One thing about “elves” without citing anything, or trying to sell you any belief or politics, is that what I find most interesting is that they appear to be a ‘people’ who within their own history in the books go through many changes, suffer and migrate and experience loss and gain, but in ways that are not based on anything specific I know of, nothing I can recite or footnote. They are not analogous to any specific religion or modern or archaic culture. This ‘race’ of people in the books are, in my opinion, more richly described and imagined than all others, and seemed ‘very important’ to Tolkien if this was the case. These ‘people’ also, even with all their flaws, (and also because it doesn’t matter whether you ‘believe in elves’ outside the material at all) obviously express something about ‘living’ even as a reader, as a ‘human being’ about what is possible, simply because he imagined it.
He gives great detail and reason for why they are who they are, and why they do what they do, and as a ‘people’ beyond that they are richly described in every conceivable detail, they are imagined far more than anything I’ve ever read in any other ‘fiction.’ “Klingons” may have a ‘language’ and a ‘culture’ in Star Trek, but it is still very ‘surface level’ fiction. Their grunts and groans make no reference to anything else, there are ‘built in’ ironies in Elvish words, there are double entendres, and multiple meanings. Their ‘culture’ and ‘history’ is multilayered in ironies and resonances within the material itself. It is astoundingly “meaningful” in many many ways, astoundingly layered with ironies they reach across many books and this isn’t merely plot device.
There are other ‘people’ such as Hobbits, which are more of an ‘amusing’ creation of sorts, and though there is a lot to them, we have barely a specific ‘Hobbitish’ vocabulary (no language exactly) and their history does not really reach that far back as far as we are told. We do not know as much about Hobbits as we can know about his Elves. One might bring up the possibility that Hobbits, Elves, Men are potentially relatable as ‘people’ and possibly in ways that we can recognize but as ’aspects’ of ourselves but also in ways that we can imagine but that we find we do not readily experience in our daily lives.
We do not exactly live in the world that they do, but we are told we do live in the same world they do , but obviously under much different circumstances and a different time. We are not simply different in physical characteristic, but we simply do not live under the circumstances which all these people are said to live or as they chose to live.
It would seem this is of note, this is part of the narrative itself. “This was a long time ago…” This was something, as imagined, of another time, another place with all the different circumstances which go with that, and yet, once you begin to see how it plays out, this means that it can and does resonate with us today, because it resonates many different times throughout the books—throughout the “histories” which are described which take place. It is, in other words, pointed out that characters themselves are aware that this ‘happens.’ We are conceivably in this ‘fiction’ (as we read it ourselves) a ‘later untold period’ of the whole history of Middle Earth. We are literally ‘part of’ that history as readers. These are ‘legends’ but none we’ve ever heard of before, this is the pretext of it all. This may be obvious to you of course, but it is the wider implications I wish to write about here.
People experience different variations of events and circumstances, as life plays out, things that almost seem like ‘repetitions of history’ but with new and different meanings. As this happens, and characters throughout time come and go like the living and the dead, there are recognizable similarities which I can only assume is intentional. If there was a statement in there about something, there is one possibility: that life has a way of carrying on like this, and that it has done so from the very Beginning which we know very little of. That we come from long lines of strangely changing roads which end up being kind of important to things which happened long ago, and that long ago things happened which set us up for what we’re going through now, but not as simply as ‘cause and effect.’ You may already know this and there’s nothing truly odd necessarily about this, but…
People lived out certain circumstances which come around again in similar ways. History isn’t exactly repeating itself, but moments resonate with earlier moments in people’s lives. This is part of literary narrative of course, and certain things foreshadow things that later happen and so forth, but in this case, these aren’t merely things like one sees in one particular novel, or even across a trilogy. For instance, “The gun on the nightstand comes up later in the book,” or “the music box turns out to have been her father’s in the end,” but in this case entire historical periods across time resonate several times with unique outcomes which signify certain things. There are vast histories involving many characters in different time periods which come again and again in interesting similarities as singular narratives cut across time. To this particular example, I mean the Elves. There are characters embedded in wider narratives of these ‘historical’ directions which go through changes, and though you do not get to know them any deeper than one might find of ‘characters’ or ‘personalities’ in common folklore’ or ‘legends’ these particular ‘fictional legends’ begin to go far outside the realm of ‘fictional legends’ and ‘fake parallel history’ into something which I would consider completely ‘new’ and different. This is a whole new literary idea that he’s toyed with. They are something that are like ‘science fiction’ with nearly ‘immortal’ characters living through vast distances of time, but they are also going way beyond any trope or simple subtext which you find in ‘science fiction.’ There is so much going on and yet it doesn’t fall apart when you dissect it. There are narratives within narratives, meanings which spread out in all directions from the microcosm of his invented languages to the widest possible contemplation of his larger histories.’ There is meaning in hundreds and hundreds of his invented words which actually relate to other things not only going on in these narratives but to all kinds of other weird little details where he says all kinds of different little things along the way, all connected, all making sense. These words of his are not simple direct-to-translation gibberish that he made up, they are words which have more to them than meets the eye. Beyond this on the macrocosmic scale, these ‘fictional legendary characters’ have their own mythologies and legends that they believe in and talk about amongst themselves. Legends with legends, this is quite bizarre if you think about it. This ‘fake lore’ of Middle Earth has its very own legends, and the characters which people this fictional world have entire histories merely of these words of their languages based upon things which are in their own myths, their own beliefs and legends. There are ‘elves’ and ‘dwarves’ and other ‘mythical’ beings, but these ‘mythical’ beings have their own odd legends and lore. All the way back to the beginning of time itself. Who writes like that? For most people a simple story with some characters, a timeline, a plot line, some arcs and some events which affect those characters is quite enough. They don’t explain the motivations of everybody and everything all the way back to the literal creation of the universe… that’s just absolutely astonishing that anybody would even try.
This isn’t simply a tongue in cheek ‘alternate creation story’ and there it is in elaborate detail with every detail meaning something not just to you the reader, but for these characters, in this fictional story. From the creation of the universe to as far as the most recent events which still imaginably would have to have taken place before our own recorded history. If as Tolkien says that ‘Numenor’ is actually supposed to be what we call “Atlantis” (it doesn’t matter if you believe in Atlantis or not) that means that this would (for lack of a better analogy, and one with no intentional direct implied meaning here) all take place somewhere during the first few paragraphs of the “Book of Genesis.” In other words, what the Book of Genesis (all of a few scant pages in one very big thick book about a whole bunch of other stuff that you can debate later for whatever reasons ever happened or not) has barely anything to say about the “time period” it is alleged to take place or ‘happen’ Tolkien has written hundreds of thousands of pages depicting. Again, only as an analogy which I use to compare, not to imply one has anything to do with the other. “The story of Middle Earth” goes on for thousands and thousands of paragraphs while the “book of Genesis” has maybe 10 or 15. That’s quite an imagination, and quite a bit of explaining purely for the sake of ‘entertainment.’ That’s a monumental exercise in ‘imagination’ if there ever was one, and unlike, for instance, “Star Wars” isn’t just about a specific set of characters who carry out and experience certain circumstances during a brief time period of even simply 30 or 40 years. This is an entire expansive narrative encompassing thousands of years and with great purpose and meaning. This isn’t a ‘series’ of hackwork pulp novels written without intention during an author’s career either, this Tolkien built and built and built for many years this vast and arguably ‘single’ yet vast narrative. Also, I think this all can be taken in many ways beyond a ’literal physical’ history of some planet, whether it’s supposed to be ours or not. Elves and Valar invented the first languages, but from moment number one when the ‘universe’ came into existence, a long succession of events took place which cannot be taken as ‘physical reality’ and as this is pointed out, it becomes something else once again, a mystery which none of these ‘academic’ “Tolkien Experts” have ever had much to say about. There is supernatural shit going on that we’re being told has everything to do with ‘the Creation’ of the universe, but add that interesting twist that it has also everything to do with the origin of ‘language’ and ‘meaning,’ ’thought’ and some kind of ‘intention’ of a literally Tolkien-created “character” which is the “creator of the universe,” Iluvatar. This isn’t a joke, and “Iluvatar” is a “character” in this story, but at a certain point, this ‘story’ isn’t a story the way we are conventionally used to as a story, and is a very unusual narrative that as literature we simply are not used to, yet this becomes later in the ‘series’ exactly what we are used to. There is a shift and it transforms into several different styles of narrative. The Silmarillion, the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are three separate styles of writing narratives, and yet all three are continuous, having everything to do with each other, and involve ‘characters’ which appear in all three. It would be like characters from “The Bible” showing up later in a ‘fairy tale book’ style narrative, and then showing up in a third ‘epic saga.’ Rather than suggest this is somehow related to or indicative of ‘biblical’ influence or subtext, but rather generally a particular stylistic choice on behalf of the author. One vision, different styles of tale-telling, and quite possibly incidental, accidental, but regardless of how it ended up that way, the ‘intention’ of meaning throughout has creatively expressed some very astonishing and unique things not found in the only comparatively “similar” works in existence of its time: Not found in the 13 book The Wizard of Oz series, not found in Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, not found in anything by Homer, not found in the Bible, and not found in the Kalevala either. This is not even a ‘clever’ amalgamation of those things either like a lot of people say, this is quite peculiar and quite different. An author is entitled to his own unique style no matter how different or weird it may be, and in my opinion this works quite well and ingeniously to express these very unique things that Tolkien felt and wanted to either ‘get out of his system’ or ‘get on paper’ and out for whatever reasons. The reasons of any author, or writer. There are no exotic languages told of in The Bible, nor Oz, nor the Kalevala, nor The Faerie Queene and no such interconnected narratives which contain as much detail, not even the Bible.
Things like this appear in the text to me, and what might seem obvious, has with it more unusual implications than one might first expect. The Elves are the first ones, the “First Born” which came before ‘men’ (which we assume is ‘us,’ the human race.) Yet, in our real world, we know of no “Elves,” and this very idea itself is mysterious, how does one relate to that? These “Elves” of his are not funny little leprechauns or tiny mischievous pixies, they have some strange things in common, but they are far from those common notions. There’s a clear indication right there that Tolkien has said ‘something else’ quite different than we know. If anything, the Elves carry out something which we clearly can relate to, they aren’t aliens, and they actually live an ideal, and also experience certain flaws, and we are not so alien from these flaws,( and I would say, we are also not so alien from their ‘higher ideals’ either.) We as a ‘collective’ in this day and age are nothing like the Elves, but those who see how imaginable their ‘fictional lives’ were, can also clearly see that it wouldn’t be impossible to live quite a bit more like them, to end up being able to relate more to them.
His created “Elvish” language is as he says in his narrative, basically ‘the first language.’ (There were the Valar of course ad supposedly had their own original language, and “Quenya” the Elvish language is even said to be a later derivative of one or ones he doesn’t show us, but for all intents and purposes might as well be as far as we know the earliest language “ever created.”) Quenya, though clearly perhaps the final development of perhaps several we don’t learn much about, we’ll take as ‘the first’ even if it is merely ‘one of the first’ because it seems to be implied that the other languages come from it. This is what is called an “Ur” language, from the prefix ur- or ‘early’ or ‘earliest,’ as in the ultimate ‘earliest,’ the one from which everything else came from. This idea is that all other languages are mutations or variations in their root words. It’s an idea unto itself in ‘etymology’ and a mysterious one at that. The idea that there could have been ‘one language’ in some ancient time which we honestly cannot trace is something that etymologists or philologists speculate on endlessly. Where did our language come from? Our languages. All languages. Tolkien illustrates this as an idea in his books, IN GREAT DETAIL. The Elf-tongue is THE ur-language, the origin of language. This is a mythical thread within these many tales. (It isn’t the only one, and I’m not saying this IS what it is ALL about, only one very interesting and astonishing thread.) It could very well be that not only is this his own idea of what that was, but it is also a statement about it, a ‘point of view’ about it. As a philologist, he would likely have an idea about this, he might have a big opinion on it, and this could be what this is. “If there was an ur-language, what would it be, and where would it come from?” Not only this question, but also what would any of that mean in the context of meaning itself? He literally goes on to imagine and illustrate the importance of this origin, where it came from, and what it ‘meant’ to those who ‘spoke’ this language. This isn’t a series of grunts from some caveman who would go on to develop those grunts into a fluid vocabulary, there is no mention of ‘primitive’ creatures slowly aquiring language over a period of thousands of years, this is about “Elves.” (and also some strange set of beings before them, and another set of strange beings before them who are described as ‘thoughts.’) Weird man, this is getting real weird.
The world comes into being from thoughts, from some sort of ‘thought-beings’ and then some other beings, (Valar) and then these weird beings called “elves” or (one of a hundred other titles) Vanyar, take your pick, known as the ‘first speakers’ which appear pretty much like ‘men’ or if anything ‘hominids’ or ‘hominoids’ of some sort, with two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, etc. “Mammals.” These beings and their lives and culture seem to be focused on two things if you want to boil it down: language and nature. Words and trees. Speech and plants. There are other factors like water and what one might call ‘the forces of nature’ or ‘earth elements,’ but these have more to do with those beings called the “Valar.” The Elves then exist and being interacting with those forces, the dirt, the water, the plants, and so forth, and begin to ‘do something’ with those things like ‘create’ things. However at the center of it all is language and trees or plants. I’m not saying, once again, that this is the absolute crux of it all, but this, I believe is clearly a very important thread in there, and makes its way all the way to the end of “Lord of the Rings.” This is the ‘funny thing’ about the whole cosmological cycle is that while the “One Ring” is clearly more than fashioned metal, many ‘ideas’ as is stated in the very first chapters of THE SILMARILLION, become other new and different things. “Thoughts” become beings, ‘ideas’ become things, and ‘other things’ also become ‘other ideas.’ The One Ring is also an ‘idea’ and as the Ainur are also ‘ideas’ and it’s wacky because the Elves are also ‘ideas’ and we come to ‘men’ or ‘human beings’ and whatever they are could very well be a larger concept similiarly such as ‘purpose’ or ‘finding purpose’ to the reader. It isn’t merely a soap-opera plot taking place about fictitious people in a fictional history.
The Elves are both ‘characters’ as well as ‘ideas’ just as the One Ring is a ‘ring’ and a piece of metal, as it is a ‘broader idea’ but it may not necessarily be what we call a metaphor. The One Ring isn’t necessarily ‘representative’ of some hidden subtext like ‘atom bomb’ or ‘atomic energy’ or ‘genetics’ but a larger ‘idea’ in which those things may or may not conceivably be applied, but not necessarily. As it is in a much larger context that the One Ring might be understood, but things like the Silmarillion must be taken into account. The One Ring, the Three Jewels, the Two Trees, are more than rings, jewels and trees, but they are not simply reduced to a pretext outside the books, as in ‘atomic energy,’ ’two magic trees of the Bible,’ or ‘three metaphysical symbols’ it all operates within the whole encompassing saga and all its ‘ideas’ and details. It may have even more to do with language and ‘meaning’ more than anything else and how we percieve, understand, and react and respond to such things as ‘thought,’ ‘meaning’ and ‘ideas.’ This is what is so fascinatingly bizarre about all this is that if you look long enough at what’s there instead of stuff outside the books, you see an awful lot written about language and the importance of ‘meaning.’ What do the “Two Trees” mean to the Elves, and how is it so important that trees and plants are so often regarded and placed in situations where literary device and ‘meaning’ is applied. White Trees, strange organic elves wearing green, tree-people, and everything else one can think of plants and trees being implemented into situations and things.
There are plenty of intrigues taking place, relationships and so forth, but once again, going back to the ‘language’ the emphasis on its connection with nature is unavoidable. Trees, knowledge, wisdom, trees as ‘living spaces of the elves,’ and as symbols of all kinds appear throughout these books, and not by accident. Trees and plants have been associated with ‘language’ and writing for all kinds of reasons in history, and again, not by accident. This is once again, not the only narrative taking place, as there are threads about ‘digging into the earth,’ ‘mining,’ and using rock, elements, metals and minerals of different kinds and the cultures surrounding such things, going all the way back to the beginning of time even to the ‘being’ which represents that called Aulë which is an ‘idea’ unto itself. All these things have their ‘cosmic’ historical interactions and resonances throughout the ‘timeline’ of these stories, and language continuously factors into it all as the names of things have as much to tell you about what’s being described as any element of plot or motivation of character. These are not merely ‘medieval romances’ about dudes in armor with swords fighting monsters, nor about the love-affairs of elves and men.
(Continued in Part 3)
