The folks from ALA Booklist Magazine send along a review of Bradley J. Birzer’s latest book ‘J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth’ (due out in stores mid-October). [More]
Day: September 16, 2002
The folks from ALA Booklist Magazine send along a review of Bradley J. Birzer’s latest book ‘J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth‘ (due out in stores mid-October). Take a look and pre-order your own copy at Amazon.com today!
Birzer, Bradley J. J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth. Oct. 2002. 156p. index. ISI, $24.95 (1-882926-84-6). 823.
Tolkien said that The Lord of the Rings is a Catholic book, but commentators have shied away from writing about its Catholicism. After all, he also said it wasn’t an allegory, so you don’t need to know the Catholicism to understand it––right? Perhaps, but Tolkien hoped the book would prove a stealth evangelizer, arguing a Catholic worldview in its setting, characterizations, and plot. Birzer reveals The Lord’s Catholicism in five riveting chapters. Middle-earth is a subcreation, he says, resembling real creation so that a salvific myth of heroic virtue triumphing over dire evil may be played out in it. The sapient beings (hobbits, elves, etc.) in it form a hierarchy surmounted by God, and evil in it is, as in classical Christianity, the result of willful separation from God. When evil is finally vanquished, Middle-earth will be paradisiacal, but as God’s handiwork, it is already profoundly good, and its pastoralism rebukes the secularism, centralization, industrialism, and mechanization (only the evil build machines in Middle-earth) that Tolkien despised. Essential reading for all Tolkien enthusiasts. ––Ray Olson
This past May 25-27, four Decipher employees set out to break the Guinness World Record for “Card Playing Marathon” using The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. It was an idea born on the morning of Thursday the 23rd and realized 48 hours later. [More]
Lets see what our friends at TheForce.net think about the latest ‘Dork Tower’ comic strip..funny stuff indeed! [More]
jayjay writes: nationaltheatre.org.uk has details of Ian Holm’s new play Mappa Mundi which runs 18 Oct-29 Nov (booking opens 7th October) at the Cottesloe (National Theatre) London. [More]
Caerwen send along these great images from the version of The One Ring for sale at Michael Hill Jewelery in Australia and New Zealand. Take a look! [More]