Christopher Tolkien to finish lost Middle Earth novel

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

How 'purist' are we to be? You can't get any better than Christopher Tolkien in terms of a Tolkien expert.

I don't think it's a question of being purist. Aiwendil has already demonstrated on the Chapter by Chapter discussion of The Silm some of the very significant editorial changes which CT made to The Silm papers. I don't condemn CT for this, but merely note that such changes are significant.

I suppose we can argue until the elves are untied from Arda's fate about who would be the best expert to handle the Tolkien papers. However, the very nature of the closeness between father and son makes me at least hesitate to accept unconditionally texts from CT's hands or even from the Tolkien Estate.

Often families wish to preserve an untarnished image of their famous member for history's sight. They withhold information which they regard as too deeply personal, about both themselves and about the famous author. They withold letters which they view as possibly too negative. They withhold things which in all superficial fairness they think are not significant, being blinded by their closeness to possibilities of significance. All families have skeletons, as do all writers, particularly dead ones. The Letters we have now of Tolkien's are incomplete. What letters have been withheld or even suppressed? Isn't there a diary that has been preserved?

Why, for instance, are we not to have Tolkien's translation of Beowulf?

It's a delicate balance, being a literary executor and editor, of insight, respect, intuition, knowingness, objective sense. Being a son or friend does not always mean having the clearest vision.

I suppose, rather than dithering back and forth, we ought simply to wait to see what the book brings.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, the very nature of the closeness between father and son makes me at least hesitate to accept unconditionally texts from CT's hands or even from the Tolkien Estate.

.

Carpenter states in his introduction that the choice on inclusion was his not CT's. Since he was given access to the love letters I think he clearly had pretty good access.....

Michael Palin is broadcasting his diaries at the moment and notes ruefully that many things that became significant were not recorded. Why should it be different for Tolkien. These things may not exist . A lot of the letters that were published hardly show Tolkien as "untarnished". Often he is grumpy, peevish, at times mysogynistic and intolerant. To think that there is a lot of interesting stuff withheld is to me is the stuff of conspiracy theories. I have vast quantities of letters written to me by my parents (albeit not famous in any sphere) and I treasure them but is there anything interesting in them? No... not even to me. I do co-own a letter from a world famous person (Florence Nightingale) and there isn't anything much interesting in that either... though I will probably pass it to her archive someday. Do I want to read every letter Tolkien wrote ... no... and just imagine how CT would be accused of cashing in if he published his parents loveletters for the delectation of the prurient...

Even I accepted the hypothesis that there was some supressed stash, I would still allow the family the right to with hold it. I don't think we have the right to know everything. I actually felt intrusive going to the grave though I found the experience moving. Diaries are not blogs ... does fame mean you and your family have to lose all privacy?

Tolkien may not have liked Sayers' Gaudy Night but I am sure he would not have argued with it's tale of the evil of surpressing document. Christopher Tolkien is a scholar as well as a son - maybe not in his father's league but a professional scholar nevertheless. Making "significant" changes to the Silmarillion do not de facto destroy his integrity.

Given that he has spent so long making so much available and still gets regarded as untrustworthy, I wouldn't blame him for not releasing more. In fact if it were me.....

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

A lot of the letters that were published hardly show Tolkien as "untarnished". Often he is grumpy, peevish, at times mysogynistic and intolerant. To think that there is a lot of interesting stuff withheld is to me is the stuff of conspiracy theories.

In the letters we see a lot of 'sides' to Tolkien, we see him being controversial, making grandiose statements, saying some quite personal things. He sometimes comes across as jingoistic and those ltters reveal a lot of things that could make us as readers quite uncomfortable. That tells me that we have quite enough of Tolkien's personal thoughts, and I trust that the editing has been done as openly as possible.

How much do we need to see? Are we being greedy? Yes, I think we often are!

[Bêthberry]

My goodness, Lal, I certainly hope the Tolkien family doesn't have something as difficult to deal with as Plath's and Hugh's children!

It's hardly a conspiracy theory to suggest a slight reservation over a selected edition of an author's letters. It's really just standard practice to be a little cautious about the criteria for the selection and to wonder what else might be out there. Oh what some of us would do for a letter on balrog wings!

The Letters as they stand don't, in my humble opinion, answer a question Squatter raised some years ago in chat: What kept him at it? Why did Tolkien devote so much of his life to the Legendarium, when he had so many other things going on in his life? davem recently repeated this question. While we can speculate--and speculation is our delight--the answer remains an interpretation. There could well be documents "out there"--deliberately playing on the alleged conspiracy theme -- which could shed some light on this question--or rather, which could send us off on other roads not yet explored.

I rather like Child's discussion of the issue of free expression, as it pertains to CT.

Why can we not read Tolkien's translation of Beowulf? Asking such a question is not an intrusion into a family's personal life nor is it a personal attack. It's intellectual curiosity.

[Child of the 7th Age]

The historian and librarian in me wants to be able to access those additional letters and/or the diary. I don't feel it's "greedy" since since so often a scrap overlooked by one generation turns out to have enormous interpretive value. Garth's recent publication of Tolkien's experiences in WWI relied heavily on just such early personal correspondence that wasn't available before. His study suggests how important such overlooked items can be. However, when it comes to personal materials, it's often a question of "when" rather than "if". It may not be feasible to release some of the later papers now since so many of the people mentioned in them are still alive. I think we will eventually see them, though perhaps not in my life.

But I totally agree with Bêthberry on Beowulf. I can't understand witholding an academic text when there are qualified scholars politely asking to work with it. The one justification for not making the text public might be that it's very rough and does not warrant publication. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Tolkien wrote a partial verse translation of Beowulf, a complete prose translation, plus reams of notes and a line-by-line analysis. These documents are in the Bodleian with very limited scholarly access. The original plan was to have Professor Drout edit the translations and hundreds of pages of Tolkien's notes into a two-volume edition. This is the same professor who published Beowulf and the Critics (an extended version of the 1936 lecture) with the estate's blessing. He is a specialist in early medieval texts and has written a great deal in that area. Plus he is on the board of the new Tolkien Studies .

Both Drout and the other Anglo-Saxon scholars who have seen the Beowulf manuscripts are full of glowing praise. John Carey, the former Merton professor of English literature at Oxford, said: “Beowulf is enormously hard to translate into alliterative verse, but it sounds remarkable. Tolkien is much closer to the Anglo-Saxon form than Heaney.” Kevin Crossley-Holland, a poet, broadcaster and Anglo-Saxon expert who has published his own translation, said: “It captures the sound of big waves crashing on a shingle beach and the lines die away like water running up a beach. Tolkien’s work breathes the same world as the Anglo-Saxon poems and the Norse myths. It is umbilically linked.” In Drout's estimation, Tolkien's translation is "better" than all others currently available and much truer to the spirit of the original.

OK, so I am a "Beowulf junkie". But when I read comments like this, I find myself drooling! There was a previous post by Squatter about this same text. He indicated that, at a recent conference his professor attended, many Anglo-Saxon scholars were concerned that the estate withdrew the permission because they wanted to secure a more lucrative deal. I have never heard that anywhere else. Comments from Professor Drout suggest that the estate was upset at the way the press jumped on the story and printed incorrect information. I just hope that someday, someway, these manuscripts are released for solid, responsible Anglo-Saxon specialists to work with them. Everything suggests that these texts would be a real and deserved capstone for Tolkien the medievalist.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bb

The Letters as they stand don't, in my humble opinion, answer a question Squatter raised some years ago in chat: What kept him at it? Why did Tolkien devote so much of his life to the Legendarium, when he had so many other things going on in his life? davem recently repeated this question. While we can speculate--and speculation is our delight--the answer remains an interpretation. There could well be documents "out there"--deliberately playing on the alleged conspiracy theme -- which could shed some light on this question--or rather, which could send us off on other roads not yet explored.

Or, it could just be that there is no simple answer to why he spent his life on this work! It might be trite but we could put it down to being his hobby!

I'd personally like to see more letters on topics I have an interest in, too. But I seriously believe that all known letters of general interest, which would not cause family upset, have been published. No 'image' of Tolkien is being preserved - on the contrary, the letters only muddy the waters about what he believed, what he wanted the work to 'do', if anything, and what sort of man he was.

Child - if the documents are in the Bodleian then its not the 'fault' of the Tolkien family if access is restricted. But bear in mind that access does need to be restricted or I'd be hot footing it down there to thumb through them, and I have no scholarly interest in Beowulf, though I could pretend to have. So could a lot of people.

As to why the new version of Beowulf is not available, maybe it is in a rough state and considering Tolkien's reputation as an academic, the estate wishes it to be tidied, made more clear or some other scholarly jiggery-pokery to be done with it before unleashing it on the hard, cruel eyes of other high flying academics who might gossip about it?

Anyway, why are we getting in knots about conspiracies? Just ask the estate!

[Child of the 7th Age]

Child - if the documents are in the Bodleian then its not the 'fault' of the Tolkien family if access is restricted. But bear in mind that access does need to be restricted or I'd be hot footing it down there to thumb through them, and I have no scholarly interest in Beowulf, though I could pretend to have. So could a lot of people.

Lal,

I totally agree. I don't think this situation is anyone's "fault". And the term "conspiracy" with all its negative connotations just doesn't apply. These are all people who are trying to do the decent thing. Yet there can be legitimate differences of opinion when it comes to the release or retention of historical and literary documents. Tolkien's papers are no exceptions. The estate is well within its legal rights to make decisions on access (donors generally stipulate to an archives what the limits of access will be), and there is no question that CT is attempting to do what he feels is right.

But it is also true that there are people out there who have a genuine desire to study these materials and who have both the background and the heart to make a contribution, yet have not been able to gain access to the texts. The linguistic papers, for example, have been a bone of contention for many years.

Any historical collection has to have rules about access and restriction. And yes, not everyone can come trampling through the door when the author is as popular as Tolkien. Yet there is still a fine line here. My personal feelng is that you don't want to shut out the very people who can benefit from studying the texts and passing along what they've learned to others. I am extremely happy that the estate opened the doors to scholars/writers like Carpenter, Garth, and Hammond. We would be poorer without their insights. But I do think there have been instances when a slightly more liberal policy would not have been out of line.

Part of the problem is also one of communication. When it was publicly announced that the Beowulf manuscripts would be released, edited, and published, many people who make their living as medievalists were very excited. But then the permission was revoked with no public explanation. Those same scholars, many of whom were also diehard Tolkien fans, were left scratching their heads in puzzlement. Perhaps that communication will improve now that Adam is involved with the translation of some of the papers and also giving interviews.

In this situation, I truly don't believe that the entire burden of "right" or "wrong" rests wholly on one side or the other. CT has done some wonderful, astounding things that should earn him our respect and thanks. But both he and the people serving under him are only human and some of their decisions have been more controversial. Most of the petitioners seeking access to documents(setting aside the few crackpot or strictly commercial interests that could easily be winnowed out) as well as the actual guardians of the estate are motivated by the same basic impulse: on some level they love and respond to the Legendarium and want to make sure that Tolkien's heritage is honored and respected in an appropriate way. For precisely that reason, I would love to see Beowulf in print someday.