Customer Reviews

The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien

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This book was originally published ca 1980 as England and Always. I have not seen the original so I can't tell how much of this book is new material (beyond a chapter dealing with Peter Jackson's films). Lobdell has examined Tolkien's writings from several interesting and unusual perspectives. One of the most interesting deals with the influence of Edwardian adventure fiction (Haggard, etc.) on Tolkien. Another fascinating chapter deals with Middle Earth as a Christian world in a pre-Christian age. There is also a short fiction story in an Appendix which is meant to be a sort of parallel to Tolkien's own abandoned sequel to The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the Shadow. I enjoyed this story, though of course Lobdell as a fiction writer cannot measure up to Tolkien. (But then, no one can!)

I am a long time Tolkien reader and addict (since the age of 12 in 1969.) Most of the time I do not care for Tolkien "criticism" and "literary analysis", which to me seems to suck out the magic, but Lobdell's work is different. The World of the Rings enhances Middle Earth and intensifies the love I feel for it.

Most of the books that I've read about LotR that have come out sine the release of the films have been very long winded. None of them say anything original or substantial and tend to feel like a "dumbies guide". Mr. Lobdell's book isn't that long, but it really makes you think and touches on some interesting topics that other authors haven't (because they're too busy rehashing the same old things that every one else has been talking about).

I also really appriciate that Mr. Lobdell doesn't dumb down his language for his reader. When authors dumb down their language, I always have a feeling that they're talking down to me (which I don't appreciate). In this book, where a big word is meant, it's used, and it isn't substituted for a smaller, dumber word. As a result, I feel like I'm being "talked" to, instead of "talked" at.

I cannot recommend this book. I did not enjoy it, and found its style largely rambling (poorly written), and making few points of interest to me. If you have a deep background in English literature or linguistics, this book may be of interests to you, provided of course you are a Tolkien fan. For the rest of us who are neither, I would recommend instead the works of Ralph C. Wood "The Gospel According to Tolkien" The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth or Richard Purtill's "J.R.R. Tolkiien: Myth, Morality and Religion." The J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion I preferred Wood to Purtill, but both are informative, and in my mind much more engaging and clearly written than this work. There are a few interesting insights here, but amidst too much empty and rambling verbiage.