Michael Coren’s new biography of J.R.R. Tolkien could not have come at a more appropriate time. It follows on the heels of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings being voted the most popular book of the last century and neatly precedes the much-anticipated release of the first in a series of feature films based on the trilogy this fall. Tolkien is also, of course, the author of the children’s classic The Hobbit. And, as well as bringing to life the fantasy world of Middle-earth, he was a renowned Oxford philologist, distinguishing himself during his academic career with his explorations of the riches of Anglo-Saxon and Old English literature.
Coren, whose last book for children was a 1994 biography of children’s writer C.S. Lewis, The Man Who Created Narnia, clearly admires the works of Tolkien. And readers will certainly have a sense of who Tolkien was and what he accomplished after reading Coren’s biography. But Coren seems more interested in painting a picture of Tolkien as a devout Roman Catholic and family man than as a truly imaginative writer who from childhood was fascinated by language, creating several of his own. In fact, the world of Middle-earth developed out of Tolkien’s desire to create a history to complement these languages, and it seems odd that this lifelong creative endeavour isn’t the focus of this biography. Coren has adopted an authorial voice that aims at chummy intimacy but instead comes off as slightly patronizing. And this supposedly “lavishly illustrated” biography includes no photographs of Tolkien as a child or young man, or of his wife or children. Indeed most of the photos in the book focus on Oxford. Coren opens the door to Middle-earth but doesn’t really welcome young readers in.