The Ecological Augury in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (review)

At this late date there can be no serious Tolkien scholar who denies the environmental themes in Tolkien's legendarium. After countless essays and conference presentations on the topic, and an entire conference devoted to it at the University of Vermont in 2011, saying that Tolkien was concerned about the environment is like saying that The Lord of the Rings contained rings. But to date there have been only a handful of book-length treatments of the topic, the most well-known being Patrick Curry's Defending Middle-earth (1997) and Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans's Ents, Elves, and Eriador (2006). Both works are written in accessible language, and represent different sides of the argument whether Tolkien's writings reflect a standard interpretation of Catholic teachings as to the balance between stewardship and domination in terms of the environment. A third book-length treatment of the topic is certainly welcome, especially if it treads new ground. One way that such a work could accomplish this is by examining works of Tolkien not covered by Curry and Dickerson and Evans. Campbell's volume does that, by examining all of the legendarium (admittedly the History of Middle-earth volumes to a much lesser extent) as well as non Middle-earth writings such as his letters and Leaf by Niggle. The volume also boasts a lengthy bibliography of secondary sources in the fields of ecology, psychology, religion, and Tolkien criticism: a valuable resource for both students and scholars alike.

The work is divided into an introduction, five chapters, a conclusion, and an afterword. The introduction summarizes critical and public responses to Tolkien's works, while Chapter 1 focuses on his childhood and love for trees. Neither discussion breaks new ground, but they provide good summaries of both aspects of Tolkien's life, especially for those who are new to either topic. The chapter continues by setting up Tolkien's belief that evil "lay not in the machine but in the machine-wielder" (57). The chapter concludes by discussing some aspects of religion in Tolkien's legendarium (including references to the Valar) and acknowledges the importance of Tolkien's religion in his worldview and writings. Again, these topics are not viewed in any fresh light, but they do form an important foundation to any argument concerning environmental/ecological themes in Tolkien's works.

The second chapter is an examination of the role of Tom Bombadil that sets him in opposition to the characterization and motivations of Saruman. Campbell argues that the two characters represent "the struggle between the ecologically sustained landscapes of Middle-earth and the mechanized powers which threaten them" and "represent positive and negative environmental models" as well as "inverted mirror reflections of each other" (73). Campbell's examination of the enigma that is Tom Bombadil brings together Tolkien's original words and the interpretations of other Tolkien scholars, and offers his own thoughts as to the central meaning and relative importance of the character to the story. The most original of Campbell's ideas seems to be the suggestion that Bombadil owes much to the ancient archetype of the Green Man. This hypothesis is worthy of further consideration and exploration. Where Campbell's argument falls flat is at the end, in a table that attempts to contrast Bombadil and Saruman as embodying various aspects of his "Ecologically Positive Presentation/Ecologically Negative Presentation." My argument is not with the table itself, but rather that it has an equally defensible explanation as contrasting Bombadil as the embodiment of pure science and Saruman as the misuse of science in destructive (subjugating) technologies. Campbell even cites the quote from Tolkien's 1954 letter to Hastings that supports this interpretation, but does not acknowledge the alternative reading. In it Tolkien explains that Bombadil is "a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are...