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Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity
What are millions of readers all over the world getting out of reading The Lord of the Rings? Newly reissued with a new afterword, Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-earth argues, in part, that Tolkien has found a way to provide something close to spirit in a secular age. His focus is on three main aspects of Tolkien's the social and political structure of Middle-earth and how the varying cultures within it find common cause in the face of a shared threat; the nature and ecology of Middle-earth and how what we think of as the natural world joins the battle against mindless, mechanized destruction; and the spirituality and ethics of Middle-earth, for which Curry provides a particularly insightful and resonant examination that will deepen the understanding of the millions of fans who have taken The Lord of the Rings to heart.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
40 people are currently reading
317 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Curry
29 books17 followersI hold a B.A. (University of California at Santa Cruz, 1978, in Psychology, with highest honours), M.Sc. (L.S.E., 1980, in Logic and Scientific Method), and Ph.D. (University College London, 1987, in the History and Philosophy of Science).
Since September 2006 I have been a Lecturer (0.5) in Religious Studies at the University of Kent (Canterbury), where I teach in the MA programme on the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination. From 2002-06 I was a Lecturer (0.5) at the Sophia Centre, Bath Spa University College, where I co-taught the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astronomy.
I have reviewed books for History Today, New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and (most often) the Times Literary Supplement; appeared on two television programmes; and taken part in two programmes on BBC Radio Four. I also appear in interviews of two of the three extended New Line DVD’s on The Lord of the Rings.
My ongoing project (when I get time) concerns enchantment as a common but little-mentioned human experience – one which touches on and connects a wide range of strange bedfellows: nature, erotic communion, art, divination and spirituality. It is influenced by the work of Max Weber and succeeding critical theorists, as well as other writers such as as J.R.R. Tolkien, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, David Abram, Sean Kane, Val Plumwood, Bruno Latour and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. I am also very interested in related issues such as the nature of truth, metaphor, embodied phenomenology, pluralism and post-secularism.
Since September 2006 I have been a Lecturer (0.5) in Religious Studies at the University of Kent (Canterbury), where I teach in the MA programme on the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination. From 2002-06 I was a Lecturer (0.5) at the Sophia Centre, Bath Spa University College, where I co-taught the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astronomy.
I have reviewed books for History Today, New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and (most often) the Times Literary Supplement; appeared on two television programmes; and taken part in two programmes on BBC Radio Four. I also appear in interviews of two of the three extended New Line DVD’s on The Lord of the Rings.
My ongoing project (when I get time) concerns enchantment as a common but little-mentioned human experience – one which touches on and connects a wide range of strange bedfellows: nature, erotic communion, art, divination and spirituality. It is influenced by the work of Max Weber and succeeding critical theorists, as well as other writers such as as J.R.R. Tolkien, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, David Abram, Sean Kane, Val Plumwood, Bruno Latour and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. I am also very interested in related issues such as the nature of truth, metaphor, embodied phenomenology, pluralism and post-secularism.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 21, 2012
When the three books comprising The Lord of the Rings were published in 1954-1955, many literary authors discounted the story as cheap fantasy work and raised their eyebrows and sneered thinking what went wrong into the mind of this serious Oxford professor, J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). These detractors said that this book was a "juvenile trash" or childish and predicted that this book would immediately be forgotten into oblivion. Other 'experts' expend themselves in fatuous witticisms when they said that the book is like "Faerie-land's answer to Conan the Barbarian," and "Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic." These included authors like Edmund Wilson and Philip Toynbee. I have not read any of these authors' works so I cannot judge if they are better than Tolkien but I guess Tolkien must have been laughing in his grave while many people still read and talk about his books.
So, why did this philologist Tolkien spend a total of 7 years (1937-1949) writing a long book and creating a whole new fictional mysterious world called the Middle-Earth? What is the secret of this book's immortality? Why do people still read and talk about this book? Why did people troop to the movie houses all around the world when Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of the book were shown in 2001-2003? Why is the book one of the Top 3 Best-Selling Books of all Times?
My theory is simple: people continue see themselves in the story.
Tolkien said not to put meanings to the story as he did not intend this to be read as an allegory. However, I think people read this book because they can relate to the characters especially the lowly, powerless, un-skilled, simple-minded, fun-loving yet courageous and heroic small creatures called hobbits. In face of a huge undertaking of destroying the powerful and evil Sauron (by throwing the ring to the mouth of Mount Doom), these gentle creatures have to endure going out from their beloved Hobitton and venture to the unknown areas that are scary for them, Middle-Earth. They have to experience the unthinkable: hunger, blood, battles, Orcs, trolls, sleazy Gollum and deaths, massive deaths.
Like all of us. Everyday, we face problems and adversities that something we feel helpless and defeated. Yet, in the end, we persist, we endure and come out triumphant. This for me is the relevance of this book and I know that this will be read by many, many generations to come.
Tolkien sir, you are one of the genius authors who ever walked this earth.
So, why did this philologist Tolkien spend a total of 7 years (1937-1949) writing a long book and creating a whole new fictional mysterious world called the Middle-Earth? What is the secret of this book's immortality? Why do people still read and talk about this book? Why did people troop to the movie houses all around the world when Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of the book were shown in 2001-2003? Why is the book one of the Top 3 Best-Selling Books of all Times?
My theory is simple: people continue see themselves in the story.
Tolkien said not to put meanings to the story as he did not intend this to be read as an allegory. However, I think people read this book because they can relate to the characters especially the lowly, powerless, un-skilled, simple-minded, fun-loving yet courageous and heroic small creatures called hobbits. In face of a huge undertaking of destroying the powerful and evil Sauron (by throwing the ring to the mouth of Mount Doom), these gentle creatures have to endure going out from their beloved Hobitton and venture to the unknown areas that are scary for them, Middle-Earth. They have to experience the unthinkable: hunger, blood, battles, Orcs, trolls, sleazy Gollum and deaths, massive deaths.
Like all of us. Everyday, we face problems and adversities that something we feel helpless and defeated. Yet, in the end, we persist, we endure and come out triumphant. This for me is the relevance of this book and I know that this will be read by many, many generations to come.
Tolkien sir, you are one of the genius authors who ever walked this earth.
October 11, 2018
Curry opens defending Tolkien against wrong-minded critics, then shifts to weaponizing Tolkien to beat his own ideological foes. That his foes are mostly English only obscures his bias to American readers. Disappointing. Since he makes several glaring errors on topics I know a little about, I suspect more lurk within.
“It has been asserted … that The Hobbit represents an alliance of the lower-middle class (Bilbo) and skilled workers, especially working class miners (the dwarves), in order to overcome a parasitic capitalist exploiter who ‘lives off the hard work of small people and accumulates wealth without being able to appreciate its value’ (the dragon). This is genuinely interesting … but it says at least as much about Marxism as a fairy [tale] as it does about The Hobbit.”
Tolkien was not a postmodern. If anything he was pre-modern, even pre-Enlightenment, because he believed that good and evil were real. He believed in God, and while there’s no church in Middle Earth, Tolkien based his entire mythos on an all-knowing, all-sufficient God. Those who claim Middle Earth was polytheistic do so from ignorance or guile.
“Modern profit-driven and state-protected science [is] a powerful counter-enchantment, much of whose power stems from being a spell that denies that it is one: a secular religion, literally a bad faith.”
Curry casually tosses Tolkien’s religion aside as irrelevant. Curry admits he judges Christianity by the externals he has witnessed, not from inside as Tolkien experienced it. Curry uses The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) the way some atheists use the Bible, as a weapon against those who believe it. Despite Tolkien’s claims to the contrary, Curry asserts that LOTR is fundamentally a “pagan” work with Christianity included. A counter argument is that Tolkien meant for all the pagan myths to be included in the greater Christian mythos, which unlike the rest of them happens also to be true.
“I have been accused of using Tolkien to advance an ecological agenda. But nothing in this book about defending nature does not draw its warrant from the contents of Tolkien’s own work … I believe he himself would have thoroughly approved.”
Apparently others called him on his bias because in his Afterword, published seven years after the original work, Curry claims, “I nowhere argue that Tolkien was himself a postmodernist, nor that ecology is the only or even the most important key to his work.” His original work argues otherwise.
“As Max Weber saw long ago, religion itself becomes an enemy of enchantment when it asserts it [sic] own sole universal truth, and thus becomes entangled in aspirations to complete control and ultimate power.” Curry asserts, “So his defence of Middle-earth is fully as spiritual as it is ecological and cultural. But it is not a journey away from our lives and our home here on Earth; ultimately, and critically, it is a return.”
Does Curry admire Tolkien’s work as much as he says or has just taken them up as a cudgel in his own battles?
“There are no havens in a world where evil is a reality. If you think you live in one, you are probably naïve like the early Frodo, and certainly vulnerable.” J. R. R. Tolkien
2018-10-08. (A fellow reader challenged my original three star rating. She was right, I can't defend it even though Curry writes well and says many agreeable things. Dropped it to two.)
“It has been asserted … that The Hobbit represents an alliance of the lower-middle class (Bilbo) and skilled workers, especially working class miners (the dwarves), in order to overcome a parasitic capitalist exploiter who ‘lives off the hard work of small people and accumulates wealth without being able to appreciate its value’ (the dragon). This is genuinely interesting … but it says at least as much about Marxism as a fairy [tale] as it does about The Hobbit.”
Tolkien was not a postmodern. If anything he was pre-modern, even pre-Enlightenment, because he believed that good and evil were real. He believed in God, and while there’s no church in Middle Earth, Tolkien based his entire mythos on an all-knowing, all-sufficient God. Those who claim Middle Earth was polytheistic do so from ignorance or guile.
“Modern profit-driven and state-protected science [is] a powerful counter-enchantment, much of whose power stems from being a spell that denies that it is one: a secular religion, literally a bad faith.”
Curry casually tosses Tolkien’s religion aside as irrelevant. Curry admits he judges Christianity by the externals he has witnessed, not from inside as Tolkien experienced it. Curry uses The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) the way some atheists use the Bible, as a weapon against those who believe it. Despite Tolkien’s claims to the contrary, Curry asserts that LOTR is fundamentally a “pagan” work with Christianity included. A counter argument is that Tolkien meant for all the pagan myths to be included in the greater Christian mythos, which unlike the rest of them happens also to be true.
“I have been accused of using Tolkien to advance an ecological agenda. But nothing in this book about defending nature does not draw its warrant from the contents of Tolkien’s own work … I believe he himself would have thoroughly approved.”
Apparently others called him on his bias because in his Afterword, published seven years after the original work, Curry claims, “I nowhere argue that Tolkien was himself a postmodernist, nor that ecology is the only or even the most important key to his work.” His original work argues otherwise.
“As Max Weber saw long ago, religion itself becomes an enemy of enchantment when it asserts it [sic] own sole universal truth, and thus becomes entangled in aspirations to complete control and ultimate power.” Curry asserts, “So his defence of Middle-earth is fully as spiritual as it is ecological and cultural. But it is not a journey away from our lives and our home here on Earth; ultimately, and critically, it is a return.”
Does Curry admire Tolkien’s work as much as he says or has just taken them up as a cudgel in his own battles?
“There are no havens in a world where evil is a reality. If you think you live in one, you are probably naïve like the early Frodo, and certainly vulnerable.” J. R. R. Tolkien
2018-10-08. (A fellow reader challenged my original three star rating. She was right, I can't defend it even though Curry writes well and says many agreeable things. Dropped it to two.)
September 25, 2020
Summary: A study of the enduring power of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, tracing it to both its counter to modernity and its genius as modern myth.
Many in the critical community have puzzled over the public acceptance and staying power of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Patrick Curry notes that Tolkien has been described as “paternalistic, reactionary, anti-intellectual, racist, fascistic and…irrelevant.” Curry believes the nature of the books account for their success. It is a myth about an earlier age of the earth drawn from both Norse and Anglo-Saxon material, fashioned into a truly unique place, not to be read allegorically, yet one that speaks into late modernity, a project more or less exhausted.
He describes the work as centered around three domains. The first is the social, centered around the Shire, where community, local government, and love of place dominate. There are many such places throughout Middle-Earth from Lothlorien to Fangorn forest to Gondor, all standing in contrast to the soulless industrial wasteland of Mordor. The social domain is nested within a second domain, an ecological or natural one of Middle-Earth. Everything, from the mountains and rivers to Tolkien’s beloved trees, pulses with life and the peoples of Middle-Earth live harmoniously within these domains–Elves in the forests, dwarves in the mountains and hobbits in the Shire, and the Ents shepherding their trees. Surrounding Middle-Earth is the Sea representing the spiritual–the ethical, the questions of death and life, the ultimate.
Curry’s exploration of the latter notes how Tolkien did not impose Christian theology by another name on his story, unlike the Narnia Chronicles of C. S. Lewis. Oddly enough, Curry notes that Tolkien combines a polytheistic pantheon at war with evil with a kind of animism, that resacralizes nature. All this combines with Christian virtues of humility, courage, hospitality, and compassion drawing together a fellowship of the “differents.”
Curry proposes that a Middle-Earth with this character, these domains, speaks powerfully to modernity-weary readers, tired of big and bureaucratic states, alarmed by the exploitation of the planet, and groping for a spirituality that embraces all of life. But he believes it is also powerful, certainly in the English speaking world because Tolkien succeeded in his project of fashioning a contemporary myth, a story neither true nor false, but one that explains something of the origins and place and future of not only those in the story but that of the reader as well.
Curry’s discussion rings true for me in many ways. The Shire of the hobbits is the local membership of Wendell Berry’s Port William, calling us away from identity-less exurbia. The love of all nature, and especially the forests speaks into a land stripped of trees, seemingly destined for a Mordor-like wasteland. Then there is the surrounding sea, the reminder of lives answerable to something greater, destined for something beyond, longing for God knows what.
Finally the mythopoeic elements helps explain the power of this story for me, that only grows as I age–not merely the adventure but the hope and loss of which life consists. And there is the power of traveling with the Fellowship, the Nine who faced wonder and danger and sorry and strove to overcome. Having traveled so far, and through so many readings, we each face the question of what then shall we be and “what to do with the time that is given us.”
Many in the critical community have puzzled over the public acceptance and staying power of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Patrick Curry notes that Tolkien has been described as “paternalistic, reactionary, anti-intellectual, racist, fascistic and…irrelevant.” Curry believes the nature of the books account for their success. It is a myth about an earlier age of the earth drawn from both Norse and Anglo-Saxon material, fashioned into a truly unique place, not to be read allegorically, yet one that speaks into late modernity, a project more or less exhausted.
He describes the work as centered around three domains. The first is the social, centered around the Shire, where community, local government, and love of place dominate. There are many such places throughout Middle-Earth from Lothlorien to Fangorn forest to Gondor, all standing in contrast to the soulless industrial wasteland of Mordor. The social domain is nested within a second domain, an ecological or natural one of Middle-Earth. Everything, from the mountains and rivers to Tolkien’s beloved trees, pulses with life and the peoples of Middle-Earth live harmoniously within these domains–Elves in the forests, dwarves in the mountains and hobbits in the Shire, and the Ents shepherding their trees. Surrounding Middle-Earth is the Sea representing the spiritual–the ethical, the questions of death and life, the ultimate.
Curry’s exploration of the latter notes how Tolkien did not impose Christian theology by another name on his story, unlike the Narnia Chronicles of C. S. Lewis. Oddly enough, Curry notes that Tolkien combines a polytheistic pantheon at war with evil with a kind of animism, that resacralizes nature. All this combines with Christian virtues of humility, courage, hospitality, and compassion drawing together a fellowship of the “differents.”
Curry proposes that a Middle-Earth with this character, these domains, speaks powerfully to modernity-weary readers, tired of big and bureaucratic states, alarmed by the exploitation of the planet, and groping for a spirituality that embraces all of life. But he believes it is also powerful, certainly in the English speaking world because Tolkien succeeded in his project of fashioning a contemporary myth, a story neither true nor false, but one that explains something of the origins and place and future of not only those in the story but that of the reader as well.
Curry’s discussion rings true for me in many ways. The Shire of the hobbits is the local membership of Wendell Berry’s Port William, calling us away from identity-less exurbia. The love of all nature, and especially the forests speaks into a land stripped of trees, seemingly destined for a Mordor-like wasteland. Then there is the surrounding sea, the reminder of lives answerable to something greater, destined for something beyond, longing for God knows what.
Finally the mythopoeic elements helps explain the power of this story for me, that only grows as I age–not merely the adventure but the hope and loss of which life consists. And there is the power of traveling with the Fellowship, the Nine who faced wonder and danger and sorry and strove to overcome. Having traveled so far, and through so many readings, we each face the question of what then shall we be and “what to do with the time that is given us.”
March 2, 2020
Within its limits, good and sound analysis. But in this day and age you can't preface a book about Tolkien by saying you'll focus on the two published while he was alive; Tolkien Studies have evolved since then, with the publication of his unfinished works.
August 30, 2024
I'm not logging all my Tolkien criticism books for thesis on here because it's a lot but I just need y'all to know this man is or was an actual crackhead. Like he definitely was one of the LSD-addled flower child university students that would have stalked T given the opportunity in the 60s and it SHOWS in his criticism. I'm fading
March 5, 2018
Another splendid study of Tolkien's appeal through the years and with a lot of point I'll be using for my argumentation for a connection between ecology, culture and moral nature of the different characters. I think what I enjoyed most was how short and effectively Curry presents his case.
April 2, 2015
Tolkien and his work seemed incidental to the arguments the author was making.
Quite bleak and depressing - no solutions (even suggested ones).
Quite bleak and depressing - no solutions (even suggested ones).
July 23, 2025
Patrick Curry writes a compelling argument for the continued relevance of The Lord of the Rings and it's mythos of connection and reflection of our own world.
Using three main pillars of reference—he builds the case for Tolkien of a universal humanistic quality and our relation to the earth. Represented as follows:
The Shire—representing culture, history, and politics
Middle Earth—representing nature and our ecological relation to it
The Sea—representing spirituality, and our own ethics
In my opinion these pillars deal with how we connect our present human experience to the past, in order to hopefully guide towards a brighter future. Reading this now nearly 3 decades after it was written has only crystallized even further the certain destruction of the world and ourselves.
Is it not harrowing to consider that our capitalistic society has created the very conditions for our planets suffering? Ecocide is upon us in addition to a global warming that will increasingly cause more death to humans let alone nature itself. Tolkien was not the only one to notice this trend but he attempted to write something that could influence people to try and connect with our past to preserve the future.
Modern capitalist imperialist society in the West has created an ideological and physical monster that strips us of our agency and pacifies us with treats—and if that doesn't work, brutality. As I write this, this country is in the foothills of fascism—at least the open kind, that flaunts all human values. We are not far away from a scale of atrocity that was only rivalled during WWII. Tolkien coming from that he only could see all too clearly where this leads.
Curry lays out an analysis clearly seeing that so called "liberal democracy" is unable to represent us and solve any of our problems. But where does that lead us? For Tolkien it's to what I would describe a type of Anarcho Monarchy. It is the Shire, autonomous but protected by a benevolent monarch. It is an ideal and I would classify as "reactionary" but only in the sense that it looks backward, not a fascist violent one. But where I think this succeeds is an appeal to return to a community that works together and builds new relations that were decimated by industrial capitalism and its subsequent evolutions.
Curry claims no Marxism but has a progressive outlook on what we could do to address this alienation from the earth and each other. In many ways I agree that one aspect of our struggle should be to build a new culture—one that respects and revives nature, one that wants to build "new people", one that creates a spirituality with the world and develops dialectically.
How to proceed with such a task? Tolkien made his attempt and I find that since we are connected by stories it is for us to link the positive aspects that he lived for to what we want. For the ones that do not have positive, or may be reactionary—we identify them and study and explain why they are.
Curry maligns the socialist and communist movements of yore especially around the figures of Stalin and Mao. Stating, but not elaborating on, the claims of authoritarianism and equivocation with Hitler. I will only give him the benefit of the doubt by not understanding history. Because to claim equivalence between Nazism and Communism as "authoritarian" whitewashes Nazi atrocities as well as the same types of atrocities committed by these "liberal democracies" who are just as "authoritarian" as what he claims to denigrate. Were abuses a part of some of these revolutions, yes, but you could claim the same for every other society. Nazis and liberals (sometimes the same thing) brutalized so many and we only claim one as just. To put it plainly, this type of liberal analysis is devoid of investigation and historical materialism and ideological coherence. Despite all that, I would consider Curry to have a progressive outlook and as a Revolutionary Communist, we share many of the same values.
I appreciate a work such as this for Tolkien and Lord of the Rings that succinctly puts together a position of a worthwhile mythos and literature that stands the test of time. A book and outlook on the world that maintains a vision of something "worth fighting for". Despite all the horror and atrocities committed against human beings and nature—A genocide, an ecocide, a spirit murdering society—there is "some good in this world", some beauty left to fight for. Resistance against the darkening horizon, rage against the horror.
We will work and struggle together or we will all go to our doom. Hope without guarantees. Planting the seeds that maybe we might succeed.
And I leave this text with the motto of action and against the coming darkness:
"Whosoever laments their own powerlessness can change nothing.
Direct your gaze towards the enemy and advance. Advance. Victory is ours."
Using three main pillars of reference—he builds the case for Tolkien of a universal humanistic quality and our relation to the earth. Represented as follows:
The Shire—representing culture, history, and politics
Middle Earth—representing nature and our ecological relation to it
The Sea—representing spirituality, and our own ethics
In my opinion these pillars deal with how we connect our present human experience to the past, in order to hopefully guide towards a brighter future. Reading this now nearly 3 decades after it was written has only crystallized even further the certain destruction of the world and ourselves.
Is it not harrowing to consider that our capitalistic society has created the very conditions for our planets suffering? Ecocide is upon us in addition to a global warming that will increasingly cause more death to humans let alone nature itself. Tolkien was not the only one to notice this trend but he attempted to write something that could influence people to try and connect with our past to preserve the future.
Modern capitalist imperialist society in the West has created an ideological and physical monster that strips us of our agency and pacifies us with treats—and if that doesn't work, brutality. As I write this, this country is in the foothills of fascism—at least the open kind, that flaunts all human values. We are not far away from a scale of atrocity that was only rivalled during WWII. Tolkien coming from that he only could see all too clearly where this leads.
Curry lays out an analysis clearly seeing that so called "liberal democracy" is unable to represent us and solve any of our problems. But where does that lead us? For Tolkien it's to what I would describe a type of Anarcho Monarchy. It is the Shire, autonomous but protected by a benevolent monarch. It is an ideal and I would classify as "reactionary" but only in the sense that it looks backward, not a fascist violent one. But where I think this succeeds is an appeal to return to a community that works together and builds new relations that were decimated by industrial capitalism and its subsequent evolutions.
Curry claims no Marxism but has a progressive outlook on what we could do to address this alienation from the earth and each other. In many ways I agree that one aspect of our struggle should be to build a new culture—one that respects and revives nature, one that wants to build "new people", one that creates a spirituality with the world and develops dialectically.
How to proceed with such a task? Tolkien made his attempt and I find that since we are connected by stories it is for us to link the positive aspects that he lived for to what we want. For the ones that do not have positive, or may be reactionary—we identify them and study and explain why they are.
Curry maligns the socialist and communist movements of yore especially around the figures of Stalin and Mao. Stating, but not elaborating on, the claims of authoritarianism and equivocation with Hitler. I will only give him the benefit of the doubt by not understanding history. Because to claim equivalence between Nazism and Communism as "authoritarian" whitewashes Nazi atrocities as well as the same types of atrocities committed by these "liberal democracies" who are just as "authoritarian" as what he claims to denigrate. Were abuses a part of some of these revolutions, yes, but you could claim the same for every other society. Nazis and liberals (sometimes the same thing) brutalized so many and we only claim one as just. To put it plainly, this type of liberal analysis is devoid of investigation and historical materialism and ideological coherence. Despite all that, I would consider Curry to have a progressive outlook and as a Revolutionary Communist, we share many of the same values.
I appreciate a work such as this for Tolkien and Lord of the Rings that succinctly puts together a position of a worthwhile mythos and literature that stands the test of time. A book and outlook on the world that maintains a vision of something "worth fighting for". Despite all the horror and atrocities committed against human beings and nature—A genocide, an ecocide, a spirit murdering society—there is "some good in this world", some beauty left to fight for. Resistance against the darkening horizon, rage against the horror.
We will work and struggle together or we will all go to our doom. Hope without guarantees. Planting the seeds that maybe we might succeed.
And I leave this text with the motto of action and against the coming darkness:
"Whosoever laments their own powerlessness can change nothing.
Direct your gaze towards the enemy and advance. Advance. Victory is ours."
March 6, 2021
Ah, Tolkien. What's to defend, you might ask? A writer of beloved books which have sold hundreds of millions of copies, spawned 6 mega-grossing, Academy Award winning films, and resulted in hundreds of works of scholarship dedicated to examining the author and his fantasy world. Sure, Tolkien doesn't hold up well when his stories are read through a modern critical lens, like Marxist-Genderqueer readings...but, honestly...who fucking cares? Literary criticism exists to make people who actually like to read miserable.
Tolkien's world building is unmatched. His themes are timeless. Like the Bible--and I use this comparison deliberately--there is always something new to be found in his work. Language, culture, archetypes, themes, history, faerie...it's all there in Middle Earth. Tolkien's world is unparalleled. It inspires. It informs. It teaches. It heals. It is, in a word, enchanting.
So, naturally, the literati hate it and always have. Again: so be it. Orcs are racists, there isn't enough sex, Frodo and Sam are closeted, everyone is white, blah blah blah blah blah. When the chattering Twitter trolls are long gone, and the nattering nabobs of modern literary criticism are relegated to dusty tomes in forgotten corners of academic libraries, Middle Earth will still be there, waiting for the next generation to find its way into its sorcerous wonders.
(Side note: reading authors who wrote decades, and sometimes centuries, ago, and judging their work by our modern standards of what is right and wrong is moral masturbation. Avoid it if you can.)
This book is good. The author addresses some of the more recent criticism of Tolkien's work, and does a nice job expanding on some of Tolien's themes, especially those related to his rejection of (in Tolkien's time, at least) modernity. Tolkien's ecological themes are compelling, and his views of faith and religion subtle. Tolkien's goal was to create a mythological past for his part of the world, and whether he did or not remains to be seen, but like hundreds of millions of others, I find his world a bit more compelling than the real world that I live in, so I guess he did okay.
For whatever reason--and I am far from the first person to notice this phenomena--reading Tolkien inspires a sort of nostalgia for something I have never actually experienced. Perhaps it's because my own cultural touchstones are in Ireland and Scotland, and Tolkien's world is very much based on England, and Scandinavia, and the northern part of Europe...but the author evokes a certain wistfulness in his readers. It's like he's playing a song whose tune is eerily familiar, but you aren't sure where you've heard it before, like a lullaby someone sang to you when you were very little.
In any event, I will continue to spend a good portion of my mental time in Middle Earth. It is my happy place.
Tolkien's world building is unmatched. His themes are timeless. Like the Bible--and I use this comparison deliberately--there is always something new to be found in his work. Language, culture, archetypes, themes, history, faerie...it's all there in Middle Earth. Tolkien's world is unparalleled. It inspires. It informs. It teaches. It heals. It is, in a word, enchanting.
So, naturally, the literati hate it and always have. Again: so be it. Orcs are racists, there isn't enough sex, Frodo and Sam are closeted, everyone is white, blah blah blah blah blah. When the chattering Twitter trolls are long gone, and the nattering nabobs of modern literary criticism are relegated to dusty tomes in forgotten corners of academic libraries, Middle Earth will still be there, waiting for the next generation to find its way into its sorcerous wonders.
(Side note: reading authors who wrote decades, and sometimes centuries, ago, and judging their work by our modern standards of what is right and wrong is moral masturbation. Avoid it if you can.)
This book is good. The author addresses some of the more recent criticism of Tolkien's work, and does a nice job expanding on some of Tolien's themes, especially those related to his rejection of (in Tolkien's time, at least) modernity. Tolkien's ecological themes are compelling, and his views of faith and religion subtle. Tolkien's goal was to create a mythological past for his part of the world, and whether he did or not remains to be seen, but like hundreds of millions of others, I find his world a bit more compelling than the real world that I live in, so I guess he did okay.
For whatever reason--and I am far from the first person to notice this phenomena--reading Tolkien inspires a sort of nostalgia for something I have never actually experienced. Perhaps it's because my own cultural touchstones are in Ireland and Scotland, and Tolkien's world is very much based on England, and Scandinavia, and the northern part of Europe...but the author evokes a certain wistfulness in his readers. It's like he's playing a song whose tune is eerily familiar, but you aren't sure where you've heard it before, like a lullaby someone sang to you when you were very little.
In any event, I will continue to spend a good portion of my mental time in Middle Earth. It is my happy place.
October 9, 2018
This is a tough one to review. I really felt like it was a slog to read this book, even though I understand and see the points the author is making in regards to how the world of The Lord of the Rings fits into our modern perspective and narrative. He breaks down his discussion of where The Lord of the Rings reflects our current human condition into three major points: the Shire as "the common man", Middle-Earth as nature or ecology, and the Sea as spirituality. Within these points he also throws in discussion about our current climate change / ecological crisis, post-modernism and its relation to fairy-tales and myth, and his disdain for those critics of Tolkien who dismiss the work as childish. This book may have just been far too academic for me; touching on several global issues and religious topics and relating them all back to Tolkien's Middle-Earth, with a heavy dose of other authors and quotations and excerpts from other books thrown in.
With that said, he did have some good points about how readers around the world and through decades have enjoyed Tolkien's works, particularly The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I certainly would recommend reading those, although I'd be hard-pressed to recommend this particular book unless you were really looking for that sort of thing. I will say, though, the final passage of the book was fantastic:
"This realization is what, I believe, Tolkien's readers find, above all else, in his books. 'It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-Earth, and yet it may lift up your hearts.' Tolkien's Middle-Earth gleams with the light of an ancient hope: peace between peoples, and with nature, and before the unknown."
With that said, he did have some good points about how readers around the world and through decades have enjoyed Tolkien's works, particularly The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I certainly would recommend reading those, although I'd be hard-pressed to recommend this particular book unless you were really looking for that sort of thing. I will say, though, the final passage of the book was fantastic:
"This realization is what, I believe, Tolkien's readers find, above all else, in his books. 'It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-Earth, and yet it may lift up your hearts.' Tolkien's Middle-Earth gleams with the light of an ancient hope: peace between peoples, and with nature, and before the unknown."
August 3, 2025
I’m afraid this is the first DNF book for a while. It started really well and it seemed the author grasped Tolkien’s underlying philosophy of scepticism about modernity, capitalism, and industrialisation while bringing well-informed critical and literary theory. His defence of Lord of the Rings against criticisms around diversity, gender, and the portrayal of evil were strong.
However, I started to get infuriated by some of the wild assumptions made - especially on the understanding of myth in Tolkien’s worldview, the downplaying of the influence of his Catholicism on LOTR (in which the author of this book was factually incorrect) and, to some extent, Tolkien’s politics (which might be best described as anarcho-monarchism).
He had some good things to say but I found myself getting too frustrated to continue. I gave it 3 stars for the intent and the first part of the book.
However, I started to get infuriated by some of the wild assumptions made - especially on the understanding of myth in Tolkien’s worldview, the downplaying of the influence of his Catholicism on LOTR (in which the author of this book was factually incorrect) and, to some extent, Tolkien’s politics (which might be best described as anarcho-monarchism).
He had some good things to say but I found myself getting too frustrated to continue. I gave it 3 stars for the intent and the first part of the book.
August 19, 2020
This is a book I wanted to love, but in the end despite some real wonderful nuggets, defending Tolkien against his literary critics and elucidating some of the great ideas and observations in the master's masterwork (The Lord of the Rings), it fell flat.
The author spent too much time backing up his assertions by citing other scholars and writers--and rarely delving deeply into Tolkien's work itself. To be sure, Curry did offer some broad defenses of Tolkien. And if I wanted, I could write a long essay (maybe as long as 5,000 words) highlighting his best points.
That said, this book does provide good source material on the background of Tolkien's work--and his nature as a man.
The author spent too much time backing up his assertions by citing other scholars and writers--and rarely delving deeply into Tolkien's work itself. To be sure, Curry did offer some broad defenses of Tolkien. And if I wanted, I could write a long essay (maybe as long as 5,000 words) highlighting his best points.
That said, this book does provide good source material on the background of Tolkien's work--and his nature as a man.
January 20, 2024
Fondamentale per la critica dell'opera di Tolkien, questo libro fa chiarezza sulla poetica, lo stile e le ragioni di uno dei massimi scrittori del '900 e della sua intera opera, non solo Il Signore degli Anelli.
Molto utile per spazzare via tante idee preconcette e bruttissime divisioni politiche che ha suscitato (soprattutto in Italia) e le tantissime "appropriazioni" che quest'autore ha purtroppo subito, nascondendo sotto strati di pregiudizi le finalità e il cosiddetto messaggio che inevitabilmente ogni scrittore lascia nelle sue opere, consapevolmente o meno.
Unico difetto secondo me le tante note a piè di pagina che mi hanno distratto tantissimo, ma suppongo che, essendo questo un libro di critica è giusto così.
Molto utile per spazzare via tante idee preconcette e bruttissime divisioni politiche che ha suscitato (soprattutto in Italia) e le tantissime "appropriazioni" che quest'autore ha purtroppo subito, nascondendo sotto strati di pregiudizi le finalità e il cosiddetto messaggio che inevitabilmente ogni scrittore lascia nelle sue opere, consapevolmente o meno.
Unico difetto secondo me le tante note a piè di pagina che mi hanno distratto tantissimo, ma suppongo che, essendo questo un libro di critica è giusto così.
October 17, 2018
Written for Tolkien lovers. It is an essay that developed into a book.
October 8, 2022
An interesting essay involving Tolkien. The thing I'll probably remember most honestly is the contrast between Disney and Tolkien.
December 10, 2024
using so many words to say "i like trees" joking aside, the book's fairly interesting, but it's so hard to read through it I'm basically forcing myself to read it at this point.
November 28, 2020
Patrick Curry's book is one that I assigned to my students this semester. I had two main purposes for doing this.
First, I think it is important for students learning about Tolkien to understand that there are scholars who don't believe that Tolkien's Christianity had as much of an influence as I, their teacher, believe it did. It is good to expose them to different perspectives in the field of Tolkien studies. Curry present his case well, even though I do not necessarily agree with it.
However, the second reason I assigned this book is because Curry very much believes that the reader's interpretation of the book is a valid way of interpreting what it means. This perspective is all over the academy today, and I believe it has problems. Therefore, I want my students to be able to wrestle with this concept now, think about the concept and value of authorial intent, and consider the implications of interpretive methods now.
Curry and I have divergent views, but I do think his book represents a significant portion of Tolkien scholarship today. His writing style is fluid, and he raises many interesting and thought-provoking areas for classroom discussion.
First, I think it is important for students learning about Tolkien to understand that there are scholars who don't believe that Tolkien's Christianity had as much of an influence as I, their teacher, believe it did. It is good to expose them to different perspectives in the field of Tolkien studies. Curry present his case well, even though I do not necessarily agree with it.
However, the second reason I assigned this book is because Curry very much believes that the reader's interpretation of the book is a valid way of interpreting what it means. This perspective is all over the academy today, and I believe it has problems. Therefore, I want my students to be able to wrestle with this concept now, think about the concept and value of authorial intent, and consider the implications of interpretive methods now.
Curry and I have divergent views, but I do think his book represents a significant portion of Tolkien scholarship today. His writing style is fluid, and he raises many interesting and thought-provoking areas for classroom discussion.
July 10, 2015
I have been wanting to read this book for over a decade. Patrick Curry was one of the "talking heads" on the Extended Editions of The Lord of The Rings movies. I liked a lot of the point he made there and so I really wanted to read his book. However, this book wasn't at my local library and I couldn't find it on the shelves of any of the local bookstores. Eventually, I bought a copy on amazon.com.
This book was a mixed bag for me. I didn't really learn much that was new about Tolkien or his writing but I did agree with a lot of what Dr. Curry said. At the same time, there were times when it seemed like he was just writing his environmentalist views without adequately relating it to Tolkien. At times this book also seemed to be written mainly for English Professors and, I admit, I sometimes had a hard time following him.
Overall, I think the book was worth the money I paid for it and I can, potentially, see myself reading it again some time down the road.
This book was a mixed bag for me. I didn't really learn much that was new about Tolkien or his writing but I did agree with a lot of what Dr. Curry said. At the same time, there were times when it seemed like he was just writing his environmentalist views without adequately relating it to Tolkien. At times this book also seemed to be written mainly for English Professors and, I admit, I sometimes had a hard time following him.
Overall, I think the book was worth the money I paid for it and I can, potentially, see myself reading it again some time down the road.
April 4, 2016
A strong, and certainly well-articulated, defense of the relevance of Tolkien's modern myth. Much has already been said about Tolkien's writing as it related to his concerns about modernity, and this book is another to add to that list. I did appreciate, however, Curry's engagement with the spiritual tones of Tolkien's work, something that it seems many academics don't acknowledge. Overall, I would really only recommend this to serious fans of the books (not people who have only seen the movies), as Curry gets really "into the weeds" with some of his arguments. For the serious fan, though, this is quite an interesting and impassioned defense.
May 21, 2015
Basically a sound and interesting book. Passages support the author's point. The weakness..Bottom tends to fall into diatribes which often lack reference to the work. One such topic was ecology. The best part...bringing back fond memories. Most Tolkien fans would enjoy the effort.
November 13, 2015
An light-hearted and well-informed analysis of the deeper philosophical makings of Tolkien's work (focused mainly on LOTR) makes me approach Middle-Earth with a far surer idea of the power of his work.
April 5, 2008
Yep, I'm a nerd.
January 6, 2011
I thought this book made some good points about the ecological and social aspects of Middle Earth. It's definitely a great source if you plan to write a paper on Tolkien that relates to those themes.
August 17, 2014
Clearly an academic paper that was converted to a book to be bought unwittingly by Tolkien fans like myself who were hoping for new insights rather than responses to other academics.
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