Tolkienology is an odd word that people really don't know what to do with. It's a bit like a preposition. Can you end a sentence with a preposition, like "with"? Sir Winston Churchill reportedly once said, when a woman advised him that it was improper to end a sentence with a preposition, "Madam, nonsense such as that up with which I shall not put."

He said so many apt things like that. Only this morning I saw another Churchill quote on an electronic billboard: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Truth ever finds itself on the defense and in rebuttal. Rarely does truth leap out ahead of lies and fabircations.

And I use the word "fabrication" in the sense of an artificiality, a pseudoism such as an ill-informed attempt to explain something. If you search for "tolkienology" on the Web, for example, you won't find any generally accepted definitions. Someone suggested it has to do with the study of Middle-earth as if it's a real world.

I don't actually do that, but I can see how many people would think that is what I do. It's not that I strive to see Middle-earth as a real world. Rather, I strive to see the Middle-earth that J.R.R. Tolkien imagined. I'll never see his vision but I can pare away those things that provably are not his vision.

Other people do want to study Middle-earth as if it's a real world but I don't see any value in such study. The reason I wrote so many essays that explored Tolkien's histories and cultures was that I wanted to understand them. I wanted to understand the stories better. They are just stories, reflecting one man's natural opinion of how the stories should be told. But they are such fasinating stories.

Had anyone asked me what I think "Tolkienology" should mean I believe I would have always said, "The study of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and their influences". That would be a suitably ambiguous Michael Martinez answer. In fact, I think the old Professor would appreciate the subtlety of such an answer.

For what could I possibly mean by "their influences"? Many people, I think, would leap to the wrong conclusion and suggest works like Old English poems, Norse sagas, Greek literature, Medieval literature, etc. Those are sources for Tolkien's works, no doubt about that. But though the sources may have influenced the works the sources are not themselves influences.

Rather, "their influences" must, I think, refer to the influences that Tolkien's works have had. They influence many things: literatary theory, cinematic theory, economic theory, social theory. They influence communities, disparate groups, individuals, and the educational world. Tolkien's works influence the media, other authors, and even industry.

J.R.R. Tolkien's influence is much broader, much deeper than can be measured in today's quantifications. We are stumbling toward a raw grasp of the momentity of Tolkien's reach across human experience. His ideas were not trivial for they have inspired legions of thinkers and doers to take action in more directions than I could ever hope to broadly generalize.

Liars, thieves, and slovenly fools have toiled in Tolkien's shadow. Great thinkers, giants of industry, and world leaders have acknowledged him in ways that our super-wealthy elite can only dream of. Old and young, near and far, people have discovered Tolkien's vision and looked up to glimpse Fairie from afar. A few, very few, have even seen the shadow of Mount Mindolluin overlooking the Bay of Eldamar.

Did I get my geography mixed up? Only a true Tolkienologist would know for sure. But Tolkienology is not simply about knowing; it is also about making, doing, and understanding.

It is the understanding that is the hardest, most challenging level of Tolkienology. Like a false prophet or false teacher, pseudo-understanding cries out with many voices: "Here is the way! It is over here!" But how can one fully understand the vision of a man who is no longer around to articulate that vision?

We have his words and no more than his words. His voice has fallen silent and we who wish to understand him must accept that he spoke in the idiom of a different generation, with the teachings and experiences of his own life's path, and there are relatively few left now who can remember him or know what he meant by what he said.

Tolkienology will soon begin to slumber and perhaps wrap itself in a coccoon, for the last of Tolkien's works has been published and his voice is now completely silent. There are no new words to resonate through our hearts. We can only hope that there will be a spring ahead to summon forth a beautiful creature from that coccoon of sleep.

For if we cannot understand Tolkien himself, or his vision, so fully, we can still be venturous enough to study the effect his works have on our lives. We can become true Tolkienologists by never looking back, only looking forward. For there is another hill or mountain awaiting our footsteps as we stroll down that merry, winding road he paved for us.

He is gone but will always be with us in our hearts and our thoughts. His works are a vial we hold up in the night. His influences are waves that ripple across the dividing seas, assuring us that we retain a connection to his vision.

Namarie! Maybe (even) thou shall find Vainor!