That intrigued me, because my response to LOTR is a complex one. I see both light and dark in the story. The Light ultimately wins out, but the Dark leaves an indelible impression.
Cerin wrote: Semprini referred to the light in the story. I've always been puzzled at comments about the story being dark, because to me it is just incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all, and the place where that seems to center quietly as an abiding peace and contentment, is in the forest with Tom.
LOTR is a redemptive story, a fairytale, a romance. And of course it's a laugh a minute compared with The Silmarillion.
Even so, I see great darkness in the story. I sense the weight of that darkness as Frodo gets nearer to Mordor. I too can imagine the weight of the horrific presence of Sauron pressing down on my shoulders, weighing me down, haunting my dreams. I sense the nearness of the concentration camps of Mordor - the No-Man's Land (which Tolkien saw first-hand on the Somme) of blasted and desolate landscapes, of the horror and despair of war ... converted by Tolkien's imagination from Reality into Myth. I feel that darkness pressing down on me in Frodo and Sam's nightmare journey to Mordor.
The darkness is ultimately not the predominant note ... but it leaves its mark.
What Cerin so lyrically describes as "incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all" are for me interludes ... all the more precious because they're rare, or because they must be preserved. Rivendell, and Lothlorien, and Minas Tirith (in which the glory of Numenor is dimmed) are sanctuaries, with their own kind of powers. The light and joy do bubble up, in the Shire, and in Lorien, and on the Field of Cormallen, and for me is all the more powerful because it's been hard-won and hard-earned.
People have been waxing lyrical about Bombadil and the Old Forest. I do like that episode very much (I like Tom's philosophising a lot more than his poetry). But for me the ultimate place is Lothlorien, the last remaining Noldorin haven - sob - which provides a glimpse into the Elder Days, the incomparably ancient past. In LOTR, Lorien is the bridge between Middle-earth and what lies beyond.
Lothlorien is for me the most mysterious and powerful place in Middle-earth. The Lorien chapters are my favourites in the entire book. I read them again and again. They have a mystical, contemplative power which I find the most spiritual part of LOTR (there is tremendous spirituality in the Bombadil episode, of course.)
The other intensely spiritual part of the book is its ending, and Frodo's departure of Frodo for Elvenhome, which is so mysterious and enigmatic (in the narrative of LOTR, that is ... Tolkien does not explain in the body of the text what Elvenhome is and why it is separated from Middle-earth by the Sundering Seas ... the eager reader, such as I was, has to delve into Sil and HoME to solve the mystery.)
I have always found the ending of LOTR incredibly bittersweet and melancholy.
There is a real note of hope, of course, represented in Sam's healing of the Shire, in Sam himself and the promise of his eventual reunion with Frodo and in the Golden Age of Aragorn and Arwen's reign ... but the sadness for an age that has ended is the predominant note for me.
Incandescent with light and joy?
In many ways, yes.
But LOTR also breaks my heart.