ah, lovely, like the person who inspired it! Happy Birthday, Professor! Thank you for all the beauty you gave us. Thank you for all the thinking and caring and *doing* you inspired. Thank you for opening the doors to a place we might call Home.
Aw, you. I had you and your work in mind, you know. Your writing has Tolkien's respect for things, his wonder at the things of creation, running all through it. :)
He was such a talented man. I would recommend you buy a copy of 'J.R.R.Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator', but it must have gone out of print. Amazon has copies for sale but for ridiculous amounts. I bought mine new off Amazon a couple of years ago (2000 paperback edition), for the less than the retail price on the back of the book, which says 25.00.
It's a terrifying, fascinating section of the novel, I agree. I don't think JRRT's drawing does it justice, considering the tree's malice, but it's a lovely drawing of an old willow.
How fitting that you posted some of his own drawings of trees for this day. This reminds me of Frodo, as he laid his hand upon a tree in Lothlorien: "....never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and the texture of the tree's skin and the life within it". I have always felt Tolkien's deep love of trees emerging in that special passage.
This reminds me of Frodo, as he laid his hand upon a tree in Lothlorien: "....never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and the texture of the tree's skin and the life within it".
That is just what I think. Although I think what he portrays Frodo feeling in Lorien is akin to what Elves feel about trees. So maybe it's properest to say that Tolkien's keen, reverent, love of trees comes through in the perspective of the Elves towards trees. I don't know that the attitude of the Elves comes through clearly in LOTR, but it's very clear in other writings. Humans (and hobbits would be grouped with humans more than with Elves) are portrayed in Tolkien as seeing trees as raw material - for what they can yield in the way of lumber or fuel, but Elves see the trees as trees, with their own dignity, wonderful in their own right, without reference to their practical possibilities or usefulness.
That's what I have come to think as the "Elvishness" about Frodo that other characters comment on: his Elvish eye, or way of looking at the world around him. I don't think he had it to start with, but learned it. He had the potential for it, but I think readers can see it growing right before their eyes within the written story.
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(and thank you for the lovely, lovely compliment!)
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Really???? WOW.
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This reminds me of Frodo, as he laid his hand upon a tree in Lothlorien: "....never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and the texture of the tree's skin and the life within it".
I have always felt Tolkien's deep love of trees emerging in that special passage.
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That is just what I think. Although I think what he portrays Frodo feeling in Lorien is akin to what Elves feel about trees. So maybe it's properest to say that Tolkien's keen, reverent, love of trees comes through in the perspective of the Elves towards trees. I don't know that the attitude of the Elves comes through clearly in LOTR, but it's very clear in other writings. Humans (and hobbits would be grouped with humans more than with Elves) are portrayed in Tolkien as seeing trees as raw material - for what they can yield in the way of lumber or fuel, but Elves see the trees as trees, with their own dignity, wonderful in their own right, without reference to their practical possibilities or usefulness.
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Ohhhhh, yes.
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