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In Jonathan Coe's novel, The Rotters' Club, a confrontation takes place between two characters over what one sees as racist elements in Tolkien's 7776" Lord of the Rings:
Birmingham, Doug maintained, had produced two notable racist thinkers in the last few decades: Enoch Powell and J. R. R. Tolkien. Philip was outraged by this statement. Tolkien was unquestionably his favorite author and in what way, he wanted to know, could he be described as racist? Doug suggested he reread The Lord of the Rings. Philip assured him that he did, at six monthly intervals. In that case, Doug replied, surely he must have noticed that Tolkien's villainous Ores were made to appear unmistakably negroid. And did it not strike him as significant that the reinforcements who come to the aid of Sauron, the Dark Lord are themselves dark skinned, hail from unspecified tropical islands from the south, and are often mounted on elephants? (143)
The passage is telling on three levels. First, the character Doug gives in a nutshell the basic concerns raised about racism in Tolkien's Middle-earth. It is undeniable that darkness and the color black are continually associated throughout Tolkien's universe with unredeemable evil, specifically Ores and the Dark Lord Sauron. So unredeemable is this evil, in fact, that especially in encounters with the Ores during the war's action, it is dealt with by extermination. Contrariwise, the Ores' mirror-selves, the Elves are called "the noblest of the children of Eru"1 (Tyler 148) and continuously described as extremely fair. Galadriel's hair is "deep gold" (357; bk. 2, ch. 7) and emphasis is made on her "white arms" (367; bk. 2, ch. 7). In fact, so fair are the elven folk in general that the dark hair of Elrond and his daughter Arwen, caused by them being part human, is considered extraordinary among the Elves.
second, the conversation described in The Rotters' Club, while fictional, is set during the seventies. If accurate-and there seems no reason to doubt the author-the setting of thirty years ago indicates how long questions centering on Tolkien's possible racism have existed. Yet the debate occurs between fans who are themselves out of sync with most of their peers, thus underscoring the fact that Tolkien's work has up until recently been...