Tolkien and Tech
Given J.R.R. Tolkien’s self-evident greatness (and the millions of copies his novels have sold), it is perhaps little surprise that HarperCollins—the house now responsible for publishing his works—continually unearths obscure texts to bring out in new editions. From collections of essays on Middle-earth to volumes of collected poetry, many shed new light on his literary imagination. Yet Tolkien did not write fantasy out of a craven desire to acquire vast wealth but rather to participate in what he called “sub-creation.” One could even argue that the construction of Middle-earth was a kind of worship, the crafting of a “sanctifying myth.” His enthusiasts are right to worry, then, that this trend, at a certain point, may amount to the crass commercialization of the professor’s legacy of words.
Happily, that is not at all the case with the latest title published by HarperCollins, The Bovadium Fragments. A satirical fantasy Tolkien wrote mostly for his own amusement, it pokes fun at the way modern technology remade British country life in the twentieth century. Beautifully edited and printed along with Tolkien’s own striking art depicting Oxfordshire, it is a handsome addition to any bookshelf. But the story is more than that—it’s a warning about the dangers of mechanization we desperately need in the Digital Age.
The main text of The Bovadium Fragments is a farcical re-creation of a medieval manuscript recounting the fall of the titular realm to a machine that Tolkien hated more than almost anything: the motorcar. It begins with an amusing frame narrative, containing much Latin, that pokes fun at academic pretensions of grandeur. Tolkien is celebrated today for what he called his “secret vice” of inventing languages such as Elvish, but he was also an immensely accomplished philologist who spoke or read many real ancient tongues. Much as his constructed languages add a sense of mythological depth to The Lord of the Rings, the use of Latin deepens the humor of The Bovadium Fragments. Throughout the short book, one gets a sense of the Oxford that Tolkien loved—and what was putting it at risk.
Read more in Religion & Liberty online.
