Henry Gee and the Science of Middle-Earth

Here's an interesting-sounding book:

The Science of Middle-Earth: Explaining the Science Behind the Greatest Fantasy Epic Ever Told! by Henry Gee.

The promotional blurb reads in part: The author explores just how elves might be able to see much further than humans, why Frodo's sword turns blue at the sight of evil orcs, how the rings of power do their thing, and just about every other conundrum or piece of 'elvish magic' that have puzzled and delighted Tolkien fans for years. Throughout, Gee makes the point that science, fantasy, and nature are really more similar than one might think. Gee writes in a popular tone and style, fully explaining all science concepts and convincingly demonstrating how Tolkien's world of fantasy makes sense in a very real - scientific - way.

Now, you might think this is a pointless exercise in fandom by a fantasy fanatic with his head in the clouds... except for the fact that Dr. Henry Gee is himself a scientist, more specifically a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. He is also a senior editor of Nature, the world-renowned scientific journal, and has edited a collection of science fiction previously published in the pages of Nature. He's written popular books on evolutionary biology, genomics, and dinosaurs. The Scientific American review of the LotR book points out: In a closing essay, [Gee] argues that "Tolkien's own worldview was closer to the true spirit of science than that held by many who propose to promote the public understanding of science."

He's also written some science fiction of his own, which is available for free here. The write-up: "Jack Corstorphine is a man with a rare intuition. He is convinced that the landscape of Europe hides a civilization a million years old. Jadis Markham has a gift for analysis -- she can reach solutions while everyone else is still grappling with the problem. Together, they change the face of prehistory. But prehistory bites back. Forces almost beyond imagination are stirring in Jack and Jadis' world, among the worlds of their friends -- their scientist-priest mentor Domingo, and their adopted son, Tom -- and among the stars. The Sigil is an epic of near-future SF about the nature of the past, religion, love and the nature of humanity."

I tend to enjoy the work of people who avoid polarization or easy categorization, like those who are at home in both science and art, who are good at rigorous thinking but who also appreciate the power and beauty of myth. And it seems that Dr. Gee is one of those 'in-between' people, not only in regards to fantastic literature ("he read The Lord of the Rings about once a year between the ages of 10 and 25") but also in questions of science, religion and philosophy. According to his awfully witty blog, The End Of The Pier Show, he is Jewish, with progressive/liberal opinions on religious matters. On the one hand, he's strongly opposed to creationism and the Intelligent Design movement, and on the other he has also expressed his disagreement with the militant atheists among his scientist colleagues (for example, here, here or here) while maintaining personal friendships with many of them.*

Something that comes through loud and clear on his blog, as a powerful recurring theme, is his passion for popularizing science for the widest possible audience. The Science of Middle-Earth sounds like a marvelous contribution to that quest.

*If you strongly disagree with Dr. Gee's views on creationism, I.D., militant atheism, or The Lord of the Rings, please take the issue up with him, as I'm allergic to strenous comment box arguments.

Fantasy of the Real

Ralph Wood has a review of Alison Milbank's Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real.

With adept recourse to an impressive (but never name-dropping) array of anthropologists and literary theorists, folklorists and linguists, philosophers and theologians, she shows that these Catholic writers engage modern and even postmodern culture by way of a revolutionary understanding of the imagination. Both writers resorted to fantasy as an escape into reality, as Tolkien liked to say. They were fascinated with fairies because Elfland, as Chesterton called it, enabled them to envision the world as wondrously magical no less than terribly contingent: as “utterly real and enchanted at one and the same time.”