The wild popularity of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings make it one of the front runners for PBS’s the Great American Read. Indeed, the story owes much of its initial breakthrough popularity to American readers.
PBS has not provided specific criteria for the choice. Their only metric is “love”.
But the title, Great American Read, implies that the winning novel should exemplify, or at least engage in discourse with, American values. It is the “Great American Read” after all, and not the “Best Loved Book” contest.
If this criteria is used, the question arises: what are American values?
Such a question provokes a visceral discussion, as the values of the nation are debated daily with differing opinions emerging from the various political ideologies.
But I shall greatly overgeneralize, and speculate that America’s central values-whether she lives up to them or not is another question-are those of individuality, democracy, and liberty. Indeed, most of the current political debate involves these values in some respect.
But does The Lord of the Rings engage with themes of individuality, democracy, and liberty?
LOTR is about the preservation of liberty to a certain extent. Sauron is the ultimate slaveholder. His One Ring spiritually enslaves its bearer restricting all other liberties, as Gollum’s unquenchable lust illustrates.
But Tolkien is more concerned with spiritual slavery and control. American discourse is usually concerned with institutional enslavement and tyranny.
There is also a pervasive rebellious spirit in American’s love of liberty. We are eternal adolescents, often rejecting even non-tyrannical authority.
But LOTR promotes a continuous submission to just authority. Characters such as Frodo continually submit to the guidance and authority of characters like Aragorn, Galadriel and Gandalf. But Tolkien, monarchial as his belief in leadership tend to be at times, certainly doesn’t espouse blind submission to authority. A minor character in The Return of the King, Beregond, breaks his solemn vows and defies his lord Denethor to preserve Faramir’s life. His action is sanctioned by Gandalf, probably the supreme moral authority in the text.
Tolkien clearly believed that even justly ordained authority could become corrupt, and when such corruption occurs, disobedience and defiance are sometimes necessary.
But LOTR is full of examples of effective authority. Examples of rebellion in the text are much rarer. Aragorn, Gandalf, Elrond, Théoden, and Galadriel all wield power with grace and effectiveness. The novel never implies that Middle-earth would improve by an overthrow of Rivendell or Gondor.
The concepts of democracy, as it involves equality, and individuality are intertwined in Tolkien’s trilogy.
Critics often accuse Tolkien of endorsing traditional notions of natural hierarchy among classes.
While this is certainly too complex an issue to do justice in this post, I contend that this “accusation” is, in certain respects, accurate.
American philosophy would dictate that any hobbit from Bracegirdle could be an effective king/leader of Gondor.
Tolkien would laugh at this idea. Aragorn is presented as somehow innately befit to take on the mantle of king. He is nobler than the average Gondorian citizen. Only he can be the king Gondor needs.
The morality and reality of such a philosophy of class aside, it is certainly alien to American concepts of democracy.
And yet, Tolkien certainly challenges traditional notions of class in his trilogy.
Sam Gamgee comes from a lower class of hobbits, as indicated by his family’s speech and profession. The lower classes are often written off as one homogenous entity incapable of individual distinction and renown (especially in tales filled with upper class people). But Sam transcends stereotypes to make an extreme individual impact on the course of history.
Tolkien thus confirms the worth and dignity of the individual. But his concepts of individuality hardly compare with American’s values of rugged individualism or economic autonomy.
And that fact remains. LOTR is full of traditional characters whose authority and nobility are rarely questioned. And the story’s central theme is not the development of a more equal society, but the overthrow of a great spiritual evil.
While LOTR engages with discourse of, and even confirms some American values, there are other books that do so to a much larger degree.
The rebellious adolescent spirit of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or the resistance to intellectual governmental tyranny in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are clearly more American than concepts of immortality in Tolkien.
And it’s not just the fact that Tolkien is British. English George Orwell’s Animal Farm is much more concerned with American themes (institutional tyranny, equality etc.), and is therefore a more suitable choice.
But yeah, I’ll still probably vote for The Lord of the Rings. The thought of anything else winning just breaks my heart.
Talk Tolkien To Me 