Hello and welcome to my web site.

About me: a happily married man with three daughters, a very understanding and impatient wife, and a black cat named Tia that I am allergic to! My profession is that of an engineer and I work in the area of rail power and computer control systems. I am glad to say that I enjoy it and even though I never set out to be one, consider myself lucky to have found my slot in life’s workforce.

After having toyed with the idea for a long time, I decided to create my own web site in honor of  the late John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. As to why, the reasons are numerous but the most honest one is that I feel his best works are truly magical. I first read the Hobbit as a young boy in the late 60’s and first read the The Lord of the Rings the same year Tolkien died, 1973. I was, in that year, starting out in my teens and can vaguely remember that it was ‘bloody hard’ reading. I read it again as a young man in the mid-eighties and it made much more sense to me at that time. It was then that I first started sketching out drawings of middle earth and its people. I have always had a love of art and it was the only thing at school that I excelled at. Sadly I never kept any of my sketches and looking back I wished I had. If you like Tolkien inspired artwork then check out web sites for Alan Lee, Ted Naismith and John Howe. These are the artist that I most like and try my best to be inspired by. Here is a good selection from Tolkien, Lee, Howe and Naismith. Can you tell which picture belongs to whom?

I have now lost count of the times I have read LOTR. In full, all three books have been read more then ten times and that does not include the starting of and then abandoning due to life’s wants.  The Hobbit I revisited a few times so that I could understand more the links between it and LOTR.  I ventured into The Silmarillion and found that a complete shock, as I think most people do when they first attempt to read it. On the second attempt it started to make some sense, I now have to build up the courage to go for the third attempt.

I joined the Tolkien Society - http://www.tolkiensociety.org - for two reasons. One to belong to a group of people who shared the same interests as me and secondly, to read about what other people think of Tolkien and his works.  So far I have not been disappointed with the magazine and its contents.  What amazes me is how some of the members that right essays about Tolkien can get so far into the philosophy and ideology of what Tolkien tried to portray. Their commitment and passion for there work is commended.
 

J.R.R.Tolkien: A discussion on his life and achievements.

My views on Tolkien (as a novice) are this:  he was but a genius.  The complexity of middle earth clearly shows this.  He created a whole new world for us to share. I don’t at any point consider that he set out to do this. It started of as a liking of language structures at an early age and then later the study of Germanic, Norse and Anglo-saxon mythology and literature. As you know he studied philology, the study of languages and it was this study that slowly created images in his mind, of how these people would have been, how they lived and how they would have lived in England within the shires. But why did he do it, why did he create this never never world? To me its very clear, Tolkien escaped into a world that he wished he lived in. Simple as that. His day dreaming became his reality through the use of his written world. His fantasizing of the people that he studied became real in his own mind. Moreover, he became, as he admitted himself a ‘Hobbit’. Tolkien just had to get this passion out somewhere, this resulted in him writing ‘The Book of Lost Tales’ which later became the Silmarillion, whilst he was convalescing, after the 1st world war, back in England in the year 1917. So his mind stage was set, his thoughts were private and the curtains were still closed.

There has been much speculation regards how much of Tolkien’s previous life experiences had had an influence on his early writings. The saying ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ may best explain that even though Tolkien had a clear path in his academic studies and his love for England: there was an overriding factor of lack of personal expression.  One can only speculate at how much of an influence his past had on him. Lets face it, he did not exactly have a comfortable upbringing. His parents dying early (father 1896, mother 1904) and the sense of isolation and non-permanency in his life must of unsettled him and his brother, Hilary.  After having read Humphrey Carpenter’s biography ( you must read this, is brilliant) it came as no surprise that Tolkien did not stay long in one place for the rest of his adult life. So the influence must have been there and must show in his work, should it not? Well, not that clearly. I am sure that people for years will continue to analyze and decipher where these hidden links are, may it continue.

In 1916 Tolkien married Edith Bratt. His love for this woman lasted his entire life. This brought about the stability that Tolkien most needed in his life. 

During my readings of Tolkien’s life (see bibliography at end) it came as an absolute delight to learn that the start of the Hobbit began when one day marking his exam papers as a professor, he turned a page over and wrote ‘in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’ which led to his writing the Hobbit. How wonderful, what an amazing fact. What possessed him to do this? Was it his fantasy world pushing its way through, could his ‘middle-earth’ hold back no longer. Einstein, Newton, DaVinci and many other brilliant minds all showed the same spark (pardon the engineering pun) of inspiration: that one off brain wave, or if you are a believer, as Tolkien was, of divine intervention. Which ever way you look at it, it happened and our world became ‘middle-earth’.

In 1926 he met someone, a Mr C.S. Lewis, they became very good friends.  Tolkiens stage curtain rippled just a bit, as history shows this friendship would help him towards ‘middle-earth’.

The Hobbit was written for his children (1930), much as the same way that fledgling birds will test their wings on a branch before actually taking the leap! It was his trial run at conceptualizing his fantasy, his private little ‘shire’, his dream of ‘middle-earth’. Even though the Hobbit was welcomed by his children, Tolkien did not actually finish it off! Poor kids!

In the early 1930’s Tolkien and Lewis formed the ‘Inklings. This club was for close friends who all shared a liking of literature. It was the transformation of what used to be the ‘Coalbiters’ club. Either way Tolkien now had an audience for his stage and his works.  Carpenters biography indicates that Lewis, during the Inkling meetings and their close friendship became Tolkien’s literary cornerstone. Tolkien said of Lewis “ he was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby”.

Tolkien was not the master of his own destiny. Not many of us are, but what happened next was yet again pure luck or fate. In 1936 the manuscript of The Hobbit was read by a Susan Dagnell of Allen & Unwin the book publishers. She asked him to finish it off, which he did. The following year 1937 The Hobbit was published. Tolkien’s stage curtain opened.

At this point what did Tolkien expect? One realises not that much. He carried on with his academic career, which is not a subject of this discussion, but suffice to say that he continued with the vigor that he always did. What did happen was that whilst Tolkien was working, The Hobbit was selling like hot cakes! By Christmas that year it had sold out. It was eventually to be translated into 31 languages. This for a first book!  Lets put this into context: a writer who studies languages, passionately, creates a fantasy world and writes a story book based around it. The book then gets translated into different languages so that other people can read it. The stage Tolkien created became a magic roundabout. His stage audience was now world wide.

In 1939 war broke out, and Tolkien said “I have in this war a burning private grudge against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler for ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have loved, and tried to present in its true light”. Tolkien felt insulted by Hitler’s use of that wonderful Germanic race for his tool in war. Nearly all his life Tolkien had exemplified the culture and mythology that the Europeans had bought over to his English shores. They were the past heritage of England.. Tolkien had often exclaimed that ‘we’ had the heritage but no mythology. He had created that with his own ‘middle-earth’, based on all things good, and he was right to do so.

One can understand why he felt this way. The only mythology that we are led to believe is English is actually French. The Norman invasion was the start of English heritage, was it not!?. This is what I believe Tolkien detested. The French were invaders of a land that already had its own race, be it a mix of different people form the Northern, European lands. It was the old-English languages and culture that he strove to show in its ‘true light’.  The point to be made here is this: there was no mythology linked to the people of Old-England. Their ancestors yes, but not the homeland people. There was no magical land, fantasied heroes and won battles for the English shire. Even worse to someone like Tolkien and his imagination, no dragons, goblins, orcs or beasts!

The creation of mythology is mans attempt at glorifying known history. Much the same way religion has in its own way based its teachings on known facts but created a myth around the achievements. In order to make what would normally be classed as actual facts mythology adds the interest and sparkle that makes the learner, or reader more inclined to believe. As an Atheist it is an issue that I find very hard to understand.  The belief of religion which is based on half truths and half mythology brings the faith that it believers want and need, and in that respect if the whole brings some goodness than so be it. Tolkiens ‘middle-earth’ therefore is a mixture of both known facts and pure imagination. The two combined making up a complete, and in Tolkiens case, a very intricate and detailed account of a world that does not exist, but that was mythologized in such a way that it became real to its readers.  I am one of how many that would like to believe that it actually exists.

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