WGBH Radio's Terri Park interviewed Ellen Kushner about the making of the Sound & Spirit program "The Lord of the Rings"
WGBH: The Lord of the Rings was originally published in 1954 and is still widely read. Why do you think it has continued to be so influential after all these years?Ellen Kushner:Because the roots of Tolkien's work run deep, deep into the mythic fabrics and beliefs that have sustained and continue to sustain humanity.
Over and over, modern Americans make the mistake of thinking that fantasy has nothing to teach us, that is is not "about reality."
But as G. K. Chesterton said, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." I think that it is a lesson we need to learn young, and to learn over and over as the dragons get bigger and bigger. Particularly after the events of 9/11, we need a vision of personal courage and responsibility and even sacrifice in the face of truly terrifying danger.
In the program, you say that "The Lord of the Rings is the ultimate book about the sorrows and losses of middle age." Why?That's actually an insight I first heard expressed by my friend the writer Michael Swanwick. In an essay which appeared in the collection Meditations on Middle Earth (St. Martin's Press, 2001), Michael writes, "This is a tale in which everyone is in the process of losing everything they hold most dear. The elves, emblematic of magic, are passing away from Middle-earth. ... The old ways - all of them - are disappearing. ....Defeating the Dark Lord and slaughtering his armies will not change any of this...."
I was so moved by this that I invited Michael to be my guest on this week's show, where we talk about the difference between how he read the Trilogy as a teenager, and again as the middle-aged father of a little boy.
Tolkein had a passion for languages. Explain how this played a role in the book.He was a scholar of ancient languages at Oxford, but clearly he was one of those kids who was inventing his own languages before he even went to college! He made up the languages of Middle Earth as a young man, and only wrote the adventure stories so he'd have someplace for people to be speaking his made-up languages - amazing, eh?
Many people have been inspired by Tolkein to express themselves creatively, music being one of the most popular forms. Explain how Tolkein and music go hand in hand.Well, everyone in Lord of the Rings sings! It's amazing - if you thumb through a volume of the Trilogy, your eye will keep being caught by stanzas of poetry that are in fact songs that the characters are singing for all kinds of reasons: to give themselves courage, to remind them of their past, their peoples' history, or just to entertain themselves.... Again, Tolkien wasn't making this up! It's the way people around the world have used music for thousands of years, and something our society has mostly lost, darn it! But he makes the tradition live for us in his work, by giving us the cultures it exists in, and the characters for whom it means something.
Once you've read all these songs on the page, it's irresistible to try and figure out what the tunes might be, and to sing them yourself.... And we've managed to fill an hour with settings by everyone from a Danish chamber group to an Elvis impersonator to a Dutch classical composer! I even do a little "karaoke Tolkien" myself, showing how his "Troll Song" can be sung to the tune of "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night."
So....what did you think of the recent movie?I adored the landscapes - they look just like I thought they would, only more so! The script did the best it could to boil down a very complicated set of relationships and backstory in a short time..... But one of the things they dropped was the way music and singing and poetry permeate the lives of all the peoples of Middle Earth - and that's something I try to rectify in this hour of Sound & Spirit!
How does all this connect to your own writing?My first fantasy novel, Swordspoint, was published in 1987, and I've just published my third, The Fall of the Kings. I've loved Tolkien all my life, and yet my work is nothing at all like his: no magic, no elves, not even any landscape.... And yet...the protagonist of the new novel, The Fall of the Kings, a professor of ancient history, is astonishingly like Professor Tolkien himself! In the words of one reviewer, the new book's about "the old struggle between scholars and mystics...the gulf that separates history from mystery." Which I guess is a very "Sound & Spirit" thing to be!
HOME | About the Series | Programs | Stations and Times
Feedback | Above and Beyond | Sound & Spirit Albums | Listen Online
Sound & Spirit | WGBH Boston | Public Radio International