Not sure I'd like JRRT as a person but loved his theological thoughts here. Birzer was too harsh on Frodo though, not the real hero etc. etc., which I know is popular, but being the hero does not mean that you can do everything yourself, it means you do your absolute best which I think Frodo pretty obviously does!!
Happy memories of Aragorn as the ideal king really touched me-healing, then "his strength and love flow throughout his kingdom. His closest friends feel it most intensely. Gimli notes that only the "will of Aragorn" gave him strength to endure trials..." 82 (LOVE thinking of how a tempered strength makes goodness bloom in surrounding hearts!! Makes me want to love Jesus more!)
"Faramir embodies grace at a number of levels. First, Tolkien had not planned on his appearance. God had created him and inspired Tolkien to include him in the story-or so the Oxford don believed. Second, it was the healing of Faramir... that revealed the true nature and kingship of Aragorn. Third... Faramir offers one of the very few obvious allusions to religion..."Faramir and all his men turned and faced west in a moment of silence." Though Faramir is unsure of the meaning of the act, he follows the pious forms that have come to him through tradition." 86 (love him)

Superb. Birzer manages to bring Tolkien’s life and work together into an insightful commentary on these elements and much more besides.

There are better-known books about Tolkien’s Christianity, but this one is IMO as good as any of them. Perhaps I like it because it strikes me as being written for a general reader, rather than for a reader who is intensely Christian, and it is more about understanding Tolkien’s Christianity rather than being about using Tolkien to bolster one’s own Christian beliefs (a problem I have with at least one other book, mostly because I don’t think that author is reading Tolkien correctly). This book is very close to my own understanding of what Tolkien was saying and what Catholics teach.

Many of those who study and teach and write books about Tolkien want to describe Christianity as one of his motives, then go on as if it has nothing to do with the writings themselves. In some cases, they are even openly biased against Christianity, to the point of misreading not only Lord of the Rings but Tolkien’s letters just to minimize the obvious reality that Lord of the Rings was based on, inspired by, and about Christian belief. Christianity is ultimately what Lord of the Rings is about. You can read it otherwise, but it’s much richer when you get the whole story. So books like this are important.

It’s also significant that Protestants and Catholics see some issues very differently. It’s possible for people from some Protestant denominations to miss some of the gorgeous symbolism in Lord of the Rings altogether. I believe that, regardless of one’s own understanding of Christianity, there is a real value in understanding Tolkien’s writings not only as explicitly Christian, but as explicitly Catholic.

Back to the book itself: I really enjoyed it, I learned a lot, I still liked it years later when I reread it, and it seems to me to be an excellent introduction to what for many people is an alien set of beliefs.

I thought it very well-written. This is a personal thing – what one person finds beautiful, another person finds cringeworthy, and when you’re trying to describe transcendent truths this really shows. So this is subjective, but I felt the book helped to bring out what makes Lord of the Rings so beautiful, without reducing the text to a hokey inspirational greeting card.

I never saw much beauty in Christianity when I was young. I wanted to know why so many of the world’s most beautiful works were inspired by such an ugly religion, and why more ‘logical’ beliefs didn’t seem to be very good at beauty in general. Tolkien’s Christianity is full of beauty. This book talks about why that is and how that beauty works and how to see it.

This book is an exploration of Tolkien's place in the pantheon of twentieth century writers, recognizing in the somewhat odd professor of English a brilliant mind and champion of mythology as a true way of knowing the world. Truer, in many ways, than those ways of knowing that stay rooted in the realm of science and logic.

Starting with a biographical overview, Birzer explores Tolkien's religious, political, and anthropological influences, and how they come to life in Middle Earth. Throughout, he paints a compelling picture of the good life in the Oxford don's eyes, which the reader may guess, looks a lot like life in the Shire.

The concluding chapter is worth the price of the book.

Excellent.

Awesome book, its a obligation to everyone who apreciate Tolkien works, to read this.

A book for the Tolkien fans. This book explores the imagination of Tolkien's works as well as HIS definition and purpose of "Myth" and "Farie Story."

Despite its staggering popularity and deep cross-cultural resonance, there is very little decent criticism of n  The Lord of the Ringsn. Almost as tho, if one's spirit does not cry out in answer to the spirit of Middle-Earth - I fear many critics' spirits do not - one can neither really grasp nor appreciate Tolkien's masterwork.*

This book, however, is not only the best critical work on Tolkien I've read - it also makes it difficult for me, typing in the afterglow, to imagine that it could be bested. Birzer writes from a comprehensive familiarity of Tolkien's works in their many versions, published and otherwise, with a lover's understanding. He elucidates all the things that you've always felt intuitively to be true in the Middle-Earth myth but lacked the wisdom, the words, or perhaps the courage to express yourself.

Indispensable.





*Update: as has happened to me rather often lately, I wrote down a thought only to discover soon after that Mr. Chesterton had written it long before and better. He elaborates on much the same idea in "Man and Mythologies" (Part 1 Chapter 5 of The Everlasting Man). It may be a sign of my youth that this keeps happening, for compared with mankind's library who after all is old?

When I can't sleep in the middle of the night--which these midlife days is sadly often--my comfort reading is always by or about Tolkien. I read this one over several of those nights, and I appreciated the open embrace of Tolkien's faith life. It's an influence on his fiction that often gets shoved aside as an embarrassing fact to hush up in other Tolkien circles I'm a part of. While I understand why they do that--Tolkien's fans include all sorts of people, believers and non-believers, and faith isn't necessary to love his writing--it's nice to read some criticism that not only acknowledges that faith but celebrates its integrality to the worldview that gave birth to his legendarium. This book was a comfort to me in the night.

This excellent book by Hillsdale professor Dr. Brad Birzer explores the theological, philosophical, and philological thought of JRR Tolkien and his Oxford colleagues in the Inklings. Birzer explores the mentorship of C.S. Lewis that turned sour and the differences between Tolkien and Lewis that led them to different worlds of Narnia & The Space Trilogy vs. Middle Earth. While Tolkien was adamant his Middle Earth was not allegory, Birzer unpacks how the Lord of the Rings is full of the Catholic understanding that organized Tolkien's own life. This book functions part as literature review and part Christian apologetics, with Birzer using Tolkien's Melkor and Illuvatar to illustrate the great theological issues surrounding the nature of evil and God's sovereignty.

Not profound exactly, but it has a lot of good points and is filled with interesting history. Fun read.

Tolkien was a devout Orthodox Catholic, and a Catholic world view is expressed in his books, especially The Lord of the Rings. If you love Tolkien but dislike Catholicism, I would say don't read this book. Keep your head buried in the sand.

This book explains the profound ways in which Tolkien expresses his perspectives on the world as it is and should be. His writing is not hard allegory; Frodo is not meant to exactly parallel Jesus, and Galadriel is not a pointy-eared version of the Blessed Mother. Still, Tolkien meant for his books to express the truths of Catholicism and its golden age in Western Europe through fantasy. Read this book to find out what's going on behind the furry feet and Elvish songs.

This was one of the best literary criticisms I have ever read. Bradley Birzer has countless insights into Tolkien's Middle-earth, and especially into the spiritual foundations of Tolkien's life and writings. The whole book is very easy to follow. I especially loved how he explained Tolkien's view of the myth; I will never read anything in the same way again. If you are a Tolkien fan, this is a must-read! Five stars and highly recommended.