Yes I said.
The Hobbit has the best first line ever.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Then I remembered the first Tolkien book I ever read, Roverandom, when after years of struggling against the geek tide I decided to read some Tolkien. It was in a pile of random books for 4 euros at one of the used English bookshops near Odeon. I bought it because the shop didn't have anything else by Tolkien and it was cheap.
Fourish years later, I'm better versed in the world of JRR Tolkien. I've read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and bits from The Simarillion. I know enough that I can see where Tolkien and fellow member of The Inklings, C.S. Lewis lifted (with permission) ideas from one another for Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia (though I prefer Tolkien's Ents to Lewis' sometimes treacherous trees). Still, I love Roverandom more than any other work of Tolkien's.
From the book's jacket:
While on holiday in 1925 young Michael Tolkien lost his beloved toy dog on the beach.
To console him, his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, invented a story about a real dog who is turned into a toy by a wizard and sent by a 'sand-sorcerer' to the moon and under the sea.
More than 70 years later, the adventures of the dog Rover, also known as 'Roverandom'...relate the story to sources ranging from the Norse sagas to E. Nesbit, and link it also to Tolkien's other fiction, including The Hobbit, the 'Father Christmas' letters, and The Simarillion.
The origin of the story gets more page space in the Introduction.
In the summer of 1925, JRR Tolkien, his wife Edith, and their sons John (nearly eight), Michael (nearly five), and Christopher (not yet one year old) went on holiday to Filey, a town on the Yorkshire coast which is still popular with tourists. It was an unexpected holiday, in celebration of Tolkien's appointment as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, which he was to take up on 1 October that year; and it was perhaps intended as a period of rest for him before he not only assumed that post, but for two terms would continue to teach at the University of Leeds, as his old and new appointments overlapped. For three or four weeks at Filey - as explained below, the dates are uncertain - the Tolkiens rented an Edwardian cottage which may have belonged to the local postmaster, built high on a cliff overlooking the beach and sea. From this vantage point the view to the eat was unobstructed, and young John Tolkien was thrilled when for two or three beautiful evenings the full moon rose out of the sea and shone a silver path across the water.
At this time Michael Tolkien was extremely fond of a miniature toy dog, made of lead and painted black and white. He ate with it and slept with it, and carried it around with him; he was reluctant to let it go even to have his hand washed. But during the holiday at Filey he went for a walk with his father and elder brother, and in the excitement of skimming stones into the sea put his toy down, onto the beach of white shingle. Against this background the tiny black and white dog became virtually invisible , and was lost. Michael was heartbroken when his toy could not be found, although the two older boys and their father searched for it that day and the next.
The Introduction goes on the extent to which the story of Roverandom had on Tolkien's output after 1925 - parts of what would eventually be Roverandom appear in a story-letter Tolkien wrote to his children in December of 1927 under the guise of 'Father Christmas', a series of letters which he had begun writing in 1920 and would write until 1943.
The earliest extant text of Roverandom is one of four versions among the Tolkien papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. One fifth of it has been lost, equivalent to the present chapter 1 and the first half of chapter 2. The remainder is 22 pages possible torn from school exercise books with numerous emendations followed by three typewritten versions, likewise undated, in the course of which Tolkien progressively enlarged the story and made many improvements of expression and details but no major change of plot. The first typescript, on thirty-nine heavily corrected pages, was closely based on the manuscript and has been of great help in deciphering the less legible parts of the earliest version.
In 1936 Tolkien's manuscript for The Hobbit was accepted by the publishers George Allen & Unwin, and though it was not yet a success the publisher asked him to submit other children's stories. He obliged by sending to Allen & Unwin his picture book Mr Bliss, his mock-medieval story Farmer Giles of Ham, and Roverandom.
Stanley Unwin gave Roverandom to his young son Rayner to appraise. Rayner reported in January 1937 that he found the story "well written and amusing"; but despite his positive review it was no accepted for publication. Roverandom was apparently one of the 'short fairy stories in various styles' that Tolkien had (it was thought) practically ready for publication in October 1937, was Stanley Unwin noted in a memo; but by the The Hobbit was so successful that Allen & Unwin wanted a sequel, with more about hobbits, above all else, and Roverandom seems never again to have been considered either by author or publisher. Tolkien's attention was now directed towards 'the new Hobbit', the work that would become his masterpiece: The Lord of the Rings.
From Roverandom and the other stories that were popular with Tolkien's children came Tom Bombadil, who was based on a Dutch doll that belonged to Michael Tolkien. And Tolkien's style. Here one can see Tolkien having a bit of fun. His delight as he indulged in wordplay. Near-homonyms like Persia and Pershore. Onomatopoeia and alliteration galore - 'yaps and yelps, and yammers and yowls, growling and grizzling, whickering and whining, snickering and snarling, mumping and moaning'. Descriptive lists of humourous length - paraphernalia, insignia, symbols, memorandum, books of recipes, arcana, apparatus, and bags and bottles of miscellaneous spells. Unexpected turns of phrase - "The Man-in-the-Moon vanished immediately into thin air; and anyone who has never been there will tell you how extremely thin the moon-air is". Roverandom contains a number of 'childish colloquisms' - whizz, splosh, tummy, and umcomfy which are of particular interest for their like is rarely met with in Tolkien's published writings, having been omitted ab initio in his manuscripts or deleted in revision as tummy was altered in The Hobbit to stomach.
It is here one can see where Tolkien drew his inspiration from - Norse sagas, the Red and White Dragons of British legend, Arthur and Merlin, mythical sea-dwellers abound, the Midgard serpent, the Psammead books of E. Nesbit, Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and Sylvie and Bruno, even Gilbert and Sullivann.
With intending to I read Tolkien's works as I would recommend them - Roverandom, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. I know most would think The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings should be reversed, but because I had already seen the movies, I wanted to keep Bilbao's story a bit of a mystery. It might seem silly, but that's how I went about it even though I bought a copy of The Hobbit second and got a copy of Lord of the Rings fourth (I found a pdf of The Simarillion online third, but didn't poke through it too much as I was told to not read it before reading the The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings).
But my answer to the question of why one should absolutely read Tolkien is still Roverandom. To start with Roverandom is to see Tolkien's own quest, so wonderfully and well-managed. It is undeniable that Tolkien started as a natural and gifted story teller, but it gives the first record of how Tolkien kept at it and persisted and became a legend of a writer.
Even having seen all of the films, I can honestly say that I loved reading Lord of the Rings. I found a few faults with it, mind you, but I loved opening the book and returning to Middle Earth. It gave me faith as a writer to be quite honest. It gave me hope that one day I might write a book that someone couldn't wait to get back to because let's face it, that's just about the best compliment you can give a book isn't it?
Roverandom also has some of Tolkien's most whimsical illustrations, here's the one from the cover.
This post made me want to read all of Tolkien's works again. I don't think this will be the last time I feel this way.
Other posts about Tolkien on this blog:
- The Hobbit
Other posts about Tolkien on this blog:
- The Hobbit
