Dr. Paul Monk on The Lord of The Rings

In this podcast, Nick Fabbri and Dr. Paul Monk discuss J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, reflecting on its profound personal and societal impact, and its depth as a work of fantasy.

Key Discussion Points include:

• A Profound Personal Impact: The book had a deeper impression on Paul's education and life than any other work from his youth, helping instil within him a love of learning, knowledge, language, meaning, and poetry.

• The Teacher's Voice: Paul still recalls passages read by his fifth-grade teacher, Kathleen Gill, in 1967 as if he were hearing them yesterday, noting how the oral transmission of the story impacted his mind.

• A Guide for the Perplexed: Monk views the novel as an "indirect guide for the perplexed," offering insights close to the work of philosopher Martin Heidegger and serving as a release from the "strictures of various realisms".

• The Call to Adventure: The dramatic intrusion of the outside world, where Frodo learns he holds the One Ring, is analysed as the moment history and conflict are "thrust onto your doorstep".

• The Role of the Hobbit: Highlighting the Christian message that the meek and simple (like Sam Gamgee) can make a crucial difference in the world's large affairs, reinforcing the dignity of the common person.

• Storytelling and Agency: The poignant conversation between Frodo and Sam on the stairs of Cirith Ungol, realizing they are "in the same tale still," which affirms human agency within predetermined historical dynamics.

• Nature and Rootedness: Evoking the character of Treebeard (Enta, Latin for beings) to reflect Tolkien's appreciation for nature, rootedness, and slow change, contrasting it with the materialist, mechanizing impulse of modernity.

• Love and Mortality: Reflecting on the inscription on Tolkien's tomb—Beren and Lúthien—as a symbol of transcendent love that crosses racial and immortal barriers.

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China.