Ring Master

With bewitching scenery and stunning
scale, Tolkien's novel remains a classic
thanks to its powerful language
and universal themes

---

By Burl Burlingame
bburlingame@starbulletin.com

Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Got it? The above catechism explains everything you need to know about Middle Earth, the extraordinary fever dream of philologist and medieval historian J.R.R. Tolkien. Many who were swept up in the epic novel will recognize the words -- and one of the delights of Tolkien's writing is the notion that words themselves have power -- and there are some out there who actually have them memorized.

And there are some of you who have no idea what all the hoo-haw surrounding the story is about. With the biggest film experience in history about to begin (opening Wednesday, the episodes promising to run three years!) and given "The Lord of the Rings'" indelible contribution to society, it's about time we let you in on the Big Deal:

BAD GUYS: Above, the Ringwraiths, a k a the Black Riders, are nine powerful bad guys whose faces aren't seen much behind their black cloaks. They used to be men, but now Sauron's chief servants are more like evil spirits. Sauron, the big bad guy, a k a the Dark Lord, made the ring sought and he wants it back.

Everything you've read, seen or listened to in the last half-century has been influenced to some degree by Tolkien's 1,200-page novel.

Oh, come on! Not "Star Trek" or "Star Wars." Not "The Godfather." Not Led Zeppelin. Not "War and Remembrance." Not "Dungeons and Dragons." Not Jethro Tull or Kate Bush or any alt-Brit-pop act on Earth. Not any miniseries of any form. Not "Xena." Not any novel or film or show or musical production that takes place in a world that is similar to, but not exactly like, the world we live in, with its own set of completely realized rules of internal logic and accretions of cultural detail.

Well, maybe.

Tolkien was a bookish professor of ancient European languages and medieval history at Oxford, whose "mad hobby" was the creation of a complete language that, in its forms and derivatives, filled a niche predating modern European languages. He called it Elvish, the language of elves, which he postulated was a long-extinct parallel species similar to man but more attuned to the natural currents of the universe.

In the forward of the first book of his three-volume masterpiece, Tolkien explains it is a guide "linguistic in inspiration and ... begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues." That's an understatement. Tolkien created towering piles of arcane history detailing every aspect of the fictional world he called Middle Earth, most of which has never been published. He wrote "The Hobbit," a gentle children's story, clever enough for adults and dark enough for discriminating readers, in the mid-'30s as an introduction to this world, and it was a bestseller in its day.

NEW LINE CINEMA Elijah Wood, as Frodo, addresses the Council of Elrond about the fate of Middle Earth in a scene from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," which opens Wednesday.

Encouraged, he began a longer work, bolstered by the extraordinary detail and acuity of vision he had amassed for the story's background. Middle Earth is a land inhabited by coexisting species, and perhaps this triggers a racial memory among readers of a time when we lived alongside Neanderthals, Giganthropithicus and other related bipeds. The two primary inhabitants are Men, who are gradually taking over the lands; and Elves, whose power is fading. There are a variety of others, such as trolls and dwarves and hobbits, but this is a world in transition. Tolkien began the work in the '30s and finished it in the late '40s.

The work became, unconsciously, a meditation on the root philosophies that formed World War II, and in its breathtaking sweep and dark, twisted imagery of a universe that has turned irrevocably on a hinge of fate, it is still one of the best evocations of that ultimate struggle between the forces of fate, destiny and faith.

It's a fantasy but it's no fairy tale. Tolkien's passion for the power of language also made it compulsively readable.

The themes throughout are grim and grand and breathtaking -- the pointless devastation of war, the gradual corruptibility of evil, the delicate balance of surviving cultures, fear of the unknown, the simple pleasures of home, the sad need to stand and fight -- and the psychic damage such action leaves -- the futility of sacrifice, the cult of malignant personality, the yearning for religion, the loss of innocence, the scars of healing. There's a real sense in "Lord of the Rings" that an age has passed, that there is no going back, that all we can do is ride the cataclysm and hope for the best.

In other words -- all this and World War II.

Tolkien's clever, straightforward style was to write the work as if it were a nonscholarly history of events and personalities. By not making the work overly "literary" and precious, but at the same time paying close attention to the evocative power of language, Tolkien made the novel extraordinarily real. The general impression upon finishing it, even after 1,200 pages, was a hunger for more.

Tolkien's novel was separated into three pieces by his publisher -- "The Fellowship of the Ring," "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" -- but it is really one work. The movies are divided this way as well. In the books, the first volume is the dullest, with traces of children's folklore and loads of Elvish culture dolloped in. Apparently, most of the changes to Tolkien's vision by the filmmakers are in the first installment, in the interest of clarity.

ASSOCIATED PRESS "Lord of the Rings" stars Liv Tyler and Elijah Wood attended the film's advance screening in New York last Thursday.

One of Tolkien's shrewdest moves was not to end the third volume not with the epic battle, but with the return of the hobbits to their home. They're now battle-hardened, tough and mean -- and wish they weren't. But it comes in handy in a sticky situation.

The Ring of the title, by the way, is a small, simple and pure element that unleashes extraordinary power and horror. This notion could only have been written in a post-atomic world.

It's still just a novel, however. While it did OK when first released, it wasn't until the 1960s that the sheer depth of the work began to seize readers' imaginations. The reticulated depth and verisimilitude of Middle Earth influenced popular culture to an astonishing degree. If there's an American equivalent of a world of the imagination, it's Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek," which also has a formal universe of cultural rules and historical traditions. Like real worlds, they exist beyond the edges of the screen, beyond the borders of the page, into the far reaches of the imagination. It is a complete world. Such a notion colors the way we approach the "real" world, and this is why Tolkien's work has become so influential.

In 1971, Tolkien admitted that "Middle Earth does not belong to me." He purposefully meant to "leave scope for minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama." It has become the landscape of the collective imagination of mankind.

THE CHARACTERS

>> Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm): A hobbit, legendary for adventuring away from home (which is most un-hobbitlike behavior!). He found the Ring after it was lost for centuries, a stale that formed the earlier work "The Hobbit."

>> Gandalf the Grey or Mithrandir (Ian McKellen): Is a wizard, a man, who discovers the awful truth of the Ring and gets things moving, despite hobbity balkiness.

>> Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood): A hobbit, has inherited a magic ring of power from uncle Bilbo. He's an innocent who has never wandered outside the Shire, the hobbits' rustic village.

>> Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin): A hobbit gardener, is Frodo's friend and tags along, hoping to see the legendary elves -- and to protect Frodo.

>> Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan): A hobbit, friend of Frodo.

>> Peregrin "Pippin" Took (Billy Boyd): A hobbit, boneheaded friend of Frodo's.

>> Elrond Halfelven (Hugo Weaving): Part elf and part man, is in charge of the sanctuary of Rivendell.

>> Aragorn Strider the Ranger (Viggo Mortensen): A man, mysterious and strong of character, his family abdicated the throne years earlier.

>> Arwen Undomiel Evenstar (Liv Tyler): Part man and part elf, is Elrond's daughter and interested in Aragorn. This character has been made meatier in largely male setting.

>> Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom): An elf and great archer who is fast on his feet and eagle-eyed.

>> Gimli (John Rhys-Davies): A dwarf, stolid and fearless, son of a major character in "The Hobbit."

>> Boromir (Sean Bean): A man, son of the current ruler of Gondor, the largest of the kingdoms of men. Pragmatic rather than visionary, he wonders why the ring must be destroyed.

>> Sauron, (Christopher Lee): A corrupted man and wizard, is also known as Saruman, the Dark Lord, the Lord of the Rings, the Red Eye -- in the film, he is shown mostly as a blazing cat's eye -- is trying to conquer Middle-earth. Darth Vader walks in his shoes.

>> Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood (Cate Blanchett): An elf, is queen of elvish Lothlorien.

>> Smeagol Gollum (animated in the film): Is likely a very old, corrupted hobbit who once owned the ring and wants it back. His loyalties are suspect to all; Gollum is like a strung-out junkie.

>> Eagles: Are intelligent and friends to men, hobbits and elves.

>> The Ringwraiths: The Black Riders or the Nazgul are nine powerfully evil spirits who used to be men. They ride at Sauron's bidding.

>> Orcs or goblins: Are Sauron's specially bred foot soldiers and creatures of darkness. They can't fight in daylight, except for the Uruk-hai species, who are like SS stormtroopers in comparison to the orcish grunts.

>> And look for minor, endangered species such as trolls, dragons, giant spiders, barrow-wights or spirits, and evil crows that are everything eagles are not.

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