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Literature / Leaf by Niggle

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"Leaf by Niggle" is a short story by J. R. R. Tolkien. The artist main character is in some ways an allegory of Tolkien himself, and of any form of artistry.


"Leaf by Niggle" provides example of:

  • Allegory: Although Tolkien famously disliked allegories, this story clearly represents his anxieties and frustrations over trying to balance his life-long project of creating his Legendarium with his "real" job as an Oxford professor.
  • Celestial Bureaucracy: Niggle is a bit casual in preparing for his demise, so he is assigned to a sort of purgatory. After he learns to be better organized, the entities in charge send him on further.
  • Description Porn: He carefully describes how Niggle drew leaves better than trees, and wants to do an entire trees all of his leaves.
  • Extremely Lengthy Creation: In-Universe. Niggle starts to paint a forest, and after many long years, dies. All that remains of his magnum opus is a painting of a leaf.
  • Meaningful Name: Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey explains how the word "niggle" means to "work or spend time unnecessarily on petty details; to be over-elaborate in minor points", which reflects Tolkien's fear that writing his Legendarium may have been a waste of time.
  • One-Book Author: Niggle only ever makes the one painting.
  • The Perfectionist: Niggle spends all his effort trying to get every detail of his painting absolutely perfect, down to each individual leaf on the tree.
  • Title Drop: After most of Niggle's magnum opus is destroyed, a surviving bit is framed and displayed in a local museum, with the title "Leaf, by Niggle". It is eventually lost.

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