[Bêthberry]

I have been following this discussion from afar but perhaps it is now time for me to make some observations.

I have, to start, some sympathy with the general position of Eurytus, although I would not make all the claims he does, nor couch my position as he does his.

There is, I feel, a great reluctance here at the Downs to 'deconstruct' Tolkien, to consider where the fault lines lie in the geopgraphy he molded, and to consider why the tectonic plates grate against each other, or where.

For me, they do, and this is one of the fascinating points about Tolkien. Nor do I share in the elf-like nostalgia for days of eld. I do share in the profound regret and horror over the brutal mechnanization of life and for the stubborn insistence that forms of power, domination, and bullying denigrate the human spirit and warp human potential. (For me, the error lies within human species and not merely in the modern age.) And I think that, brooding over his work is a contemplation of change, mutability and death which marks the best of modern literature, even as he is, quixotically, a conservative author who does not share some of the traits of other modern authors.

What amazes me about Tolkien is the breadth of his imagination, his respect for the importance of fairie, and his remarkable efforts throughout his life to bring this seething, teeming mass of idea and material under some kind of coherent artistic vision.

It is this constant revision and effort to bring everything together which marks Tolkien as a modern writer, bequeathing us with so many forms of stories and revisions.

The multiplicity of the forms is what, I would suggest, compels us as readers. We want to find that grand unifying theory which Tolkien himself strove for. We want to say definitively if balrogs have wings or not even if Tolkien himself was not consistent. We want to know definitely who Tom is, even if Tolkien himself gave us the dodge that he is an enigma. Instead of viewing Tolkien's ideas as a progression from the comedic children's tale of The Hobbit to the dark vision of LOTR, with The Silmarillion wavering in the background as some kind of palimpsest (a parchment from which writing has been erased or partially erased to make room for another text), we want to continue his efforts to create an ultimate form.

This is our joy as readers of Tolkien, I think.

It is also our bane, for if the author who gave life and meaning to the story failed, how can we hope to rewrite him correctly?

How does this relate to questions of his style?

Tolkien's materials were many, various, widespread and contradictory. His mind was not of an authoritarian, dogmatic bent, rigidly restricting his ideas to the rule of the One Ring. Instead, he sought to bring his ideas and materials together into symbiosis and synthesis.

For example, the influence of Beowulf and the Norse and Germanic mythologies and Celtic legend and philology is clear and irrefutable, but like the Old English poem itself, the fault lines run up against each other. It is (or was, in the past) a major point of critical discussion how Beowulf combines the old warrior ethos with Christian ethic, so it is no wonder that precisely pinpointing with the accuracy of Cruise missiles (hah!) the same feature in LOTR is going to be one of our favourite endeavours--or not, depending upon whether this feature of faith is crucial in your reading of Tolkien. Both texts hold the features in potential.

My point, however, is to argue that Tolkien's vision is amorphous and syncretic. And it does not always work flawlessly. But such works rarely do. And if they did, they would likely be the less for it.

Tolkien was able, through the strength of his imagination, to envision hobbits who were creatures of the past who could nonetheless speak with a contemporary dialect. What he could not do was imagine a noble, heroic dialect for his own age. This is why Aragorn's lines ring so ludicrously archaic, and Legolas' too and sometimes Gandalf.

(For reference, look at Legolas' description of Edoras in TTT, chap vi, The King of the Golden Hall, and Gandalf's response, especially the archaic "are come".)

Inversion of grammar is a part of the structure of the English language. As is oversubordination. (There are even formal names for these elements of style in classical rhetoric, which Tolkien knew.) However, the constant reliance upon these structures alone represents a point where Tolkien's desire to represent a noble spirit fails. Perhaps this was because, for him, history is 'a long defeat' and because he could see nothing noble or heroic in his own age. I cannot say or argue here.

I can only say that the tremendous range of Tolkien's reach covered many styles, features, archetypes of characters, and psychologies of characters. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. That is one reason why he revised and revised and revised so fervently throughout his life.

I would think we could, with truth, admit that the plates shift. It does not mean that the centre does not hold.

[ November 03, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]