Customer Reviews

Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This fascinating book is a philosophic look into the worldview of author J.R.R. Tolkien and his classic work, The Lord of the Rings. Moving smoothly from topic to topic, the author looks at the battles in Tolkien's works and how he presented war, the importance of moral victories over physical or military ones, the importance of human freedom, hope and despair, salvation, and God (his presence and absence in Tolkien's works). Along the way, the reader is treated to a lot of fascinating analyses, including the nature of the One Ring.

I must admit that I was surprised by the excellence of this book! I had expected that this book would be dry and academic, but instead I found the book to be enlightening and fascinating to read. If you are a fan of Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, then I highly recommend this book, to get a deeper understanding of that classic work.

Mr. Dickerson has done a very good job of analyzing Tolkien's ideas on war, morality, free will, determination and fate.

Mr. Dickerson chooses important scenes and characters in the LOTR and examines what Tolkein may have been trying to say to the reader. The discussion on the role of free will and moral vs. military victory is especially good. Mr. Dickerson's treatment of Faramir is very insightful.

Obviously, as the title indicates Gandalf is a major part of this book. Mr. Dickerson's treatment of Gandalf is a good one and raises some points that I had not thought of (which in itself, may be a small feat).

It is obivous that Mr. Dickerson is very familar with all of Tolkien's works and has a great love for them. Mr. Dickerson also does a very good job of exploring Tolkien's religious ethos. Though, I wish the discussion of Tolkien's Catholic faith would have been deeper and more explicit. There is a great deal of difference between the Catholic and Protestant world view and not understanding these differences results in a lot of ill-concieved intrepretations of Tolkien (this is not a specific criticism of Mr. Dickerson, just my editoralizing).

I reccomend this book strongly and would have given it four stars except for the editing of the book. Mr. Dickerson repeats himself often and quotes the same passages several time. A better editor (or a more willful one) would have pared away these passages. But don't let this quibble prevent you from buying this book---it is very good.

I have been reading as many of the recently published short works about Tolkien as I can find, and although Mr. Dickerson's has been one of many, I would have to categorize it as one of a kind.

I'm sure we'll be seeing many "spin-off" books on the market, as more and more publishers take advantage of the interest in Lord of the Rings that has been generated by the films. However, it is quite apparent that this author's presentation is no last-minute thesis, cobbled together to jump on the LOTR bandwagon. His attitude toward the source material is thoughtful and respectful, growing out of a deep understanding of both Tolkien's work and his own Christian faith, and he manages to present a thoroughly Christian viewpoint without preachiness or jargon.

While short and easy to read, the coverage of themes such as "moral victory versus military victory," "the relationship between free will and human creativity," and the contrast of "hope and despair"---although perhaps mentioned in some other recent works---is here explained clearly and discussed thoroughly by a knowledgable author. Dickerson's references to the films maintains an appreciative neutral approach to what has been accomplished in the first two movies, and his book has enough new and original material to make it worth reading even for those who are steeped in Tolkien-related writings.

_Following Gandalf_ is a thoughtful book that, somehow, doesn't quite follow Gandalf.

Dickerson's main topic is the treatment of war in Tolkien's Middle-Earth - specifically in the LOTR trilogy, with references to _The Hobbit_ and _The Silmarillion._ The book asks whether Tolkien's works glorify war and violence, and Dickerson spends a lot of time wandering around this question. Which is okay - that deceptively simple question, after all, encompasses a childhood classic, a popular trilogy, and a pseudo Old-English saga... three very different forms that require different methods of literary analysis.

Dickerson draws some fascinating, well-defended conclusions in this book. He creates a convincing argument for the existence of an absolute set of morals within Middle-Earth (granted, Tolkien establishes this in _The Silmarillion,_ but it's nice to see a critic do his homework and "prove" his thesis through analyzing the other novels); and his study of "the one ring" is quite good. I don't want to spoil the book for you, so I'll just say that Dickerson provides an excellent case for the ring's corruptive properties - there are intrinsic and extrinsic forces at work, and if you think about how the ring was brought into being in the first place, it seems rather obvious...

However, I found two things distracting or unnecessary, which prevented me from giving this book five stars. First, Dickerson relies rather heavily on Peter Jackson's film versions - only two of which had been released with the publication of the novel. His scholarly analysis is interspersed with scenes from the films, which I feel is inappropriate since Jackson's films are NOT Tolkien's books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Jackson's films, but they are only "based" on LOTR, and cannot be considered the same as the source material. They are visions and revisions by someone other than the author, in a different era, for a different audience, all of which is compounded by being in a totally different medium. Sorry, but Jackson's LOTR is not Tolkien's LOTR, even if the plot and characters are the same...) I suppose if Dickerson had written a separate chapter that compared Jackson's LOTR with Tolkien's LOTR I would not feel this way; however, a discussion of Tolkien's work should not include Jackson's work. The two works are not the same. One-half point removed for inappropriate source material.

My second quibble is that the book closes with an argument about whether or not the LOTR is a Christian myth. In his introduction, Dickerson says, "In the final chapters, I return to the question of war and put much of the rest of this book, and thereby much of Tolkien's writing, into the context and perspective given to us by the [...] opening part of Tolkien's book _The Silmarillion_" (17). Dickerson does this very thing, only in the larger context and perspective of the Christian Bible - a perspective that Dickerson admits Tolkien neither wanted nor intended.

Dickerson's Christian-myth analysis is insightful, to be sure. My complaint is twofold: (1) the book is about the question of war and violence in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, not about the Christian allegories to be found in those writings; (2) the Christian-myth section is out of place in the book - it feels tacked on, as if Dickerson had written this section years before and decided it just might "fit" in this book. It does, but badly. One half-point removed for losing sight of the "point" of the book.

The book is otherwise an excellent resource for critical study of the LOTR, though I was irritated at the lack of an index. No points lost for that omission, though it might deserve it. Also, the title is somewhat deceptive in that Gandalf is not the primary character being studied.

Last word: Good, with flaws. Grade: B-

I have read a lot of critical work on Tolkien, and this was a refreshing change of topic. As opposed to the usual linguistic/mythic examination of his work, this book examines the role of war and of moral conflict. Mr. Dickerson writes well, and has a knowledge of tolkien's works. Well worth your time.

This is an interesting and insightful book on Tolkien's attitude to war, valour and heroism, and to the sacrifices and hardness war demands. However I suggest that Hal GP Colebatch's "Return of the Heroes" covers the same ground better and more learnedly. Read the two together, and you will see a lot of bad criticisms of Tolkien expertly shredded.

I taught a course on Tolkien in a church using Following Gandalf as one of my main texts. Dickerson's main point is the difference between war and moral victory rather than Christian influences in Tolkien's writings, particularaly Lord of the Rings.

One of Dickerson's points is that Tolkien's view of war vs. moral victory comes from the Christian Faith that he was raised in. Dickerson uses passages from various books in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, to illustrate the ways in which, as Tolkien put it, "I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know (Dickerson, 218)." In other words, Tolkien did not plan on Middle-Earth being Christian, but he understands that anything he writes is going to be profoundly Christian because of its influences on his own life. Thus, as a side effect to Dickerson's thesis, I found Following Gandalf to be immensely valueable concerning the Christian influences in Tolkein.

Dickerson has crafted a lively and trenchant response to those who think that Tolkien wrote books glorifying combat and who ignore the rich moral dimension of Tolkien's work. It's very readable and, I think, worthwhile both as an introduction to Tolkien (for those who are not very familiar with Tolkien) and to the moral underpinnings of Tolkien's work (for us Tolkien-philes). Dickerson somehow manages to distill into an inviting format a comprehensive overview of Tolkien's cosmology, and metaphysics, and to show how Tolkien uses epic battles, the "gift" of mortality, and tragic form to critique the empty ethical views of Tolkien's time as well as of our own time. I've heard Dickerson lecture on Tolkien at several universities, and can attest both to his profound knowledge of Tolkien's work and to his sheer enjoyment of Tolkien's (sub-)creation, both of which come through nicely in this book. By the way, Dickerson's other recent book, "Hammers and Nails" is also well worth the purchase price. Like "Following Gandalf", "Hammers and Nails" looks at the work of a lesser-known poet and musician, Mark Heard in order to tease out its subtle but morally fecund background. Even if you haven't heard of Heard or his music (covered by the likes of Bruce Cockburn) you'll likely find Heard's reflections on vocation, art and creativity a delight.

Matthew Dickerson's book is an insightful exploration of the moral issues Tolkien deals with in The Lord of the Rings and other writings on Middle-earth. Dickerson sees free will as the central concern of Tolkien's creations, and by extension, all that free will implies about moral responsibility. Dickerson examines this thesis primarily by analyzing Tolkien's depiction of war and battle in Middle-earth, contrasting military victory and moral victory and showing how they are often at odds. This duality reinforces Tolkien's depiction of characters who live in two worlds -- the physical world, where military victory is a vital concern, and the more important spiritual plane, where the moral dimensions of one's actions are shown to be far more important than any physical battle. In our current world situation, an examination of the moral issues in war, and how and why one can act morally in such a situation, are highly apposite.

Dickerson does an excellent job throughout, and has a fine touch in delineating the moral issues behind the characters' choices and actions, and what they can mean for the reader. One quibble -- in his early discussion of the major battles in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, he writes that seeing battle through the eyes of the hobbits (as we do in all cases except the Battle of Helm's Deep and the Defense of Laketown) de-glorifies it. I wanted to see what he would say about the battles of the Scouring of the Shire, which are seen exclusively through the eyes of the Hobbits and seem to me distinctly de-glorified, but he does not analyze these actions in this chapter. He does, however, devote much thought to the Scouring other places in the book.

I also lament the lack of an index. Perhaps, now that we have seen the third of Peter Jackson's movies (not yet released when this book was written) and are seeing more biographical information becoming available on Tolkien's own war experiences (Tolkien and the Great War, War in the Works of JRR Tolkien, and the forthcoming Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull two-volume reference), we may hope for a second, expanded edition with a thorough index. I know I look forward to reading more of Dickerson's insights.

As a long-time Tolkien reader, I enjoyed this book's exploration of some important underlying themes and attitudes in the trilogy and associated works. There's nothing nicer than seeing your own observations codified in print!

The author has obviously lectured on this subject for many years, and for some of his discussions I can just see which terms he writes on the blackboard! The college-lecture-series origin explains the repetitions that bothered some reader-reviewers. This is not really a book to read in one sitting (though it is pleasantly short).

The quibble that Gandalf is not really the major subject of the book, so he shouldn't be in the title, reminds me of a book report I wrote in 8th grade (many years ago), where I complained that Sir Walter Scott shouldn't have named his book "Ivanhoe" because the real hero was Richard the Lion-Hearted. "Following Gandalf" is a good title, concise and easily identified as being about both Tolkien and ethics.