Engaging the Culture: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit

Today we begin discussing J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  Be forewarned that this post may contain spoilers!

Although J. R. R. Tolkien’s devotion to the Catholic faith is no secret, little about The Hobbit seems to suggest that Tolkien meant to convey anything about his personal beliefs through his writings.  The book presents itself as a delightful children’s story that takes on the traditional questing theme, but in a lighthearted manner; Bilbo Baggins, after all, is not exactly standard hero material.  No one ever discusses morality, no one ever mentions God.  However, as G. K. Chesterton writes in The Everlasting Man, “It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write any book on any subject…without showing that he is a Catholic.”  Tolkien’s philosophy and values form the basis for the entire book, guiding his choice of hero, his depiction of character development, and his final decision to turn his children’s story into a surprisingly sophisticated commentary on personal morality and the nature of war.  His world and the rules that guide it are ultimately Catholic, even if the characters are not.

Tolkien’s Middle-earth is meant to be our world, though in a time long ago before Christianity.  The characters do not know or worship Christ, but they are theoretically still bound by the moral law written on our hearts.  That is, they have the ability to recognize evil and a responsibility to choose good.  Though no character refers to a deity (Gandalf comes close by suggesting that something more than luck preserves Bilbo throughout his adventures), they all instinctively recognize the value of qualities such as honesty, loyalty, and hospitality while instinctively hating the senseless violence of the orcs.  Nearly all the characters at some point will face temptation to do wrong, and their response to that temptation will rule their fate.

Tolkien, however, never resorts to allegory to depict man’s struggle with temptation.  Instead, he depicts it naturally through the choices faced by his characters.  Their story resonates because these choices have real consequences—evil is repaid with evil and good repaid with good.  Although it sometimes seems that in this life the wicked flourish while the good suffer, a Catholic worldview holds that in the end all will receive their just reward.  The consequences experienced by the characters of The Hobbit reflect this belief and thus seem fitting.

So it is that Smaug, overcome with pride, reveals to Bilbo his one weakness—and seals his own fate.  The dwarfs, overcome with dragon lust, determine to sit on their pile of gold until they starve—and suffer for it.  Bilbo alone resists greed for wealth and he alone is able to return to his home whole and happy.  The key to the entire text lies in Thorin’s final words to the Hobbit: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”  This is no ordinary quest story.  Bilbo does not leave his comfortable Hobbit hole to gain something as vulgar as gold.  Rather, he leaves his Hobbit hole because doing so enables him to grow as a person, to recognize the value of what he already has, and to serve as an example for others.

Such a message contradicts many of those seen today in books and film.  How often are we emotionally manipulated by storytellers to cheer for an adulterous relationship?  How often do we find ourselves secretly approving of characters who take revenge on those who have wronged them, rather than extending forgiveness?  We may find ourselves able to relate to such characters, but we cannot admire them--not as we can admire Bilbo and his surprising strength and courage.  Bilbo is fairly unique among modern heroes.  He is an Everyman, but one who demonstrates the possibility of personal moral growth.  He gives hope to us all.

So will Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit keep the underlying Christian themes?  I cannot say with certainty as I have yet to view the film.  However, unless Jackson makes major changes to the story (such as he did with Aragorn, Faramir, and Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings), the overall message of evil leading to evil and good leading to good should remain.  If not, at least viewers may find themselves inspired to read Tolkien's original work.  

Engaging the Culture: An Introduction

The recent election has seen new spirit infused into both sides currently fighting the culture wars over such issues as abortion, artificial birth control, the right to health care, and more.  Although the U.S. bishops spoke out strongly against legislation that covers abortions and forces religious employers to pay for services that violate their beliefs, the majority of Americans (and Catholics) did not vote against these proposals.  The aftermath left many faithful Catholics wondering exactly what went wrong.  Did they fail properly to explain the basis of Church teaching?  Were they unable to compete with the information offered by other news sources?  (My friends, for example, seemed convinced that the issue at stake was the outlaw of all methods of contraception, rather than a religious freedom exemption for certain employers.)  What should they do differently in the future?

I am not convinced that a lack of information lies at the root of the current, popular aversion to Church teaching on matters of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, IVF, artificial birth control, and more.  Anyone really interested in what the Church actually says can do a quick Internet search and find helpful resources on such sites as EWTN or Catholic Answers.  Better yet, the Vatican has the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church online.  Yes, despite these resources, many remain ignorant about the actual teachings and instead parrot garbled versions offered to them by sources that have no interest in portraying the Church fairly or accurately.  But the problem is not the lack of information—the problem is that the teachings are so radically opposed to everything our culture tells us that they appear difficult and unattractive.  How many people will spend time researching something that seems so far-fetched as to be irrelevant to them?

Before we offer others the truth of what the Catholic Church teaches, we need to make that truth appear desirable.  Teachings on abstinence, for example, can make abstinence appear as a negative—it seems like just another rule preventing people from having fun.  Because our culture insists that premarital unchastity is normal, desirable, and consequence-free, any teaching insisting the opposite is going to be a hard sell.  Simply saying, “No, you can’t do that!” will not only prove unconvincing, but may also come across as judgmental.  However, explaining why a person will be better off in the long run by practicing chastity can open up a discussion.  Jason Evert and his wife Crystalina do great work promoting chaste lifestyles by arguing that abstinence allows young adults to save themselves for true love.  They do not present abstinence as a list of things unmarried individuals cannot do, but as an opportunity for them to grow an individuals.

So how do Catholics present Catholicism in a positive light to the world?  Living lives of love, of course, but also by engaging the culture.  The recent release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit will introduce (or reintroduce) many to the works of a man whose worldview was shaped by his Catholicism.  Soon after the movie version of Les Miserables will offer another great Catholic story to the masses.  Neither work overtly proclaims itself as based on Catholic principles; neither one will likely cause viewers to leave the theatre because they under the impression that the makers are proselytizing.  However, neither work can fully escape the philosophy of their creators.  They depict characters living lives that reflect Christian values—and their lives are admirable and attractive enough that they have caught the imaginations of generations.

The world needs more such stories—stories that illustrate the beauty of a Catholic worldview and, in so doing, strike their audiences with a joy so beautiful it hurts.  Stories that engage audiences because they depict characters who suffer hardships and sorrows—many undeserved—but who carry on, showing themselves honest, brave, loyal, and full of love.  Stories that are true.

Join us as we continue the discussion through a series of posts that explores the intersection of contemporary culture and Catholicism.  Coming up, a look at The Hobbit and what it means (or does not mean) for Catholics.

Looking for...An Old-Fashioned Romance

A Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

Returning hold after two years abroad, Rose Campbell finds herself surrounded by admiring young men—some more interested in her money than in her.  Determined to improve herself before she commits to a relationship, however, Rose actively works to challenge her mind, resist the temptations of her frivolous society, and give of her time and effort to those around her.  The greatest difficulty she faces, however, may be learning to say no to an attractive young man whom she believes she can save from his own temptations.  The sequel to Eight Cousins.

Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace

Emily Webster feels left out when all her old companions leave for college and she must stay behind to care for her grandfather.  She resigns herself to a “lost winter” and soon finds herself withdrawing from the community.  Once she decides to “marshal her wits,” however, and improve herself through personal study while helping those around her, she realizes that Deep Valley holds more than she could have imagined.  A companion book to the Besty-Tacy series.

 

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery

Eric Marshall arrives on Prince Edward Island to work as a substitute schoolmaster, but unexpectedly finds himself falling in love.  Kilmeny Gordon is a beautiful young woman who, since she cannot speak, expresses herself through the violin she plays each evening in the orchard.  Eric hopes to win her heart, but various obstacles threaten to tear them apart.

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

Elnora Comstock and her cold, neglectful mother live together on the edge of the Limberlost Swamp, where Elnora often escapes to find comfort in the beauty of nature.  She dreams of an education, despite her mother’s desire that she stay home, and works hard to collect specimens from the swamp in order to pay her for her tuition.  Her collection of moths eventually attracts the interest of Phillip Ammon, a wealthy young man attempting to recover from a recent illness.  The two grow close during their rambles through the swamp, but Philip’s previous engagement to another girl keep the two apart.

Waiting on Wednesday (1)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where we share books we are anticipating!

Rapunzel Let Down: A Fairy Tale Retold
By Regina Doman

Series: Fairy Tale Novels #6
Publisher: Chesterton Press
Projected Release: Easter 2013

Summary: I have yet to see an official summary, but Doman's announcement states that this retelling of "Rapunzel" deals with   premarital unchastity and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.  She recommends it for an older audience, about fourteen and up.

Thoughts: I don't know of many books that portray Catholic characters, much less ones who actively live out their faith.  I think many young Catholics find it difficult to relate to the characters in contemporary novels--characters who party hard, sleep around, and abuse various substances.  While I have seen reviewers who criticize Doman's young Catholic heroes and heroines as unrealistic, that was my reality growing up--I was surrounded by people who wanted to serve God and to live moral lives. I appreciate a series that acknowledges my own experience and that illustrates the possibility that young people can make good choices.

Furthermore, Doman does not shy away from difficult topics such as date rape, drugs, and abortion.  She recognizes that young people deal with these issues and that pretending they do not exist can do more harm than good.  She always presents these issues in a Catholic light, showing that temptation need not turn into sin--or that, when it does, God is always ready to forgive.  I'm looking forward to Rapunzel Let Down because I'm tired of reading books that treat premarital sex lightly, as if it it merely a recreational pastime and can never have life-altering consequences.  I think young people deserve better than that--they deserve the truth.

What Is the What: A Novel by Dave Eggers

Goodreads: What Is the What

Series: None

Published: 2006

Source: Purchased

Summary: Dave Eggers novelizes the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.  Fleeing from his village of Marial Bai, Achak crosses Sudan on foot with thousands of other displaced boys.  They face armed militia, government soldiers, lions, hunger and thirst to before settling for a time in Ethiopia.  Eventually driven out by a new government, Achak survives another long trek to find safety in the refugee camp of Kakuma in Kenya, but begins to wonder if he will have to remain there the rest of his life. 

Review: What Is the What covers a lot of weighty subjects, moving from Deng’s present-day hardships in the United States to his previous suffering in Africa.  The book thus links the two cultures, commenting subtly on the evil inflicted by men on each other no matter where they come from.  Deng obviously hopes his story will encourage his readers to take a closer look at the way they treat others and especially at the unintended effects their apathy can have.  His story, at its heart, is about listening to others and finding the common factors that connect us all.

The story begins in Deng’s present-day apartment in Atlanta, where Deng works hard in hopes of one day attending college and then giving back to his beloved Sudan.  However, even as Deng flashes back to his painful childhood, describing his flight from his home village and the death of loved ones, his disillusionment with America comes increasingly to the forefront.  Despite his willingness to work, he can find only low-paying jobs.  He struggles with his community college classes while he attempts to find another college to accept him.  Worse of all, evil and tragedy follow him to this new country, so that he becomes again a victim of violence and suffers the loss of more loved ones.

Convinced that God no longer cares, Deng struggles with his faith as he tries to come to terms with all the suffering he has witnessed and experienced.  He moves fluidly from his present to his past, connecting events and persons in his effort to make it come alive for his listeners.  He notes that he cannot help this, his telling of stories.  He must speak out, even when no one pays attention.  His concern seems to be that so much pain stems from silence; people do not understand the way in which their decisions affect others.

Despite the doubts he voices about his faith, however, Deng speaks with an optimism both inspiring and compelling.  He works through his personal tragedy, turning to others who can help him, and does not abandon his God even when he feels God must have abandoned him.  His hope in the face of unimaginable suffering makes the book a profound testimony to the power of the human spirit to overcome suffering.

Movie Review: The Molly Maguires

Date: 1970

Director: Martin Ritt

Summary: Life is hard in the anthracite coal region of 19th-century Pennsylvania, especially for the Irish workers who seem trapped in a hopeless cycle of poverty and dangerous work.  But one group of men – a secret society of Irish Catholics known as the Molly Maguires – has decided to fight back.  Using covert acts of sabotage and assassination, the Mollies terrorize the coal operators and the police who they feel have wronged them for so long.  But now there is an informer among their ranks, and he may prove more dangerous to the Mollies than any coal operator has ever been.

Review:  The Molly Maguires is an interesting movie, from a Catholic perspective, for at least two reasons.  First, it tells a part of our collective history.  And second, it introduces the theme of social justice while showing what can happen in its absence.

Though the story of the Molly Maguires has been part legend from the start and continues to be shrouded in mystery, there is truth in that story that is worth being told.  In the second half of the 19^th century, many Irish Americans lived and worked in coal patch towns.  Poverty and violence were a constant reality and, in the decades following the Civil War, Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region found itself in the national spotlight when a series of assassinations and other violent acts against coal authorities were attributed to a secret society of Catholic Irishmen.  Detectives got involved, and in the end several men hanged for it.

The movie, necessarily, states as fact some things that might not be true.  It names the Mollies and their motives while fully analyzing the perspective of the man – an Irish Catholic himself – who agreed to find the Mollies and set them up for arrest and execution.  Though the writer and director had to take some creative license with history, they reach to the core of some very real themes that are as relevant today as they were in the 1870s.  Viewers are led to sympathize with the grievances of the Mollies, but they cannot endorse murder as an appropriate response.  They struggle with one character’s comment that this fight is like a war, and have to wonder if the rules of war could apply to this situation, with some “soldiers” drawn reluctantly into battle by the simple nature of their job title or ethnicity.  They have to look at the character of McParlan – the informer – and decide if he is more or less guilty than the Mollies.  Is he justified to turn in the assassins?  What if he admits that he does it not in the name of justice, but because it is his chosen way to find a better position in society?  Is anyone in the story wholly innocent?  Is anyone entirely guilty?  If there is a blameless course of action, what can it be?

Though some historians find fault with the factual accuracy of the movie, it powerfully draws attention to the most relevant questions brought up by the Molly Maguire events.  The movie tells a good story, and it does it well.  Furthermore, its cast includes Richard Harris and Sean Connery, so Dumbledore and James Bond unite to share with us this important piece of American Catholic history.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

Goodreads: The Fellowship of the Ring
Series: The Lord of the Rings #1
Published: 1954
Source: Purchased

Summary: A young Hobbit discovers that he has come to possess the One Ring, forged by an evil lord to find the other Rings of power in order to corrupt them and their works and bring the world into his control.  He sets off on a quest, aided by eight companions, to destroy the Ring in the only way possible.  He must walk across Middle-Earth and into the country of the enemy and then cast the Ring into the volcanic fires in which it was made.  The fate of the world is hanging around his neck.

Review:  It is always difficult to review a work that one loves, and it is even more difficult to review that work in pieces.  Though The Fellowship of the Ring is often cast as the first book in a series, it of course is really the first volume in what was written as a single book, a single story.  Publishers and a paper shortage were the causes of the resulting “trilogy.”  So though what is in Fellowship is good, it is not complete, and readers are left on a lakeshore wondering not just if Frodo will succeed in his quest, but also whether he is even close to his goal at all.

For although The Lord of the Rings is about Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom, and the journeys of others who are trying to pave his way, The Fellowship of the Ring is not.   Readers unfamiliar with the story (Are there many left after the release of Jackson’s movies?) will not even know that Frodo intends to go into Mordor at all.  Here his goal is first to get to Rivendell.  To get to Rivendell and hand this burden to someone else.  Someone, we must assume, bigger and stronger and better equipped to deal with the serious matters of the world.  When Frodo says, “I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way,” it is a surprise, and one that sets the tone of the entire story.  Here we see a small Hobbit become large and know that there is something surprising in each of us, as well. 

And this amazing story is told in absolutely beautiful language.  Tolkien was a philologist and deeply interested in words, so the ones he used in his books were chosen with care.  In The Lord of the Rings he uses language that evokes the spirit of the Middle Ages (which we most often associate with knights and deeds of honor), though of course he is not writing in Middle English at all, or even drawing upon the standards like “hark” and “prithee” and “thou”  that make so much fantasy sound ridiculously clunky.  Many readers think Tolkien’s writing sounds “old,” but with care they might find it is his sentence structure and not his vocabulary at all.  In fact, hints of his modern Englishness often slip into the text, if less often than in The Hobbit.

Poems scattered throughout the work give a sense that there is a deeper history propping the world of this book up.  Readers learn about the cultures and their values through their poetry and the subjects they preserve in it.  Elvish poems tell tales from Tolkien’s Silmarillion and hint at all the people and deeds of Middle-Earth that had passed before this Second Age even began.  Hobbit poems speak of food and comfort or silly tales of trolls.  Poetry is not often Tolkien’s strongest suit, and some readers like to skip it, but in truth much is missed when they do, including simply some really good stories.

In terms of themes, we have not yet come completely to the big ones: the struggle between good and evil, Sauron’s attempt to steal God’s role and create, the price of studying too closely the arts of the enemy.  Here, we have friendship.  Though of course this strengthens in later volumes, we begin to see here the three Hobbits who insist on accompanying their friend Frodo on a dangerous journey simply because they do not want him to go alone.  At first, they invite themselves to Bree and then to Rivendell.  Then they invite themselves farther, intending to go with him as far as Mordor.  They plead for the opportunity to do so, for Elrond in all his wisdom would have sent them home.

The rest of the Fellowship (but Boromir?) is loyal, and we see bonds begin to grow there as well, including between Legolas and Gimli who will finally overcome all the prejudices of their people.  Yet the best friendship we see is among the Hobbits, the everyday little people who are more like us than are the great heroes like Aragorn.  C. S. Lewis says in The Four Loves that “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival,” but here he appears to be wrong.  Without Sam and Merry and Pippin’s friendship, Frodo would not have survived, perhaps even failing far from Mount Doom, right at the beginning when he was still near the Shire.  The friendship between Frodo and Sam is perhaps one of the most beautiful ever written.

The Lord of the Rings is undoubtedly an exciting tale, one that finds fans because it offers heroes and swordfights and a frighteningly power evil.  Yet its greatest strength and the secret to its survival as a classic lie in its portrayals of truth and human nature, even if it is sometimes embodied in Elves or hobbits or dwarves.  Because The Fellowship of the Ring starts this epic adventure, it has a little more time to offer pictures of the home that make fighting evil, of any kind, worth it.  It is the most directly happy and hopeful of the volumes and a beautiful beginning.