I learned how to read novels by reading J. R. R. Tolkien.
My mother had a beautiful edition of The Hobbit on one of our many bookshelves; it was the hardbound edition, that came in a green, it was embossed with gold leaf, it had gilt pages; there were lovely illustrations inside, with maps drawn by the author himself.
I pulled it that book from the shelf and read it when I was in the second grade; when I was finished, I began reading it again and also The Lord of the Rings, followed by the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales (a volume of stories that had been edited and published by his son Christopher after his death). I read these books eight, nine, ten times over, I continued to read them into my early thirties.
Reading and re-reading Tolkien put the idea in my head that I wanted to be a writer. Reading his works over and over again gave me a deep appreciation for the care and craft he put into the construction of his fantasy world.
I can recall a sensation I had on my third time through the Silmarillion; I believe I was in the seventh grade at that time. My reading list had expanded considerably by that time, coming to include more genres than fantasy and science fiction. I read other literary classics, poetry, history and mythology as well as scripture. In addition to these I had begun to read reference materials related to Middle Earth, the culmination of those studies culminated resulted in my having a heightened sense of understanding for the stories being narrated; my vocabulary had expanded, I had become a better reader, making it so that I was able to comprehend more of the material I was engaging; the picture was fillingin. I was able to grasp more of the world that Tolkien had created; it was coming to life for me in new and different…more fulsome way.
I read a biography of the great man himself, which was probably the first piece of non-fiction I ever read (other than histories that had been so mythologized that they felt like fiction).
In that same period of time I found reference books compiled by other authors about Tolkien and Middle Earth: The Tolkien Companion, the New Tolkien Companion, along with various encyclopedias, bestiaries and anthologies depicting the arms and armor of the men and dwarves, of orcs and elves that inhabited his amazing world.
I added his smaller—lesser known works to the corpus of material I was consuming, while still in the seventh grade I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which resonated with my another of my reading interests: Arthurian Lore, and through Tolkien’s Beowulf I was introduced in a literary way to the Viking sagas and the epics of those heroic figures.
Through Tolkien I came to have an early appreciation for the power of myth, as well as their malleability, and the potential we have as creative beings to fashion our own myths and communicate them to the broader world.
Through his writing Tolkien dramatized the basic conflicts he saw at work in our civilization, conflicts between the bucolic and pastoral life (which is where his heart was), with the forces of industry that seemed to be destroying the planet (even in his day he saw this happening), he illustrated the disasters of modern warfare and the suffering they visit on the world, which he experienced first-hand while serving as a signal man in World War I.
In my opinion the collected stories of Middle Earth do what all great literature does, they represent a serious social critique of the twentieth century and a prophetic view of the perils enmeshed in the twenty-first; they are more relevant to the human race ever…we would be wise to be mindful of his wisdom.
