Some Interesting Facts About Tolkien's Life
John Reginald Reuben Tolkien was born on Oct 3, 1898 in Blumenstadt, Bavaria, where his father ran a pawnshop. His family was originally called Trollekenmühr but simplified it after their removal to Scotland when Tolkien was five years old. Later on, his father was sent out to manage a rubber plantation on Borneo and died of malaria when Tolkien was quite young. His mother, in her grief, converted to a rabid ultra-Protestant sect called the Trotters. At the very posh public school he attended, Bumbleton, he and his friends formed a Catholic-baiting group called the Black and Tans. They did not only hate Catholics but also Welshmen, Jews and people with pointy ears. Later, however, he improved his act after marrying Mabel Cohen. They had two daughters and adopted son, Christopher Robin.
He was too lazy to get a scholarship to Oxford, but a rich uncle paid for his studies there instead. During the first World War, he served with the Royal Flying Corps in Mesopotamia. When King Louis Philippe of France visited the troops stationed in the area, he gave Tolkien the Légion d'honneur for his bravery in strafing the Kurdish tribesmen. Demobilized, he finished his studies, which he augmented with a course in traffic engineering. He became a Reader of Sanskrit in Edinburgh, and then Regina Professor of Journalese in Durham. However, he did not really have a head for languages (he was only in it for the money), so he started to write books instead. The first was a bodice-ripper called "The Hobby". Then followed his Ring trilogy, a slightly modified prose version of Richard Wagner's "Der Ring der Nibelungen". (The biggest tweak was changing Alberich from a dwarf to a giant since he despised vertically challenged people.) When this derivative work became a success, he was talked into moving to Hollywood with his family to work on the script for a film version of it. However, the ship they travelled on disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Nobody has heard from the Tolkien family since then.
See also Tolkien was a plagiarist, Tolkien's Racism
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