This book was something quite different from what I expected. Going in I expected a book focused on J.R.R. Tolkien almost exclusively, with discussions of the hells of the Western Front in WWI and then a deeper discussion of the themes of loss or nature and industrialization play out in The Lord of the Rings. I was looking forward to that analysis of the 'coming of the machine age' that Peter Jackson had played up so beautifully in the movie version of The Two Towers.

Instead, Garth treats us to a view into a group of Victorian friends with discursions on the philological and poetic world/myth building that Tolkien was working on at the time. The group of friends are the four self-appointed members of the 'Tea Club and Barrovian Society" (shortened to TCBS for most purposes). The grand name concealed what was no more than a high-school clique. I'm reminded of my own high-school poseur-gang dubbed "the D-Men" although in practice, the TCBS was closer to Tufts University's Film Series club.

Each of the four members of the TCBS saw themselves and the group as having the potential to change the world and bring forth works of immortal quality. Garth asserts that the TCBS was purely middle-class, but there is a strong strain of upper-class Victorian exceptionalism in Tolkien's peers views of their world. After being split apart to attend Cambridge and Oxford, the four friends still exchanged letters, poems, writings, and music and periodically met in what were referred to as ‘Councils.’

It’s all very idyllic and the reader can’t quite say whether these young men were destined to be the next Algonquin Round Table or just a group of high-school alumni pen-pals. And then Tolkien’s generation of young academics was swept-up in the Great War. Three of the four TCBS members were young officers leading patrols and assaults in the Battle of the Somme, the fourth was on a battlecruiser in the Battle of Jutland. Only one of the three sent to France came back. Tolkien was infected with lice-borne “trench-fever” and spent second half of the war on home guard duty and medical convalescence.

Garth makes a good argument for the power of Tolkien’s experience in the Somme for shaping much of his mythic background for Middle-Earth, particularly the stories that went into his Book of Lost Tales and The Silmarillion. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the conceptual links between Tolkien’s mythology and books of H. Rider Haggard.

In the long Postscript, Garth makes an effort to place the writings of Tolkien in a literary universe defined by post-Great War writing. He makes a case that Tolkien was writing about his wartime experience without falling into the two major camps of war-writing of the period. Tales of Middle-Earth are neither the ‘high diction’ propaganda created by imperial powers in the image of Haggard and [William Morris} to impress their people and drive in recruits nor the studied, modernist, or gritty writings of [author: Robert Graves] or Sigfried Sassoon. Instead, Tolkien sought to create a new style. In the process, he created a whole new genre of popular literature.

A good book, but not one that flowed particularly well (at least for me).
I'll be honest: I find Tolkien's writing to be difficult at times, and this book felt like it was written by Tolkien's literary brother. I read the book in fits and starts because it often felt like I was reading a textbook.
Despite this, I enjoyed the book thoroughly. I found it to be a thorough and informative look at Tolkien and the experiences that molded him and his mythology. And for history buffs, it offered a glimpse into England's past from a perspective not likely to be found elsewhere.
Definitely worth the read, but don't expect to blast through it.

2014: This book is really the first I've read that has bothered to cover this period of Tolkien's life in such depth, and it is terribly sad. Aside from the well-documented loss of innocence and waste of life so present in the works of the period's major poets, it chronicles the history of the TCBS, and the ultimate annihilation of their collective aspirations and mutual feelings. How very depressing that is.

2018: Answering the unbidden call to read this again (perhaps it was a necessary way to capture the centennial end of the Great War, as I first read this book at its centennial beginning?), I still find myself in the same emotional state as four years ago, largely unchanged, though perhaps more melancholic. It is one thing to have friends die (to which I am no stranger), but when their dreams and memories die, that is another thing entirely; it is almost more tragic, this facet of mortality, and Garth does a truly excellent job of detailing these years of Tolkien's life and thought. The elegiac history and legacy of these four men is a complicated one, on a very personal level, and I have never been quite able to escape the pull of their literary vision for humanity. But I do wonder:

Is it possible to have such a society anymore?

I don't know, but I do hope so.

n  "I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay...small acts of kindness & love."n

Diesen Satz legt Tolkien seinem Gandalf nicht nur in den Mund weil er sich vielleicht nett anhört. Dieser Satz enthält vieles von dem was Tolkien selbst im ersten Weltkrieg erlebt hat. Denn zwischen all dem Grauen des Krieges, stellte er fest dass es die gewöhnlichen, kleinen Leute waren die mit kleinen Gesten der Güte den Krieg weniger schrecklich für ihn machten. Das mag der Bauer in einem französischen Dorf gewesen sein, der den Soldaten Milch zum Trinken brachte, oder der kleine einfache Soldat der versucht in diesem Krieg nicht zum Monster zu werden.
Die einzige konkrete Aussage über Verkörperungen von Menschen in seinen Werken zu der sich Tolkien hat bewegen lassen, war die des Samweis Gamdschie und Faramir. Er selbst war als Offizier im ersten Weltkrieg und hat sich am ehesten in der Figur des Faramir gesehen, während er in Sam Gamdschie alle einfachen Soldaten verkörpert hat. Er erkannte, dass diese einfachen Soldaten die keinerlei Ausbildung erhalten hatten, ihm an Mut um ein vielfaches überlegen waren. So wie Faramir am Ende durch Samweis' Hilfe erkennt, dass er der Macht des Ringes widerstehen muss.

Tolkien hat sich zu Lebzeiten immer gewehrt Parallelen in seine Werken zum ersten Weltkrieg zu sehen. Er hat nie geleugnet, dass er bestimmte Erlebnisse zum Teil darin einfließen gelassen und verarbeitet hat, aber dass keine Eins zu Eins Übertragung möglich ist, wie es nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg wohl viele Kritiker gerne sehen wollten.

Es gibt so viele kleine Momente die man im Herrn der Ringe oder im Silmarillion wieder erkennt, wenn man einige der Memoiren Tolkiens oder der drei besten Freunde Tolkiens liest. Tolkiens Erstaunen und die kleine Freude darüber, wenn ein Hahn kräht oder eine Nachtigall singt, nach tage- und nächtelangem ununterbrochenem Geschosshagel. Dass dieser kleine Vogel weiterhin existiert und sein Lied singt, obwohl um ihn her nichts als Tod und Zerstörung herrschen. Das hat mich sofort an Gandalfs Worte erinnert, der während der Schlacht um Minas Tirith bei Sonnenaufgang auf den Festungswall hinaus tritt um dem ersten Hahenschrei zuzuhören, der trotz der angreifenden Heerscharen aus Mordor erschallt.
Diese kleine Biographie lässt mich mehr verstehen was hinter vielen Handlungssträngen steckt, die mittlerweile ganz selbstverständlich in Fantasybüchern verwendet werden. Hinter der Wanderschaft auf die sich die Gefährten und der Held begeben, die in fast allen High Fantasybüchern vorkommt, steckt bei Tolkien viel mehr als nur eine Entwicklungsreise des Helden. Sie spiegelt seine eigene rastlose Wanderschaft wieder, die jeder Soldat erlebt hat. Das ewige Versetzen der Bataillone von A nach B nach C usw. während das Endziel die Schlacht bzw. der Krieg war und immer bedrohlich vor einem schwebte. Einen großen Einfluss hatte wohl auch die Schlacht an der Somme, an der Tolkien teilnahm, die verlustreicheste Schlacht des ersten Weltkriegs. Die Schilderungen dieser Schlacht in den Memoiren Tolkiens und seinen drei besten Freunden, hat mich fast mehr mitgenommen als Der Herr der Ringe. Tolkien verliert in dieser Schlacht zwei seiner besten Freunde, sodass von den ursprünglich vier Gefährten - da drängt sich einem direkt der Gedanke an die vier Hobbits auf, die gemeinsam nach Mordor aufbrechen die jedoch im Gegensatz zur Realität alle aus dem Krieg zurückkehren - am Ende nur noch zwei übrig sind.

Einzig die philosophischen und religiösen Interpretationen von Tolkiens Werken, haben mich persönlich etwas gelangweilt und konnten sich mir auch einfach nicht erschließen. Für mich war das alles etwas schwammig, abgesehen natürlich von den vielen Quellen die Tolkien beeinflusst haben wie bspw. das Kalevala, die Edda oder auch das Mabinogion. Die religiösen Vergleiche waren mir gegen Ende hin doch etwas zu viel und ich habe das alles etwas übersprungen. Was ich wiederum wahnsinnig faszinierend fand, waren die Abschnitte die sich mit der Sprachentwicklung des Elbischen beschäftigten. Tolkien war ein absoluter Linguistiknerd wie man heute sagen würde und in dieser Hinsicht unbestreitbar hochbegabt. Selbst für jemanden wie mich, der sich mit Sprachwissenschaft nur rudimentär auskennt, war es hochinteressant, faszinierend und spannend zu lesen wie unfassbar genial Tolkien seine elbischen Sprachen entwickelt hat.

Nach dieser Lektüre sehe ich den Herrn der Ringe mit ganz anderen Augen und lässt mich dieses Epos mitsamt aller verlorenen Geschichten, wenn überhaupt möglich, noch mehr lieben.

Nachtrag: Ich habe soeben entdeckt, dass er hierzu scheinbar einen Film gibt und bin ganz aus dem Häuschen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq2MF...

Love this book so much! If you want to know more about Tolkien's experience in world War I and its influence on his work, I certainly recommend you this book.

It also explains the development of The "Lord of the Rings", it was very beautiful to learn how the TCBS shaped his writings. I think we must thank G. B. Smith, Rob Gilson and Christopher Wiseman for everything they told John Ronald.

After I finished reading Carpenter's biography of Tolkien, I really wanted to know more about Tolkien's closest friends, and how they influenced his work, and here I found the information I wanted.

I am not going to hide it, but many parts made me weep, it is a very sensitive book.

ᛒᚠ @booksfromfaeries Instagram

A very good examination of Prof. Tolkien’s time up to and in the Great War and how it impacted his philology and writing endeavors. Would recommend.

Una lectura complicada pero con un montón enorme de información interesante que vale la pena para todos los que disfrutamos la obra de El Profesor Tolkien.

A fascinating book about the development of JRR Tolkien's mythos in the midst of the Great War. Excerpts from Tolkien's early works set against the context of his own experience at the time let you see the development of his thoughts and mythos as a direct consequence of his war time experience.

I would have liked to see more exploration of his relationship with his wife Edith, as Garth clearly demonstrates the influence she had upon Tolkien's work, yet largely leaves aside discussion of their relationship. I don't contest his focus on the four childhood friends who clearly contributed so much to Tolkien's early world view, but a further discussion of Edith's influence is clearly warranted.

Nonetheless, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in Tolkien and his works.

I probably have in-mind something more like 4.75 stars. This is a phenomenal history, a heck of a book.

2.5 – 3 stars

_Tolkien and the Great War_ is an obviously well-researched book that goes into explicit (at times I must admit tedious) detail on J. R. R. Tolkien’s involvement in World War I and its possible impact on his then-current and later writings. We begin by observing Tolkien’s earliest close friendships formed at St. King Edward’s Grammar School under the auspices of the “TCBS” (an acronym for Tea Club, Barrovian Society) where the core group of Tolkien, Christopher Wiseman, Robert Gilson, and G. B. Smith became close artistic confidantes, encouragers and critics of each other’s work. Convinced that they were a group that would change the world with their work, their dreams were turned to harsh reality with the advent of “the war to end all wars”.

We spend the majority of the remainder of the book following Garth as he traces the movements and vicissitudes of the various platoons to which each member of the TCBS was assigned, with a special concentration on Tolkien himself. It’s common knowledge that the Great War winnowed a generation, destroying the optimism of the Edwardian era and putting paid to facile romantic notions of the heroism of war. The ‘innovations’ of technology that made killing men easier than it ever had been before, along with the harrowing conditions of trench life and seemingly incompetent leadership, made this conflict a wake-up call for the world that shattered many illusions. As Tolkien himself noted: “By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.” In the midst of this carnage and despair Tolkien managed to begin work on the poems and stories that would become the germ for his masterpieces The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as well as the accompanying material that would evolve into the posthumously published The Silmarillion.

Garth does a fine job giving us details of the World War I experience, but I have to admit that in general I was a bit underwhelmed by this book. I found the prose to be a bit workmanlike, and this wasn’t helped by the sheer amount of detail. I appreciate the thoroughness of Garth’s research, but I did find my eyes glazing over a bit from time to time as troop movements, platoon names, and other details were gone into. Some of the extra biographical detail given on Tolkien was interesting, but I must admit that most of it I already knew, at least in broad strokes, from other sources so I didn’t come away feeling that I had learned anything heretofore unknown to me about the man himself. The main gist of Garth’s critical argument, namely that Tolkien, far from being an anachronistic throwback despite his literary tastes, was actually truly a man of his era who was responding uniquely to the horrors present at the birth of the twentieth century has also been covered by others, especially Tom Shippey in several of his works.

I did find the last section of the book the most interesting. In it Garth concentrates almost exclusively on the early writings Tolkien did in what would ultimately become his legendarium of Middle Earth and examines how his experiences in the war may have coloured the world he created, or even been lifted from direct experiences in his life. It is a kind of ‘biographical criticism’ for which Tolkien himself had great distaste and whose value he felt was dubious at best, but I must admit that much of what Garth posits makes sense to me, and I imagine that Tolkien’s youth, coupled with the monumental nature of the events through which he was living, could not help but leave their mark on what he wrote in ways perhaps more apparent than exists in his later, more mature writings.

In retrospect my review is probably unduly harsh. This was a fine work of biographical criticism giving great detail about a formative period of a great writer’s life. I think it was simply the fact that I wasn’t utterly wowed by the book, and found some moments slow going, that made it an interesting, though not inspiring, experience for me.

This book is excruciatingly boring. But I found it terrific. John Garthis a genius researcher and writer, who uses humour and emotion in a powerful way. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth has made me cry, smile and snort out my coffee and has taught me a lot about Tolkien's life, the process of his creation, his vision of the world, his purpose and his ways of coping with the war. A masterpiece.

Books about Tolkien’s youth seem to be quite rare. As formative as his younger years were (and I do believe we wouldn’t have Middle-earth if Tolkien hadn’t had the youth that he did), I find that books about him tend to focus on his academic days and the writing of his most popular books.
Garth focuses instead on Tolkien’s childhood and especially his student years, culminating in the enrolment in WWI.

Before reading this book, I had never fully realised how important and formative his life as part of the TCBS was for Tolkien.
The Tea Club and Barrowian Society was one of the many clubs that flourished in Oxford. It was very common for the young men who studied in Oxford to be part of clubs where students were brought together by their interest. Tolkien was a member of quite a few. But the TCBS was closer to his heart. It gathered many very talented, very unique young men who supported each other in their artistic aspiration, which were an expression of their civil involvement in society. But also it was a safe haven on a more personal level. A place where each member could freely speak his mind and where each could find advice and support. In their diversity, the members of the TCBS believed in the power of the common work and common commitment.

This was particularly true for the four core members of the club, Christopher Wiseman, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Robert Quilter Gilson and JRR Tolkien.
I do think this profound experience filters through in Tolkien’s later stories.
But WWI was a heavy trial for the ideals of the club. The TCBS didn’t exist anymore after the war, and I don’t think it was only because a lot of his members fell on the battlefields. As so many other things, WWI seems to have destroyed those aspirations and ‘dreams’ that could live only in the world before the war. This loss lived on, in my opinion, in Middle-earth sadness and melancholy.
I enjoyed the entire book, but the part concerning WWI was particularly interesting. Garth is an expert of WWI, and it shows, both in the hints he gives to the larger events of the war and the insights into soldiers’ personal experience in the trenches.

He focuses on the personal life of the four TCBS members as it is reconstructed from letters and diaries, which is actually what I like the most about this book. Garth made a huge work on primary sources and reported facts that I’ve seldom read anywhere else concerning Tolkien’s life and creative evolution.

It is a wonderful book that I think any Tolkien fan should read.