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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
The purpose of this thread is to discuss how this conceit works in various parts of LotR.
One example might be the variations in style in LotR. Whereas the style of language used in FotR is often "business-like" Hobbitish talk, in RotK the dialogue is quite "high flown". Could this be due to Tolkien having translated from Sam's Red Book of Westmarch for the Shire while having translated from, say, Findegil's words from Minas Tirith for the Battle of the Pelennor fields?
Are there other examples you've run across that could be discussed?
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If the conceit in question here is the translation of two "historical" recordings into an English volume, I feel that the usage of a third-person narrative cancels out the effect.
Let us look at the redbook - compiled by Frodo and Sam. Would the both of them had written their journals in third-person narrative? I find it quite odd. I have read memoirs and real-life historical texts written by personnels who participated in the events that occured. They were all written either in first-person narrative or described in terms of chronological events and presented with a summary of the actions/deeds of contemporaries who played a part in them also.
I am not that familar with the idea of the second historic source - the manuscript from Gondor. But if it was written by a military scribe; a historian. It would have been written in a concised form without much spoken dialogue among key characters. I have in mind the works of old Greco-Roman historians like Appian, Curtius and Plutarch in mind. They simply presented their work in an informative (need to know basis), telling, chronological order with emphasis on the main events and omitting trivial happens that were either unimportant or lost with time.
If the conceit was a direct translation then LoTR should have read like contemporary literature that are real translations of old works - informative, orderly, with little sensationalism and impersonalization.