To preface, I don't really like an ecocritical reading of this text, but this is in response to a post by Parliament Books.
[If I had to read allegory into this, it wouldn't be environmental, and the Ents would be isolationists. It would be more about them trying to sit passive in what has become a World War: realizing they can't stay isolated, or that it's morally wrong, or that they would normally stay isolated but not when it's actually come to their turf (however you want to read it. Some say Saruman's power play here was the Ents' Pearl Harbor, etc)].
Anyway back to ecocriticism.
Your question: is the audience supposed to think 1) rampant cutting of trees and destruction of nature is a bad thing or 2) "trees" stand for "books" and banning / burning them is the bad thing?
I think you've only hit the smaller part of reading the text this way.
You are saying the "bad guys are bad because ... wanton destruction of land ... is too cruel and too wasteful."
Whereas if I had to do an ecocritical reading, then Saruman and his troops represent the exploitation of resources in order to gain and abuse power. The 'bad thing' is thus irresponsible corporations / cultures destroying the natural world for material / power gain (I mean sure, just the destruction in itself is bad, but there are bigger things at play).
Akin to oil spills, deforestation, Corporate Empires, etc Sauron and Saruman both are ripping apart the world. And eventually the only choice left to the sentient races is to band together at virtually the last possible moment to prevent the inevitable destruction of themselves (and the environment, or at least an environment that can readily sustain our lives. Although they are giving up Lothlorien and a lot of other awesome places by doing this.)
Everyone didn't band together until all was about to be lost, which is pretty much what environmentalists think it will take for our various global cultures and communities to band together and actually do something to halt the destruction happening on our current planet.
As there is great care and explanation about the Ents as a race of sentient beings, I don't take them to represent forests and trees (or books) the way some choose to think about them. It's less "Treebird: omg Saruman stop wasting trees" and more "Treebird: omg those are my sleeping, centuries old, brothers ... you asshole."
I can, however, see why LoTR would be a decent work to try and read / use as an ecocritical text. And I think Tolkien does put a lot in there for you to ponder. Goldberry (who, with Bombadil, is basically a nature spirit) says "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves" and I think Tolkien leans this way.
You've got the Ents as kind of a wilderness preservation group (again 'sort of', I mean all of the trees in that region are at least partially *sentient* or have the ability to become so).
Ents believe that reverence for the environment includes refraining from its use for commercial purposes. The hobbits and the Entwives are kind of agriculture-for-food based. Elves are for using plants and nature for aesthetic beauty. Etc.
And I've lost my train of thought. Too much drinking tonight. I'll edit this and try again tomorrow. Maybe in the end I do agree somewhat, and my short answer is "take the argument literally, not as a metaphor where trees stand for books". Wow a lot shorter that way, isn't it.
PS - It still kills me that you are reading this chapter by chapter, and many days apart - but I do like the thoughts-by-chapter blogging approach.
PPS - Again I don't really like reading allegory into Tolkien. He always said he disliked allegory, and to take a relevant quote of his: "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical" and in relation to comparing it to world wars: "It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted."
ellievsbear
amandla
gamechangershow
stormborns
theartofmadeline
titsay
