From Darkness, Light

A couple of weeks ago I decided to read The Lord of the Rings again. It's been quite a while since I last read the trilogy; I think I may have read it either before or after my freshman year in college. Somewhere in my four years of college I watched all three of the movies, one after the other. Please note that I was very sick with strep throat and I was in bed for ten days. Otherwise I do not think I would have done that. The movies are well done insofar as they are movies, and they have a certain charm, but of course they do not compare with the books on any level. The charm of the books is far more charming. There is a depth in the books, a great amount of detail and beauty, that is lost in the movies. Why, they even cut half the scenes out! As I was reading the Fellowship I kept thinking, "That wasn't in the movie." Tolkien's portrayal of his characters is far better than Peter Jackson's. In the book, Strider and the Elves have such nobility and beauty. The Hobbits are cute and funny, but incredibly strong. Gandalf is magical and wise, but he has his comical moments that are not ridiculous. In a movie you can't display the depths of each character.

And then there are Tolkien's descriptions.

"The voice seemed far away and immeasurably dreary, sometimes high in the air and thin, sometimes like a low moan from the ground. Out of the formless stream of sad but horrible sounds, strings of words would now and again shape themselves: grim, hard, cold words, heartless and miserable. The night was railing against the morning of which it was bereaved, and the cold was cursing the warmth for which it hungered." (From the Barrow-whights scene)

Or, "The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fullness of his strength. He was the Lord of Rivendell and mighty among both Elves and Men."

Elrond in the movie must makes me laugh. He is nothing like Tolkien's Elrond. How can you get anywhere near that? I'm glad Peter Jackson decided not to put the Barrow-wights scene in the movie. Imagination fails at that point.

Before you begin to think I'm a LOR nerd, I am not. I do not particularly dislike LOR nerds; they are certainly better than Star Wars nerds of Trekkies. My main contention with LOR nerds is that they seem to focus more on the adventure of the books, or the movies. I am not a nerd; I am a fan. But perhaps "fan" is not the right word either. You are never a "fan" of Brideshead, or the Odyssey.  It is much more than that. I'm not sure I have a word for it. I don't have LOR paraphernalia. I don't hang up maps of Middle Earth and change my name to Elvish. I revel in the sheer beauty of the work. I marvel at how it can be written about such simple folk as Hobbits and be so beautiful. As C.S. Lewis said of the work, "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron." A newspaper's review of the work says, "Tolkien's stories take place against a background of measureless depth...Tolkien's epic trilogy remains the ultimate quest, the ultimate battle between good and evil, the ultimate chronicle of stewardship of the earth."

The Lord of the Rings is not just a story about a fictional world. It is not just an adventure story. It is our story. It is the story of beauty being taken away from us. It is the story of the fight between good and evil. That is probably the reason I love the book so much. I have always been fascinated with the fight between good and evil, primarily because in the end, no matter what happens, the good always overcomes the evil. That is the way it is, whether it is in our world, or in Tolkien's Middle Earth.

So I will finish with a poem. I was not thinking about The Lord of the Rings when I wrote this poem. I believe I was sitting outside on a sunny day.


From Darkness, Light

The kings of old walked in the dark
With minds of steel and hearts of gold,
And as they trod their heads bowed down
While darkness pressed on every side.

But yet through dark and dismal skies
The light shone through and caught the spark
Of life within the men who trod
And warmed their hearts to burnished gold.

The light shone on and slowly grew,
And over land and on the sea
The men looked up, their hearts on fire,
And rallied in the golden light.

The dark drew back and fell to earth
On bended knee, with strangled voice
And moaning out in its despair
Retreated back into the depths -

For dark shall always bow to light
And darkness never can prevail.