Merry Christmas!
Re-reading Tolkien’s works again this year it occurred to me why I love them so much. It isn’t just the wonderfully detailed world-building, or the beloved characters, although all these things are true. No, what brings me back again and again is what breathes through all his works - that brilliant sense of hope. Tolkien, it was said, hated allegory, and felt that a story should be enjoyed for what it was, without the need to look for deeper meaning. At the same time, it is true that no-one can write (or in Peter Jackson’s case, direct) what they do not already know - and Tolkien was a Christian, who dearly loved his Lord, and it breathes through his works, threading through everything in a silent but firm foundation. His world of Middle Earth is pre-Christian, and he never references God, but still, God is there, and if you care to look, He is very much the Christian God. (It is entirely possible to read Tolkien without ever seeing God - but if you look for Him, His hand is everywhere apparent). Tolkien often said that the sudden turn of despair to hope, what he called the “eucatastrophe” was the “consolation” of fairy stories - that glimpse of Joy “beyond the walls of the world” - and it is the lynchpin of his stories. It must be, because Tolkien believed in Jesus - in that most magnificent “eucatastrophe” - that God would Himself enter into the world to fix our mistakes - what he called the “greatest Fairy Story” - and knowing this hope, he cannot help but have it underpin his writing. That God, though unseen, is not inactive - Bilbo, Gandalf reminds us, was “meant” to find the ring. That despite all else, hope prevails - despite sorrow and failure and beyond all hope of men, still, day will come, and joy return. This is a uniquely Christian hope - one that believes “all will be well” not in idle wishing, but out of the firm certainty that One Who Loves Us is in control. And this is why Peter Jackson could never hope to equal him - that PJ loves the stories goes without saying, the movies would not be so beloved by fans if the director was not so faithful. But equally true, Peter Jackson does not have that foundation from which to build - and without that, his works are only an echo, a mirror that reflects in distorted vision - still wonderful, but lacking that last, vital ingredient.
So this Christmas I will go to watch the Hobbit, and likely, I will enjoy it greatly (or so I hope). But I will not forget to say “Happy birthday” to the very Hope of the World, for His birth and death and resurrection are all the eucatastrophe I need - this is the greatest Story of them all, the Fairy Tale that came True.
“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to a fairy tale); this joy, which is one of the things that fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive. In it's fairy tale or other world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to reoccur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, or sorrow and failure, the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“I believe that legends and myth are largely made of truth, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be perceived in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story - and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
“I am a Christian…so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ - though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
This entry was originally posted at http://bookworm-faith.dreamwidth.org/74552.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So this Christmas I will go to watch the Hobbit, and likely, I will enjoy it greatly (or so I hope). But I will not forget to say “Happy birthday” to the very Hope of the World, for His birth and death and resurrection are all the eucatastrophe I need - this is the greatest Story of them all, the Fairy Tale that came True.
“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to a fairy tale); this joy, which is one of the things that fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive. In it's fairy tale or other world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to reoccur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, or sorrow and failure, the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“I believe that legends and myth are largely made of truth, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be perceived in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story - and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
“I am a Christian…so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ - though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
This entry was originally posted at http://bookworm-faith.dreamwidth.org/74552.html. Please comment there using OpenID.