Lost: Tolkien and Hemingway

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”~ J.R.R. Tolkien 

Tolkien, 1916

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a veteran of the Great War, a man fully contemporary with Hemingway and his band of lost generation wanderers. Although the two never met, they lived through many of the same experiences. In his preface to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings he states: "By fall of 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead".  Although he saw little actual combat he was spared few horrors of war, was under constant threat of bombardment, and suffered chronic trench foot, lice, fever,and other ailments related to being deployed in the foremost parts of the conflict, in addition to the loss of many of his close friends.  Yet somehow he seems to have escaped the fate of Hemingway's group of restless souls. 

Although he vehemently denied any direct correlation of his experiences in the War to his later works as an author, Tolkien's integrity and faith come through nonetheless. And with them his way of dealing with his life experiences. I ask readers to question what made this gentle, scholarly soul so much different from his cohort of the lost generation. What kept him from the dissolution and depression of those other young men who marched home through mud and tribulation? I think a hint would be that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic.  He seems to have kept one foot firmly entrenched in a better world, while he weathered the storms of this one. To him 'fantasy' was not to be taken lightly, and a better, higher world was always in his mind's eye. 

In sharp contrast of the stark almost nihilistic realism of Hemingway, Tolkien wrote fantasy.  As a therapist I would suggest that these two very different methods of expressing their experiences are a window into their souls. This is borne out in their fates. Tolkien wrote fantasy and lived a long life with his family, befriending such personalities as C.S. Lewis, and creating the world of Middle Earth- largely for his own enjoyment. Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954, virtually created modern prose, but sadly suffered terrible depression, alcoholism, and fatally shot himself with a shotgun on July, 26, 1961.  

Whose world was more real? And whose was the better? More importantly, whose do you want to live in? The choice is ours, and I believe as Gandalf says, it has a lot to do with what we do with the time given to us. 

A final quote of Tolkien's, when criticized for writing 'escapist literature'.

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”

The Lost Generation

"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 'I played a flute for you and you did not dance; we sang a dirge for you and you did not mourn'..."


'Lost generation'. It's a term that's been applied to one cohort or another for almost one hundred years now. Most famously applied to the World War I generation and most recently, the present generation of the Great Recession.

Hemingway and real life inspirations for The Sun Also Rises, Spain 1925 

The lost generation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald were those expatriates who restlessly wandered postwar Europe: both energetic and lazy, indulgent and empty, resilient and fragile. The characters in The Sun Also Rises eat, drink, fight, and engage in unsatisfying love affairs.  It's a beautifully simple and honest examination of a group of damaged souls. A group without the blessing of an obvious simple purpose. Anyone who has spent time with a person age 20 to 35 in the last ten years will likely recognize at least some of these characters' qualities.  By those of the post-9/11- Great Recession generation, I have heard it simply called 'so familiar'. Minus some of the exotic locales and bullfights (although maybe not).
Finding a fulfilling job is rare, the world changed while we were in college or high school. Our great war is an economic and psychological one, the wounds we carry are spiritual, and as a counselor and a young person I can testify that we are more truly socially isolated than any group before us.

We eat, drink, fight, and have unsatisfying relationships.

In 20th century England the term "lost generation" meant those who died in the Great War. Especially those young men who were perceived as the best and brightest of their day, wiped out in a short time.

Both instances of the term share the basic heartbreaking acknowledgment of unrequited potential. People that could have been, but were damaged or destroyed unjustly by the times they lived in.

 The Lord is near the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Ps. 34:18.

The only cure for a spiritual wound is spiritual healing. Moving forward, first remember that although we carry these wounds, we must not let them rob us of our purpose, or our usefulness.

More to come...