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by John Garth

John_Garth English
  • ISBN: 0007119526
  • Category: Biographies
  • Author: John Garth
  • Other formats: lrf doc docx mbr
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd; 1st edition (September 30, 2003)
  • Pages: 384 pages
  • FB2 size: 1754 kb
  • EPUB size: 1474 kb
  • Rating: 4.8
  • Votes: 245
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John Garth, winner of the 2004 Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award . Garth is an appreciative and attentive reader of Tolkien's writings; the result of reading Tolkien and the Great War is to come away with a deeper and fuller appreciation of Tolkien's work and its depth.

John Garth, winner of the 2004 Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award, studied English at Oxford University and has since worked as a newspaper journalist in London.

The Threshold of Middle-earth. In memory of. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 1892-1973.

Revealing the horror and heroism the creator of Middle-earth experienced as a young man, Tolkien and the Great War also introduces the close friends who spurred the modern world's greatest mythology into life.

The coming war had cast its shadow on the worldview of Tolkien and his friends when they were still at King Edward’s

Tolkien had also inherited via Mabel a flair for calligraphy from her father, John Suffield, whose ancestors had been platemakers and engravers. The coming war had cast its shadow on the worldview of Tolkien and his friends when they were still at King Edward’s. As early as 1909, W. H. Payton, an excellent shot and a lancecorporal in the school’s junior Officer Training Corps, had argued in debate for compulsory military service. Our country is now supreme and Germany wishes to be.

has ably remedied this lack in his Tolkien and the Great War. By. weaving together extracts from Tolkien's own school and. wartime papers, diaries, poetry, and letters, the papers of. Tolkien's friend Rob Gilson, and relevant company histories and. service records, Garth has drawn us a portrait of a tight-knit. group of four talented and artistically ambitious young men on. the verge of adulthood under the growing shadow of war.

John Garth argues that the foundation of tragic experience in the First World War is the key to Middle-earth’s enduring power. Tolkien used his mythic imagination not to escape from reality but to reflect and transform the cataclysm of his generatuion.

Escape to Middle-earth. Published by Thriftbooks. com User, 14 years ago. This is a book for Tolkien specialists, combining a partial biography of the writer with highly academic literary criticism. Garth has ably remedied this lack in his Tolkien and the Great War. By weaving together extracts from Tolkien's own school and wartime papers, diaries, poetry, and letters, the papers of Tolkien's friend Rob Gilson, and relevant company histories and service records, Garth has drawn us a portrait of a tight-knit group of four talented and artistically ambitious young men on the verge of adulthood under the growing shadow of war. Having read the story of Tolkien’s experiences during the Great War, those who also know The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion and its antecedents, will be able to draw their own more detailed conclusions, if they wish, about how these stories were shaped by the war. Perhaps this is the way Tolkien would have wanted it, if indeed he had countenanced any biographical inquiry into his life and work.

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Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth .

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology into life. John Garth, winner of the 2004 Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award, studied English at Oxford University and has since worked as a newspaper journalist in London.

Acclaimed as 'the best book about Tolkien', this award-winning biography explores J.R.R. Tolkien's wartime experiences and their impact on his life and his writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings. "To be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than in 1939 ! by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead." So J.R.R. Tolkien responded to critics who saw The Lord of the Rings as a reaction to the Second World War. Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life. It shows how, after two of these brilliant young men were killed, Tolkien pursued the dream they had all shared by launching his epic of good and evil. John Garth argues that the foundation of tragic experience in the First World War is the key to Middle-earth's enduring power. Tolkien used his mythic imagination not to escape from reality but to reflect and transform the cataclysm of his generatuion. While his contemporaries surrendered to disillusionment, he kept enchantment alive, reshaping an entire literary tradition into a form that resonates to this day. This is the first substantially new biography of Tolkien since 1977, meticulously researched and distilled from his personal wartime papers and a multitude of other sources.
Reviews about Tolkien and the Great War : The Threshold of Middle-Earth (7):
Knights from Bernin
John Garth's "Tolkien and the Great War" is essential reading for any enthusiast of Tolkien (and indispensable for anyone interested in studying Tolkien's life and work). Garth's groundbreaking research forms the basis for an insightful, in-depth, and very well-written analysis of the way that Tolkien's WWI experiences shaped his writing. This study is not just outstanding as a biography, but also as a literary study, and it is written in a clear and readable style - all of which is a considerable achievement! Garth is an appreciative and attentive reader of Tolkien's writings; the result of reading Tolkien and the Great War is to come away with a deeper and fuller appreciation of Tolkien's work and its depth. Now that it's available in paperback, there's no excuse not to add it to your shelves right away.
Marilace
Wow. When this first came out, I had no interest in reading it. I thought it would be very dry and not all that relevant. Boy, was I wrong!

After reading this, I feel I have a much greater understanding of Tolkien and his works and interests. I knew, of course, that he had fought in WWI and that it had a profound impact on his life (losing most of his friends) and viewpoint. I was not aware that it was during this time that he was doing a great deal of work developing his original languages, Quenya and Sindarin, not to mention his myths which form the background of Middle-Earth.

It's been many years since I read _The Silmarillion_ and I've only read bits and pieces of the other posthumous works, so I was pleased by how readable this book was to a non-scholar.
Mamuro
If I could say anything to this author, I would say, "Thank you!." I now feel that I am closer to understanding Tolkien by knowing as much as can be learnt from the available information regarding his wartime experiences. It would also be interesting to know more about Tolkien's feelings regarding his medevac and recuperation. Was he simply relieved, or - after he recovered from exhaustion and sickness - did feel guilt toward those who stayed in the combat zone? He didn't attend reunions of his unit. Why? How was he remembered by the surviving officers? I am a wounded combat veteran myself, and I understand - because I share this experience - that it is often haunting, and memories of it are unhappy and unsettling, not something that one welcomes. Things don't go well in combat, and honest memories of it are difficult. All pre-mission planning is optimistic and inadequate, and the consequences are frustrating (weather, the enemy, unforeseen circumstances, and coordination w/ other units). Memories of the myriad of mistakes can only conjure up regrets! The emotions of an officer who has been medevac'ed out of combat are difficult to describe. I share this experience w/ Lieutenant Tolkien, and so I have a unique insight into at least this facet of his personal history and personality.

Clearly, the greatest contribution of this work is the impact of the loss of half of the TCBS upon Tolkien - and the fact that these were the other two land-serving WWI officers of the small group, besides Tolkien himself. Tolkien was a member of several well-knit academic/social all-male groups, including the TCBS and much later the Inklings. When he entered such groupings after WWI, he did so after this poignant TCBS experience. That had to have affected his Inklings, and other friend-group, experiences. After the dissolution of the TCBS, he may have felt that he carried w/ him an obligation to literarily produce not for one only, but for the absent two TCBS members as well. And it may have also made him more reserved and hesitant in his friendships.
Kajishakar
There are very few Tolkien books that deserve to be called indispensable: this is one of them. Tolkien is so popular that lots and lots of people want to jump in and have their say. This book is grounded in exquisite research and offers page after page of significant insight. I cannot imagine any serious student of Tolkien managing without it.
Zadora
This book is fantastic and has a lot of great details on Tolkien's early life, down to specific address of where he lived while at Oxford. It also gives a great deal of emphasis on his closest friends and their war experiences. My only real quibble is that the "Great War" portion of the book is less meaty than I would have thought. Something like "Tolkien's Early Life" would have been a much more apt title. Overall well written, this was a quick read and I recommend it to any fan of Tolkien the man.
Qwert
This book is mainly for people really digging into Tolkien studies. Indeed, he was a rare author that warrants such study. The depth, layers and influences behind his Middle Earth mythos are significant. Few probably realize, while reading his books, his depictions of conflict, war and loss aren't completely from his imagination. A veteran of World War I, a war that brought unimaginable new ways to kill at unimaginable cost, was forever in the back of his mind. This book is as much about that experience as it is about his first creations that would later become Middle Earth. The very first inkling of those tales began before the war, continue somewhat during it, and would later explode. Tolkien was of a generation of scholarly writers, many who went off to war in an age when war was seen more as an obligation and adventure, where fiction and myth were part of intellectual thought. They were written to entertain, but also had much more to them. Tolkien's fantasy is more "literary" than most books that now carry that title. His works will last far into the future. While this book can be dense with detail, it will fill in those early years of Tolkien's writing better than any other source. See also The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology,Tolkien's World from A to Z: The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth,The Atlas of Middle-Earth and J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth.

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