The mythical myth maker

This Week’s Winner

Maria Karla L. Espinosa holds degrees in Economics and Law from UP Diliman. She is a lawyer in private practice and works in an NGO. She is based in Quezon City but is a probinsiyana at heart. She likes languages, heroes, books, and plants.

In college, I went from being a voracious bookworm to a utilitarian reader. Excluding text “of consequence” (school and work-related material, newspapers, etc.), my reading fare was seriously reduced to the occasional shorts. And in the most dulling and deadening of moments, I so missed being consumed by a book. I missed being delighted, being thrilled by the textures of paper and the written word.   

I set out to regain my appetite and vigor for books, but I knew it would take a while, so I decided to start light. I picked up the classics I didn’t get to read as a child. Thus, in my early twenties, I discovered Narnia and Middle-earth and was smitten forever.

Why C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are such great works needs no explanation. Their phenomenal success and popularity all over the world and across generations say enough.

What I’m writing about here is a heightened appreciation for the latter, brought about by a glimpse of the man behind the mythology. Myth Maker: J.R.R. Tolkien (1996) by Anne E. Neimark is a perfect companion to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Written for children, it is a robust and engaging biography of Tolkien, whose life was as fascinating, remarkable, and inspiring as the characters that inhabit Middle-earth.

In her introduction, Neimark writes:

“Born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Tolkien endured a tragic and poverty-stricken childhood. He was educated through scholarships and the support of a kind but stern priest, and graduated from England’s Oxford University with impressive achievement in philology, the study of language. Later, as an Oxford professor, Tolkien won academic fame through his discoveries in language by publishing renowned works and inventing his own languages. He was, however, far more than a scholar. Within him burned an imagination so startling and unparalleled that it burst forth into his unforgettable tales of moral courage, danger, and beauty (often causing colleagues to discredit him). Tolkien’s life, spent mostly in England, brought him darkness and joy. His response was to create the magic and mythology of Middle-earth, founded on his love of language and using his knowledge of Old Norse, Germanic, and Icelandic myths. Most of his poems and stories show a reverence for the past and for uncorrupted land. And even though his villains may not be totally vanquished, it is Tolkien’s heroes who endure.”

Tolkien took fantasy, myth, and fairy tales very seriously, finding them as important for adults as for children. “Fantasy,” he wrote, “remains a human right.”

Learning about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien simply made me want to pick up his books again and renew his stories’ place in my adult memory.

More than a mine of trivia about a popular book and a renowned author, Tolkien’s biography is a source of awe and inspiration. It tells of the simple yet amazing life of a passionate man. Apart from being a great writer, he was also a lover of words, a stickler for precision in his mythology, an advocate of fairy tales, a brilliant teacher, and a family man. He was my hero. 

A true philologist, Tolkien studied, spoke (he could lecture in Gothic), wrote about, and invented languages. The Lord of the Rings was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was written in order to provide the necessary background of “history” for his invented languages. He depicted various cultures and peoples of Middle-earth by how they spoke. Elves, dwarves, trolls, Orcs, hobbits, and the others had their own speech or dialect. For instance, Orcs spoke the harsh, guttural Black Speech of Sauron, pronouncing words at the back of the throat (“Uruk-Hai”), in contrast to the silken sounds of elf language (“Lothlórien” or “Elendil”).

Tolkien wanted every piece of his mythology to fit the whole. He painstakingly wove in details to complete the story. During dry periods when he could not write a word, he meticulously drew maps of Middle-earth’s terrain, attending to every detail of routes taken by the Fellowship of the Ring. He made certain that time and distance were figured perfectly; he charted the phases of the moon and direction of the wind. Geography, chronology (of the various cycles of Middle-earth), and calendars consumed entire notebooks.

In a lecture (“On Fairy-Stories”) he delivered at a university in Scotland in 1939, Tolkien said that fairy tales are not just for children and often they’re not “stories about fairies” at all. They tell of adventures in the “Perilous Realm.” Like myths, they provide a vision of life as it ought to be — where good ultimately wins over evil. Fantasy, as Tolkien explained, brings people the “recovery” of seeing things differently, the “escape” from human limitations, and the “consolation” of a happy ending.

As a professor, he was known for his intensity and generosity. His students delighted in his stirring lectures; especially when he abandoned his notes for a compelling, if unrelated, discussion topic. He prepared far more lectures than his contract required. He helped his pupils write and rewrite papers and books, often contributing the bulk of ideas but never allowing a credit line for himself.

As a family man, he did household chores and doted on and took care of his wife and four children (and later on, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren). To earn extra money to provide for his family during tougher times, he tutored students, graded school examination papers, and wrote poetry for literary magazines (and got his share of rejections). After his wife of 55 years died, a friend advised him to remove his wedding ring to lessen his grief. He refused, saying, “I am still married.” 

Tolkien was and did all this at the same time: he juggled teaching duties, family life, and writing (not to mention serving as soldier in the English army during the First World War, to which he lost several friends). But for a literary great, his life was surprisingly so sober, so unlike the portrait of the genius as a mad man. It was, in essence, a simple story of his passion for language, earnest hard work and good intentions bearing fruit after long and arduous labor. It reminds me of a hobbit’s long and perilous journey to Mordor, which ends with the successful destruction of the evil ring.

Tolkien’s life is as much a masterpiece as The Lord of the Rings. It is consistent with the beauty and goodness that LOTR holds. The completion of the book went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, growing in the telling. Finally, after initial rejection by publishers, Part I (The Fellowship of the Ring) rolled off the presses in 1954. Tolkien was 62 years old. 

I read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien’s biography in my twenties — overdue but by no means too late. Discovering Middle-earth as a grown-up has brought an entirely different kind of awe and magic for me. More than plain entertainment or escapism, it is a return to self in its unadulterated state. It is one of my paradoxes — a rebellion and a retreat at the same time, my own revolt against severe realism and my retreat into the haven of fantasy and carefree childhood, where comfort, strength, and hope remain within our reach in these troubled times in this weary world.