[Eurytus]

OK, this time its going to have to be my last post on the subject or I am going to just keep on going forever (well unless there is something I feel I just have to comment on of course).

As regards using an archaic style like the Iliad being wrong. I truly believe this to be true, in fact I also believe it to be extremely pretentious. Put it this way, the Iliad is written in that form because that is how they chose to write at the time it was written. To purposely copy that form of writing now is just false.

Or to put it another way. If Robert Jordan’s next fantasy book came out and he started using “Lo’s” everywhere and deliberately archaic language, what would people think? Somehow I doubt he would get praise. It would come across as an affectation and rightly so.

It is not necessary to use the language of the old epics to write an epic. War and Peace is an epic but its writing language is pretty ageless. To imitate antiquity for the sake of making your story appear more epic seems wrong to me.

As to the changes in language jarring. Again I truly believe this. The biggest example is Aragorn of course. His speech patterns change totally from FOTR to ROTK. In ROTK he is practically Fingolfin, whereas in FOTR he retains the DNA of a hobbit with wooden shoes called Trotter. Either he was purposely speaking ‘down’ to the hobbits in the first book or the change is not realistic. Either way its bad.

And in fact, it is the fact that LOTR is supposed to be written from the point of view of the hobbits and from he recollections of their friends that makes the change all the more jarring. I take the point about Frodo and Sam’s story retaining the same style. That is true. But take the chapters where Pippin or Merry are the hobbit representatives in the hosts of Gondor and Rohan. Things are described in terminology that a hobbit simply would not use. Take the quote from the post Mount Doom celebrations where the host’s joy is described as being “like swords”. Would a hobbit talk in such a manner? There is not prior or post indication that he would. Or the description of Theoden charging the leader of the Southrons. Again language is used that just doesn’t fit with the view of a hobbit relating this story.

For as long as I read the books I will believe that Tolkien made a mistake here. It was started as a sequel to the hobbit but by the latter stages he wanted to make a publishable Silmarillion. I think his desire for this overcame his logic. He should have gone back and fixed the earlier part of the book if he wanted to have ROTK written in the way that it was. And he should certainly have removed the suggestion that LOTR was the memoirs of hobbits.