Tolkien Monthly — January 2021
Hope is a core theme in all of Tolkien’s stories. But it’s even more than is may seem at first.
And so, here we are — the first Tolkien Monthly of this new year.
I don’t remember when I started posting Tolkien Monthlies on my publication, but I don’t think it’s a year already. Though it must be close.
I hope to find you healthy and ready to face a year that, though it won’t be easy, I so very much hope it won’t be as though as 2020.
I don’t know about you, but Tolkien’s work had given me a lot of comfort throughout last year. He never offers consolation. But he does seek a sense to what happens, or rather I should say that he chooses to see sense even in the most terrible things. And he always — always invites us to take action, not to suffer what comes our way passively, but to make choices that will prompt action.
This is the greatest consolation of all that Tolkien gives me: we may choose to be victim, but we may also choose to be actors. It all depends on us.
May 2021 be a year of action.
Tom Bombadil’s place in The Lord of the Rings
by Steven Gibb
