England and Always: Tolkien's World of the Rings

by Jared Lobdell

Explores the influence of Tolkien's English, Catholic, and academic background upon his writing and analyzes the popularity of Lord of The Rings.

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Tommy Grooms · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book began with such promise, with convincing arguments showing that The Lord of the Rings is shaped both by the Edwardian adventure mode and Tolkien's background as a philologist, but the chapter on religion was a mess. Lobdell seizes on a conclusion - LOTR depicts a "prelapsarian" world on the brink of the Fall - and stretches the evidence to fit it, making a point to ignore fairly obvious clues in the Silmarillion that would have belied his argument (namely, that a window for the fall of men was given to Morgoth), while along the way leading the reader down several rabbit holes of supposed Catholic doctrine analogues within the plot (e.g. the Ring must be representative of Eve's apple). Lobdell sees the "epic certainty about, and epic gulf between, good and evil" as evidence for his "prelapsarian" theory, ignoring the simple explanation that Tolkien wanted some dichotomy and wasn't making an attempt at gritty realism. This chapter kind of spoiled what was reasoned well, but it was a worthwhile read nonetheless.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book starts out fun. The author ties Tolkien's Lord of the Rings into the grand tradition of Victorian/Edwardian adventure stories. There's a lot of good material in the first sections. The chapter on theology and religion is very muddled and seems to result from the author applying a lot of bad theology to his reading of Tolkien. His whole doctrine of original sin / fallen / unfallen categories is extremely strange. Not as good a book as I had hoped.