The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality ed. by Christopher Vaccaro (review)

Between the Eye of Sauron, the thinning bodies of Gandalf and Frodo, corpulent Hobbits, mutilated Orcs, and the gender-related descriptions of Arwen, Galadriel, and Goldberry, bodies certainly feature heavily in Tolkien. Why not a collection solely devoted to this concept? Certainly this set of essays about Tolkien and bodies offers deep scholarship, albeit often along already-popular lines of discussion of The Lord of the Rings, by far the most explored work in this collection as well as outside it. Nonetheless, the essays go deeper, offering fascinating new insights into the classic works.

The book begins with part 1, “The Transformation of the Body.” This contains essays by Verlyn Flieger, Yvette Kisor, and Anna Smol examining insubstantial versus corporeal nature in Tolkien’s works. All three focus on The Lord of the Rings almost entirely, uniting to introduce readers to the collection through the most popular work and its protagonist. The essays are similar, with Frodo’s body gaining the most attention as it reflects the trauma of war and shell-shock (similar to Tolkien’s actual experience), as well as Sam’s tender care of it, and contrasts with the maimed and withered bodies of Sauron and Gollum.

All three essays focus on the concept of Frodo’s and Gandalf’s bodies lightening through the adventure, as Frodo transforms from a Hobbit obsessed with food and drink to a wraithlike one with a light shining through him to a figure of trauma who must depart Middle-earth to be healed. Smol particularly examines the trauma aspect and its impact on the postwar Hobbit. Similarly, as all the essays explore, Gandalf grows lighter and more spiritual until he seems able to transcend human needs altogether. Wraiths and the shadow world are especially significant to Kisor and Smol, mirroring Gandalf’s and Frodo’s experience as the monsters of the series lose their substantial nature as well. Running through all this is the border—the shadow world one enters by wearing the Ring and the Ring itself.

While these essays cover similar material, Kisor in particular does a fascinating and intense close reading of Gandalf’s comments as well as Tolkien’s early drafts to reveal Tolkien’s plans for the two worlds. While some individuals can live in both, their power in each changed through Tolkien’s writing, as early on those with rings could wield half power or double power in one world or the other. A ring might allow a traveler to act only in one world, corrupting some wielders but not others. This intriguing look at Tolkien’s own unseen world offers much to readers, inducting them into a deeper understanding of the shadow world’s evolution.

Part 2, “The Body and the Spirit,” delves into The Silmarillion and the older history of Tolkien’s world, as Matthew Dickerson tackles health of spirit versus health of body in “The Hröa and Fëa of Middle-earth: Health, Ecology and the War.” The gods, the Ainur, are creatures of pure spirit, and the Maiar, like Gandalf and Sauron, are heavily spirit based as well. Gandalf’s speeches about destiny and a dualistic world remind readers of the gods’ barely seen presence in Middle-earth, while characters call on the queen goddess Elbereth for aid, which is always granted. Dickerson looks at areas of the legend-arium often neglected and offers an intensely spiritual read, as several characters lose the physical battle but win the spiritual one: Boromir, dying, confesses and saves his soul, while Galadriel fades into the West. After this, Jolanta N. Komornicka’s “The Ugly Elf: Orc Bodies, Perversion, and Redemption in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings” also delves into dualistic Middle-earth, with evil blended with the beginning of creation, until it finally mutilates the beautiful Elves to build its Orcs. Both authors note the...