Tree by Tolkien Read Free Page B

little man, working away quietly, minding his own business, trying to capture his vision of fairy land, the 'world of meaning', and Parish, the man-in-the-street, interested only in 'practical' things and always obstructing the artist.
    Parish interrupts Niggle as he is trying to finish the picture, and asks him to go and get a doctor for his sick wife. Niggle goes, gets caught in a storm, and catches a cold that confines him to his bed for weeks, destroying his chance of finishing the picture before he sets out on his journey. While he is in bed, a strange Kafka-esque official calls on him and tells him that his neighbour's house is not satisfactory—the implication being that it is Niggle's duty to take care of his neighbour. Niggle's picture would be just the right size to mend a hole in Parish's roof. When Niggle protests 'It's my Picture', the Inspector replies 'I dare say it is. But houses come first. That is the law'. The bewildered artist is ordered to start on his journey, and he sets out quite unprepared. The journey is pure Kafka; he is pushed on to a train, gets out at a station where the porter yells 'Niggle', collapses, and is taken to a workhouse infirmary. This turns out to be a kind of prison where he is made to do boring manual tasks (it sounds like a Soviet labour camp) and spends hours locked in his room in the dark. Then some mysterious 'judges' talk about him so he can overhear them. 'His heart was in the right place.' 'Yes, but it did not function properly. And his head was not screwed on tight enough: he hardly ever thought at all ... He never got ready for his journey. He was moderately well off, and yet he arrived here almost destitute ... .' Niggle, it seems, is at fault; but the judges finally agree that he is a good sort and deserves a second chance. 'He took a great deal of pain with leaves.' So Niggle is let out, and sent on another train journey. This time he finds himself in a kind of Happy Land where his tree is an actuality, and behind it is the visionary country of his picture. His old neighbour Parish—who has also been confined in the workhouse for negligence—joins him, and they now work together to build a cottage with a garden. When this is finished—by this time Niggle has become the practical man and Parish something of a dreamer and slacker—Niggle finally goes off towards his goal in the mountains, leaving Parish to live in the cottage with his wife.
    Back in Niggle's old house, only a corner of his canvas remains, a single leaf, and this is put into the museum (hence the title of the story). The place that has been created by Niggle and Parish in cooperation becomes known as 'Niggle's Parish'.
    It is an odd little story, most disappointing to children. The 'journey' is quite plainly death—in fact, Tolkien makes something say so at the end of the story, where a councilor remarks that Niggle was worthless to society, and ought to have been sent on his journey much earlier, and consigned to the great Rubbish Heap. Like Yeats, Tolkien is continuing his argument with the socially conscious writers of the thirties. But what precisely is he saying? Niggle is an artist and something of a visionary, but all in a rather bumbling, incompetent manner. This incompetence seems to be the root of his trouble. If he were more ruthless, he would tell Parish to go to hell, and finish his picture. But this, Tolkien implies, is the wrong solution. The Niggle-Parish conflict is not really necessary; they can collaborate fruitfully, and when they do, it becomes clear that Niggle is Parish's superior.
    The final judgement, then, is unexpectedly complex. In the conflict between the artist and society, Tolkien comes down on the artist's side—as is to be expected—but he also blames the artist, implying that if he were less vague and incompetent, he could become something more like a leader of society—without, however, compromising his own basic vision. He does not have to become a servant of the