All right, you have The Lord of the Rings down, now when do we start on the philosophy?

That was what I inevitably thought on finishing this collection of sixteen essays plus a short selection of quotes from eminent philosophers. Every essay gives us a thought about the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, some of them quite deep. But only a few really put Tolkien's work into a philosophical framework -- and some of those (e.g. Douglas K. Blount's Ûberhobbits: Tolkien, Nietzsche, and the Will to Power) do more to illustrate the failures of philosophy than show how it illuminates the history of Middle-earth.

Does that matter? I suppose it depends on what you want. If you want a painless introduction to philosophy, there really isn't enough here to get you anywhere. If you want a collection of thoughts about Tolkien, it will likely suit you better.

That doesn't mean it's perfect. There are some essays that we'd be better off without. Essay two shows an excessive fear of technology, confusing possible evils it might bring with necessary evils it will bring. Essay three takes Sigmund Freud seriously -- which is an effective guarantee of bad results; c'mon, people, Freud's methods were dubious even at the time, and we now have empirical evidence of how incorrect they were! Essay ten repeatedly treats the Peter Jackson movies as if they actually revealed something about Tolkien (what they really reveal is that, from a philosophical standpoint, Hollywood can mess up anything). This essay also completely bollixes its understanding of the deaths of Aragorn and Arwen; Arwen did not die willingly at the end. Essay fourteen almost drove me nuts; it treats the title "Master Samwise" as if Sam were a Zen master; he was no more that than a master of slaves. Just because the author doesn't known how the British refer to people doesn't mean that he should reveal it in print. And Tolkien wasn't a dualist, and Middle-earth isn't in a yin-yang balance, and Tolkien explicitly disclaimed the Manichaeism the authors want to push him into (they admit it isn't really right, but then why yammer on about it?). As for essay fifteen and the claim that "Odysseus [was]... the noblest and most respected hero," it might be worth recalling that even Homer called him a "man of twists and turns," and portrayed him as a paranoid liar; later Greek accounts of him made him even more vile.

That's a lot of complaints about a book that I mostly liked. The problem is, the bad is clear, obvious, and blatant, and there is nothing equally clear, obvious, and brilliant; I can't point to any great new insight in this volume. If you read it with caution for the pure errors, but with an open mind to the subtle suggestions, you may well find it a helpful and enjoyable book.

[CORRECTIONS: 12/14: corrected to read "than show how." Also, N.B., this review was damaged in the May 2018 backup-and-restore problem at LibraryThing; I hope I put the line breaks back where they belong, but I was guessing; the review may be a little different than it was before.]

This book is a collection of essays on LOTR and various philosophical themes. For an alternative way of looking at the two subjects, look at Peter Kreeft's "Philosophy of Tolkien." ( )