J.R.R. Tolkien.
Harper Collins. 1995.

The approach of the new millennium prompted a predictable flurry of polls seeking to identify the greatest scientist, the most iconic film, the best painting or the tallest chimpanzee of the twentieth century. Few people will be surprised to learn that JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (first published in 1954) emerged in a succession of polls as the century's favourite work of fiction. Tolkien's epic has roots that penetrate deep into the soil of European culture, and seems to speak to the concerns of the modern world on an intimate level. Yet there is one dimension of this work which seems to escape most commentators. In a letter to a Jesuit friend Tolkien wrote that "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work"*. In an era that proclaimed the death of God, it is surprising and, perhaps, telling that such a book should so deeply penetrate the modern imagination.

It is a work profoundly shaped by the carnage of the twentieth century and a searing critique of those forces, technological, political or philosophical, which would seek to demean and control the individual (human or hobbit!). "The Lord of the Rings" is far more than a great work of fiction - any book that is truly ‘great' always is. It exposes the emptiness at the core of post-religious modernity and hopes for ‘a new springtime of the human spirit' of the sort envisaged decades later by John Paul II. In the midst of a century that despaired of human goodness, it extols traditional values: honour, romance, loyalty, friendship, heroism, glory, beauty and truth. "The Lord of the Rings" takes a clear-eyed look at evil, and refuses to be daunted.

Yet, the real force of Tolkien's work does not lie in his exposition of evil, but rather in the vigour and beauty of his vision of good. "The Lord of the Rings", for all its grandeur and imaginative scope, glories in simplicity. The joys of a good meal, the comfort of a homely hobbit-hole, the pleasure of a warm bath are part of the same, life-affirming, vision of beauty as the magnificence of Minas Tirith, the Elven kingdoms or the numinous splendour of a starry night. It is a vision which Tolkien himself described as Marian in inspiration. She is the Queen of Heaven, clothed in the sun and standing on the moon, but she is also the peasant girl from a Galilean backwater who said ‘yes' to God. The work glories in the paradoxes of the Christian faith: when I am weak I am strong, in dying we are born to eternal life, the first shall be last, in giving we receive, the meek shall inherit the earth. In Tolkien's epic it is not power, aggression, pride and self-seeking that win the day, but humility, mercy, self-sacrifice and, ultimately, Love.

We readers like our stories to be about heroes, and there has been considerable debate about who the ‘true' hero of "The Lord of the Rings" actually is. Frodo, the self-sacrificing ringbearer is the obvious choice, though many think Sam more virtuous; Aragorn, after whom the third book is named, is another possibility; or maybe Gandalf who sets the whole plot in motion. The true answer is ‘none of the above'. The Hero at the heart of "The Lord of the Rings" is constantly present though never mentioned by name, His love is the object of every human hope, His glory fills creation, His message is eternal, and His entry into human history is anticipated on every page of this book.

*"The Letters of JRR Tolkien". Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.