"I liked the white better."

 This blog post will also serve as Episode 35 of my podcast. Please feel free to listen to the podcast or read the original blog post below.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a place where Gandalf the Grey goes to seek the aid of Saruman the White. In the story, there is a dark power rising, and all that are in alignment with the light are feeling the need for banding together. This is what has prompted Gandalf to seek out Saruman. The movies do an okay job of relaying this moment... specifically the portion where Gandalf questions when Saruman has "...abandoned reason for madness."  

I've felt those words boiling up in me over the last few days. It is bad enough when there is a complete collapse of a spiritual leader, but when the descent into madness comes from the mouths of potential allies... Anyway, I would like to share a portion from the book version though, because I believe that all those who are still in this with me will experience the prophetic feel of these couple of pages. (As you read... Gandalf is relaying the story of this encounter.)

Dark Roads Greeting Card

Front: "Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." J.R.R. Tolkien

Inside: "I'm here for you."

uncomfortable, palpitating, and gruesome

"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."

~J. R. R. Tolkien (in The Hobbit)

C.S. Lewis reviewing Tolkien

Read this quote over at Tolle Lege:

“Not content to create his own story, he creates, with an almost insolent prodigality, the whole world in which it is to move, with its own theology, myths, geography, history, palaeography, languages, and orders of beings– a world full of strange creatures beyond count.

The names alone are a feast, whether redolent of quiet countryside (Michel Delving, South Farthing), tall and kingly (Boramir, Faramir, Elendil), loathsome like Smeagol, who is also Gollum, or frowning in the evil strength of Barad Dur or Gorgoroth; yet best of all (Lothlorien, Gilthoniel, Galadriel) when they embody that piercing, high elvish beauty of which no other prose writer has captured so much.

Such a book has of course its predestined readers, even now more numerous and more critical than is always realised. To them a review need say little, except that here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart. They will know that this is good news, good beyond hope.”

–C.S. Lewis, “Review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”

What excellent words from one friend to another.  His description of the names and the aspects of the "other world" that Tolkien created are so true as well.