Slouching Towards Gorgoroth

I’ve been rereading Tolkien. (Is he politically problematic? In the books’ racial hierarchy I’d be a Morgoth-corrupted Wild Man of the East, and I made my peace with that a long time ago.) There are many exciting scenes to revisit in The Lord of the Rings, most of which I’d reenacted with makeshift props when I was a teenager: running around my hometown’s Pine Wood, reciting passages from the books, straining to see the menacing shapes of the Uruk-Hai looming on the other side of the river (why this fantasy in particular, rather than some cozy hobbit vibe? beats me). Much of The Lord of the Rings is people walking through attentively described landscapes. Excellent reading for anyone who has ever loved walking, or anyone who is young and can still be taught to love walking. I lay in bed and read, and remembered all the walking of my youth. It was nice.

But of course, Tolkien’s world is decidedly not cottagecore. The rolling hills of the Shire, and even the adrenaline-filled adventures that follow, are just the opening act. What must happen, because it’s the whole point of the book, is that two unprepared guys must climb over awful impassable mountains, and cross a desolate plateau, and drag themselves somehow towards their goal, which, of course, is called Mount Doom.

I have been sick on and off, and really tired, and sad. I’ve been dealing with this bullshit for decades. World events, losses and deaths, run-ins with other humans and their traumatic reverberations — doesn’t it all just get too much sometimes? And now I am thirty-six, and I am both disillusioned and insecure. Like Gollum, I fear the Yellow Face of the sun which exposes my tight mouth and sagging neck. I am starting to suspect that this whole time I have been moving through a vale of tears.

And of course, this Expressionist masterpiece, which I am obliged to feature: