Below is a rather "book reportish" summary of a book I've read twice. Feel free to skip and scan. I suggest, at the least, to check out the "characteristics of Edwardian adventure story" list, and the questions that follow at the end of this post. For those with a more literary bent and interest, I invite you to read this entire post.
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Jared Lobdell wrote a book called
England and Always: Tolkien's World of the Rings, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI in 1981. Many of you may have missed this little treatise; I have it partly because I live in the town where it was published. Jared Lobdell was also the editor of
The Tolkien Compass. So much for background.
Lobdell offers an explanation for why LotR is so despised by modern critics, or what we have been calling the "literati". It should be said at the outset that such an explanation was not the primary motivation for his book. Lobdell's self professed motivation was to write a book that discusses the "four most obvious facts about the author's life"(vii). These are that: (1) Tolkien grew to manhood in the years before the Great War; (2) he was a philologist; (3) he was Roman Catholic; (4) LotR is one of the most successful works of modern times. Granted, these themes have been covered here and by books written since 1981 quite thoroughly. .... which makes Lobdell's differing perspective all that much more intriguing.
To summarize, Lobdell says that Tolkien has written an Edwardian adventure story.
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Characteristics of Edwardian adventure story:
- a particular object associated with the adventure
- a fictional travelogue, or at least a travel story
- framed in familiarity
- odd and inexplicable things happen
- enchanted scenery & stock characters as in a dream
- characters are types
- nature itself is a character
- black-and-white morality
- a band of brothers/we happy few/a fellowship
- an eccentric, mysterious, and powerful leader
- story is told by one of the fellowship who has survived
- mysterious character indwelling the world itself
- nature is itself in a way supernatural
- past is alive in the present
- frankly aristocratic in its conventions
(11-19)
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Examples Lobdell provides of Edwardian adventure stories and their authors:
- G.K. Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday (which I've read), The Everlasting Man, The Napoleon of Notting Hill
- H. Ryder Haggard, She, King Solomon's Mines
- Algernon Blackwood, The Willows, Strange Stories
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
- Rudyard Kipling
- Masefield
- G. A. Henty
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- P. G. Wodehouse
- Farnol
(11-19)
I don't know a lot of these authors, but note them for the sake of completeness.
Lobdell admits great dissimilarities between the many books and authors listed, but finds this intriguing connection, which he reiterates a number of times:
Quote:
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Mr. Colin Wilson reads Farnol's novels and Tolkien's three-decker for much the same reasons. ... Mr. Aldiss reads Tolkien at least for some of the reasons he reads Wodehouse. ... some readers turn to Tolkien for the same reason that others turn to 221B Baker Street.(13)
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Agree with Lobdell or not, he puts forward a clear and persuasive case.
So what?
Well, this:
Quote:
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That LotR is an exemplar of this Edwardian mode is at the root of the adverse reactions by such readers as William Ready and Edmund Wilson.(19)
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Lobdell goes on to say:
Quote:
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...we will be armed against a tendency to attack (or defend) Tolkien on the wrong grounds if we can determine what the proper grounds are --- that is, what LotR is intended to be.(23)
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Further:
Quote:
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The greater the success of LotR as an adventure story in the Edwardian mode, the more those who dislike adventure stories in the Edwardian mode will seek to denigrate and depreciate it. .... the dislike runs deeper for this mode than for others ...
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Then Lobdell outlines what one finds in the adventure story written in the period, roughly 1950 to 1975:
Quote:
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the morally ambiguous: the hard-drinking and hard-wenching private eye, the solipsistic James Bond, the not-so-good sheriff and not-so-bad outlaw.
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To his list I will make so bold as to add Han Solo and the hero and sherrif in Clint Eastwood's movie, "The Unforgiven".
I'm tempted to ask if we have here stumbled upon "the six-pence", but that is a question for those who wish to discuss it on that (albeit related) thread:
"What does the six-pence =?"
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Now for the
questions.
Do you agree that LotR fits all or most of Lobdell's characteristics of the Edwardian mode? (such as?)
Do you think that some of these Edwardian characteristics may perhaps reflect an issue that you have with LotR? (please relate)
I wrote a marginal note by way of summary of a certain section in Lobdell's book that he is basically saying that
Tolkien was the J.S. Bach of the Ewardian adventure story. What do you think of such a characterization?
Feel free to discuss any other aspects of this introductory post, take issue with any assertions, et cetera.