Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Many years ago, Kay gave an address at (IIRC) Mythcon where he talked about his work on the Silm; it was not recorded or transcribed but a fairly well-known Tolkien figure - I keep wanting to say John Rateliff but it may have been someone else - published a summary of Kay's remarks.
One takeaway is that Kay was not yet an author- he was a 19-year old college student studying law. CT needed, basically, a gopher- somebody to make photocopies and fetch coffee. Since Kay's parents were friends of Baillie Tolkien's parents back in Winnipeg, his name came up and he got the gig.
The other takeaway is that Kay's role grew; CT started using him as a sounding board, and eventually as a first-pass "assembler" of JRRT passages (The "constructed" Silm is a bit like multiple decks of cards shuffled together)- and then CT would write the final text. So GK had a fair bit of input into the final product, and CT later did say that his "discussions" with Kay underlay the Doriath chapter.
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Thanks for this,
William Cloud Hicklin. I knew that Kay had played a role in the editing but I was not aware of the different opinions about his role. Clearly that year working with CT on JRRT's manuscripts and notes had a great influence on him; he did complete his law studies and was called to the bar but writing called more strongly to him .
I've been told that Charles Noad in
Amon Hen 91 reports on a talk given by Kay, where Kay explained what his role was on the Silm but I wasn't told where Kay gave the talk. Perhaps this is the one you were thinking of from Mythcon? I don't have access to AH.
I've also been told that it was Kay's influence to produce the Silm as a continuous narrative rather than an academic text with footnotes. So because of Kay we have both the Silm and HoMe?