LOtR-- inspiration to survive
Dec. 14th, 2016 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wallace_trust"This novel is a work of fiction."
Interestingly, these words do not appear anywhere within my old and well-worn red leather copy of the single-volume Collector's Edition of LOtR. Maybe they don't appear in any of the print editions; I don't know. But I think they are important to keep in mind anyway. They are what, in the future, will (hopefully) save us from seeing the same kind of strife and rancor over LOtR as happens over other sacred texts, for after reading just about all of them, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that LOtR is the greatest inspirational book of our time.
When it comes to inspirational texts, in the end it's not whether the story is factually true, but whether it reflects real-world issues and emotions in a way which allows the reader to connect with them, to find hope in them, to draw strength from them. Something that the most slavish followers of religious texts seem to forget is that all of these voluminous texts exist for one reason and one reason only: to serve the needs of their priests and their poets.
When I was a kid in junior high, I was not popular, to put it mildly. I was the one in the corner, always with a book to keep me company, and I was very well-read (Plato's "Dialogues" was a big favorite of mine, as were Malory and Cervantes and any book of mythology I could get my hands on.) I drew an honest blank at makeup, girl chat, babies, and boys. They made no sense to me then, and they make less sense to me now. It was all so mindless and stupid. Whatever future I was wired for, it was not for that. Like Frodo, my interests lay with higher things.
Since I was helpless to comprehend the unspoken social codes or what motivated them, I was mercilessly bullied. When going between classes, I found myself having to look around each corner to make certain the girl gangs who regularly laid for me were not there. When they did catch me I was punched, kicked, and once hit over the head so hard with a wooden toy that my pupils were two different sizes for a week. I began following the teachers from classroom to classroom for my own safety, but that didn't stop the girls from catching me after school and ripping my clothes off, then throwing them over the chain link fence so I couldn't retrieve them. At lunch I sat by myself or with one or two other ostracized individuals, carefully guarding my plate and my milk so passers-by would not drop dirt, or worse, into them. Begging the faculty over and over again to help me, and even bringing in my father in his intimidating EMT uniform, gave only temporary respite.
What appeared out of this nightmare was one big-hearted friend named Donna who did something very brave. She befriended me due to our common love of good books. This meant she also had to endure a certain amount of ostracizing, though to my knowledge she was not attacked as I was. She was very perceptive of my needs, and introduced me to several books which helped sustain me during my freshman year. By far the most important of these was "The Lord of the Rings."
I was captivated immediately by the struggle of Frodo and Sam through Mordor. It was so similar, I felt, to my own daily struggle, with its attendant feelings of hopelessness and weariness, and the sense that I was adrift and seeking shelter in a cold and heartless landscape, surrounded by brutes and filth. But now, at last, I had company on the road.
I do not know what I would have done without LOtR at that time in my life-- kept on, I suppose, but with even less hope. And though Donna and I eventually parted ways, the book, and the hope, she gifted me with will stay with me forever.
Interestingly, these words do not appear anywhere within my old and well-worn red leather copy of the single-volume Collector's Edition of LOtR. Maybe they don't appear in any of the print editions; I don't know. But I think they are important to keep in mind anyway. They are what, in the future, will (hopefully) save us from seeing the same kind of strife and rancor over LOtR as happens over other sacred texts, for after reading just about all of them, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that LOtR is the greatest inspirational book of our time.
When it comes to inspirational texts, in the end it's not whether the story is factually true, but whether it reflects real-world issues and emotions in a way which allows the reader to connect with them, to find hope in them, to draw strength from them. Something that the most slavish followers of religious texts seem to forget is that all of these voluminous texts exist for one reason and one reason only: to serve the needs of their priests and their poets.
When I was a kid in junior high, I was not popular, to put it mildly. I was the one in the corner, always with a book to keep me company, and I was very well-read (Plato's "Dialogues" was a big favorite of mine, as were Malory and Cervantes and any book of mythology I could get my hands on.) I drew an honest blank at makeup, girl chat, babies, and boys. They made no sense to me then, and they make less sense to me now. It was all so mindless and stupid. Whatever future I was wired for, it was not for that. Like Frodo, my interests lay with higher things.
Since I was helpless to comprehend the unspoken social codes or what motivated them, I was mercilessly bullied. When going between classes, I found myself having to look around each corner to make certain the girl gangs who regularly laid for me were not there. When they did catch me I was punched, kicked, and once hit over the head so hard with a wooden toy that my pupils were two different sizes for a week. I began following the teachers from classroom to classroom for my own safety, but that didn't stop the girls from catching me after school and ripping my clothes off, then throwing them over the chain link fence so I couldn't retrieve them. At lunch I sat by myself or with one or two other ostracized individuals, carefully guarding my plate and my milk so passers-by would not drop dirt, or worse, into them. Begging the faculty over and over again to help me, and even bringing in my father in his intimidating EMT uniform, gave only temporary respite.
What appeared out of this nightmare was one big-hearted friend named Donna who did something very brave. She befriended me due to our common love of good books. This meant she also had to endure a certain amount of ostracizing, though to my knowledge she was not attacked as I was. She was very perceptive of my needs, and introduced me to several books which helped sustain me during my freshman year. By far the most important of these was "The Lord of the Rings."
I was captivated immediately by the struggle of Frodo and Sam through Mordor. It was so similar, I felt, to my own daily struggle, with its attendant feelings of hopelessness and weariness, and the sense that I was adrift and seeking shelter in a cold and heartless landscape, surrounded by brutes and filth. But now, at last, I had company on the road.
I do not know what I would have done without LOtR at that time in my life-- kept on, I suppose, but with even less hope. And though Donna and I eventually parted ways, the book, and the hope, she gifted me with will stay with me forever.