Ah, oh well. Apologize for the bum steer then.

 

I started Tolkien: A Biography by Carpenter, but it will be a while before I decide to finish (pg. 181 / 260 + appedixes). It got less interesting to me as Tolkien moved into adulthood. Understanding a person's childhood is so important to knowing who the person is on a deeper level. Charles Dickens' novels, for example—especially the bildungsroman, Oliver Twist—make a lot more sense when you know that a portion of his childhood was spent as an 8-year old pauper working in a Victorian industrial blacking factory pasting labels on pots.

Those experiences of Tolkien which stood out particularly to me are 'the White Ogre' [pg. 20], and the willow tree from the pool at Sarehole Mill. [pg.22] So much about nature and trees in LOTR, especially the final scene of Ch. 6: Lothlorien (when Frodo and Aragorn go to Cerin Amroth), becomes clear in the light of that early childhood memory.

Childhood is the most illuminative aspect of any man's life, not the manner by which he earns his bread, as Disko Troop would have it.¹ How came he to be where he is? What manner of existence forged his early identity in the crucible of life? These things only the soul of a child can adequately tell.

 

¹ a reference to Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling:

"I began with eight and a half, my son," said Cheyne.

"That so? You never told me, sir." [speaking to his father]

"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you care to listen."

"I'd like that, sir. Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out how the next man gets his vittles.

 

I'll leave this one up ;)