What I'm Reading This Month
By Donne Puckle
October 2006
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. I read this in response, I suppose, to my recent read of The Lord of the Rings (for about the 15th time since the 1950's!) and a reading of Peter Kreeft's The Philosophy of Tolkien and of Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The Letters deal quite deliberately with the details of the Ring and the Silmarillion. The information included in the appendixes in the Lord of the Rings is expanded, explained, and clarified. This is most welcome to those of us who love well-crafted myths. For that reason I commend the Letters to Ring fans.
But the real gems in this collection of letters are the ones dealing with sex and marriage, war, and the Fall (both in Tolkien's works and in Man). Letter 43 to his son Michael comments on marriage and the relations between the sexes in the context of a fallen world. He writes, "The dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages." I believe this is a letter which should be required reading for anyone contemplating marriage. We bring our strengths and our frailties to relationships. Letter 43 notes them both.
Letter 64 (and others) deal with "[t]he utter stupid waste of war." Tolkien fought in WWI and his son Christopher in WWII. Like letter 43 this one points out that war is a symptom of the Fall, going bad. In the long run there are no real victors. Other letters deal with war and with subjects beyond his mythologies. There is much wisdom in Tolkien's letters. It is worth the time to winkle it out.
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