Jan. 3, 2013 ~ Happy 121st birthday, Professor Tolkien.

[mechtild]

~*~

Happy Birthday!

The picture below is the last-known picture taken of J.R.R.T., standing in front of his favourite tree in the botanical gardens in Oxford, Aug. 9, 1973. Not quite a month later, he had died.

To the man who loved trees, could feel the life pulsing through them, hear them breathe, even speak.



~*~



Tumble Hill (drawing dated 1928):





Old Man Willow (undated), cropped:





~*~

Comments

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

ah, lovely, like the person who inspired it! Happy Birthday, Professor! Thank you for all the beauty you gave us. Thank you for all the thinking and caring and *doing* you inspired. Thank you for opening the doors to a place we might call Home.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Aw, you. I had you and your work in mind, you know. Your writing has Tolkien's respect for things, his wonder at the things of creation, running all through it. :)

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

aw, *YOU*......I know you did, and we'll post those...and, if i am given some time this weekend, perhaps we can make a whole series of them....

(and thank you for the lovely, lovely compliment!)

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

if i am given some time this weekend, perhaps we can make a whole series of them....

Really???? WOW.

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

ha ha......they might NOT be WOW, you know. They might be........OW!

[bagma.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful tribute! Thank you for sharing it. :) I hadn't seen the last drawing before; it's gorgeous.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

He was such a talented man. I would recommend you buy a copy of 'J.R.R.Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator', but it must have gone out of print. Amazon has copies for sale but for ridiculous amounts. I bought mine new off Amazon a couple of years ago (2000 paperback edition), for the less than the retail price on the back of the book, which says 25.00.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Lovely tribute. Old Man Willow is one of Tolkien's most frightening inventions, I think. It always creeps me out to read about him.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

It's a terrifying, fascinating section of the novel, I agree. I don't think JRRT's drawing does it justice, considering the tree's malice, but it's a lovely drawing of an old willow.

[ambree40.livejournal.com]

How fitting that you posted some of his own drawings of trees for this day.
This reminds me of Frodo, as he laid his hand upon a tree in Lothlorien: "....never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and the texture of the tree's skin and the life within it".
I have always felt Tolkien's deep love of trees emerging in that special passage.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of Frodo, as he laid his hand upon a tree in Lothlorien: "....never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and the texture of the tree's skin and the life within it".

That is just what I think. Although I think what he portrays Frodo feeling in Lorien is akin to what Elves feel about trees. So maybe it's properest to say that Tolkien's keen, reverent, love of trees comes through in the perspective of the Elves towards trees. I don't know that the attitude of the Elves comes through clearly in LOTR, but it's very clear in other writings. Humans (and hobbits would be grouped with humans more than with Elves) are portrayed in Tolkien as seeing trees as raw material - for what they can yield in the way of lumber or fuel, but Elves see the trees as trees, with their own dignity, wonderful in their own right, without reference to their practical possibilities or usefulness.

[ambree40.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. Frodo's awareness of the tree as a living thing is elvish.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

That's what I have come to think as the "Elvishness" about Frodo that other characters comment on: his Elvish eye, or way of looking at the world around him. I don't think he had it to start with, but learned it. He had the potential for it, but I think readers can see it growing right before their eyes within the written story.

[shirebound]

To the man who loved trees, could feel the life pulsing through them, hear them breathe, even speak.

Ohhhhh, yes.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Oh, Shirebound, what a perfect icon for your comment!

[primula-baggins.livejournal.com]

Thank God Tolkien was in this world and gave us what he did.

The Professor. *clink*

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

*clinks you back* Here! here!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

To the man who loved trees, could feel the life pulsing through them, hear them breathe, even speak.

Beautifully said.

I put up a tree tribute to him as well. I love his tree drawings.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Did you? I'll have to get off my duff and take a look! :)

Greetings, Metchild!

[diem-kieu94.livejournal.com]

My goodness! Well... Professor Tolkien's now officially 121 years and a month old!

Speaking of Tolkien and his legacy... I just saw a YouTube video of Cal High's dance team doing a Lord of the Rings ballet! I'm sorry to say that the quality SUCKS, but... it's worth watching anyway! I'd shove my gluteus maximus into a tutu in a heartbeat if it meant dancing with the beautiful Frodo! :D

Here's the link. If that doesn't work, then going onto YouTube and typing "Lord of the Rings Ballet" should suffice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-brr4ksFRxY

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Hi, Diem Kieu. I am out of town and have been for a few weeks. With my mobile broadband set-up for traveling I can't load this video. I'll have to wait till I get back to see "the beautiful Frodo" of Cal High. :)

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[diem-kieu94.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't really see the face of whoever plays Frodo, but if you fantasize as I did about having the actual Film-Frodo on that stage... well, any fellow haremite should get the picture! ;)

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

You were a Haremite, on the Khazad-dum fan website? What was your name there?

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[diem-kieu94.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I was far too young to appreciate the Lord of the Rings when Khazad-dum was around. I meant the term "haremite" as in anyone who's as madly in love with Frodo as we are! I'm so sorry if I misled you.

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha! Not to worry. You would have loved it there, had you been older. The name of the thread on the message board (which was devoted to LOTR and Tolkien) was "Frodo's Harem". It was the fan thread for everyone besotted with Frodo. They called themselves "Haremites" and wrote loads of fanfic on the side using the AU of Frodo in the Undying Lands loved and cared for (in every way) by hobbit lasses who came over the Sea precisely to give Frodo everything he'd missed while in Middle-earth. It was such fun. I think I never laughed so hard or had such interesting, sometimes pithy conversations about the character of Frodo as I did on that website thread.

Re: Greetings, Metchild!

[diem-kieu94.livejournal.com]

Yep! That sounds just like me! Hee hee! :)