One of the unexpected joys of being a dad is introducing my kids to the formative books of my own childhood. Reading through Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia has become a standard rite of passage for my kids, along with Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. If you want to know what is happening between the hours of 7:30 and 8:30 pm in the Kimmel home, it’s simple. We’re reading. Kids books, tween books, classic, new.
About two years ago, I introduced my older two kids to Tolkien by way of The Hobbit. I loved that book and can remember specifically reading them the chapter where they first met Smaug while camping in the Northern Arizona wilderness with my brother. Even for an indoorsy guy like me, it was magic.
I held off as long as I could on reading them what I consider the pinnacle of the genre, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, for as long as I could. It’s denser, darker, and requires a level of interest and patience that younger kids don’t have. I didn’t want to waste it on them too early, pearls before swine and all that.
A few weeks ago, I decided we had waited long enough and, after finding a new box set at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland (my original copy had gotten lost somewhere in the midst of moving and growing and aging in the twenty plus years since high school), we got started reading it.
I first read these in high school. Peter Jackson was making his films at the time and I decided to dig into my pretentiousness early and commit to reading them before watching them. I loved them. I read the second two in the span of a week during spring break of my senior year of high school, which meant that I hung out with my made up friends instead of my real ones during spring break. I may or may not have cried at the end of the books. Saying goodbye to friends after an adventure is hard on a young man.
Needless to say, Tolkien has not disappointed my kids. They ask about it every night, look forward to it. Even though we’re still just in the first of the three books, my children have been baptized into the world of middle earth with enthusiasm and long for the beauty of what Tolkien describes.
The meandering world of Tolkien
There is so much about Tolkien’s writing that I either missed when I first read him, or just had forgotten over the years. He is an excellent writer, which on the one hand isn’t a surprise, but still something I forgot. At a sentence level, he is excellent. His imagery, word choice, pacing, and description is perfection.
He is a master at world building (also not a surprise), a level of craft that puts most alternative world stories, including my own, to shame. The evil and tension in the book is palpable. His characters are complex. Just so many good things, which I will probably reference again in other substacks.
However, the thing that has struck me most so far is something that, in most contexts, I would think is a criticism. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of non-essential story. A lot. In fact, you could argue that most of the first half of the Fellowship of The Rings is spent on storylines, details, songs, and characters that don’t really play into the overall story being told.
Despite my delight in reading it, there have been so many moments where I’ve wondered how a section made it through the editing process. As a writer, I both value and have been trained to cut anything that is non-essential to driving the story forward. I want to keep up the pace, cut out the rabbit trails, and lead the reader quickly and efficiently to the conclusion of the story.
So far, it seems like none of these rules applied to Tolkien (or maybe he just ignored them). For example, there are multiple chapters dedicated to the excursions of Frodo and his companions through the Old Forest and the meeting of Tom Bombadil. It’s fun. It helps build the world. It brings in the richness of the history of Middle Earth. Sure. It also distracts from the larger story of getting Frodo and the ring to Rivendell. Like, more than 100 pages of distraction.
This of course led to an investigation into theories on why Tolkien included this and other meanderings in his epic tale. There are plenty of theories, but the one that I found the most compelling is the one least rooted in craft. Tolkien spent 100 pages on Tom Bombadil simply because he liked Tom Bombadil and delighted in his presence in the world he made.
Writing out of delight, not necessity
I’m a writer much more in the modern ilk of minimalism and essentialism. I try to stick to the story and cut out what doesn’t belong. My roots are in writers like Hemingway, or more recently writers like Bret Easton Ellis. Sentences should be terse and necessary.
On top of that, I’m a copywriter, where there is no tolerance for decadence or bullshit.
Because of this, I have to be reminded that there are other ways, and probably better ways to approach writing. I think one of the things that makes Tolkien so fun to read is because he loved the world he made and took the time (sometimes his sweet ass time) telling us about all the things he loved in his world. He is not in a hurry to usher us through Middle Earth to the adventure’s conclusion. He wants us to see every forest, taste every elvish bread, fear every deep mystery, sing every song (and I mean every song), and breath the wisdom of the ancient.
Writing is hard, and I still believe that most stories should be devoid of fluff. But I’m also really glad that Tolkien took his time and included all the non-essential meandering due his world.
What modern writers do this? I’ve been reading a lot of Tana French and feel like she has this tendency too. How does delight change your writing process?