Christopher Tolkien, son and literary executor of J.R.R. Tolkien, died today at age 95. He was the very first “Middle-earth scholar,” having organized, edited and published many of his father’s works after his father’s death in 1973.
The Fellowship of the Readers
Regular readers of this blog know that reading aloud is a big thing in the Renaud Empire.
We have gone through many children’s books over the past couple years, including “The Hobbit” twice.
For quite some time I have harbored a secret desire to read aloud the Lord of the Rings. In my head, I figured it would still be a few years before I could try.
Occasionally the girls have asked me about the story, either because they have seen me reading the books, or something else prompted them. I knew they were curious. Jadzia especially likes to ask questions, and I always refused to answer her. “You’ll just have to wait until you/we read the story someday.”
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I just had to read it. I figured I would start with the first chapter and see how it went. After all, the first chapter is close in tone to The Hobbit, and the girls loved The Hobbit.
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The hardest parts have been the travel scenes where there is no action. Jadzia can't quite grasp all the environmental description. But when action or good dialogue comes, she is very interested. I think I had the hardest time keeping her concentration until we reached )
My little hobbits
For Father’s Day, my daughters got me “The History of the Hobbit,” though neither of them probably knew that until after I opened the gift.
A memory slipping away
How is it that the war once known as “The Great War” has become the forgotten war?
Many disparate interests have gradually gotten me to think about World War I over the past few years. For example:
- Two of my favorite authors both fought in WWI: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
- John Becker, my triple-great-uncle, would have served in the Navy during the war, if he hadn’t been murdered.
- The city of Ferguson has a monument in January-Wabash Park to honor its citizens who seved in WWI.
Everything I’ve ever read indicates just how horrible a conflict it was. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme and later caught trench fever. He admitted that some scenes in the “Lord of the Rings,” like the Dead Marshes, were drawn from his experince in northern France. The imagery of these scenes is vivid and repugnant. I can’t imagine how awful the real war must have been.
There is just one living American WWI verteran left: 107-year-old Frank Buckles. I learned this from a recent article in Newsweek, The War We Forgot.
When Buckles dies, another pivotal moment in American history will slip into the ether. Most folks probably wouldn’t realize it. We have no national monument to the veterans of WWI.
I don’t know what, if anything, can be done about it. But it’s something that weighs on my mind.