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The World of the Rings Audiolibro Por Jared C. Lobdell arte de portada

A Thoughtful Consideration of Tolkien/s Work

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
2 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-23-21

It has taken me some time and listening to The World of the Rings two and a half times to even begin this review. Like Mr. Lobdell, I too grew up in the Episcopal Church and, like Mr. Lobdell, I have read LotR more times than I can count. Like Professor Tolkien (indeed part of why I love his work), I have a great affinity for philology.

Jared Lobdell displays an excellent personal understanding of Professor Tolkien. His analysis is very thoughtful thorough. I could easily writing pages of reflection on Lobdell;s analysis, both areas where I agree, and where I disagree. What stands out to me, however, is that both where I agree and where I disagree, I find his analysis thought-provoking. I have had to spend much time thinking about why I disagree on certain points and looking for where I might have missed his point. To me, this is high praise.

I'm going to focus here on where I disagree, not to harp on a negative, but because I think that other areas, especially Lobdell's analysis of the influence of Tolkien's professional life and personal interest as a philologist are more self-evidently sound. Further, any proper discussion of those points, even for a review, would require citations and more in-depth analysis than would be appropriate here. Suffice it to say, that Lobdell shows great understanding and appreciation for Tolkien's keen sense of language. While he did not mention it, I have no doubt that the fact that Tolkien said that the Elves called themselves the "Quendi" - those with speech - caught Mr. Lobdell's attention. He does reference the fact that Tolkien's mythology was intended in no small part to give depth and a "historical" context to the languages he had created.

It is also important, before I voice my criticism, to say that Mr. Lobdell's understanding of Tolkien as a Roman Catholic Christian is excellent. For example, references Tolkien's term "sub-creator" to describe a person's creative role - we reflect in our own small way God's work as Creator. This Tolkien vividly expressed in the poem he wrote for C.S. Lewis "Mythopoeia." He also references Tolkien's self-coined term "eucatastrophe" from his essay "On Fairy Stories." Eucatastrophe is a key element in LotR and Tolkien saw it as the very core of the Christian Gospel. in what I say next, I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Lobdell was wrong about Tolkien's personal beliefs and how central they were to his fundamental worldview. Further, while I forget where I saw read it, but I did read at one point that Tolkien admitted later that his Catholic faith had influenced him more than he had intended.

Where I find Mr. Lobdell's analysis to be off base is where he ascribes to the mythology of LotR a Christian theology. There are two basic problems here: First, the assertion of a Christian theology violates Tolkien's categorical, unequivocal statement that he disliked allegory - even the slightest hint of it. Second, Mr. Lobdell is forced repeatedly to note where the supposed Christian theology is not fully worked out or expressed. This is particularly obvious when he tries to pin down whether Tolkien's Middle-earth is in a state analogous to being between the Fall of Adam and the coming of Christ, or even before the Fall; that is, "pre-lapsarian," to use Lobdell's term Taking Tolkien's dislike for allegory seriously, and seeing the issues that Lobdell points out, I am quite certain that a more realistic approach would be to see the influence of Tolkien's Catholic Christian faith on his mythology being one of lending to the presence of themes that are familiar in the Christian worldview. Themes, as just themes, are strands of thought that are not woven together into a complete, thought out, systematic "theology" or other belief system. Certainly LotR and the Silmarillion include themes of temptation, sin, avoidance of temptation and sin, delusion, foresight, wisdom, knowledge, avarice, courage, cowardice, lust for power - all of which are important, core themes in Christianity. However, to say that the "Gift of the Spirit" are present in the story is to ascribe to the inner mythology something that simply isn't there - and deliberately so. If Aragorn, or Faramir, or Sam, or Théoden display the kinds of qualities that St Paul would call "gifts of the Holy Spirit," it is not because the Holy Spirit in Tolkien's mind are behind those qualities in his mythical world. It is only because he, as a Christian, values those qualities and sees them as gifts. In short, where I belief Lobdell errs, is in attributing the work of the Christian God as the source for anything within the world in which the characters in Middle-Earth live. Themes of virtue and evil, of temptation and succumbing to temptation are there in the story, but within the story, their source is not the Christian God or Satan. This is a critical distinction to make. It is the difference between allegory and applicability as Tolkien discussed those two concepts in the foreword to the second edition of Fellowship of the Ring. Allegory is an imposition by the author on the mind of the reader. Applicability is the reader seeing themes that are relevant to his or her own life.

A second note of criticism is not directed toward the author, Jared Lobdell. Instead it is directed toward the narrator, Stuart Appleton. Mr. Appleton's reading voice is pleasant enough and he reads smoothly and with appropriate vocal inflections, but displays a complete lack of familiarity with Tolkien's work. He consistently pronounces the names of people and places in violation of basic rules that anyone familiar with Tolkien will instantly notice and find quite distracting. This might not be as pronounced an issue if language weren't such a core piece of Tolkien's work. Tolkien devotes an entire appendix to the spelling and pronunciation of words and names. To me, it was jarring every time I heard even the most basic word mispronounced.

If you are looking for a thoughtful discussion of Tolkien's world, The World of the Rings is certainly a worthwhile read. The fact that I had to listen to the book twice - and was willing to do so inspire of the jarring mispronunciations - to formulate this review, tells me that my objections are at least balanced by what I found positive. Christian and non-Christian readers alike will find much to consider in Mr. Lobdell's analysis and will find his book a pleasant read.

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The Last Best Hope Audiolibro Por Una McCormack arte de portada

The Troubles of the Future

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 05-08-20

When I was young (I'm 58) and asked my mom why she liked "Star Trek" she told me of her fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was resolved less than a month before my first birthday. For her, like for many, myself included, the Star Trek universe is one of hope for humanity: hope that we won't destroy ourselves, but will unite to overcome our common problems. Some people got the message of the importance of finding unity from the current COVID pandemic. Sadly, some people who really matter didn't.

I very much think about "Star Trek" stories in general in the context of the real world. The Prime Directive alone gives a lot of room for thinking about world affairs. I get a wonderful feeling every time I hear Deanna Troi tell Zephrem Cochrane about the effects of his first warp flight on the world - or telling Mark Twain about those same changes from the world he knew. I love the fact that in my own life little pieces of the Star Trek universe have become real - video communications, electronic pads, mobile phones. All of those things were the stuff of my dreams 50 years ago. Now they are reality. I don't expect that we'll meet Vulcans 43 years from now, but the progress we have made in my life gives April 5, 2063 a special symbolic value.

There are many who complain that more recent "Star Trek" series have abandoned Gene Roddenberry's vision. Another review here says "The Last, Best Hope" was written by someone who doesn't know Trek and is not true to the characters we have known. As a life-long Trekker, I have to disagree. Such views, it seems to me, expect that the changes of which Deanna Troi spoke were absolute and completely uniform, and – most significantly for my point – SO solidified that nothing could ever present serious challenges to the values established in the United Federation of Planets as a whole and Starfleet in particular. When I hear that attitude, I am instantly reminded of then Commander Benjamin Sisko venting his frustration about the fact that while one might see paradise looking out a window on Earth, it wasn't so simple elsewhere in the Federation, like in the demilitarized zone. "It's easy to be a saint in paradise," Sisko observed. But out there, not all the problems had been solved. There are still challenges and some of them are grave. I am also reminded at times of Captain Jonathan Archer struggling with Prime Directive issues before there was a Prime Directive, saying that some day there would be a law of some sort to guide decisions like the ones he had to make.

What we see in "Star Trek: Picard" is not a departure from the vision of Gene Roddenberry, it is an exploration of how that vision, once established, could still be threatened from within. This is not new. How many times has Jean-Luc Picard reprimanded even senior officers for acting in a way that violated the most fundamental principles of the Federation? PIC is set against the backdrop of the Romulan Star going supernova, creating a refugee crisis of epic proportions. The issues brought into the story concerning the logistics and the politics and how they intersect to present huge challenges of their own – especially when I'm listening to this story against the background of a pandemic that has shut most business down, leading to protests by a very vocal minority, and mixed messages from the federal government – seem VERY realistic.

Jean-Luc Picard, however much the paragon of Starfleet / Federation values he is, is still human as he is reminded in these stories. Toward the beginning of the book he is reminded by Deanna Troi that he is taking a big step away from what has been a very secure environment for him, his home, and what has functionally been his family in all ways but blood. He gives his all to this project. It epitomizes the values he holds dear. To have the political will to carry it out evaporate, to have political ugliness become reality could only be a HUGE blow to the still human Jean-Luc Picard. It is tragic for him personally and for Starfleet that he gives up, but I don't think it is unrealistic, a violation of the character. To think that would be to see JLP as more of a machine than a man, to cast him as Locutus of Borg - his own worst nightmare as all fans know. Picard invests not just a career in Starfleet, he invests himself entirely because he really, deeply, holds to the values he had known it to represent and enact. Should we be surprised that he would react as he does when those values are betrayed at the highest levels?

Far from seeing "Star Trek: Picard" – whether the book "The Last Best Hope" or the series – as a departure, I very much see it as a realistic, complex, exploration of the Federation and Picard himself, treating them as real entities, not monolithic, stagnant idols. I only wish that I had read this book before I saw the series and now I'll probably rewatch the series. It's not perfect. I wish we had been given a lot more about Narek's background, for example, but now some parts have more context. In all, however, I see the whole story, book and series, as a nuanced, complex, multifaceted treatment of the character of Jean-Luc Picard and the universe he lives in.

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