Remembering John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Today in 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien passed. He was a philologist, a student and professor of language, and indeed created something like his own language, and his own world, the adventures within which are chronicled in his fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and Simarillion.

He was raised by his mother as his father died when he was young. Born in South Africa but he moved to England as a child and stayed when his father died. His mother taught him botany and languages including Latin, which the child enjoyed. He could read by the age of four, and began writing shortly thereafter. He was raised with the help of his grandparents, who were Baptists, but when his mother became Catholic, the family stopped all financial assistance to her and the children and essentially disowned the young man. His mother died of diabetes when the young writer was only twelve. She left him to be cared for by the church, specifically Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan, in the shadow of church towers and in the presence of medievalist paintings all of which seem to have influenced his work.

He married the sweetheart of his youth, another orphan named Edith Mary whom he met at sixteen. He was forbid to see her because she was a protestant. He obeyed his guardian, but when he turned twenty-one, and was set free to pursue her, he wrote her and declared his live. She was engaged to another man, but had agreed to marry the man because she believed he had forgotten her. He assured her he hadn't, and she returned her fiance's ring. The two were married and produced four children. They are buried together in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford.

He was a staunch catholic his entire life. He disdained the industrialized age, including cars. He rode a bike all his life. He was friends with C.S. Lewis but did not like that the writer overtly used religious allegory. His own religious imagery was simply that of fantasy, which he claimed borrowed from reality, which he also claimed was Christianity and therefore had Christian themes.

He, made in the image of God, was a creator of worlds.

An interview with Tolkien:

Remembering John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog