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Who is the Lord (of the Rings)?

God, Himself, Says Tolkein Biographer

By Joe Marti

On February 8, literature fans had an opportunity to learn more about Tolkein from Joseph Pearce, a Tolkein biographer and a Catholic. At Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, Pearce spoke about Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The movie version of the book is in theaters now and for several weeks was the number one box office draw around the nation. The film has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including best picture.

Pearce, 40, is currently serving as writer in residence at Ave Maria College in Michigan. He was born and raised a Protestant in England by a carpenter father and a mother who occasionally took odd jobs. At 16 he left school and began to involve himself with political extremism, and became editor of The National Front newspaper. Eventually, for his activities in the group and his writings in the magazine Bulldog, he was convicted and imprisoned twice under Britains's race relations act for inciting racial hatred. During his second stint in prison, he discovered G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc and found he was sympathetic to the Catholic position. He was received into the Church in 1989. Since writing his first book on Chesterton, he has written several others, including his biography of Tolkien, Man and Myth.

Pearce's talk on February 8 focused mainly on the religious and spiritual undercurrent that, he believes, runs through The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was baptized at age eight and, after losing his parents, he and his brother were left to the care of Father Francis Morgan, a priest at the Birmingham Oratory in England. Tolkein remained a Catholic his entire life. Pearce maintains that those who do not see The Lord of the Rings as a Catholic book are missing its point. He said, "The Bible has been the most abused and the most misunderstood book in history. Think of the many ways that sects, strange and not so strange, have managed to twist its meaning for their own ends. In similar fashion, Tolkien's book should not be blamed if his meaning is warped by neo-pagans, or others, who see in its pages only what they want to see." Tolkien himself, according to Pearce, described the book as a "fundamentally religious and Christian work" and cited his faith as the "most significant" ingredient in The Lord of the Rings.

One of the most significant questions of the evening was, "Who is the Lord of the Rings?" Pearce argues that 'the Lord' is God. "On the allegorical level ... the Lord of the Rings is the Lord of All," he explained, "On this level, the level of truth, there is only one Lord, the same Lord that Tolkien worshipped every Sunday at Holy Mass. Sauron (a malevolent character in the book) is only a shadow, and as Tolkien insisted, 'Above all shadows rides the sun.'" A theme oft repeated at the lecture came from a quote from G.K. Chesterton, who asserted that, "Truth is more important than facts." According to Pearce, realizing this is of chief importance to the understanding of Tolkien's allegorical message that lies beyond the impossible fantasy he created. Pearce explained it further, saying that Chesterton differentiated between facts, which are purely physical, and truth, which is metaphysical. "Truth animates facts, breathing life into them. Only at this level do facts attain their full reality," said Pearce.

Not wishing to leave any significant 20th century British writer out, Pearce alleged that "If it weren't for Tolkien, there would be no Lewis." Pearce explains that Tolkien was largely responsible for C.S. Lewis's final conversion to Christianity, a fact that Lewis freely admitted in a letter to a friend. "As such," explained Pearce, "if Lewis had not known Tolkien it is possible, perhaps even likely, that he would never have written his wonderful children's stories or his salient works of Christian apologetics.

One question asked that evening -- why, in a world entirely from Tolkien's imagination, he chose the lowly Hobbit to be the keeper of the ring. Pearce believes it is the hobbit's unassuming nature. "The hobbits represent the exaltation of the humble," said Pearce. " It is precisely because they lack worldly ambition and do not seek to dominate others that they are able to carry the ring without being instantly corrupted."

Regardless of the largely warm reception, some differ with Pearce on his interpretation of Tolkien's books. Stephen Cordova, professor of history at the University of San Francisco, disagrees with Pearce's view of The Lord of the Rings as an allegory and some of his conclusions about major themes. "I am not persuaded by his claim the 'Lord' of the rings is, in fact, our Lord and Savior. Pearce seems to be hiding behind his faith to force an allegorical reading the book; a kind of reading which the author clearly rejected. Tolkien did not think that he was writing an allegory for this world. He thought that he was making a myth about England." To this, Pearce replied, "Tolkien differentiated myth from allegory, though only to stress that the allegory present in myth is subconsciously derived and therefore subtler than the allegory present in a self-conscious allegory. The Lord of the Rings is more subtle than Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, though both contain much that is clearly allegorical and would have been seen as such by both authors."

Despite these differences, both Pearce and Cordova believe Tolkien intended his books to be, above all, Catholic. As Pearce put it, "LOTR as leading people (hopefully) to Catholicism: The Lord of the Rings is a theological time-bomb ... because the more one delves into the spiritual depths of Tolkien's myth, the more one comes closer to the truth which was its principal inspiration, i.e. the Catholic Faith."

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