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Along the way, Dickerson takes a few polite but earnest jabs at Jackson while evincing honest admiration for the films. Dickerson has been teaching Tolkien for 15 years, and is no latecomer to the fray, merely hoping to capitalize on the films. Rather, he makes it plain that he is writing at an opportune time in order to make sure that the majesty of Tolkien's achievement is not overwhelmed by the visual spectacle of the films. Jackson plainly misunderstands the nature of power, equating it with force, to the neglect of spiritual and moral power. This is especially true in the character of Faramir. Faramir is one of the most pious of characters in Tolkien's work, resisting the lure of the Ring before he even knows it is near him, and praying regularly with his men (a rarity in Middle Earth!). Jackson's films show the tortured relationship between Faramir and his father Denethor, but precious little of the moral character that sustains Faramir in this conflict. Similarly, Jackson gets wisdom wrong, and so his portrayal of the characters that Tolkien plainly sets aside as wise is skewed: Elrond comes off as petty and Galadriel as mildly sinister.

Perhaps the chief criticism that one could level at Dickerson is that he knows too much: he repeatedly and suggestively opens up new vistas into Tolkien's work but then moves on in order to continue to pursue the main theme; and the references to names and places in Tolkien's stories can be a bit dizzying at times, despite Dickerson's helpful reminders of how each fits into the whole story. The effect of this is to remind the reader just how rich Tolkien's writings are, and how much is left to be explored in them. A chapter devoted to the cosmogony that opens The Silmarillion would have been nice, rather than the scattered references to it in other chapters; and several times Dickerson begins to touch on but never fully develops themes of prayer or (implicitly) of Tolkien's affinities to and minor divergences from Thomist metaphysics. For instance, Dickerson suggests (without descending into philosophical jargon) how Tolkien uses the angelic Gandalf and human creativity to improve on Aquinas' realist metaphysics and to answer Ockham's nominalism, though this is not explored in detail.

But Dickerson's mastery of Tolkien's oeuvre is complete. Written in a style that is both accessible to the general reader and inviting to academics, his book is a good introduction to the religious and moral themes in Tolkien's lesser-known writings, beginning with Dickerson's real love, The Silmarillion, and including Tolkien's writing on writing itself in "Leaf by Niggle," "On Fairy-Stories," and Tolkien's early writings on language and Beowulf. Of particular interest is the explanation of Tolkien's doctrine of "eucatastrophe," the happy turn of events that marks a good fairy-story. It is just such a turn that we hope for in our world, and this is suggestive of the real gravity of moral choice.

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February (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48