Charles Noad comments (was Christopher's Masterpiece)

So, Charles Noad had a comment to add to the discussion following my post 'Christopher's Masterpiece'. Rather than have it appear at the end of ten other messages, I decided it'd be better if it were a bit more prominent as a new post all its own. Here's what Charles has to say:

Charles Noad writes

I am a bit puzzled about the matter of my alleged suggestion that Guy Gavriel Kay was mainly responsible for the composition of Chapter 22 of the published Silmarillion, 'Of the Ruin of Doriath'. I heard the same allegation from someone else the other day. Now, having consulted the original text of my combined review for the Tolkien Plaza of Elizabeth A. Whittingham's The Evolution of Tolkien's Mythology, Dimitra Fimi's Tolkien, Race and Cultural History, and Douglas Charles Kane's Arda Reconstructed, I can only find one passage which seems of relevance:-

"[Kane] notes (Kane, p. 216) that in The Road to Middle-earth Tom Shippey cites ‘Thingol’s death in the dark while he looks at the captured Light’ (of the Silmaril) as an example of Tolkien’s genius for creating compelling images. However, ‘Thingol’s death in the dark recesses of Menegroth was completely an invention of the editors’, hence ‘The fact that as renown[ed] a Tolkien scholar as Shippey would have this kind of mistaken impression is a strong indication of the need for a work like the present one.’"

There are a couple of points here. First, unquestionably the passage about Thingol's death is an invention of the editors, but whether one editor had a greater input than the other is something we simply don't know. More widely, this throws little light on the composition of the chapter as a whole. I think it reasonable to suppose that Kay's nascent creativity in the matter of narrative played a part in the published Silmarillion, but, again, we don't know the details. Unless Christopher Tolkien kept some sort of detailed diary of the process of composing the published Silmarillion, or Kay one day breaks his silence on the matter, I doubt if we'll ever know.

So, in the light of the available evidence, I think we'll have to settle on a Scotch verdict for this.

--Charles Noad, January 27th 2020

Many thanks to Charles for the clarification. I'll have to see if I can put down my own thoughts on G. G. Kay and the 1977 SILMARILLION in a post of my own soon.  --John R.

Celia Sisam on Tolkien

So, among the interesting odds and ends I found while reading through John M. Bowers' new book TOLKIEN'S LOST CHAUCER was the following surprising comment, offered as OUP editor Kenneth Sisam's opinion of JRRT, transmitted to us second hand.

In a footnote Bowers quotes from an email he received from Sisam's daughter (herself a scholar of note) that includes a judgment of Tolkien over the Tolkien/Gordon edition of Sir Gawain to the effect that EVG did all the work: 

"I gathered from my father that that edition 

was almost entirely the work of his co-editor, 

E. V. Gordon, as Tolkien was so dilatory and 

didn't produce his share" (Bowers 54–55). 

I suspect here Celia Sisam is conflating Gawain with Pearl, another project which Tolkien began in collaboration (again with E. V. Gordon) yet failed to finish, turning over all his material to Gordon's widow who drew on it to complete the edition herself. The Clarendon Pearl strongly resembles The Clarendon Chaucer in inception, abandonment, and Tolkien's willingness to turn over all his material to another editor. It differs primarily that in this case a new editor stepped up to finish the work.

That Tolkien and EVG were equal partners in their creation of the Gawain edition is certainly the impression that emerges from  Douglas A. Anderson's "An Industrious Little Devil" (in TOLKIEN THE MEDIEVALIST, ed Jane Chance, 2003), which I take to be the definitive piece on their relationship. It also seems unlikely that if Tolkien were to have performed so badly on SGGK that the Press wd promptly sign him up for another similar project. Still, it comes as a striking example of the anti-Tolkien sentiment that lingered for so long among some of his fellow academic scholars


--JDR
--current audiobook; Aaronovich on conspiracy theories;
--current reading: Lehner on Pyramids, Christopher Tolkien's RETURN OF THE SHADOW (rereading)

Christopher's Masterpiece

So, I've been thinking back over Christopher Tolkien's extraordinary achievements and wondering which was the most exceptional.

A strong case can be made for the 1977 SILMARILLION. In retrospect, now that all the component pieces of that work have seen the light in the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH series we can see just how difficult his task was, and how comprehensively he mastered it. Special mention shd be made of one of the few passages of that work which we know Christopher himself wrote, rather than extracted from some manuscript of his father: the death of Thingol down in the dark beneath Menegroth, looking at the light of the Silmaril. Had Christopher not told us so, I don't think any of us cd have guessed that this deeply evocative and memorable scene was written by CT rather than JRRT himself.

And then of course there's THE HISTORY OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS (HME. VI, VII, VIII, IXa, & XII), the part of his massive manuscript publication project that I suspect is for many people the most deeply interesting, offering as it does a scrupulously detailed behind the scenes look at a great author creating his greatest  work.

A personal favorite of mine is THE SAGA OF KING HEIDREKS THE WISE. This was the first book of Christopher's I ever came across (in the library at Southern State College), the first saga I ever read (and hence my introduction to that whole world of Icelandic myth and legend). It's also a model of clarity and editorial restraint.

And finally there's a volume I cd wish for that we're never likely to see: SELECTED LETTERS of CT. I think he must have been the greatest letter writer I've ever known -- always to the point, occasionally cutting, with a special kind of deftness whereby just the right word seemed to appear just when he needed it.  The only writer I can think to compare him to stylistically wd be P. G. Wodehouse, with the wit but not the whimsey.

So those wd be my choices, but thanks to Christopher's being so prolific and diligent there are plenty more to choose from.*

--John R.
current reading: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW

*THE FALL OF ARTHUR, anyone?

A Day of Mourning

So, today Christopher Tolkien died, full of years.

He was the last of the Inklings, as well as one of the few remaining  combat veterans of World War II.

He will be missed -- all the more so as time passes and the magnitude of his achievements come to be fully appreciated.

I'm glad I got to meet him,

both humble and proud that he entrusted me with editing one of his father's works,

 and always delighted when a letter from France would arrive at certain intervals, addressed in the most beautifully legible handwriting I've ever seen.


The world is a sadder place now that there will be no more of these.

Anatomy of Authors

So, thanks to friend Stan for the loan of a new book of cartoons, just out from Kickstarter:
ANATOMY OF AUTHORS by Dave Kellett, which gently lampoons a wide array of authors (everyone from Austen to Stan Lee). And being a Tolkienist, naturally the first thing I do when picking up a book like this is to look to see if Tolkien's in it. And he is, right on the front cover in fact, which he shares with Shakespeare, Poe and his raven, Angelou, Austen, and Stan Lee. The back cover goes this one better and reproduces the whole Tolkien entry as well as images of Agatha Christie, Douglas Adams, Sun Tzu, and Phillis Wheatley.

I'm happy to say I know who all the fifty-two authors* included, though I'll admit there were some I didn't recognize from the illustration (like Adams -- the towel and cup of tea shd have been dead giveaways). And I confess there are some of these who I've never actually read.
Still, forty-two out of fifty-two's not bad.

If you're a purist, be warned that Kellett's goal is to amuse and he feels no compunction about making stuff up. The people he presents are based on legend, not real life, though there are factual underpinnings when he finds these funny enough. Nor is he too proud to go for low-hanging fruit: his Tolkien entry includes a joke about Tolkien's grocery list.

Interestingly, his illustrations are more true-to-life than his text. Tolkien for example holds a book (BEOWULF) in one hand and a bar glass filled with some frothy foamy drink (labelled THE EAGLE & THE CHILD) hoisted in the other. He's also smoking a pipe at the same time: clearly a multitasker.

As I said, this was a Kickstarted project. I don't know if it's available to those of us who missed the subscriber deadline, but you can find more information here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smallfish/anatomy-of-authors

And, on the left, you can see the ANATOMY OF AUTHORS cover (you might have to scroll down a little).

Plus if you poke around a bit on his website you'll find Kellett also offers a few posters and a pin for Gandalf Airlines, whose motto is Fly You Fools.

--John R.

*Kellett's definition of author is a generous one, including not just Tolkien and Lewis (C.S.) but Nietzsche, Seuss, Rod Serling, and two Chekovs

current weather: cold. snowing (the first big storm of the season). A good time to stay in with the cats.
current music: Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits (dug out because of the recent news of the ERA, no doubt)
current reading: another book on ancient Egypt, Kidnapping chapter of a Lindbergh biography
current audiobook: VOODOO HISTORIES by Aaronovich (a history of conspiracy theories)

Tolkien biopic extras

So, I saw the Tolkien biopic (simply named TOLKIEN) at a special showing at last summer's Kalamazoo. At the time I thought it a beautiful and respectful film but found the pacing much too slow. Every scene seemed to be about twice the length it felt like it shd have been.

Accordingly, I knew I'd want a copy to re-see the movie at some later time and to have on hand for reference but was in no hurry to pick one up. Recently it occurred to me that there might be special features on the dvd that might be worth checking out --a 'making of' or 'behind the scenes' or 'The Real J. R. R. Tolkien' or the like.

I've now viewed the disk, and while there are some special features, they're sparse.

First, there's the audio commentary by the director, for those who like such things

There's also a gallery: pictures of the director directing

The sneak peaks show trailers for  a strange array of movies I won't be seeing

By far the most worthwhile of all these extras are the deleted scenes (seven in all) and a First Look mini-documentary.

The  mini--documentary mostly shows the lead actor and lead actress talking about the movie, with a few comments by the director thrown in. Basically these represent the idea behind the movie, what they focused on and why.

As for the deleted scenes, it's pretty clear why each was in the film and why each was taken out. Several include a single really good line (like Tolkien's calling Welsh  'the most beautiful language in the world' or Rob Gilson complaining that he's trying to keep up his art in the trenches but 'I keep running out of brown').  But the time spent on build-up wd have slowed the movie even more.

But the best thing about the movie, by far, remains its treatment of trees. It's a rare talent, but the director has managed to capture and convey Tolkien's love of trees. He even comments on this briefly in his commentary on one scene, and it shows up well in the deleted scene with Fr. Francis in a garden.


So, not essential, but not a waste of time either.

--John R.

Did Tolkien's Piety Affect His Scholarship?

So, in the course of his description of some of the Notes Tolkien made while working on the never-finished anthology now known as The Clarendon Chaucer, John M. Bowers records a remarkable remark regarding the following lines from the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales relating to the Monk (whose tale was one of the three Canterbury Tales included in the Gordon-Tolkien edition):

. . . a monk, whan he is recchelees,

Is likned til a fissh that is waterlees,

That is to seyn, a monk out of his cloystre

But thilk text heeld he nat worth an oystre.

And I seyde his opinioun was good.

Bowers notes that Tolkien found fault with these lines, and ascribes it to Tolkien's faith rather than his scholarship:

As a devout Catholic, Tolkien responded to the portrait's worst 

anti-monasticism by rejecting a particularly unflattering passage 

as spurious: 'we can scarcely accept [lines 180-184], as they

stand in our text, as Chaucer unadulterated.' Editors sometimes

rationalize censoring their texts by claiming anything they

dislike could not have been by their author. Skeat raised 

no doubt about the authenticity of the lines that Tolkien

questioned, nor does the current Riverside Chaucer.

(Bowers 178, emphasis mine)

Certainly Tolkien very much subscribed to the old or 'heroic' school of medieval manuscript editing, wherein modern-day scholars had great confidence that they understood Old and Middle English texts better than did the scribes who were actual speakers of those languages. And Tolkien's subsequent work on Chaucer ('Chaucer as Philologist: The Reeve's Tale') is posited on the idea that the manuscripts of Chaucer's works represent corrupt texts in need of editorial correction. What is remarkable is that Bowers ascribes Tolkien's dissatisfaction with the lines in question directly to their Xian content. So we have Tolkien's statement, without explanation, linked with Bowers' statement, again without explanation.

Reading Bowers' discussion of Tolkien's stance on editing makes me want to dig out my old essay on Tolkien as an editor of medieval texts, given at Kalamazoo a few years back but set aside when still only about two-thirds written down when other projects crowded in and interfered with its completion. Worlds enough and time.


--John R.

Things I'd Do Differently (Dorothy Everett)

So, a few years back when I was writing my essay about Tolkien's lifelong support for women's higher education, I made no mention of Dorothy Everett, who certainly wd have been included if I'd known of her connection to Tolkien at the time.

Now, reading Bowers' book (TOLKIEN'S LOST CHAUCER), I learn that Everett was among the scholars Tolkien recommended in 1951 as a possible partner to take over and complete the stalled (since 1928) Clarendon Chaucer project.* That Tolkien was willing to turn over the project to Everett is one more piece of evidence that he took women scholars seriously, and I'm sorry I didn't include it in my piece.

So it goes.


--John R.

*looking back now I find this information was available at the time in Wayne and Christina's COMPANION & GUIDE: I simply overlooked it.

Tolkien's Birthday

So, today is J. R. R. Tolkien's hundred and twenty-eighth birthday.

A good time to dig out and reread a favorite from among his many works.  For me, this year it's THE DRAGON'S VISIT, a little gem that exists in two versions --both good, but I much prefer the earlier variant, the one which ends

     The moon shone through his green wings
        the night air beating,
     And he flew back over the dappled sea
        to a green dragon's meeting.

--John R.
--current reading THE PENGUIN HISTORICAL ATLAS OF ANCIENT EGYPT by Bill Manley (1996)

H. G. Wells' last books

So, just about the time I moved out here, over twenty years ago now, I read a compilation of two little books by H. G. Wells that between them represented his final thoughts on the fate of humanity. Having recently come across the photocopy of this I made at the time, I thought it'd make for an interesting re-reading.

Wells was a meliorist, which is to say that he believed that by working together it was possible, little by little, to make the world a better place (say, by medical research leading to vaccines or improvements in agriculture; things that improved quality of life). It was slow and hard but real progress was possible.

Writing in the last months of World War II, at a time when he was nearing eighty, suffering from cancer, and living in bomb-torn London, he decided he'd been wrong. In particular he laid a good portion of the blame on 'the necessity common minds are under to believe they have natural inferiors, of whom they are entitled to take advantage' (.11).

His response to this was twofold: one lighthearted whimsical little work and one a pessimistic prediction; the juxtaposition of their dating from about the same time makes them interesting.



THE HAPPY TURNING

In the first of these two little books he celebrates escapism through dreams: 'this delightful land of my lifelong suppressions, in which my desires and unsatisfied fancies, hopes, memories and imagination have accumulated inexhaustible treasure' (.22). Wells embraces not what Tolkien wd call the eucatastrophe of a Happy Ending but what he dubs the Happy Turning of a compensatory dream.

Wide ranged and rambling as this brief little book is, the best parts were Wells' depiction of old age as a time of falling into habits* and the two chapters in which Wells dreams of conversations with Jesus --part five: 'Jesus of Nazareth discusses his Failure' and part seven: 'Miracles, Devils and the Gadarene Swine' (particularly his take on the miracle of the loaves and fishes). The tone of these exchanges reminds me more of Blake (THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN & HELL)  than Lewis (THE GREAT DIVORCE, written at about this time).

The strangest part, by far, is his chapter devoted to cursing sycamore trees. That the book is rambling, not to say weird, is one of the things that marks it as one of those books a writer writes purely for personal satisfaction.


MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER

Much more focused, and rather less interesting, is its companion piece, in which Wells announces that humanity, having had its chance, is now headed to extinction. A new species will replace us, which may be descended from homo sapiens or might be wholly unrelated. There's nothing we can do, Wells believes, to avoid this fate. He counsels what at first looks like a form of existentialism but is more probably stoicism: that we each meet the end with what dignity we can muster.


The two approaches, which the book's editor finds diametrically opposed, are in fact easy to reconcile if we take them in reverse order and assume that the withdrawal into dreams is one example of an individual's facing extinction (of individual and species) on his own terms.

So there it is: a great reformer turns in the end, at the end of his tether, to the cold comfort of stoicism and the warm comfort of dreams, and between them still has the wherewithall to engage in a little whimsey. It's as if Tolkien and Lovecraft collaborated on a project: the result wd no doubt be interesting but unsatisfactory.

--John R.
--current reading: Wells, THE MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER (#II.3549; a rereading; just finished)

*part 1: 'How I came to the Happy Turning' (.21-22). Wells' description of of his life sinking down into a repertoire of a routine of several favorite outings may strike a cord with those experiencing encroaching age or persistent ill health (I particularly liked the bit about baiting one walk with a visit to a bookstore). All in all, I thought it was the best thing in this little book, the one sign that the author of 'The Truth about Pyecroft' and similar stories had not altogether lost his touch:

In my daytime efforts to keep myself fit and active,

I oblige myself to walk a mile or so on all days that

are not impossibly harsh. I walk to the right to the Zoo,

or I walk across to Queen Mary's Rose Garden 

or down by several routes to my Savile Club, or

I bait my walk with Smith's bookshop at Baker Street.

I have to sit down a bit every now and then, and that

limits my range. I've played these ambulatory variations

now for two years and a half, for I am too busy to go

out of town, out of reach of my books . . .

I dream I am at my front door starting out for the 

accustomed round. I go out and suddenly realise

there is a possible turning I have overlooked!

And in a trice I am walking more briskly than

I have ever walked before, up hill and down dale,

in scenes of happiness such as I have

never hoped to see again . . .