The Lord of the Rings

“spiders,” observed professor jrr tolkien, cradling the word with the same affection that he cradled the pipe in his hand, “are the particular terror of northern imaginations.” the professor, now 76, is the author of the hobbit and of the three-volume epic fairy-tale, the lord of the rings, the slowest-developing bestseller in modern publishing history. (…)

tolkien, who describes himself as “tubby”, has grey eyes, firm tanned skin, silvery hair and quick decisive speech. he might have been, 50 years ago, the model of the kindly country squire. any hobbit would trust this man, any dragon quail before him, any elf name him friend. effortlessly, he compels you to admire him as much as – and herein lies his charm – he clearly admires himself.

the telegraph magazine, march 22. 1968

The man himself, J.R.R. Tolkien

Happy Birthday, Professor. Thank you for everything.

“I think that what everyone did on this job, starting with Peter (Jackson), but also the people that he selected, was that it was such a long run, that even if you started out just out of nerves or just because that was [the] tendency, to just look after yourself, you ended up taking care of others around you… You could never really see the light at the end of the tunnel until the very end… And even when we were finishing the principal shoot, we knew we’d be back and Pete said way back then in 2000, 'Look, if the movie does well, then I’ll have the opportunity to come back and do more.’ We didn’t know how well it would do and we didn’t know exactly what he meant… So it’s been all consuming. … Like I was joking when I came in, we got along and made the best of it and everybody sort of did it in that way, where if someone was sick or tired or just at a loss, you know, here’s these rewrites this morning at 5am. 'I had something in mind.’ 'I thought I knew where we were in the story, now I have no idea. What does this mean? I mean, whose lines are these, what is Pete trying to do?’ You know, sometimes Pete would be 50 miles away on another unit. … It was very much a team effort, and I think Pete counted on people taking care of themselves and taking care of each other when he was there and when he wasn’t there, because it was too big a job for one person. You know, when Aragorn says at the coronation, he says 'This day is not for one man but for all,’ the experience was that way, it was the only way it could be done and if it was gonna work in the way that it has, people were going to have to have that attitude.”

And so, life in the Shire goes on, very much as it has this past Age– full of its own comings and goings, with change coming slowly, if it comes at all. For things are made to endure in the Shire, passing from one generation to the next.