[Child of the 7th Age]

Slightly off topic but pertinent to future discussion.....

Yes, I thought this would be an incentive to read the whole thing methodically which, to tell the truth, I have not done in years and years. RS and the others came out sosme fifteen to seventeen years ago, and that's the only time I sat down to read them through cover-to-cover! I do pick up the volumes quite frequently to look something up, but that is different than a concentrated reading. This seems like a good time to do that.

Mark 12_30 -

As I read the varying drafts of the chapters, I am planning to be on the lookout for certain things. One of these is the question we raised in a much earlier thread: whether the later revisions were the point that Tolkien added the "Christian and Catholic" elements we talk so much about. I'll be looking for hints of providence and the specific references that Tolkien discussed in his letters like lembas, Galadriel's characterization, etc. to see when these first came in. Of course, Tolkien is the one who said in his Letters that the "Christian and Catholic" elements were added in the later revisions. But sometimes what we remember and what we've actually done is different, even for Tolkien who was certainly trying to tell the truth. We shall see...