Sylvain Reynard

NY Times Best-Selling Author

Literature – “The Lord of the Rings”

Dear Everyone,
Friendship is one of the relationships that figures prominently in “Gabriel’s Inferno.” Julia and Rachel are friends, Paul and Julia are friends, Professor Emerson appears to be friends with Katherine Picton, the villains of the story (seen and unseen) used to be friends with some of the other characters …

Friendship is a kind of love, but it’s a love that is asexual and chaste. Friendship reminds us that human beings can love each other deeply without that love being sexual or romantic.

In my story, Julia muses about what she is willing to do for the man who stole her heart when she was young. An analogy is drawn in her mind to the friendship between Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

If you’re searching western literature for examples of friendship, there are many examples to choose from. But there’s something about the friendship between Sam and Frodo that typifies what a great friendship can be. While Frodo is usually considered to be the hero of the trilogy, it is Sam who is the shining example of a good friend. He is loyal and constant. He shows tremendous fortitude and courage. His character qualities are tested and tried over and over again, but Sam’s commitment to his friend persists, despite conflict and fatigue and the inevitable personality changes that Frodo experiences as the ring-bearer. On several occasions, Sam could have abandoned his friend to finish the quest alone. But he didn’t.
There are many reasons to read Tolkien’s Rings trilogy. One of them should be because it provides a thought-provoking presentation of true friendship. Another would be because it unashamedly presents goodness and evil in stark terms. Few novels in the twenty-first century do that. Nevertheless, the trilogy also presents the way good creatures can be seduced and lured into evil.
(It’s possible that there are a hobbit and elf or two in my story. See if you can pick them out)
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been honoured to be nominated on Goodreads list of Best Break Out Authors Novels. If you have a moment, you can vote for your favourites here.
All the best and thanks for reading,
SR.
PS. If you see a review of my work somewhere and you’d like to tell me about it, please email me here. Thank you. I should also mention that I endeavour to reply to every email, although sometimes it takes me a few days.

Literature – “The Hobbit”

Dear Everyone,


As I mentioned last post , I believe that adults can enjoy children’s literature as much as children. Along those lines, I’ve included references to at least two children’s books in my novel, Gabriel’s Inferno.

One of my favourite authors is J.R.R. Tolkien. He was a friend and colleague of C.S. Lewis and a member of the Inklings. The Inklings used to meet for drinks and discussions at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, which is affectionately called The Bird and Baby by locals. If you’re ever in Oxford, order your pint and go straight to the back room. If you close your eyes while you sample your beer, you’ll feel the ghosts of the Inklings poking you in the shoulder. You might even hear them whispering. (I’ll save what they said to me for another post.)

In Gabriel’s Inferno, there is a scene in which the heroine, Julia Mitchell, refers to another character as Gollum. In Julia’s mind, she is caught in a struggle with Gollum for the Precious. Both references are taken from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. This work, perhaps more so than The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a children’s book.
For my purposes, there are at least two interesting things about the character of Gollum. First, he begins his life as something like a Hobbit. By the time we are introduced to him in the story, he’s a monster. Tolkien has some interesting ideas about the effects of evil on a creature’s character and physical appearance as evidenced by Gollum’s history. Second, Gollum has an inordinate attachment to the Ring, which he calls his Precious. The passages in which Tolkien gives the reader access to Gollum’s internal musings are truly frightening.

In a few pages, Tolkien contributes a fascinating account of single-minded obsession and it’s damaging effects. There are others in literature, such as the the shades that inhabit Dante’s Inferno, but Tolkien’s contribution is probably my favourite and certainly one of the clearest. (Parenthetically, it must be noted that there is a bit of sarcasm attached to my usage of these references in Gabriel’s Inferno. Readers will need to decide for themselves how precious The Precious actually is.)

All the best and thanks for reading,
SR

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About The Author

fluer-de-lisI am honoured to have had all three of my novels appear on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. I was a Semifinalist for Best Author in the 2011 and 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards. {More About Sylvain}

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