A spirited defence of Tolkien's mythological creation and its increasing relevance for the real world. Acclaimed by the largest readers' survey ever conducted as 'the greatest book of the century', J.R.R.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has cast the spell of its storytelling for over 40 years and continues to enthral new generations of readers. Yet it has also been widely labelled as reactionary and escapist by hostile critics. Patrick Curry's book shows just how mistaken they are. He reveals Tolkien's ...
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A spirited defence of Tolkien's mythological creation and its increasing relevance for the real world. Acclaimed by the largest readers' survey ever conducted as 'the greatest book of the century', J.R.R.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has cast the spell of its storytelling for over 40 years and continues to enthral new generations of readers. Yet it has also been widely labelled as reactionary and escapist by hostile critics. Patrick Curry's book shows just how mistaken they are. He reveals Tolkien's profound and subtle advocacy of community, ecology and spiritual values against the destructive forces of runaway modernity. Tolkien's remedy, and the project implicit in his literary mythology, is a re-enchantment of the world. In helping us to realize that living nature, including humanity, is sacred, his writings draw on ancient magical mythology, but at the same time resonate closely with the ideas of contemprary radical ecology. Quoting extensively from Tolkien's works, Patrick Curry argues that Tolkien addresses hard global realities and widely justified fears. In this way, his story has transcended its English roots to achieve universal relevance, and his imaginary world gives people everywhere hope for the future of the real world.
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New. Patrick Curry's extended defense of Tolkien's Middle-earth (via The Lord of the Rings and, The Hobbit, ) is sharp, witty, and-to quote fantasy author Ursula Le Guin-'enjoyably ruthless' in its attack on the conventional criticism handed out by the intellectual elite. In an attempt to make sense of Tolkien's creation, Curry divides it into three domains, each nestled within the larger: the social (the Shire), the natural (Middle-earth), and the spiritual (the Sea). He devotes a chapter to each, but more importantly, explores the places and ways in which they overlap, because-to quote Curry-'that is where their heart is to be found, and any meaning found in or derived from [Tolkien's] work must embody all three concerns. ' Taken together, Curry believes these domains to be 'a remedy for pathological modernity. namely, the resacralization (or re-enchantment) of experienced and living nature, including human nature. ' As a literary myth, Tolkien understood that Christianity could only be conveyed in a secularized form, and it has been argued by some critics that for Tolkien, fantasy was not only art but also a sort of secularized religion by which he and his readers could find access to the ancient heroic world of Middle-earth. To quote the Tolkien scholar, Randel Helms, 'the poetry of the mythic imagination will not. replace religion so much as make it possible, putting imaginatively starved modern man once again into awed and reverent contact with a living universe. ' Curry sees deeply and well into this particular vein of Tolkien's mythic and transformative genius.
Add this copy of Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity to cart. $20.99, new condition, Sold by Russell Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Victoria, BC, CANADA, published 2004 by Houghton Mifflin.
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