Elven musings

I have never really got Tolkien and the entire LOTR thing. I greatly enjoyed Isaac Asimov's foundation trilogy. When the great master himself said upon winning the One-time Hugo award for the Best All-Time Series in 1996, that he expected the LOTR trilogy to win, I brought it upon myself to read it. It is one of the few books that I have begun but been unable to finish. I was quite relieved when the movies came out - for then I could take the easy way out to 'finish the books'. It is for me one of the few times, when the movie is better than the book.

I think what got to me was the elven runes business. I mean, which author makes up an entire language so that he can write a fairy tale. It is an admirable endeavour, I suppose, and therefore all the more reason I had to figure out why someone would do it. I might have stumbled upon the answer.

Some time ago, it occurred to me that the popular fiction to come out of any place is a very good indicator of what the populace aspires to, but with forlorn hope. Let me present you with a few examples to support my hypothesis.

The United States of America. Hollywood does not seem to tire of presenting us with elaborate pyrotechnic fuelled dramas about US personnel executing a mission with surgical precision. Going in, finishing the job and getting out swiftly.
Let me see, when was the last time the US army managed to do something like this? Afghanistan - nope. Iraq - nicht. Korea - technically the Korean war is still on. An armistice in in place but the declaration of peace or a treaty was never signed. Vietnam - that dragged on for a bit, didn't it? Perhaps Seal Team Six v/s Osama Bin Laden is the one exception to this pattern.

Britain. We have James Bond, a Brit who saves the world.
When was the last time the British have had any meaningful impact of the world? Ever since Roosevelt leaned on Churchill post WWII to respect sovereignty of the Colonies, all Churchill has been able to brag about is how he 'created Trans-Jordan with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon in Cairo'. The last useful invention to come out of Britain was probably the steam engine. (Technically, Frank Whittle invented the Jet engine in Britain too, but the Germans beat them to it with a working model in the Messerschmitt 262. And in any case Britain was bankrupt by the end of war and the Jet engine as we know it today had to be developed by the Americans.

France. I have to admit, I have fallen behind in my reading of contemporary French literature but arguably the most popular fiction to come out of France, for the rest of the world at least, would be Asterix the Gaul, about how the French held out against the marauding armies of the enemy.
Ahem. Not quite how it panned out in World War II, then. The French are remembered as perhaps the only people to give up their country without a fight circa 1940. Google 'French military victories' - I'm feeling lucky.

Belgium. Tintin the intrepid detective who has these amazing adventures traveling all over the world. Yeah right. When was the last time you have heard of a Belgian going out and doing something interesting.

And finally back home here in India. If you take a close look at recent Bollywood movies, you will notice a recurrent theme. The common man taking on corrupt powers and coming out of the battle victorious. Exactly what all of us fantasize about when we read of politicians abusing their power, but are acutely aware that individually, most of us are powerless to fight the system.

I would like to propose that LOTR might represent Tolkien's unfulfilled fantasies. I visited the Wikipedia page on John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, and here's a couple of interesting tidbits I found. Tolkien fought in the First World War being sent to France in 1916. He sank into boredom and "In order to evade the British Army's postal censorship, Tolkien also passed time by developing a code of dots with which Edith could track his movements."  In 1939, near the beginning of the Second World War, Tolkien signed up to become a codebreaker. Wikipedia quotes, "beginning on 27 March, took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. However, although he was "keen" to become a codebreaker, he was informed in October that his services would not be required at that time. Ultimately he never served as one."

Ergo, I will pass on the Elven Runes, thank you.