I'm with phoebezeitgeist in not having found Tolkien to be presenting an idyllic simpler life. To me, LoTR was very much the story of how small-minded, somewhat xenophobic people (hobbits) can raise themselves above that to be heroic (if they're willing to and encounter suitable circumstances). If the Shire at the start is meant to look idyllic, I'm confused, because to me it looks petty, gossipy, small-minded, and confining. Certainly the four hobbits who leave on the quest seem to think so.
The Shire they return to at the end certainly finishes with an idyllic year, but that year is told of sandwiched in with the deaths/departures-for-heaven of about half the main characters. (Some people may have got to enjoy the England that Tolkien's son was fighting for as he wrote the novels, but not everyone.)
I also found that I felt I had a better image of Tolkien's ideas after I spent some time living in Stourbridge in England. The river that the town is built on is the Stour (probable source of Tolkien's 'Stoors'). The area was naturally rather beautiful, but the human effect on it was pretty horrible -- mostly just bricks, concrete, and graffiti. I gather that in the twenties it would have had more soot as well. I tend to describe it as 'the part of England that put Tolkien off the Industrial Revolution.'
Furthermore, I think Tolkien was at least semideliberate in the way he portrays monarchy. People feel very relieved after a war that it's over, and things look good, but they fall rapidly back to 'normal'. Eomer and Aragorn spend a good bit of their reigns still fighting the wars that started before they were crowned. I also don't think the story of Aragorn's ancestors (the great hero who leads his people to a new kingdom in the sea, and his descendants who get pettier and nastier every generation until Numenor/Atlantis is destroyed completely) is put in accidentally.
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Date: 21 Feb 2011 08:00 am (UTC)The Shire they return to at the end certainly finishes with an idyllic year, but that year is told of sandwiched in with the deaths/departures-for-heaven of about half the main characters. (Some people may have got to enjoy the England that Tolkien's son was fighting for as he wrote the novels, but not everyone.)
I also found that I felt I had a better image of Tolkien's ideas after I spent some time living in Stourbridge in England. The river that the town is built on is the Stour (probable source of Tolkien's 'Stoors'). The area was naturally rather beautiful, but the human effect on it was pretty horrible -- mostly just bricks, concrete, and graffiti. I gather that in the twenties it would have had more soot as well. I tend to describe it as 'the part of England that put Tolkien off the Industrial Revolution.'
Furthermore, I think Tolkien was at least semideliberate in the way he portrays monarchy. People feel very relieved after a war that it's over, and things look good, but they fall rapidly back to 'normal'. Eomer and Aragorn spend a good bit of their reigns still fighting the wars that started before they were crowned. I also don't think the story of Aragorn's ancestors (the great hero who leads his people to a new kingdom in the sea, and his descendants who get pettier and nastier every generation until Numenor/Atlantis is destroyed completely) is put in accidentally.