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”It seemed to him wholly unsatisfactory, and yet very lovely �� the only really beautiful picture in the world.��

Leaf by Niggle is a short, melancholy allegory. Both tone and subject are utterly unlike Tolkien’s more familiar, high fantasy works. It’s the story of a little man, Niggle, whose vision far exceeded his limited talent. His passion to work on his personal masterpiece was frustratingly, continually interrupted by his obligations. And when his time to make that unpleasant journey we all eventually have to make came, he was utterly unprepared for it, and his project was left incomplete. What follows is a bureaucratic purgatory, a time of refreshing redemption, and an appreciation of both the unrealized vision and the small but fine work left behind.

I originally discovered this story in my first burst of seeking out all things Tolkien after reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the late ��70s. It was collected in The Tolkien Reader, a collection of Tolkien’s odds and ends �� poems, short stories, essays, and nonsense songs. Leaf by Niggle impressed me far and above anything else in that collection, at least in part because it was so unlike his other work. It is poignant and melancholy, almost haunting, and shows more clearly than his other work his strong, Catholic influence.