In the House of Tom Bombadil

What is Tom Bombadil doing in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? His bright blue coat and yellow boots seem out of place with the grandeur of the rest of the narrative.

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“Some of the best insights ever made about J.R.R. Tolkien’s invented world or, frankly, about 20th-century literature…. Here is a book of intense wisdom and penetrating thought.” ~Bradley J. Birzer, author of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth

In this book, C.R. Wiley shows that Tom is not an afterthought but Tolkien’s way of making a profoundly important point. Tolkien once wrote, “[Tom Bombadil] represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function.”

Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry are a small glimpse of the perfect beauty, harmony, and happy ending that we all yearn for in our hearts. To understand Tom Bombadil is to understand more of Tolkien and his deeply Christian vision of the world.

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What People Are Saying

"Though Wiley’s work is short, it ends up touching on some of the major characters, moments, and themes of The Lord of the Rings. That he can do so while never straying from a focus on a character so allegedly inconsequential as Tom Bombadil suggests that Tom might be important after all." ~National Review online

"[It is] a rich and rewarding banquet Wiley has prepared; I encourage you to pull up a chair In the House of Tom Bombadil, and partake of the feast for yourself." ~Front Porch Republic

"Wiley’s brisk, thought-provoking book helps us see how Bombadil, far from being a superfluous oddity, helps us envision both happiness and a home in this world — and beyond it." ~The University Bookman

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C.R. Wiley is a senior contributor to The Imaginative Conservative and a minister living in the Pacific Northwest. His short stories have appeared in The Mythic Circle and Fear and Trembling, and his nonfiction has appeared in Touchstone Magazine, Relevant Magazine Online, and Modern Reformation. He is the author of The Household and the War for the Cosmos and Man of the House. The Purloined Boy, Book 1 of the Weirdling Cycle, is his first novel.

AUTHOR: C.R. Wiley

PUBLISHER: Canon Press

PAGE COUNT: 128

BINDING: Hardcover

SIZE: 5.5x8.5"

ISBN 10: 1954887027

ISBN-13: 9781954887022

PUB. DATE: December 14, 2021