New Release: ‘Wounds That Cannot Be Wholly Cured’

An examination of wounding, loss, grief, and hope in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King

JRR Jokien
Through the Wardrobe
2 min readJun 17, 2024

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A new e-Book on lessons from J.R.R. Tolkien on loss, grief, and healing.

At the start of last year, my youngest brother died unexpectedly.

It was the biggest loss I had yet walked through and the grief and pain were more than I had ever known.

In the months following that loss, I wrote several times in my weekly newsletter about how experiencing that loss changed the way that I engaged with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Because I had gone through this new experience, my eyes were more fully opened to what had always been in the text. Now I was more able to receive the wisdom, lessons, and truth that the story had to teach.

Now I’ve collected some of those lessons and insights and put them together in an e-Book that shares what I found when I reexamined the way Frodo and Sam’s journey concludes in The Return of the King.

The book is titled Wounds That Cannot Be Wholly Cured and it’s now available in my Gumroad store.

Here’s what readers of the book have said:

“Beautifully written and insightful, showing deep understanding of both Tolkien and the human condition.” -Joseph S.

“So moving…It made me cry… but ‘not all tears are evil.’” -Stanni H.

“A stunning reflection.” -Daryl W.

“This is an amazing piece of writing and so heart-rending.” -Kristi S.

If you’d like to read more on what Tolkien had to say on the topics of grief and loss through the narrative of his masterwork, I invite you to check out Wounds that Cannot Be Wholly Cured for yourself.

This e-Book is based on material originally published in my email newsletter, which you should check out and subscribe to if you love The Lord of the Rings humor, news, essays, and more! Find it and other Tolkien-related e-Books in my Gumroad store.

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JRR Jokien
Through the Wardrobe

Terminally online lifelong reader and lover of Tolkien writing about Middle-earth, faith, and pop culture. www.jrrjokien.com