J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

I didn't get a hardcover, I got a paperback copy 😡. Very frustrating.

This book is quite simply the seminal criticism and analysis of Tolkien's major works. Shippey is Tolkien's successor at Oxford, and in a very real sense "speaks the language" (no pun intended) that Tolkien spoke. He is able to disassemble and analyze Tolkien's writings in a way that is head and shoulders above any other similar works. His linguistic and literary analysis is the best ever made and is absolutely vital to truly understanding Middle Earth and the man that made it. Add to that a brief but very profound analysis of the religious themes, imagery, and inferences that is better than anything else out there (it completely surpasses Joseph Pearce's fine book on Tolkien, all in less than 10 pages.) Plus you'll get the most insightful discussion of the Anglo Saxon and Old Norse literary traditions and characters that would become Gandalf, Frodo, and the rest of the Fellowship. If you truly love Tolkien's writing, then you simply must read this book. It is the first most important step in a real understanding of what Middle Earth is, where it is, where its characters came from, and what happened to them in ways that will really open your mind to the vastness and incredible beauty of Tolkien's world. After reading it, you'll have even less patience with the lunkheads who think LOTR is just another fantasy story. It's so, so much more than that. And if that wasn't enough, you'll learn what Beowulf's name would mean in modern English. ("Beowulf" is usually the only word in the poem not translated, in case you haven't noticed.)

This book analyzes many of Tolkein's works, but focuses the majority of its attention on the _Lord of the Rings_ and its two companion works: _the Hobbit_ and _the Silmarillion_. Popular polls taken at the end of the 20th century frequently place the _Lord of the Rings_ (LotR) at the top as the number one best book of the century. Many book critics look in horror at such a ranking. Shippey's book is in large part a rebuttal of this dismissal of Tolkein's work by most of the `literary establishment'. Shippey argues that LotR is quite worthy of the honor as best work of the century.This book is academic in nature and vocabulary, but it is also fun to read. As a Tolkein fan I found the book to be quite enlightening. Shippey delves DEEP in to the text, finding many treasures that I had not yet observed. I found it true, as one endorsement on the book jacket says, that Shippey "deepens your understanding of the work without making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-Earth."Professor Shippey, whose academic field is the same as that of Professor Tolkein himself, mines the philological earth and finds the likely background sources of numerous middle-earth creations, such as: Beorn, orcs, Rohan, etc. He also explores Tolkein's plot development strategy. One passage that I particularly liked was Shippey's description of how Tolkein used "interlacement" (the interweaving of different story lines) to convey an important thematic message of the work: that it's never wise to give up trying, no matter how bad the circumstances may appear. The examples he describes are very illustrative; for example: Aragorn's self-doubts as he pursues (in vain he fears) the orcs who had taken Pippin and Merry. I found several other sections to be thought-provoking as well: "wraithing"; "luck & courage"; and "eucatastrophe".If there is one disappointment I had in reading this book, it is that some finishing touches seem to be missing. The later chapters in the book seem less well-developed, and not as well focused within the argument of the book as a whole. Near the end of his first full chapter on LotR Shippey summarizes the development of his argument thus far. But from there on, there is no further explicit reference to his argument. To be sure most of the remaining material still implicitly contributes to the theory, but I found no satisfying conclusion explicitly made in the end of the book.In spite of that disappointment, this book significantly deepened my appreciation of the _Lord of the Rings_. I have for years considered LotR my all-time favorite book. As a result of reading Shippey's book, I understand better WHY LotR is such a great work, that it has great relevance and meaning in addition to its sheer wonder as entertainment.

I'm a novice when it comes to Tolkien criticism, so maybe my opinion is less valuable than others who have read more on this subject. Nevertheless, as a relatively new devotee of Tolkien, I found this book highly insightful. Shippey examines the sources that inspired Tolkien to write the large and disparate body of work centered on Middle Earth, of which LOTR is only a small part. The bulk of it centers on how Tolkien borrowed characters, themes, and words from old Norse myths. While I admittedly had little or no interest in these ancient legends, I am amazed at Tolkien's mastery of the subject, and Shippey does a good job of making Tolkien's lifelong engagement with these stories highly interesting. There is also an excellent chapter looking at Tolkien's conception of evil in comparative perspective. Shippey points out that Tolkien's ultimate take on evil is ambiguous; there are signs that he viewed evil as merely the absence of good, but other compelling signs that he saw evil as a power in and of itself. Finally, Shippey examines Tolkien's work as mythology. Despite Tolkien's purported dislike of allegory, Shippey argues that this need not prevent us from gleaning important lessons from Tolkien's themes and characters. There are individual sections on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his shorter works and letters. Readers will obviously prefer the chapters on the particular body of Tolkien's work they most admire. While more experienced literary critics might find fault with this work, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an informed analyses of Tolkien's inspirations and intentions.

In this excellent volume of criticism on Tolkien's work, Tom Shippey seeks to explain just what made Tolkien tick, and what made his stories the way they are. Tolkien shunned the idea of a biography, but I think this book is probably more along the lines of what he would have agreed to, since he believed that the best way to get a look inside an author's life was to examine his works. This book does just this. The bulk of this book, of course, centers around Tolkien's stories of Middle-Earth: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Shippey attempts to explain why Tolkien wrote these stories the way he did, and the result is very insightful. Shippey explains why he wrote archaically, how the more modern hobbit society, with its postal system and manners, fits in with the rest of Middle-Earth, and how to classify the various cultures and nations (like Rohan and Gondor) appearing in the works, to name a few. The rest of the book deals with Tolkien's other, lesser-known works, including the two semi-autobiographical ones. For true fans of Tolkien, the criticisms of these shorter works are an invaluable resource. All in all, this book is very insightful--there is definitely a great deal to be learned about Tolkien's works from a man who succeeded him to his Oxford chair, and who understands Tolkien's professional field as well. If you want to truly understand Tolkien, this is a book worth reading.

Starting with Shippey's opening claim that "The dominant literary mode of the twentieth century has been the fantastic," this is a fascinating study of Tolkien, what influenced him, and what he in turn influenced. Shippey discusses the concepts of Evil and Myth, and places Tolkien in a group of "traumatized" authors, mostly veterans, who wrote non-realistic fiction (Orwell, Vonnegut, Golding, CS Lewis, TH White, Heller, and (stretching it a bit) LeGuin). Shippey also continues his examination of the pagan roots of Tolkien's concept of courage from his 1983 "The Road to Middle-earth," and includes a useful chapter on the often-neglected shorter works. His examination of the critics who dismiss Tolkien offers excellent insights into the failures of modern criticism. This book is a good place for the novice reader of Tolkien criticism to start, and there is an extensive bibliography of other critical works. The copy I borrowed on interlibrary-loan is full of post-it notes awaiting transfer to the copy I have on order!