Making Art in the Midst of Crisis: Pandemic and Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle”
Sarah Sanderson
In the late 1930s, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a short story. He “awoke with it already in mind,” he later said, and it tumbled onto the page “very swiftly.”[1] The story, “Leaf by Niggle,” stands alone in the Tolkien canon as a kind of ars poetica—an exploration of the writer’s philosophy of art. Through Tolkien’s depiction of the autobiographical character Mr. Niggle and his dithering progress on a single painting, we catch a glimpse into the mind of the writer himself.
It was the lead-up to World War Two; air raid sirens in Tolkien’s home of Oxford, England had probably already begun to sound. Tolkien had fought in World War One, from which he was discharged with a disability pension. In 1939, the British government asked him to study codebreaking to aid with the new conflict. His main work continued, as a professor and private tutor at Oxford. At that time, his four children ranged in age from early adolescence to early adulthood. In short, he was a busy man.
Knowing all this, it’s easy to recognize the author’s conception of himself in his opening description of his main character: “Niggle was a painter. Not a very successful one, partly because he had many other things to do.”[2]
Niggle was a painter. He wanted, especially, to finish one large painting of a tree with “innumerable branches” and “fantastic roots.” But he could never finish it; a “tremendous crop of interruptions” was always getting in the way.
Tolkien, of course, was an author. Despite all of his other responsibilities, he wanted, especially, to finish one large project: The Lord of the Rings, an ambitious trilogy with, one might say, innumerable branches and fantastic roots. But in the late 1930s, at the outset of a global conflict with no assured end in sight, Tolkien was afraid that he may never finish.
I’d heard this story years ago, of Tolkien and his autobiographical tale, but I’d never read the short story itself. I simply filed the knowledge away under literary trivia. But then in April of 2020, as I began to grasp that the world had turned upside down and would not be righting itself anytime soon, the story came swimming back to me. I need to read “Leaf by Niggle.”
I, too, am a writer, although I might say with Niggle that I am not a very successful one, partly because I have so many other things to do. I could never compare my literary output to the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien; but, like Tolkien, I am also a teacher (of Oregonian high schoolers instead of Oxford undergraduates). And, like Tolkien, I have four children in a somewhat similar age range.
I too find myself living in an age of anxiety. Tolkien worried that the Nazis would drop a bomb on him before his work was done. I “doomscroll” my national, state, and local COVID numbers daily.
Niggle is constantly aware of his imminent death. He conceives of it as a long, unavoidable journey. As he contemplates that journey, Niggle’s painting is hindered not only by his many occupations, but also by his preoccupations. Frequently, Niggle cannot paint because “he was sometimes just idle, and did nothing at all.”
Over the last few months, many writers I follow on Twitter have complained that, in the midst of a pandemic, they have lost the ability to wrangle their brains into work mode. We recognize, then, that Niggle’s idleness may well be a symptom of his vast anxiety. It’s hard to make art in a crisis.
Last spring when I sat down under the umbrella on my back patio to read “Leaf by Niggle,” it resonated. Inside, my children argued over the Xbox. Digital stacks of my students’ ungraded papers awaited me on Google Classroom. Potentially lethal germs lurked invisibly somewhere out beyond my front gate, or possibly already inside my own house. I had not written a word in months. And what I found in Tolkien’s little story moved me to tears.
Religious commentators often use “Leaf by Niggle,” which was informed by Tolkien’s own Catholic theology, to draw lessons about heaven. For Niggle’s long journey does finally come, and, in a kind of reverse Platonism, Tolkien imagines that Niggle discovers his own tree, produced by his own earthly artistic endeavors, growing strong and tall in heaven.
But it was not lessons about heaven that made me cry as I read. It was what Tolkien suggests about Niggle’s true identity while he lived on earth. While Niggle lies recuperating in Purgatory, he hears a voice above him say, “He was a painter by nature.” When I read that, the tears fell.
What if it was possible to believe that about yourself? That despite all the many other things you have to do, despite the weight of your many fears, you are an artist by nature? That your art is not just what you do when it fits into the crevices of your life: it is who you are?
Niggle was a busy worker, neighbor, and community member; Tolkien a respected professor, military veteran, husband, and father. I am a beleaguered teacher, harried mother, fraught consumer of an avalanche of dystopian news. Whether it comes from divine proclamation or simply closing our eyes and finding what lies in our hearts—what if we could set all of those other identities aside long enough to remember our very nature?
For this, I believe, is what is required to make art. It is required anytime, but especially when making art in a time of crisis. If we are to get through the tremendous crop of interruptions and the ever-crushing anxiety long enough to produce a single note or jot or dab, we must remember that we are—by nature—musicians, writers, painters. Artists.
We must not fret about the long fallow periods when anxiety or busyness seem to get the upper hand. Our artistic capacity has not disappeared just because its output is not clearly visible. Our art is not an add-on. It is us.
[1] https://www.tolkienestate.com/en/writing/other-tales-and-poetry/leaf-by-niggle.html
[2] http://www.ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__leaf_by_niggle__en.htm
Sarah Sanderson writes, speaks, and teaches—these days, all from the home that she shares with her family in the Portland, Oregon area. Find more at www.sarahlsanderson.com.