[Bêthberry]

Here is another example of cross posting. I was in the process of (finally) replying to Squatter, Aiwendil, Saucepan Man and others when Squatter took up his cudgel, er, pen, again.

Let me then try to salvage something here by combining replies.

Like Squatter, I would hesitate to count simple popularity as an indicator of quality, particularly when so many different factors influence book marketing and buying these days. For instance, when well-regarded authors claim to wish to produce a novel which can be read to completion during a transatlantic flight, there are many other factors involved in book buying. (I wonder if soon airlines will be adding garbage bins for 'finished' paperbacks, as the subway has in my town for newspapers.) Tolkien is in a far different league I would think.

I would also say that more is going on in this discussion than the mere statement of personal preferences or opinion. We are, I think, attempting to explain various ways of reading a book, of accounting for its effect upon us. If such a discussion is not worthwhile, if it would concern simply the listing of 'unacceptable' passages, then we defeat the purpose of a discussion board such as Barrow Downs.

We are not attempting to prosyletize our own beliefs in the fervent hope of gaining converts. If I may speak here for Squatter (with whom I have, on and off, carried on this discussion somewhat haphazardly over the past year), we are engaged in debate, where the delight in framing our discourse counts as much as what it is we are discoursing about. I may be absolutely sure I am right, and I am sure Squatter is absolutely sure he is right, but every so often we delight in trying to see if we can box each other into a corner, so to speak, such that either one of us must concede a point due to the way we have framed our arguement. This is, of course, much what Tolkien himself spent his life doing.

However, to return to the question of Tolkien's style in LOTR. (I will not be quite so pedantic as Squatter in foregoing the acronym for the formally italicised name.)

In his two most recent posts, Squatter has set up two criteria for evidence. First, in his post of November 6/03, 11:12 he set up the requirement that someone must find a passage of purple prose which makes him cringe. This, of course, reduces the discussion to person perference and I think he has recognized the error of that approach, for today he has reframed his requirement for evidence:

[discounting time] ...which leaves us with Tolkien reading the whole work through and being content with the tone that he had set. We can believe one of two things: either an Oxford professor of English couldn't spot bad prose when he read it or we are missing his point. Of course, there is a third option: perhaps the author's taste was unusual and will thereore meet with strong criticism or defence depending on the personal opinions of those discussing him.

Squatter, as he loves to do, sets up Oxford professors as infallible authorities here. I suppose, if we are to take this point as insurmountable, we must regard Tolkien's dangling clause structure in this sentence as his rejection of traditional English grammar. (There is much in our traditional grammar that, based on Latin as it was, represented simply an aping of taste for a language which was more highly regarded than English, such as the old injunction not to split infinitives, or Dr. Johnson's insertion of the letter 'b' in debt merely in order to indicate the word's Latin debt.)

Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves.

This sentence comes from p. 537 in my HaperCollins paperback edition, the chapter "The Road to Isengard" in TTT. It is typical of many of the sentences which Tolkien gives to Gandalf and Theodon and Eomer in this chapter in that it inverts the normal sentence order.

It seems our Oxford Professor of English has written, and accepted as correct, a sentence which, according to structural linguistics, would appear liable to misreading. Normally, such a subordinate clause is understood to refer to the subject of the main clause. Yet here, it is not the 'they' [referring to Gandalf and the company riding to the Ford] which are 'blown upon the wind' but 'the howling of wolves'. This sentence is an example of no less an error than a misplaced modifier. If the sentence had read:

They heard the howling of wolves borne upon the wind

there would be no problem for the clause then clearly follows the word it modifies. I would suggest that here Tolkien's preference for using a higher rate of inverted sentence construction led him to prefer the technically incorrect sentence structure. But since Tolkien was an Oxford professor of English apparently we must allow him this confusion of reference.

Now to Squatter's second point, that we are somehow missing Tolkien's point. Squatter has earlier characterized this point in this manner:

antiquated speech is written precisely to convey to the reader from just how far beyond the normal experience of the smaller protagonists these characters hail.

Squatter adds a codicil to this, however. For he now thrusts the argument about mere opinion to those of us who object to the style. He implies two errors on our part, in one fell swoop, that we cannot recognize what Tolkien's purpose was and that we won't allow for Tolkien's taste because it isn't ours.

Essentially, then, Squatter refers the entire discussion back to simple opinion, taste.

Language is, of course, very difficult to discuss. Often we become embroiled in outrage over lack of standards or poor taste, reflecting judgemental feelings. My statement that Tolkien's recourse to purple prose is not, however, based on my idea of what language ought to do. It is based on some of the following ideas about language. The derive from linguistics, which attempts to describe how language works rather than to prescribe or proscribe certain forms of language.

First: language has three properties. It is conventional; it is arbitrary; and it is dynamic.

By conventional, I mean that it obeys a system of regular patterns. (In English, [i]John the hit ball[i] would not make much sense, although either The ball hit John or John hit the ball would.)

By arbitrary, I mean there are no finite laws of the universe which decree how the language will have meaning. There is no final authority for idiom, word order and the distribution of items except what the speakers of the language have come to accept as appropriate. There is no reason why in English we say, "How old are you?" where the French say, "How many years have you?". Or why we are happy to use generally the pattern of Subject/verb/object but the Germans will be always their verbs at the ends of sentences putting.

By dynamic, I mean that language changes all the time. In Elizabethan English, sentences were about twice as long as they are now and generally more complicated. Today, we tend to use noun strings more than prepositional phrases ("English professor" rather than "professor of English'). The vocabulary of English nouns increases by leaps and bounds these days, but we do not increase the number of articles (the, a, an) or prepositions (into, of, over, under etc).

What does this mean? Our ability to interpret language depends upon our ability to recognize the presence of patterns and the absence or deviations from the patterns. This applies as much to literar language as to 'ordinary' language.

For example, this sentence does not make sense:

The of present kings about woman those the reminded prophecy old ancient.

This one does:

The old woman reminded those present of the ancient prophecy about kings.

Within these patterns and expectations there are of course, many varieties--regional, national, social, educational, class, and attitudinal, to say nothing of a person's or writer's idiolect (personal style).

Thus, when we discuss style, we invoke a great many things besides personal tastes for a normative standard.

When I discuss style, or, more particularly, purple prose, I do so not on the basis of what I personally prefer to read or want a writer to do. I attempt to discover the pattern and then see what the pattern appears to be doing.

With Tolkien, I see a habit, in parts of LOTR, which foregrounds (uses repeatedly) particular traits of the English language. I see a very high rate of inverted sentence structure (clauses rearranged out of the 'conventional' pattern), a tendency towards using passive voiced verbs and verb forms which are not temporal, and a vocabulary that challenges temporal expectations. None of this is inherently wrong to my mind.

Where I think the difficulty lies is in the frequency of these items. Tolkien uses them so often that they draw attention to themselves as features of the language. (Yes, I know readers, as Saucepan Man has suggested, don't always notice this. However, the lack of notice does not disprove or discredit the notice which other readers do make.)

It is not that I don't see what Tolkien was trying to do. He makes it almost impossible not to see. He hits me over the head with it so often that the particular quality of the style pulls away from the story, detracts from the story.

When a particular aspect of style is foregrounded in this way, we can ask ourselves what the author wanted to accomplish.

My point in quoting Owen's poem was to demonstrate that here was an author who was able to incorporate Latin into his writing so seemlessly that it was 'naturalized'. When I read 'Pro patria mori' I don't see a writer flaunting Latin in order to create a special effect. I see an author showing how a reference for Latin tags (beautiful old language) had blinded a generation into marching off to a brutal war.

And I find it disingenious to claim that Tolkien cannot be compared with Owen because their education and upbringing were so different.

What must Tolkien have felt on reading and rereading the letter from G.B. Smith which Carpenter claims was written to Tolkien shortly before Smith's death:

May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.

Perhaps I will return to this post, editing it later for places where I think I have not been clear. I hope for now I have at least made a small claim to demonstrate that my unease over some of the stylistic features arises from a more serious reading of the text than mere rejection of the author's intention or refusal to allow him his own unique taste.