. Each reader will undoubtedly gain myriad insights, but regardless, it’s intriguing to note that Tolkien himself was not an avid fan of biographies ironically enough.

Tolkien believed that biographies wouldn’t provide the truest nature of the person, and perhaps he was right. Just like movies, which are based on books, provide merely a facsimile of the depth which is entirely superficial of what great books provide, autobiographies will likewise never capture in full breadth and scope the life of an individual. Still, readers are lucky that Tolkien wrote phenomenal fiction because it allows us to see Tolkien’s soul as it is infused within pages.

And there’s no more authentic biography than a writer’s words.

___________________________________________________________
Source:

[1] Humphrey Carter, J.R.R. Tolkien – A Biography, p. 131.

___________________________________________________________

Suggested Reading & Viewing:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tokien
Exploring J.R.R. Tokien’s The Hobbit by Corey Olsen Ph.D.
The Philosophy Of Tolkien – The Worldview Behind Lord Of The Rings by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
On The Shoulders Of Hobbits – The Road To Virtue By Tolkien & Lewis by Louis Marko Ph.D.
The Individual & The Road
Lord Of The Rings: How To Read J.R.R. Tolkien [Presentation]
The Vision Of Freedom That Tolkien Got & The West Forgot [Video]
What The List Of Most Banned Books Says About Our Society’s Fears
What To Expect From Libraries In The 21st Century [Video]
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

___________________________________________________________
If you find value in this information, feel free to share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and BreakawayIndividual.com

___________________________________________________________
About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Lao Tzu

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
April 12, 2019

Life is a journey in myriad ways. What journey each individual takes is a personal choice, but choices abound.

Just like life offers you no choice whether you get to play the game of life, life offers you no choice whether to be on a path or not. Each of us are taking individual steps towards a specific bearing, in a particular direction, on a certain path. Each breath we take, each step we take, paves the current road we undertake, and the road that will forge itself ahead.

Whether individuals wish to take a literal journey (traveling to lands unknown), a spiritual journey (going to spiritual locales), a metaphorical journey (by reading a book or playing a video game), an imaginative journey (be creating a new path, a new journey) or something else, the choices are varied and intriguing as they are vast in scope.

Each path offers a drastically different adventure, not unlike what the great books of our past offered. Timeless books such as The Lord Of The Rings, The Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, The Odyssey, Paradise Lost, The Aeneid, and countless others, all offer a veritable quest under which the protagonist goes on the road of life, the personal journey. These roads taken, these journeys, mirror that of individuals in fictional form.

It is my contention that individuals gravitate towards these stories and myriad others because these mirror some of the more profound truths of life while wrapped in a journey of self-discovery that is always interesting to sink one’s mind into. That said, some of these truths on the road to self-discovery are aided by a character that is rarely is ever considered.

One could argue that this journey of self-discovery is aided by the most significant character you as an individual will encounter on the open road: the road itself.

Lord Of The Rings features the idea of the Road as a character in salient fashion.

In fact, Frodo opines on this notion in the Lord of the Rings, where he cautiously recalls what Bilbo sought to impart:

“[Bilbo] used often to say there was only one Road; that it was a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”[1]

Not unlike cautioning contact with a stranger, the main lesson Bilbo wished to impart on Frodo was that there was more to ‘the Road’ than it seems at first blush.

To this end, in his noteworthy book, On The Shoulders Of Hobbits – The Road Of Virtue With Tolkien & Lewis, author Louis Markos Ph.D. states:

“…the Road has a life of its own. It winds, bends, and turns in a thousand directions, ever ready to trap or mislead the unwary traveler. To set your feet to the Road is indeed a dangerous business, not only on account of the obstacles that you face along the way, but because the Road is akin to a living thing with which you must relate, struggle, and negotiate. It draws and lures you, tests and challenges you, either punishing or rewarding you for your troubles.”[2][Bold Emphasis Added]

Maybe the above notion is perhaps why certain individuals – like myself at times – have been reticent at at certain points to participate in certain journeys, whatever those may be. Perhaps deep down inside, this Road is life itself acting and showing us lessons, while being active because life by its very definition is alive. An interesting proposition to consider.

Perhaps it is fear of engaging with a greater something, something more significant. Fear is what held me back many times in life, and perhaps it was fear of ‘the Road’ – the journey; a possible derivative of life.

Side bar: there are many personal journeys of myriad types that I either did not engage in, and some of which I have chosen to take, though not always of my own accord initially. The commonalities each set of choices share is that those journeys I took, irrespective of what paths they were, always made me grow as a person. Conversely, the paths I did not take always left me feeling as if something unexplored withered to the sands of time.

Each of us individuals have paths we take, stories we live, and a future to unravel. What future that is will be highly dependent on what journey we undertake, and that’s saliently dependent upon whether we are open-minded to possibilities, or close-minded.

As individuals, each of us is not unlike Bilbo, where he was incredibly guarded of the Road. This could be because, deep down inside, at the being level, we must face something we have never faced before – ourselves – just as Luke Skywalker did in the cave.

Getting back on course, on this very notion of the Road, Markos notes:

“Since the Odyssey, nearly every epic hero has had to face at some point in his journey-quest the archetypal Descent into the Underworld. In the case of Virgil’s Aenid, Aeneas enters the realm of Hades as a grieving and defeated Trojan, but emerges as the Father of the Roman Empire. In the case of Dante’s Inferno, Dante enters the yawning pit of Hell as a confused and despairing pilgrim who has lost his way, but emerges as a renewed believer who his regained his purpose, vision and calling.”[3]

These two examples show the development a character, an individual, may undergo under such a path. This is because:

“It is dangerous thing to walk out your door, but without risk there is no real development, no self-knowledge, no awareness of the choices that one must make.”[4]

Without going on a personal quest, on a journey of this magnitude, there is no significant growth.

And isn’t that one of the ideas life is about, growth, the personal evolution of the individual?

Consider that the Road was incredibly important to Tolkien. Given its significance, Tolkien deliberately chooses to show the road in the very first chapter of Lord Of The Rings:

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can.”(I.i.35)

“Far ahead the Road has gone,” implying the Road is alive, just like life.

To hammer-down the point, Tolkien anchors the road, anchors his book in the closing chapter, sprinkling a newfound vision of what the road offers:

“Still round the corner they may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”[6][Bold Emphasis Added]

“A day will come at last when I shall take the hidden paths”. Paths that that aren’t readily discovered but are there; paths that are waiting for discovery by the individual.

All the answers lie within those two poems, all the answers lie within the road – within life itself.

Whatever road you – the individual – choose to take will ultimately give you a broader view of the possibilities that life offers, the possibilities that your personal quest holds.

Regardless, hidden paths await; roads of self-discovery, roads of growth.

Personal roads that can only be walked by you – the individual.

___________________________________________________________
Footnotes:

[1] Louis Markos Ph.D., On The Shoulders Of Hobbits – The Road Of Virtue With Tolkien & Lewis, quoted from Lord Of The Rings, p. (I.iii.72).
[2] Ibid., pp. 41-42.
[3] Ibid., pp. 45-46.
[4] Ibid., pg. 44.
[5] Ibid., p. 59, quoted from Lord Of The Rings, p. (I.i.35).
[6] Ibid., p. 59, quoted from Lord Of The Rings, p. (VI.ix.1005).

___________________________________________________________
Suggested Reading:

___________________________________________________________
About The Author:

Tag: LOTR

#Book Review: J.R.R. Tolkien – A Biography by Humphrey Carter | #SmartReads

The Individual & The Road | #Growth | #Life | #Perspective | #Choices