The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien

     When a tweedy, Catholic, pipe-smoking Oxford professor named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien sat down to write a novel, who could have anticipated that his volcanic imagination would give rise to an entire continent, populated by elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards and ambulatory trees? Tolkien drew on his deep knowledge of ancient languages and mythology, and his agonizing memories of the Somme, to create a 20th-century fable of magic and heroism, misty mountains and mystical forests, goodness and temptation, wherein a tiny gnomelike hobbit, Frodo, goes on a quest to destroy the One Ring, a malevolent artifact that could be the downfall of all of Middle Earth. The founding text of modern fantasy literature, The Lord of the Rings also carries with it a profound, melancholy nostalgia for the innocent pre-industrial England that was lost forever in the muddy trenches of World War I.

From the TIME Archive:
"This year, the unquestioned literary god on college campuses is a three-foot-high creature with long curly hair on his feet and the improbable name of Frodo Baggins"

Friday, Jul. 15, 1966

Students: The Hobbit Habit

     Holden Caulfield is a moldy fig; the Lord of the Flies has been swatted. This year, the unquestioned literary god on college campuses is a three-foot-high creature with long curly hair on his feet, a passion for six vast meals a day, and the improbable name of Frodo Baggins. And would you believe that Frodo is a hobbit?

Hairy feet and all, Frodo Baggins is the reluctant hero of this year's "In" book—a three-volume fantasy called The Lord of the Rings. Written by J.R.R. Tolkien, 74, a retired Oxford philologist, the Rings trilogy was first published in the U.S. twelve years ago, had a small but dedicated coterie of admirers, including Poet W. H. Auden and Critic C. S. Lewis, but languished largely unread until it was reprinted last year in two paperback editions.* Since then, campus booksellers have been hard put to keep up with the demand. At the Princeton bookstore, says one salesman, it is the "biggest seller since Lord of the Flies."

Orcs & Ringwraiths. A fairytale for adults blown up to epic proportions, The Lord of the Rings tells how Frodo becomes heir to a magic ring that would, in the hands of Sauron the Dark Lord, give him domination over Middle-earth. A clever old wizard called Gandalf the Grey persuades Frodo to destroy the ring by carrying it to Sauron's domain of Mordor and then dropping it into the impenetrable Cracks of Doom. On his long journey, Frodo is aided by a variety of elves and dwarves, set upon by horrid, yellow-toothed Orcs, nine Ringwraiths riding dark horses, a giant spider, and other henchmen of Sauron. His quest is over when the Dark Lord is finally destroyed during the bloody War of the Ring.

     The hobbit habit seems to be almost as catching as LSD. On many U.S. campuses, buttons declaring FRODO LIVES and GO GO GANDALF—frequently written in Elvish script—are almost as common as football letters. Tolkien fans customarily greet each other with a hobbity kind of greeting ("May the hair on your toes grow ever longer"), toss fragments of hobbit language into their ordinary talk. One favorite word is mathom, meaning something one saves but doesn't need, as in "I've just got to get rid of all these mathoms." Permanently hooked Ringworms frequently memorize long passages from the trilogy and learn how to write Tengwar or Certar, two peculiar and ancient-looking scripts that Tolkien invented on behalf of his mythical creatures. The most ardent readers of all are likely to join the nation's fast-growing Tolkien Society of America, which publishes magazines containing learned disquisitions on the elaborate genealogies and intricate rules of grammar that the author attached as appendices to the trilogy.

     Boo the Villain. Tolkien himself denies that there is any "inner meaning or message" in the Ring cycle, and many students take on a muzzy, Middle-earth look when they try to explain its appeal. To some, it is a poetic portrayal of the times, with Sauron and his destructive threat seen as an analogy to atomic war. For others, the Frodo saga represents a way to escape the mundane realities of life. "I'd like to live in the hobbit world because this world is so foul," says Marilyn Nulman, who works at the Harvard bookstore. Another enthusiast likes the Rings' old-fashioned moral simplicity: "You cheer the hero and boo the villain." Whatever the reasons, Frodo seems here to stay. As one mother put it when she bought the trilogy for her freshman daughter, "Going to college without Tolkien is like going without sneakers." 

^{* Out of loyalty to the author, true-blue Rings fanciers ignore the edition published by Ace Books, Inc., which was not authorized by Tolkien, and favor instead the version brought out by Ballantine Books and personally approved by him.}

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,836021,00.html