Tolkien lived as a scholar, spending most 1940s Tuesdays in a pub affectionately nicknamed the "Bird and Baby" (among others) near the colleges of Oxford. Now, tourists clog every inch AND the narrow passages between mismatching rooms and uneven tables. The only thing more difficult than getting a drink there is hearing one's self think. I found it impossible to imagine any conversation at all, let alone the ones which sparked the Inklings' genius masterpieces. I believe they did most of their conversing at Lewis's rooms in Magdalen College, though.
Although J.R.R. Tolkien must have borrowed themes and moments from the ancient texts he studied, his own brilliance and characterization more than fill in the historical framework.
The story of Middle Earth makes me unutterably sad. From the bitter-sweet beginnings to the final severings I feel the need to weep, because above all it is a story of endings, of unendurable change. I imagine Tolkien himself must have felt such a sadness when he thought of the literature he could never resurrect, spending his life reading texts of a simpler time but living and reflecting on the World Wars which had ravaged his nation and changed the face of life itself.
This sense of tragedy emanates also from the Arthurian novels of T. H. White, who studied at Cambridge in the decade prior to WWII, though he was born in India. This feeling comes especially from the final book of the Arthurian sequence, often considered a bastard sequel, called The Book of Merlyn, which, according to Wikipedia, was published in the mid to late seventies.
Another fascinating writer who captured that scent of tragedy was Susan Cooper in her Dark is Rising sequence. She was born in England and lived her childhood during the war years. She was also Oxford educated, and carried two profoundly similar elements also expressed by White and Tolkien. All three story sequences contrast mortal lives with immortal (well, sometimes only the profoundly long-lived), and all three describe the passing of an era or period of conflict which cannot be reclaimed or undone. Cooper, though, as befits her age, saw it from a more cyclical perspective. She contrasted the hectic, ephemeral lives of Will's large family to the constant and returning conflict between good and evil into which Will is drawn.
Although J.R.R. Tolkien must have borrowed themes and moments from the ancient texts he studied, his own brilliance and characterization more than fill in the historical framework.
The story of Middle Earth makes me unutterably sad. From the bitter-sweet beginnings to the final severings I feel the need to weep, because above all it is a story of endings, of unendurable change. I imagine Tolkien himself must have felt such a sadness when he thought of the literature he could never resurrect, spending his life reading texts of a simpler time but living and reflecting on the World Wars which had ravaged his nation and changed the face of life itself.
This sense of tragedy emanates also from the Arthurian novels of T. H. White, who studied at Cambridge in the decade prior to WWII, though he was born in India. This feeling comes especially from the final book of the Arthurian sequence, often considered a bastard sequel, called The Book of Merlyn, which, according to Wikipedia, was published in the mid to late seventies.
Another fascinating writer who captured that scent of tragedy was Susan Cooper in her Dark is Rising sequence. She was born in England and lived her childhood during the war years. She was also Oxford educated, and carried two profoundly similar elements also expressed by White and Tolkien. All three story sequences contrast mortal lives with immortal (well, sometimes only the profoundly long-lived), and all three describe the passing of an era or period of conflict which cannot be reclaimed or undone. Cooper, though, as befits her age, saw it from a more cyclical perspective. She contrasted the hectic, ephemeral lives of Will's large family to the constant and returning conflict between good and evil into which Will is drawn.
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