When I say ‘Gollum’, you likely picture Andy Serkis’ CGIed face squealing “filthy Hobbitses”. Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Tolkien’s work is standard now, with nearly every new adaptation turning to the ‘00s trilogy for design inspiration rather than the books themselves. However, there have been plenty of other interpretations ofThe Lord of the Rings, which vary greatly in inspiration and execution.
The same goes for the illustrations of the books. You’ve got your classicists like John Howe and Alan Lee, whose illustrious images adorn new Tolkien novels to this day. There are other interpretations though, fromRalph Bakshi’s cartoonish depictionsthat delve into Tolkien’s fae inspirations, to the brothers Hildebrandt’s renaissance-style paintings. Tolkien was a master of weaving vivid descriptions from sparse adjectives, letting the reader’s imagination do the heavy lifting, guiding it just enough to craft vaguely uniform images in his readers’ minds.
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Tove Jansson interpreted things slightly differently, though. When the creator of the Moomins was invited to illustrate an edition of The Hobbit, nobody expected her interpretations of the characters to differ so wildly from everybody else’s. Her Gollum is particularly egregious in comparison to other illustrations, a huge creature like a monster emerging from a swamp. He wears a flower crown on his head, likely a reference to Jansson’s own crown which she often wore, and looks more hideous than any other adaptation.
Many Gollums go the other way, making him more of a Hobbit than a monster or a whatever-the-hell-Andy-Serkis-is. But Tolkien was aggrieved by Jansson’s portrayal of the crucial character, and doubly so when he realised that her depiction fit his description, if not his imagination.
Paul Gravett writes about the experience in Tove Jansson: The Illustrators. “Her Gollum towered monstrously large, to the surprise of Tolkien himself, who realized that he had never clarified Gollum’s size and so amended the second edition to describe him as ‘a small, slimy creature’.”
The addition of “small” in particular is a direct consequence of Jansson’s illustration, as Tolkien sought to ensure the Gollum his readers pictured matched closer to the creature in his mind.
I’m all for new interpretations of Tolkien, and the more varied they are, the better! There’s so much room for imaginative takes in Middle-earth, which is why I hope the Mûmakil in the forthcoming anime look nothing like those in Jackson’s Return of the King. The anime medium allows for so much freedom and new interpretations, so the worst thing War of the Rohirrim could do would be to play it safe. Adaptations are meant to do just that – adapt – and it’s not difficult to stay within the limits of the original material while innovating and imagining.
I particularly enjoy going back and looking at pre-Jackson Lord of the Rings artwork. It’s not much, but it’s an honest hobby. Whether it’s fan-made or official book illustrations, there are so many rich and varied interpretations of Tolkien’s words, whereas it’s difficult to find anything completely divorced from the ‘00s trilogy that was produced after it. EvenThe Rings of Powertakes notes from the films – just look at that Balrog for starters. Think outside the box, channel your inner Tove Jansson, and force creators to clarify their writing to keep your imagination in line.
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