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Originally Posted by Encaitare
Oh well, let's not be mean to CRT, he has after all brought us the Sil and HoME and so many wonderful things.  |
I quite agree. I sometimes wonder what CT did do deserve some of the criticism he gets. After all he must have put so much time in to editing HoME which perhaps he would have preferred to spend on projects of his own.
Maybe he isn't the best editor in the world ( I don't feel qualified to judge) but I am sure what ever his imperfections, we would have lost a lot of insight if he had refused the task. Personally, I quite like his style and I really think he is merely stating simple fact rather than self aggrandizing when he says "my father". It would seem slightly ludicrous to me for him to refer to him as "Tolkien" (and confusing since he is Tolkien himself) or by his initials. I prefer the works where CT is an overt narrator rather than the seemingly seemless Sil.......
I get the impression that some people think he was merely cashing in but I am sure that the revenue from HoME is miniscule compared to the main works especially related to the herculean nature of the task. If anything, I think CT seems quite restrained if you remember that
actually he was rather important in the development of Middle Earth . In a way he was editing his father from day 1 - keeping him on track with things such as the colour of dwarf hoods - he was sent early drafts of the rings, he attended meetings of the inklings. He didn't just find a box of papers in the attic which set the mental cash registers ringing.
I wonder sometimes if there is an element of jealousy in some people's (meaning generally, this isn't intended as a personal attack on Arothir - I would like to make that clear ... this topic has just raised something I have noted in other places
) seeming dislike of CT.... some people get a bit possessive about Middle Earth - and as someone pointed out on another thread some people like to pretend to themselves it is "real" history - may be CT and HoME provide too much reminder that it is a "created" mythology and one designed to be plausible....
But on this point, I agree totally with Arothir; HoME is hard. However I guess after UT it had to be all or nothing - once the relatively coherent stuff had been issued, either there would be a lot of complication or CT (or whoever) would have had to make very swinging editorial judgements "on the way to go". SinceCT admits that he may well have made a wrong call on the lineage of Gil Galad in the Silmarillion, he may have been reluctant to go down that road. The alternative is that the archive might have remained largely private, available to accredited scholars only- and while I struggle with a lot of HoME I am so grateful that it is available to me; so it would take a lot of more substantial criticism of CT to outweigh my appreciation of his efforts.