[Bêthberry]

Greetings Estelyn Telcontar and Telcher,

I have a rather more muddled and confused response to Carpenter's biography. Perhaps in discussing it with you, I can come to a more satisfied acceptance of it.

Let me begin with what first made me uncomfortable with it: the opening reamble of "A Visit." It follows so remarkably the very pattern of Elizabeth Gaskell's opening to her monumental biography of Charlotte Bronte. The biographer describes her/ his steps in tracing the route to the author's home. I thought immediately that Carpenter was signalling the creative aspects of biography-writing, highlighting the fact that this is, after all, not "documentary" or "real facts" but a journey into an author's life. That journey is planned, selected and edited as all journeys are. Is Carpenter trying to say that in his book we will, symbolically, meet Tolkien as he did in that journey? Not to me when his organization follows a traditional pattern in biography.

My second quibble with Carpenter has to do with his disclaimer about 'not attempting any critical judgments' because Tolkien himself thought that biography was a vain approach to the literature. I think Tolkien's statement reflects a frustration with so many critical estimations which reduce the literature to thinly veiled autobiography. In other words, Tolkien wasn't rejecting critical evaluation of his work, just a particularly reductive form of criticism. I don't think Carpenter was prepared to write a truly intellectual life of Tolkien or to delve seriously into the creative matrix of Tolkien's life. Carpenter took a lighter route.

When he justifies this by claiming that he is merely writing "the first published biography", he forgets that some of those very first published biographies of other writers, in the past, have been and remain the studies which come closest to achieving the fullest understanding of the writer in question. Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte provides a far more substantial view of Charlotte the writer than Winnifred Gerin's weak gruel.

These points 'predetermined' my reading of the biography. I then found myself increasingly frustrated with how Carpenter handled the discussion of Tolkien's marriage, his treatment of Edith, his attitude towards her faith. I wanted more knowledge of Tolkien's brother and their relationship later in life. I wanted more substantial information on how Tolkien negotiated the internectine wars of academic life. I wanted more information on his relationship with all his children.

I guess what I am saying is that I think Carpenter's biography is too thin and too limited by his choices of selection for it to be definitive or even significant in terms of helping me understand this man who wrote such an incredible Legendarium. Sorry if I have posted too long a post.

Bethberry