It all reminds me so much of the pressure put on biographers and critics of Sylvia Plath by Ted Hughes and his sister Olwen. Works were banned. Academics were threatened. The fur flew. Because he 'owned' her copyright, and of course some would write some quite damning stuff about him.
Bethberry makes a very good point that to throw writs about with such abandon potentially severely restricts scholarship. Yes, some of it may be negative towards Tolkien and where it touches on biographical detail it may also worry the remaining family, but I wonder how much 'truth' we will ever get at.
The Estate are of course free to deny access to quotes. I recently worked with a certain someone who carried out an important Government review and I had to go and seek permission from everyone she wished to quote. That's to be expected and Grotta shouldn't be surprised at this - he was lucky to get that loophole in the first place. But the article seems to hint at more sinister goings on:
Quote:
|
What’s more, he informed me that none of Tolkien’s personal and academic associates would give me even the time of day. Indeed, as I later discovered while in Oxford, most of Tolkien’s close associates had been specifically asked by Christopher Tolkien not to talk to me. Fortunately, enough of his old friends thought that was contrary to their sense of academic freedom and openness, and agreed to be interviewed at length.
|
Why?
To protect artistic integrity? No, because this was biography so there were no characters to be protected. To protect the family? What might they have to hide? Best not to go into that one, maybe. Or to protect the new 'product' i.e. the new authorised biography? I've read my fair share of unauthorised biogs of bands and singers - all of them get published regardless. The Plath biographies have also been published regardless (complete with snippy comments directed towards
her 'estate'). Or is it because the biography is a bit pants? I don't think they're that bothered about a low quality bio - the official one isn't
that great.
It
is an important question - why?
As for trademarking various words...I can only say this...
LOL...there must be tens of thousands of businesses using those words, some have been using them for years. They've even casually named a human sub-species after Hobbits. It's a huge compliment to Tolkien's legacy and enduring popularity that everything from vegan food delivery firms to fossilised ancient humans have been named after his works.
I'm waiting for whoever is buying new Mercedes from all of this
suing (I don't think it's CT, he has other things to worry about) to have a go at The Middle-earth Tavern in Whitby, whereupon they will be told to beat it, and informed that Middle-earth was invented by one Caedmon, Northumbrian poet resident at Whitby Abbey in the 7th century
