The History of Galadriel and Celeborn - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

William Cloud Hicklin · 01-08-2016, 12:46 PM

From both Carpenter, and especially comments made by CRT, it's apparent that Tolkien's memory from ~1968 on wasn't all it had been; moreover, the move to Bournemouth in that year (for which he wasn't present, having broken his leg) reduced his papers to chaos (or, speaking as a person about as organised as JRRT, a different chaos unlike the familiar chaos)*, and in his last years he simply wasn't able to lay his hands on older writings. CRT's description of the papers as he found them in 1973 is, well, terrifying.

Yes, I do think it's entirely possible that he had forgotten the brief 'historical' comments he had written for RGEO; as far as he was concerned, the Elder Days were still unpublished and he was free to reshape them as he liked.

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*The worst possible "favor" anyone can do for me is clean up my desk! I know exactly which heap something is in.....

01-08-2016, 12:46 PM	#39
William Cloud Hicklin Loremaster of Annúminas Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,330	From both Carpenter, and especially comments made by CRT, it's apparent that Tolkien's memory from ~1968 on wasn't all it had been; moreover, the move to Bournemouth in that year (for which he wasn't present, having broken his leg) reduced his papers to chaos (or, speaking as a person about as organised as JRRT, a different chaos unlike the familiar chaos), and in his last years he simply wasn't able to lay his hands on older writings. CRT's description of the papers as he found them in 1973 is, well, terrifying. Yes, I do think it's entirely possible that he had forgotten the brief 'historical' comments he had written for RGEO; as far as he was concerned, the Elder Days were still unpublished and he was free to reshape them as he liked. ------------------------ The worst possible "favor" anyone can do for me is clean up my desk! I know exactly which heap something is in..... __________________ The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.