The great fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. In 2015, an Italian priest, Father Daniele Pietro began to organize both religious and laypeople to push for a cause of canonization to be opened for Professor Tolkien. They sent a letter to the Archbishop of Birmingham – Tolkien’s home Diocese – and, while the Archbishop did not call for a cause to be opened, he encouraged Father Pietro and his colleagues to pray for Tolkien’s cause.
While the Daughters of Charity Archive does not have anything in their collections about this cause, they do have a stray piece about Tolkien. Appearing in the Marillac Magazine, the student literary journal of Marillac College, Winter 1961 edition is a piece by Sister Barbe Busch. Although she eventually left the community, it offers a Sister’s early perspective on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and its place in fantasy storytelling from a deeply Catholic spiritual perspective. Nearly 60 years later, it appears others are recognizing this as well!
We here reprint Sister Barbe Bush’s piece, who later married and lived the rest of her life as Joan Kaiser.
Twentieth Century Make-Believe
by Sister Barbe Busch, D.C.
Nothing is truer than fairy wisdom. J. R. R. Tolkien, a twentieth writer, takes children and philosophers into the land of the little people called Hobbits. Here the wise and the young meet a rare excellence.
Once upon a time there lived a little girl named Julia who loved to spend every minute she could in story-book land. One day in her travels through the pages of Mr. Tolkien ‘s tales, she met a race of little people called Hobbits. Chubby, pert and peace-loving, they immediately captured Julia’s heart. Often, she’d wander through their well-ordered countryside, becoming acquainted with their customs, history and way of life. She even went on thrilling adventures with them into Misty Mountain territory. But she felt she could not be completely happy until her Aunt Josephine met the Hobbits too, especially Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo, her closest friends. However, Aunt Josephine did not particularly relish fairy tales so it took all Julia’s persistent enthusiasm to wear down her aunt’s valid excuses. Finally Aunt Josephine yielded and read, with great astonishment. Beyond the creative magic of a fairy world, she discovered a depth of philosophical meaning which convinced her that here was no mere children’s fairy story. This was wisdom to satisfy the adult appetite. And so aunt and niece have lived happily ever after, compelling everyone old and young to visit and revel in Hobbit land.
Recently Aunt Josephine, now Sister Josephine in the philosophy department at Marillac College, introduced Mr. Tolkien ( 1892-) and his little people to the students of Marillac College. Through her instrumentality, Mr. William Ready, librarian at Marquette University, generously loaned all Mr. Tolkien’s original manuscripts to Marillac College for an extensive exhibit. Every scrap of paper J. R. R. Tolkien used in writing his books: rough drafts, pencilled outlines, date schemes, sketches sharply drawn simply to help him write more concretely, and finally all the manuscripts including holographs, or handwritten copies, typescripts, galleys and charts were displayed to entice the attention of wandering students.
Judging from the enthusiastic wonder of students and faculty members who have peered long and often at the collection. Sister Josephine has won some more followers for Mr. Tolkien. So it would seem that Gotthold Lessing’s remark, “It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales,” is once more verified. Professor Tolkien himself remarks in his essay, “On Fairy Stories” in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, Oxford, 1947, that a fairy story, “can give to man or child that hears it . . . a catch of the breath and a beat and lifting of the heart (near to or indeed accompanied by tears) as keen as that given by any form of literary art.”
A dedicated scholar, teacher and a noted linguist and philologist, Mr. Tolkien has devoted his life to the interpretation of heroic poems and romances. Over the length and depth of his scholarship moves the breath of his own creative imagination. In the same essay cited above, he reveals the secret of his inventive power. “As a child,” he remarks, “I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful at whatever cost of peril. The dweller in the quiet and fertile plains may hear of the tormented hills and unharvested sea and long for them in his heart. For the heart is hard though the body be soft.”
And so Mr. Tolkien creates fairy tales to calm that restlessness in our own hearts. Originally these were only meant to be bed-time stories for the four little Tolkiens and as such they grew and matured along with the children.
The Hobbit, Mr. Tolkien’s first book is much less complex than the trilogy which completes it. In The Hobbit, Mr. Tolkien begins to weave his magic which is tied together and completed in the Lord of the Ring.
Bilbo Baggins, the hero of The Hobbit is genial and comfort-loving. Like most of his race, Bilbo is a home-body. The desire for adventure is as foreign to him as the desire for school to a young Huck Finn on the first day of spring. When Gandalf, a wandering wizard, and a band of thirteen dwarfs led by their King Thorin Oakenshield invite Bilbo to help them recover a dwarf hoard stolen from Thorin’s ancestors, Bilbo is flatly disinterested. But to his everlasting amazement he joins them. After sharing battles, escapes, and sufferings, Bilbo, decked out in armor and laden with jewels, returns to his home, the Shire. Among his new possessions is a strange ring which he happened upon in a damp, dark cavern in Misty Mountain. Gollum, a mean little creature, had lost the ring he called his precious” and chased Bilbo to recover it. Accidentally Bilbo slipped the ring onto his finger and discovered its power of making its wearer invisible. Bilbo is strangely attached to the ring; he won’t allow anyone to touch it. Actually this ring has a magic in it that Bilbo doesn’t begin to comprehend.
So the adventures of Bilbo Baggins come to a close, and the Tolkien children beg Daddy for more. All over the world wide-eyed youngsters and fascinated oldsters second their pleas. And so, Daddy Tolkien began a fourteen-year literary work, the Trilogy of The Lord of the Rings. Actually this sheer creative production is composed of three volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
All the episodes in these three books spin around Bilbo’s newly acquired ring. This ring exercises a sort of half-luck, half-magic given it by its maker, Sauron the Dark Lord. It casts a spell around all of its subsequent owners – Isildur, King of men, Gollum and now to a degree, even Bilbo. Whoever wears it on his finger comes under the malignant power of Sauron, the evil one. Only in the land of Mordor, in the Mountain of Doom where Sauron forged the ring, can it be destroyed.
Thus, the ring confers on its bearer an unparelleled power. There are two alternatives involved in its use: to employ this power to gain a momentary good and thereby assure the continuous existence of evil or to deny present gain in order to annihilate evil itself. This problem forms the crux of the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.
As the first book opens we are at once faced with this question. It is the decision Frodo must make. Bilbo Baggins, growing old, has willed the ring to his nephew Frodo. Moreover, Frodo is compelled to make this decision almost immediately as the powers of evil, Arcs, armed Trolls and all the inhuman creatures under Sauron’s influence are being marshalled by him against the EIves, Ents, Dwarfs, Men and Hobbits, that is, the powers of good.
Of all the twelve great rings of power all but three have returned to Sauron: one only, the Lord of the Rings, in Frodo’s possession remains beyond his grasp. If he regains it, the final and absolute rule of Middle Earth is his.
Gandalf the immortal magician of The Hobbit has travelled extensively for twelve years and gathered secret evidence. One day he comes to the Shire, the home of the Hobbits, still quite undisturbed in spite of impending danger right outside its borders. After Gandalf explains the significance of the ring to Frodo, Frodo, appalled at the revelation, tries to shift his responsibility to Gandalf. But the wise old wizard will not even trust himself to touch the ring, so wary is he of its deadly attraction. Instead he suggests that all the powers of good meet in a Grand Council at Rivendall to decide the fate of the ring. An attempt is made by The Hobbit Fredo to destroy the ring by fire, but ancient folklore relates that its destruction can be accomplished only by casting the ring into the depths of a volcano, the Mountain of Doom in the land of Mordor, which is directly under the searching eye of Sauron. Volunteers are sought to bear the ring to its final end. Since no one dares respond, Frodo in a whisper agrees to take on the terrible task.
A representative from each nation and race of Middle Earth offers to form a Fellowship of the Ring to accompany and guide Frodo to Mordor. Together they suffer through innumerable: perils, snowstorms, pursuits by Orcs (a type of goblin) and worse still – the ring begins to work its damaging patterns among them. Frodo realizes that he must go on alone. Sam Wise, his loyal, practical gardener, refuses to leave him. Without a guide, Frodo and Sam become hopelessly lost on the barren slopes of Emyn Muil. There Gollum, ever eager to recover “his precious,” plots to kill them. Instead, Frodo is empowered to kill Gollum, but he has pity on him. Gollum is induced to guide Frodo and Sam to Mordor. While the three of them penetrate into the Land of Mordor through the mountain pass, Kirith Ungol wages a terrible battle to occupy Sauron’s attention.
On the brink of the Mountain of Doom Frodo hesitates to give up his ring. It has even succeeded in bewitching him. Gollum makes a last desperate attempt to regain the ring, his precious. He gets it only to stumble into the fiery volcano – to his own ruin and the ring’s destruction.
The power of Sauron dissolves; the armies of men are victorious. Frodo and Sam return home where Frodo departs with the “High Kindred” to be borne away in a vessel to Grey Havens in the west. Thus, the Third Age comes to a close and the Fourth Age of Men begins.
Tolkien’s magic is tucked away, but the spell lingers, so much so that readers of ten return again to Tolkien’s lands of enchantment to re-experience the delight of make-believe.
What makes Tolkien’s trilogy, dubbed “the most elaborate allegory-fantasy of our time,” so absolutely successful?
Mr. P. Parker, in his article “Hweat we Holbytla” in Hudson Review, Winter 1956-57, intensively proves that Mr. Tolkien’s work fulfills almost perfectly all the qualities of the genre of fantasy. This accomplishment he believes to be the reason for Tolkien’s success. Let us briefly examine the requirements of the fantasy as a literary genre and apply it as Mr. Parker has to Tolkien’s trilogy.
First, a fantasy, to exist independently in an uncreated world, must have a structure both stable and diverse; yet it must be credible in itself.
Tolkien’s imaginary world is so true to its own laws of being that it has been mistaken for genuine history. In fact, some readers will not be convinced that it is not. Why? Because Tolkien’s world abounds in details and brilliant descriptions. Much of the historical background for these details is set forth in appendices, which arc astounding to a careful reader. Mr. Tolkien has invented a new Age of Time, the Third Age of Middle Earth, a new land with the various countries clearly indicated on precise maps. What must be grasped is this: all Mr. Tolkien’s maps, tables, and sketches, his historical and philological explanation; are not mere decoration, buttons and pretty frills to dress up a fetching tale. All these extras hold his fantastic world together. Maps are worked out so that time schemes in the novel harmonize. If it is going to take Frodo and Sam a considerable time to cover a relatively short distance, this is explained by the map which indicates the Dead Marshes or the tricky mountain passes through which they must pass. Mr. Tolkien has established a new people and authenticated them by means of his intricate genealogical tables with recorded history and ancient legends, as found in the Red Book of Westmarch. Moreover these people have their own language. There are two complete languages, one for elves and one for dwarfs each with its own philological apparatus, special alphabet and ruIes of pronunciation.
Among the Tolkien manuscripts are sketches not found in his books; they were etched only to help him describe more clearly the images he had in his own mind. However the drawings in his works, for example, the colored sketch of Kirith-Ungol, the mountain pass into Mordor, settle the reader’s imagination more securely in his unfamiliar world.
Yet Mr Tolkien has not merely built an unreachable structure in outer fantasy. He has succeeded in bringing the gap between our world and his by the bond of human sympathy. His characters, especially Frodo the ring-bearer, are warmly human; they find heavy responsibility a burden, at once trying and ennobling. We see our own human frailties and hopes mirrored in theirs. Thus, Tolkien’s fantasy fulfills the second requirement. Every fantasy must be propped, even though obliquely, on reality. A third requirement is viability or the ability of a fantasy to create a sympathetic attitude in the reader which thereby compels him to accept, if not the author’s fantastic world, at least his way of looking at things. Now Tolkien readers not only accept his world as literally existing in reality but they are consciously or unconsciously won to his point of view. But what is J. R. R. Tolkien’s view? This question leads us to the most significant requisite of fantasy. The end of fantasy is perception. Like poetry it can deal with essences. It is not held down by the actual problems of reality.
In the Lord of the Rings, Mr. Tolkien has dared to play with ultimates, the struggle between good and evil, the corruption inherent in power, the necessity of heroism in all struggles. Because of the breadth of his vision, commentators have been tempted to over-simplify its significance. The ring and its unlimited power of harm, they gleefully compare to the atomic bomb; Sauron and his followers represent Communist Russia and the fumbling forces of good are the struggling West. Here it must be remarked that Tolkien dislikes satire and allegory, so it is doubtful whether he would use it in his works. His creative masterpiece is meant to be timeless. Mr. Straight, in his article, “The Fantastic World of Professor Tolkien,” in the New Republic, January 16, 1956, explains clearly the main idea which Mr. Tolkien sets apart through fantasy. Below are the prime points of Mr. Straight’s commentary. Evil in the form of Sauron is man’s rebellion against Providence, his attempt to become Lord of a world he did not make. Gollum is a servant of power, evil but not beyond redemption. Evil is matched not by superior power, but by the determination and goodness of ordinary beings, ennobled by the assumption of burdens beyond their capacity to bear. Gandalf is brilliant and Aragorn, the King of Men is brave, but Frodo’s is the decisive will. And yet Frodo remains unchanged, for Tolkien’s purpose is not that Hobbits should cease to be Hobbits but simply that they should understand and give their best.
Mr. Straight concludes his excellent analysis of the universal significance by this illuminating statement: “He (Tolkien) possesses elvish craft. He adds to it the scholar’s perspective and the humanist’s faith. And yet he never allows the magical balance of mystery and perception to be lost.” All readers of Tolkien and especially Julia and her Aunt Josephine would emphatically agree with this last observation and also with Douglas Jerrold who says “Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams.”
The Archives would like to thank Bethany Kaiser for her permission to republish this piece.
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