[Eurytus]

I think that this topic can truly be termed the Beast that would not Die!


OK, I do not have my copy of LOTR with me at the moment so I will have to write this response from memory and it is a little while since I read the books so here goes….

If my memory serves the handover of the Red Book of Westmarch goes something like this.

Bilbo initiates it and hands it over to Frodo when the latter returns to Rivendell after the events of the War of the Ring.
Now up to that point, Bilbo would have written the Hobbit for definite (in a somewhat childish style).
At that point the only further bits Bilbo could have written were the events leading up to the Ford of Bruinen. And even that only had Frodo filled him in on ALL the details prior to setting out with the Fellowship after the council of Elrond. But given the detail of description present it is far more likely that someone who had been there had written it, ie Frodo after he returned to BagEnd.

Frodo later hands over the Red Book of Westmarch to Sam before he departs for the Grey Havens. At that point Sam states, “Oh, you’ve finished it” to which Frodo replies that the last chapters are for Sam to complete. That dialogue and the time which Frodo has had available to him at BagEnd would seem to indicate that Frodo has completed it up until the scouring of the Shire and that Sam would complete the re-ordering of the Shire and the story of the last trip to the Grey Havens.

All the evidence points to the most likely scenario being that Frodo is the one who has written 95% at least of what we know as LOTR. It makes no sense at all for Sam to have written the LOTR and had Bilbo written the first book of FOTR then his Elvish expertise obviously didn’t change things much.
But in all likelihood you have the same author being responsible for the insight into the Fox’s state of mind and the description of Theoden. It just does not stack up. I am sorry but given that Tolkien wanted the book to be as if written by the Hobbits, the change of styles (which is extreme, there’s no two ways about it) does not work.
Unfortunately the book does clearly illustrate that Tolkien started off with a sequel to the Hobbit and changed mid-way through to a sequel to the Silmarillion. The fault is that he did not then go back and fix this flaw. He could have changed the tone of the first book or could have removed the theory that the Hobbits wrote the book. What he actually did was leave in a very visible flaw.

p.s. I am going to have to disagree with you on “Great was the clash of their meeting” being good English. Indeed I think that most people would find it to be pretentious has it been in any book other than LOTR. Had it been written by Terry Goodkind for example. It is an example of someone deliberately aiming for an old style of writing to attempt to give an increased antiquity and epic scope to a story.
If the writing is good enough then it is not needed. Did William Shakespeare write Anthony and Cleopatra is a style aping the writings of Cicero?
No, he did not, he wrote it in the style of his day.
Did it make the play any less great?
No, not in my view.