J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century [Paperback]

Tom Shippey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2002

Recent polls have consistently declared that J.R.R. Tolkien is "the most influential author of the century," and The Lord of the Rings is "the book of the century." In support of these claims, the prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy Professor Tom Shippey now presents us with a fascinating companion to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, focusing in particular on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
The core of the book examines The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic and cultural map and as a response to the meaning of myth. It presents a unique argument to explain the nature of evil and also gives the reader a compelling insight into the unparalleled level of skill necessary to construct such a rich and complex story. Shippey also examines The Hobbit, explaining the hobbits' anachronistic relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth, and shows the fundamental importance of The Silmarillion to the canon of Tolkien's work. He offers as well an illuminating look at other, lesser-known works in their connection to Tolkien's life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a wonderfully readable study aimed at not just the Tolkien fan but any literate person curious about this fantasy author's extraordinary popularity, British scholar Shippey (The Road to Middle-earth) makes an impressive, low-key case for why the creator of Middle-earth is deserving of acclaim. (Recent polls in Britain have consistently put The Lord of the Rings at the top of greatest books of the century lists.) Having taught the same Old English syllabus at Oxford that his subject once did, Shippey is especially well qualified to discuss Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon sources, notably Beowulf, for the elvish languages and names used in the fiction. The author's theory on the origin of the word hobbit, for example, is as learned as it is free of academic jargon. Even his analyses of the abstruse Silmarillion, Tolkien's equivalent of Joyce's Finnegans Wake, avoid getting too technical. In addition, Shippey shows that Tolkien as a storyteller often improved on his ancient sources, while The Lord of the Rings is unmistakably a work of its time. (The Shire chapters, like Orwell's 1984, evoke the bleakness of late-'40s Britain.) In treating such topics as the nature of evil, religion, allegory, style and genre, the author nimbly answers the objections of Tolkien's more rabid critics. By the end, he has convincingly demonstrated why the much imitated Tolkien remains inimitable and continues to appeal. (May 16)Forecast: With the long-awaited part one of the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, due for movie release later this year, this, like all Tolkien-related titles, will benefit from hobbit fever.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Shippey, an expert on Old English literature and the author of The Road to Middle Earth, has written a critical appreciation of the popular creator of The Hobbit and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The subtitle refers to Tolkien's ability to write about concerns of the 20th century (evil, religion, etc.) in stories that at first glance seem to be mere fantasy. Shippey examines Tolkien's published and many unfinished works (such as The Silmarillion), as well as the shorter poems and stories. He convincingly argues that Tolkien deserves to be ranked as a major literary figure. Shippey also castigates those critics, the so-called literati, for their vituperative and ill-informed attacks on Tolkien's reputation and achievements. This study is definitely not an introduction to the "Rings" books; because of the detailed readings on the major and minor works, it should be read by those who have already enjoyed the titles surveyed. Recommended for all public libraries, especially in the wake of the upcoming film version of "The Lord of the Rings"; undergraduate academic libraries will also want to obtain this fine work of criticism. Morris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st edition (September 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618257594
• ISBN-13: 978-0618257591
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > History & Criticism

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars See why Tolkien was the author of the century January 27, 2003

By bixodoido

Format:Hardcover

In this excellent volume of criticism on Tolkien's work, Tom Shippey seeks to explain just what made Tolkien tick, and what made his stories the way they are. Tolkien shunned the idea of a biography, but I think this book is probably more along the lines of what he would have agreed to, since he believed that the best way to get a look inside an author's life was to examine his works. This book does just this.

The bulk of this book, of course, centers around Tolkien's stories of Middle-Earth: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Shippey attempts to explain why Tolkien wrote these stories the way he did, and the result is very insightful. Shippey explains why he wrote archaically, how the more modern hobbit society, with its postal system and manners, fits in with the rest of Middle-Earth, and how to classify the various cultures and nations (like Rohan and Gondor) appearing in the works, to name a few. The rest of the book deals with Tolkien's other, lesser-known works, including the two semi-autobiographical ones. For true fans of Tolkien, the criticisms of these shorter works are an invaluable resource.

All in all, this book is very insightful--there is definitely a great deal to be learned about Tolkien's works from a man who succeeded him to his Oxford chair, and who understands Tolkien's professional field as well. If you want to truly understand Tolkien, this is a book worth reading.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Robustly polemical and highly entertaining November 16, 2001

By "lexo-2"

Format:Hardcover

We hear a lot from Tolkien fans about how this book isn't much of a patch on the same author's earlier "The Road to Middle-Earth". (...) this book is an acute, well-argued, loving and intelligent study of one of the century's most maligned authors.

Yes, I said "maligned". Those, like me, who are not great fans of fantasy fiction as such, tend to find it a bit difficult to take Tolkien seriously. My own trajectory as a Tolkien reader has gone from utter worship (aetat 11 or so) via contempt and ridicule (aetat 24) to enjoyment and respect (aetat 31), and Shippey's book is partly to thank for this. One of his sharper insights is that a taste for Tolkien seems to be something that people have to be "educated out of" - i.e., that exposure to a modern literary studies curriculum is almost guaranteed to eradicate those more primitive parts of the imagination that respond to the kind of populist yarn-spinning that Tolkien was, almost despite himself, supremely good at. (This certainly accords with my experience.)

I say "almost despite himself" because one of the things I learned from this book was that Tolkien worked far harder on developing the mythological background to "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" than he spent on actually writing those books; indeed, that long after he'd published "The Hobbit" and was at work on its august sequel, he had to go back and revise it so as to make it fit in with the overall plan. I have a certain polite interest in "The Silmarillion" and the voluminous posthumous books of early drafts, but for me, by far the best of Tolkien is to be found in his two most famous books.

Shippey makes out a pretty good case for why these books deserve to be regarded as classics, especially "The Lord of the Rings", which he clearly regards as being on a par with Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". These are two books that I hold in the highest esteem, albeit for very different reasons, and for a Lit boy like me it's been a sweet, but sobering process to admit "The Lord of the Rings" into their sombre company. Shippey can make you read the book in a new way - it no longer seems like a daft and slightly overlong romp for eternal teenagers, but like a grim, adult and rather downbeat modern novel in a fantastic mode. Hell, he's even got me reading "Beowulf". That can't be bad, despite Woody Allen's crack about it in "Annie Hall".

I think it's a bit sad for Tolkien that the two books he wrote as more-or-less spinoffs from the great work of his imagination are the ones he is most remembered for, but it's just, nonetheless, as they are by far his best books. I'll keep on reading "Lord of the Rings" for pleasure and profit. "The Silmarillion" and its kindred...well, to be frank, they'll be lucky if I pick 'em up now and again to check a reference. Shippey's skill, sardonic wit, commitment to popular taste and respect for the intelligence of his reader make this a better critical study than many others I can think of, about far more "literary" writers. Author of the Century? I'm not so sure - I'm too much of a Joyce fan. But it's time a lot of readers admitted that there's a lot of empty guff out there masquerading as "serious" literature (Saul Bellow, step to the front of the class) while books as good as Tolkien's (and Philip K. Dick's, and Ursula Le Guin's) are ignominiously written off as "genre" fiction. (...)

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deepens your appreciation of the _Lord of the Rings_ September 17, 2003

By David C. Hoffner

Format:Paperback

This book analyzes many of Tolkien's works, but focuses the majority of its attention on the _Lord of the Rings_ and its two companion works: _the Hobbit_ and _the Silmarillion_. Popular polls taken at the end of the 20th century frequently place the _Lord of the Rings_ (LotR) at the top as the number one best book of the century. Many book critics look in horror at such a ranking. Shippey's book is in large part a rebuttal of this dismissal of Tolkein's work by most of the `literary establishment'. Shippey argues that LotR is quite worthy of the honor as best work of the century.

This book is academic in nature and vocabulary, but it is also fun to read. As a Tolkien fan I found the book to be quite enlightening. Shippey delves DEEP in to the text, finding many treasures that I had not yet observed. I found it true, as one endorsement on the book jacket says, that Shippey "deepens your understanding of the work without making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-Earth."

Professor Shippey, whose academic field is the same as that of Professor Tolkien himself, mines the philological earth and finds the likely background sources of numerous middle-earth creations, such as: Beorn, orcs, Rohan, etc. He also explores Tolkien's plot development strategy. One passage that I particularly liked was Shippey's description of how Tolkien used "interlacement" (the interweaving of different story lines) to convey an important thematic message of the work: that it's never wise to give up trying, no matter how bad the circumstances may appear. The examples he describes are very illustrative; for example: Aragorn's self-doubts as he pursues (in vain he fears) the orcs who had taken Pippin and Merry. I found several other sections to be thought-provoking as well: "wraithing"; "luck & courage"; and "eucatastrophe".

If there is one disappointment I had in reading this book, it is that some finishing touches seem to be missing. The later chapters in the book seem less well-developed, and not as well focused within the argument of the book as a whole. Near the end of his first full chapter on LotR Shippey summarizes the development of his argument thus far. But from there on, there is no further explicit reference to his argument. To be sure most of the remaining material still implicitly contributes to the theory, but I found no satisfying conclusion explicitly made in the end of the book.

In spite of that disappointment, this book significantly deepened my appreciation of the _Lord of the Rings_. I have for years considered LotR my all-time favorite book. As a result of reading Shippey's book, I understand better WHY LotR is such a great work, that it has great relevance and meaning in addition to its sheer wonder as entertainment.