The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in "The Lord of the Rings" [Paperback]

Fleming Rutledge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2004

Explore the deeper meanings and hidden allusions of Tolkiens epic trilogy! In this unique interpretation, Rutledge treats the entire narrative, not just isolated themes, to show how Tolkien communicates a powerful vision of unseen divine design at work through flawed characters who struggle with the meaning of freedom and abuse of power. Lively and engaging!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Commentaries on The Lord of the Rings trilogy have been a cottage industry recently, as the film installments attract new readers to J.R.R. Tolkien's modern classic. In The Battle for Middle-Earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings, preacher Fleming Rutledge offers a commentary that "is about God first of all"; the analysis is a "theological narrative" that follows the dramatic trajectory of the trilogy itself. Rutledge adds much to the theological understanding of the LOTR, in prose that is accessible and crisp.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 373 pages
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (November 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802824978
• ISBN-13: 978-0802824974
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > History & Criticism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A revealing look at the deep narrative, January 6, 2005

By 

jrrtreader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in "The Lord of the Rings" (Paperback)

Prospective readers who are hesitating because of the theological tones of the title should stop worrying. Look beyond the author's name (which some of you may recognize as an Episcopalian priest and pretty well-known speaker) and the title indicating it will discuss Tolkien's "Divine Design". No matter what faith you do or do not profess, you cannot escape the fact that faith and scripture were very important to Tolkien himself. If you are interested in how it influenced him as a writer, read this book.

Rutledge has succeeded where few other books about Tolkien have: she presents the underlying grand themes of LOTR in a consistent, coherent and convincing manner. She makes the argument well, that Tolkien understood his work as theological at core, and that there is a continuous theological underpinning to the story. She calls this the "deep narrative", and throughout her book, she is consistently able to draw parallels between the surface narrative (the story) and the deeper theological one.

This is not to say that she at any time makes LOTR an "allegory" per se. LOTR is not, and was not intended by the author to be, a retelling of the Gospel story. LOTR is a stand-alone story, and can be read and enjoyed by anyone just by itself. In fact, the vast majority of us, who came to this story when teenagers or younger, loved the book from the moment we read it. It called something out of our souls, perhaps, and we understood something about the "deep narrative" simply by reading the story. The great gift of Tolkien is his ability to show us core truth about humanity this way, by storytelling.

Nevertheless, his devout Catholic Christianity and understanding of the influence of sin on all, underpins his story. Rutledge is excellent in discussion of how Tolkien shows us the good and evil in all creatures, and the necessity of reliance on Providence and grace. You will find a good explanation of Evil as a third force, between God and his incarnate creatures. She frequently mentions Tolkien's use of "passive voice" to indicate that the characters in LOTR are being used by the "other forces at work". While this comes as no surprise to any careful reader (I am sure all of us have noticed these continued references by Gandalf to "other forces" and being "meant to have" something or other!), once noticed, the passive voice becomes obvious throughout.

Rutledge supports her argument with frequent allusions to Bible passages, both Old and New Testament. And she convincingly argues that Tolkien really believed the small were being called to confound the wise, both in real life and in his book. She argues that scriptural underpinning for LOTR comes through both as direct influence on the story, but more often on the influence on Tolkien himself, who then wrote his values into LOTR. His understanding of the paradox of free will and the call of God, for instance.

All readers interested in the scriptural and theological influences on Tolkien (and they were considerable) will be interested in this book, whether you agree with the entire thesis or not. She does tend to over-reach, at times, for allusions to scripture. She is obviously not a fan of the movie, which she alludes to several times in her footnotes. But she is a careful reader herself. She came very late to the realm of Middle Earth, and does not bring years of "Tolkienalia" to the book, and this is a very great strength. Her decision to discuss the story as it unfolds, rather than break it down into grand concepts, was inspired and makes the book very easy to read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book marred, May 24, 2005

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a Niggle - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in "The Lord of the Rings" (Paperback)

This is an excellent book for those interested in understanding Tolkien's assertion that his work was fundamentally Catholic; I am not a biblical scholar, so I was very interested in the parallels the author was able to draw between biblical themes and imagery and those in LOTR.

However, the effect of the book for me was marred by factual errors in referencing LOTR. [Ex.: she quotes the fact of Merry's sword being the work of Westernesse, then proceeds to talk about it as if it were made by elves in Gondolin!] There are similar errors throughout -- not a whole lot, but enough to mar the impact of the whole.

Additionally, Rutledge cannot resist doing what she quotes Tolkien as specifically decrying: making direct analogies between a current political situation and the LOTR narrative -- in a one-sided fashion. Again, she did not do this often (and admittedly kept those comments to the footnotes most of the time), but the one-sidedness of the judgement detracted from the impact of her overall thesis.

Worth reading for those interested in seeing the biblical roots of Tolkien's philosophy.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Superb insights, deep flaws, November 7, 2009

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editor-theorist (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in "The Lord of the Rings" (Paperback)

This is a frustrating book because it is well worth reading - and perhaps could have been a classic of Tolkien criticism; but for the fact that that the author's self-indulgence introduced so many jarring and embarrassing anomalous elements.

The basic theme is very strong, and the line of argument about how divine providence or fate permeates Tolkien's world (and his world view) is extremely well argued.

But the author gives the impression of being one of those people who likes the sound of her own voice and airing her passing opinions. So the book is too long, and the superb insights concerning the underlying religious theme of Lord of the Rings are swamped by mere chit chat, or are padded out with other very dubious, trivial or idiosyncratic Christian parallels to the Tolkien.

The very striking and brilliant points, of which there are many, need to be mined out from the dross.

Worst of all, the book was written in the early 2000s during the throes of Bush-Derangement Syndrome (BDR) - in which `reality' for a female US Episcopalian priest comes filtered through the distorting lens of the New York Times and National Public Radio - which are treated here as having quasi-Biblical authority.

From her repeated use of example, she really seems to believe that the USA under George W Bush, the response to 9/11 and the behaviour of the US/UK allies in the Iraq war, is a reasonable routine comparison with Sauron and Saruman, and with the temptations and moral failings of the heroes.

By contrast, Liberals, Democrats and their like are exempted from any except positive mention. The political partisanship is truly stunning, and indeed strikes me as pathological.

The author is utterly in thrall to Political Correctness, which means that all (so far as I could tell) of the (ridiculously over-pressed) examples she uses to draw parallels between the evils of the Lord of the Rings and the evils of everyday life are examples of the evils of US Republicans and Conservatives; and all of the virtues of modern life are of people and incidents which are approved by the Politically Correct.

She is also either a Pacifist, or very close to being one; and to read LotR from a pacifist perspective is to misunderstand it. Tolkien, like most people, was anti-war - but he was not a pacifist; and indeed understood that pacifism led to war and often to defeat - as with the appeasement of Hitler.

The distortion is bad, because JRR Tolkien was himself at the opposite pole from Political Correctness in his personality and in his work: he was so Conservative that his views were even extreme for the early 20th century and before the victory of Progressivism.

Tolkien was indeed so Reactionary that his views are simply off the chart in today's political climate. And he was of course a genius of intellect, insight and creativity. So these views should not be ignored and cannot lightly be dismissed without serious distortion: when the reader finds that he disagrees with Tolkien, there is a distinct possibility that it is Tolkien who was correct and the reader who is wrong, and that Tolkien simply sees deeper.

So Rutledge's, book is worth reading for the serious Tolkien scholar - but must be skim-read and unfortunately cannot be fully enjoyed. However, if a second edition is ever on the cards, this deeply-flawed book could be made into a superb one; simply by the liberal use of a blue pencil to shorten it by half, remove all contemporary references, and rein-in the garrulousness.