LotR - Foreword

[Bêthberry]

Oh indeed, I very much enjoy the "ten fingered typist" remark too. Like Tolkien's comment that he has similar opinions about works which others like, it strikes me as evidence of Tolkien's wit and sly humour. We are all very much aware of the humour in The Hobbit but I don't think we've yet considered the humour in Lord of the Rings.

Out of the many points which have already been made here--swiftly goes this discussion, if so many posts since Estelyn's first is any indication--I would like to ponder one which has me wondering, one which Estelyn suggested, Tolkien's statement of his intention. I have no clear cut answer, but it strikes me that Tolkien, as all authors, is of a subtle, complex mind.

Now, before any of you throw tomatoes at me, let me explain. I read this Foreward, written, as Estelyn points out, some years after the publication of the book and even more after its conception and long gestation, and think about the many references in the Letters to his claims that the story became imbued with subtle hints of his faith. I am thinking particularly here of littlemanpoet's wonderful old thread "and consciously so in the revision." Those letters which gave inspiration to that thread were for private reading, of course.

This is a public foreward, but how many times does Tolkien here insist that the story is mainly story--or, as Fordim has pointed out, history, with a primary inspiration in linguistics.

The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. ... As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none.

I know that Helen reads this as implying the eucatastrophe of which Tolkien speaks in On Fairy Stories but I really wonder about this. Many people can read a story and be deeply moved without having a religious experience. Surely to take 'deeply move' as a hidden code to refer to eucatastrophe is to suggest that Tolkien is here positing a second, secret hidden language. Would he be doing that? Particularly when davem's quotation reiterates Tolkien's idea that the story should be enjoyed for itself as story. Here's the part I mean:

He insiisted over & over again that his boook was essentially a story, without any further meaning. 'Tales of Faerie,' he said, 'should be told only for their own sake.' quoted above by davem

To this I point to Tolkien's disavowal of autobiographical impulse:

the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppost that the movements of thought or the events of time common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences.

Perhaps Tolkien's main point here is to disavowal the interpretations which saw contemporary political/historical references in his books. Yet he places such repeated emphasis on story as story that I think he is also suggesting something about the reading experience itself. I don't wish to get into a discussion of the ideology of the books, such as bogged down the Canonicity thread. What I rather wonder about is why Tolkien would not make any mention in the Foreward of some of the things he discusses in his Letters or in On Fairy Stories. I am not accusing him of dishonesty or anything like that, by any means, but rather that he is defending a particular way he wished his work to be regarded..

I think we have something here which can suggest his idea of what constitutes reading and particularly what constitutes his idea about how his stories should be read. Once more, I think, we have an author, as Helen states above, who deeply respected the right of the reader to see a story as he wishes, even as Tolkien was wanting to suggest that his history was something wider and grander than a grubby World War II allegory. It is a very subtle way to suggest that one interpretation is misguided without at the same time forcing his "purposed domination" on the reader. A very thoughtful and respectful balancing act, eloquently done.