Thoughts on Leaf By Niggle
I remember the first time that I read
Leaf by Niggle, I was so confused. I really had no clue what it meant, especially when those doctors made poor Niggle work or sit alone in the dark.
Now of course, having read a Tolkien Biography and knowing more about his outlook and his views about his own writings and about subcreation, I can understand the allegory.
I find it strange that Tolkien wrote this story b/c he always insisted that he hated allegory of every kind. I think it's important that Tolkien wrote it as a sort of break from writing
LOTR when the hobbits had reached Bree, and Tolkien was really sort of lost and confused as to just what sort of book
LOTR was turning out to be.
I love this line as Niggle begins to paint the tree - "Strange birds came and settled on the twigs and had to be attended to." I think Tolkien is really referring to Strider here. At the time Tolkien was still unsure as to whether Strider was friend or foe, and certainly no idea as yet of making him a king.
"He had to work hard at stated hours: at digging, carpentry, and painting bare boards all one plain colour."
I wonder if this would be the equivalent of research, writing out lectures, and correcting exam papers and essays.
"You could go on and on, and have a whole country in a a garden, or in a picture (if you preferred to call it that)."
This definitely resembles Lewis' idea in the
Last Battle of the garden opening into another Narnia, and the inside being bigger than the outside. Does anyone know if Lewis had already written
LB at this point, and if Tolkien had read it? Perhaps not.
Do you think that Parish is somehow akin to Lewis? In the beginning, he's a nuisance, but in the end Niggle realizes that Parish actually contributed to his painting and still has a lot more to contribute to the real land of the Tree. If Parish does mean Lewis, then I find it funny that he is lame. Maybe a hint of Tolkien's view on some of Lewis' "lame" writings?
Who are those First and Second Voices? Perhaps God the Father (the Judge), and Jesus Christ (the Redeemer)?
I love the ending lines. It's so very jolly. :D
"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton