J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

Houghton Mifflin, September 2002. Paper Back. New. 'Polls undertaken at the turn of the twenty-first century by a British bookshop chain (in cooperation with an affiliate of the BBC) to determine the five greatest books of the century placed Tolkien's <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> in the top slot-a result 'greeted with horror among professional critics and journalists.' While popular polls are no real guide to literary value, they nonetheless ought to prompt consideration by the literary establishment. Tom Shippey-a former English language professor at Oxford and Leeds-is the first of his discipline to seriously take up the question and defend its results. He bases his claim for Tolkien as 'author of the century' on three central arguments: 1) democratically speaking, Tolkien tops not only the polls, but also the sales figures; 2) the genre of fantasy, and especially heroic fantasy, as it exists today is clearly and undeniably indebted to Tolkien's work; and 3) a qualitative case needs to be made for this genre, particularly since literary critics have thus far deemed it academically 'unworthy.' Shippey's work explores Tolkien's many sources of inspiration for 'Middle-earth' and also attempts to show why it is a vital inspiration for so many readers. Organizing his chapters by Tolkien's major works-namely <i>The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings</i>, and <i>The Silmarillion</i>-he considers the literary function of hobbits, Tolkien's problems in organizing and inventing 'Middle-earth,' the themes of evil and myth and their metaphorical connections to historical events, and the underlying sense of sadness that fuels Tolkien's fictions. Chapter five provides a guide to reading the strange and experimental <i>Silmarillion</i>, and Shippey concludes with a final defense of Tolkien's knack for tapping into every man's ability to read metaphorically, thereby making deeper sense of the world and the ways we live in it.