Relationship Advice from J.R.R. Tolkien

When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a letter to his son Michael (then in his tweens) giving relationship advice, it being late January of the year 1941 while Michael was recovering from an injury at the hospital in Worchester, he explained at length how things had gone in his own life. The letter comes as close to a biography of Tolkien’s life up until that point as it gets, and the last lines of it (as printed in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1981 edition of “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien“, Letter 43, quoting from page 53f.) have been oft quoted:

“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: The Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

As relationship advice goes, I dare say it is somewhat surprising. Why? Because it goes far beyond the ordinary advice a father would give his son when it comes to such matters. And yet, as far as I can see, there is no better advice.

Michael went on to marry Joan Griffiths with whom he had three children. One might have expected him to become a priest after such advice, but that was the choice his older brother John instead. As a sidenote, it might be of interest that John Tolkien became an exorcist even before being ordained.