‘Well there you are: a hobbit among the Urukhai,’ Tolkien wrote. ‘Keep your hobbitry in heart and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them.’ However, this did not mean that real events in the war shaped Tolkien’s invented war. His ‘War of The Ring’ was about ideals, not political realities. It essentially revolved around a human moral crisis which he perceived in the real war, but not just in the enemy. In one letter to Christopher, Tolkien wrote: ‘We are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear-cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side…’ Read more: runesoup/2013/09/sitting-at-tolkiens-table-a-middle-earth-guide-to-life/#ixzz2gAKwa7iS
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 06:19:42 +0000