‘The War for Middle-earth’ Review: A Faith in Literature

Generations of readers have fallen in love with the fantasy novels of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, in part for the reprieve they offer from the dreary and mundane. But these tales offer something more enduring than mere escapism: the faith in human dignity and virtue that conservative thinkers have called the moral imagination.

In “The War for Middle-earth,” Joseph Loconte explores how World War II—one of humanity’s greatest conflicts between good and evil—inspired the literary works of Lewis and Tolkien, among them Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series (1950-56) and Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (1954-55). In this follow-up to Mr. Loconte’s “A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War” (2015), the author traces the lives of these two men through a cataclysmic period and illuminates how their moral messages can ward off the forces of hatred and despair today.

As young men, both Lewis (1898-1963) and Tolkien (1892-1973) served in World War I. Mr. Loconte argues that their time in the trenches endowed them with a tragic sensibility and a perception of true heroism. Across Europe, though, World War I was profoundly demoralizing. Intellectuals turned to the twin drugs of ideology and nihilism to anesthetize the pain.

After the war, Lewis and Tolkien were brought together in 1925, when the two took positions at the University of Oxford. As writers and scholars, Lewis and Tolkien ranked among the most perceptive critics of burgeoning totalitarian movements such as Nazism and communism, in no small part due to their shared Christian faith. While Tolkien had been Roman Catholic since childhood, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931 under Tolkien’s influence. Mr. Loconte outlines how their belief in the God-given dignity of man set them at odds with foreign despots and those in England with similar political designs.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.