‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[The Saucepan Man]

Why, indeed. Do I trust the narrator? If not, then why am I reading the book?

A good question, Helen, and one, I think, that goes to the very heart of this thread. Since we draw such immense enjoyment (yes and enchantment too) from Tolkien's works, shouldn't we also accept his own subsequent musings on, and interpretations of, what he wrote? The answer, I think, is no, not without question. But we are free to accept them and agree with him if the ideas which he expresses in his Letters "feel right" to us. I am inclined to agree with Bêthberry when she says:

So, we are left with the fact that Tolkien was like any reader, looking around for threads of ideas and then picking up strands to be developed.

We do not have to accept the interpretations of another reader if they do not sit well with us. And, as Bb says, Tolkien, in discussing his stories in his Letters, is not much different from any other reader.

For example, Tolkien made it clear in his Letters that no one (Bombadil excepted) could have destroyed the Ring voluntarily. I fully accept that since any other analysis would belittle Frodo's efforts and render his "failure" real, rather than something which he just perceives in himself. So that idea accords with my understanding of the story. But, having accepted that, I cannot accept Tolkien's speculation (also in his Letters) that, had Gollum's moment of possible redemption on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol not been lost, his growing love for Frodo might have led him to throw himself into the fires of Orodruin with the Ring. That analysis seems to me to be incompatible with the idea that no one could willingly have destroyed the Ring, since Gollum would have been destroying it by "sacrificing" himself. My interpretation tells me that the Ring would not have allowed that to happen.

Nevertheless, I do think that because we all here have an appreciation of Tolkien's ideas, as expressed in his published works, we will be more inclined to accept the ideas which he expressed in his Letters when commenting on those works. And I suspect that this is why, whenever questions are raised here about Middle-earth which cannot be answered from the published texts, the majority of us (myself included) will go running to his Letters and "unpublished" texts to find the "answer" in one quote or another, and also why we are prepared to accept such "answers" as definitive. There is, I think, nothing wrong in that, as long as we do not do so unquestioningly.

As for the risk of destroying the enchantment, I do, on reflection, think my concerns are largely ungrounded. Going back to the point which I made earlier in this thread, almost everyone will have read the stories themselves before they are exposed to any detailed analysis of them (whether by Tolkien himself or others). So their intial enchantment, "unsullied" by analysis, will remain within their experience. For example, my description of that moonlit landscape was my attempt to describe in words my memory of the enchantment which I felt on first reading LotR. That enchantment has since faded (and alas, davem, I am now a very long way away from those wooded hills ), but it remains part of my experience and it allows me to appreciate the "magical" (dare I say ensorcelling) effect of Tolkien's tales. And who knows? If I allow myself, I might even be able to get back to that long winding road one day (cue Beatles song ).