Re: The General Tolkien News Thread

[halfwise]

I would call such a publication "internalizing the external musings".

Confusingly the meanings of external and internal are rather reversed in this discussion. "Internal" meaning part of the finished work, "external" meaning the writer's thoughts and craft surrounding that work. But oddly the "internal" is the only part the audience is meant to see! Our own "internal dialogues" are hidden, but that's reversed for an author. I actually had to reread your post several times and rewrite my response several times to get it right.

[Elthir]

I don't know if "in story" is better, but just to add, the person who tried to invoke what is called "Death of Author" -- with respect to The Road Goes Ever On -- didn't raise even one example to try to back up her claim that JRRT was speaking as author here, rather than as fictional translator. Nor could I find one.

Anyway, after reading about twenty years of threads that begin with . . . very very often, in-story questions (arguably 'cause readers naturally want to know "the" story): was Galadriel a leader in the Noldorin rebellion after Feanor sailed off in his stolen ship?

Yes.

And by Eru it feels great to simply say so, without drowning the answer in the vast, posthumously published ocean.

Or in Sindarin: aear "ocean, sea"  . . . oh drat I mean gaear . . .  nope, back to aear . . . nope again, back to gaear, which means this author published sentence: nef aear, sí nef aearon "now" includes a lenited form of gaear!

Unless aear returns in a very late text in GNOME

[malickfan]

There is now a further preview of The Nature Of Middle-earth up on googlebooks, including some of the table of contents, the foreword and some of the early chapters:

https://books.google.fr/books?id=MDQKEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

[halfwise]

That table of contents definitely has me salivating! Though even I have to admit it's a bit heavy on time and growth.

[malickfan]

I've assumed for a while (given the title of the book and press release) the contents of this book would delve into more abstract/metaphysical aspects of Middle-earth rather than historical/narrative, but it certainly seems like an interesting collection of texts.

And hopefully we'll finally find out why Cirdan the Shipwright had a beard and actually looks aged at the close of the 3rd age...

[Elthir]

Galadriel and Celeborn!

Galadriel and Celeborn!

I won't write it again, but I'm thinking it!

[halfwise]

Ordered it.

[Elthir]

And hopefully we'll finally find out why Cirdan the Shipwright had a beard and actually looks aged at the close of the 3rd age...

For myself, I've already been answered "sufficiently" about the beard, despite the rather vague (so far!) reference to the Elvish cycles of life. But if there's more, then yes, bring it on. Cirdan looking aged is another matter. If Tolkien does go there in detail I'll certainly be interested. The first part I read of HOME 12 was the late text Cirdan . . . but that particular answer wasn't there.

I'll put it this way: for a folk who live a very very very long time, how many ways (including inner ways) do they age, according to Tolkien's post Lord of the Rings conception? HOME already notes some stuff about this, including the fading of the physical body (to refer to this type of fading briefly and generally).

Anyway. Must order now too!

[halfwise]

And how exactly were you answered about the beard?
(if the above was an answer you may as well give me a pile of boards and a hammer and tell me I have a house).

[Elthir]

Carl Hostetter "told me" this much  

"Elves did not have beards until they entered their third cycle of life. Nerdanel's father was exceptional, being only early in his second."

JRRT, Vinyar Tengwar 41, From The Shibboleth of Feanor c. 1968

Of course, the following is very late . . .

"In a note written in December 1972 or later, and among the last writings of my father's on the subject of Middle-earth, there is a discussion of the Elvish strain in Men, as to its being observable in the beardlessness of those who were so descended (it was a characteristic of all Elves to be beardless); and it is here noted in connection with the princely house of Dol Amroth that "this line had a special Elvish strain, according to its own legends" (with a reference to the speeches between Legolas and Imrahil in The Return of the King V 9, cited above)."

Christopher Tolkien, Unfinished Tales

Problem here is, if we take "all" Elves to mean all, we have author-published text to say otherwise . . . Cirdan is bearded, and we have other posthumously published text (back to VT) to explain Cirdan's authorized description.

As I say, this much would "sufficiently" explain Cirdan for me. I don't really feel a great desire to have this explained
in detail, so if there's nothing further here, I'm good enough. But if there's more . . .

. . . I'm interested.

[halfwise]

So we are saying Cirdan is one of the oldest elves, so can have a beard. Which means only the oldest elves should have a beard. Which means....Galadriel should have a beard.

[Elthir]

Just gnoticed in GNOME:

Part 1 XIX: Elvish Life-cycles!



Also Part 2 IV is titled . . . Hair!


And Part 2 V, Beards!

[Pettytyrant101]

. . . start with HOME part one, The Book of Lost Tales, and list the "internal errors" until you get to HOME 12 . . . and I'm guessing GNOME will have been published many years before you finish. - Elthir

{{ The trouble with Lore Masters, forgive me for saying so, is that you do tend to point out things that otherwise, having not read the entirety of HOME, I could remain blissfully unaware of and therefore my device as a reader of relying on the author as translator is intact. Obviously for you it cannot function that way as you have filled your head with so many variant accounts and contradictions that such a fallacy can no longer be maintained intellectually.
But there is some solace and joy to be found in ignorance I feel in this case. Too much knowledge being a bad thing and all that, for me I can still in my more childish and hopeful moments dare to believe Middle-earth and its people truly breathed in a long forgotten past.

Incidentally I have read the Book of Lost Tales, the only part I have, and had no problem whatsoever in finding a place for Ælfwine and his translations into Old English, subsequently rediscovered by Professor Tolkien in the course of his work and studies and translated by him into the works we know.
Its not that I didnt read many inconsistencies along the way, but I dont remember them now, willful ignorance being a more useful tool than people give it credit for when deliberetly applied. But I do remember Ælfwine, because given conflicting developments over an authors life in such a huge tale and concepts, eventually you have to cherry pick what you like or prefer anyway.
You do so by finding I assume the variant that seems most robust to intellectual scrutiny, choosing between texts in prominance and importance based on such high and lofty matters as Lore Masters decree for doing so. My choice is simpler, naive even, and intellectually a bust, but thats ok, its a sacrifice I'm happy to make because ME can be for me for fleeting moments consistently real.

I should add to this lengthy post, bear with me, this in no way should be taken to mean I dont enjoy Lore Master posts and engaging with them or to in anyway deter, its more an attempt to clarify my position in-light of your own clarification of yours.
I have brought many a topic up myself from Letters for their seeming contradictions, which have lead to hugely enjoyable debates with input from yourself and Eldy that have enriched and shed new light or thought on various matters. But as story is my heart and core whilst I can appreciate the debates I will in the end cherry pick again what fits best for me with keeping consistency, to resolve contradictions narratively speaking, with keeping intact the idea of Tolkien as translator.}}

[Elthir]

( . . . ) But there is some solace and joy to be found in ignorance I feel in this case. Too much knowledge being a bad thing and all that, for me I can still in my more childish and hopeful moments dare to believe Middle-earth and its people truly breathed in a long forgotten past.

As do I. Immersion in the story, to be inside and believe it -- the importance of the Elvish craft!

I even chide Tolkien for his revision to the second edition Foreword to The Lord of the Rings. I prefer the first version, Tolkien as translator . . . the second is the author explaining stuff, and in parts (it seems to me) "politely grumbling" about certain of his critics -- although I can understand his wanting to say something about getting paid
for his work, in reference to the copyright matter at the time.

Incidentally I have read the Book of Lost Tales, the only part I have, and had no problem whatsoever in finding a place for Ælfwine and his translations into Old English, subsequently rediscovered by Professor Tolkien in the course of his work and studies and translated by him into the works we know.

I love the Ælfwine framework too. And not that you don't know, but it's intended to frame an Anglo-saxon telling of Elvish tales, received "directly" from Eressea. Okay. No problem of course. That said, I think the Numenorean slash Bilbo transmission fits well with the following:

"This, I believe, is what my father was concerned to portray: a tradition of Men, through long ages become dim and confused. At this time, perhaps, in the context of The Notion Club Papers and of the vast enlargement of his great story that was coming into being in The Lord of the Rings, he began to be concerned with questions of "tradition" and the vagaries of tradition, the losses, confusions, simplifications and amplifications in the evolution of legend, as they might apply to his own -- within the always enlarging compass of Middle-earth. This is speculation; it would have been helpful indeed if he had at tis time left any record or note, however brief, of his reflections.

But many years later he did write such a note, though brief indeed, on the envelope that contains the texts of the Drowning of Anadune"

Contains very old version (in Adunaic) which is good -- in so far as it is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as would be probable in the supposed case:

a) Mannish tradition
b) Elvish tradition
c) Mixed Dunedanic tradition

The art of subcreation! And in my opinion, an approach that Tolkien imagines will improve his legendarium -- a purposed, thought-out forging to help me believe all the better!

I should add to this lengthy post, bear with me, this in no way should be taken to mean I dont enjoy Lore Master posts and engaging with them or to in anyway deter, its more an attempt to clarify my position in-light of your own clarification of yours.

I would not have taken it to mean that, but I appreciate you saying this Petty. And I hope I haven't been too
annoying so far, trying to illustrate my thoughts here.

[halfwise]

Alas, I do not have access to the forward to the first edition of Lord of the Rings. I was hoping it would be free enough of copywrite protections to be online, but no such luck in my search yet.

[Elthir]

Someone quoted the whole thing over at the Barrow Downs (forums) some years back, if I recall correctly.

Legal? I dunno.

If you dare approach the Barrow Downs in any case

[Elthir]

Well, possibly the "whole thing" (at Barrow Downs) minus the notes on pronunciation.

That's right -- by reading the original Foreword one will know it's Keleborn well before one meets him (for those that care). If "one" reads the Foreword and remembers, that is, or cares to remember!

[halfwise]

Thanks for the tip! I have located it, and due to it's brevity and proper attribution (JRR Tolkien's Forward to the first edition of Lord of the Rings as posted by a Squatter of Amon Rudh in the Barrow Downs forum), I think it may even be legal under "fair use" policy.

This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument to Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.
I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assidious, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.
The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).
I dedicate this book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.

For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for the book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from numerous letters that so many people, both in England and across the Water, share my interest in this almost forgotten history; but it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study. It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.
Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found some abridged family-trees, which show how the Hobbits mentioned were related to one another, and what their ages were at the time when the story opens. There is an index of names and strange words with some explanations. And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets and calendars that were used in the West-lands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages; and the strange names that they meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted* But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of those great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago.

[halfwise]

the foreward to the second edition is far greater and more satisfying.   Much like TE Lawrence's forward to The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which was also a second edition. It all comes down to how quotable it is, and both second edition forwards are incredibly quotable.

[Elthir]

In one sense, arguably so. I'd still rather have the conceit with the book though.

"Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history."

I find this part especially delightful!

[halfwise]

Yes, that is delightful!

[Elthir]

Just noticed . . . ten pages between "Galadriel and Celeborn" and the next part. That's kind of . . . well, more than I expected; actually ten more than I expected, considering "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn" in Unfinished Tales.

How big is the font?

I'm also expecting Tolkien's description of characters in reaction to artwork by Pauline Baynes. We've had some drips so far, and will we, at last, know the colour of Legolas' hair? PB has depicted the Elf in a hood, so maybe not.

But maybe. If I guess correctly what "Descriptions of Characters" refers too, that is.

And then there's "Elvish Journeys on Horseback"

And "Note on the Consumption of Mushrooms" and . . .

Mind-pictures

The Visible forms of the Valar and Maiar

Note on Elvish Economy

Dwellings in Middle-earth

The Founding of Nargothrond

Of the Land and Beasts of Numenor

And so much more!


I feel younger

[Pettytyrant101]

'It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).'

{{ I like this. Especially the last bit in parenthesis, I find this to be very true. As a child watching Who I did not follow or understand a lot that was going on (I started watching so young I dont remember a time of not watching it) but because it spoke to its audience, not down at them or lecturing or preaching to them, but in a conspiratorial fashion that took you on an adventure you knew would have scary things in it, or sad or frightening moments to keep you awake at nights but it would also have heroism and good winning triumphing over evil, and the Doctor talking to you not at you or down to you, but pulling you along with a nod and a wink with you on the adventure with him (Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi were particularly good at talking to their young audience) and the wider adult themes it was also telling opened up to me over the years of watching and revealed themselves.
One should never underestimate children and their ability to absorb through a narrative osmosis facets of the wider world they will grow into. There is a reason we have told children specific faery tales, myths and legends for so long. But I fear a lot of our current media does treat them as children; to be taught at, informed and influenced by talking down at them not with them. Better I say to acknowledge the truth of what Tolkien says here by letting children learn of the adult world in safe hands. On a grand adventure, whether thats in Space and Time or across Middle-Earth. }}

[halfwise]

Hmm...went back and reread the forward to the second edition, and now that it's been pointed out I see the complaints and rebuttals standing out more. Before I saw mainly the better crafted language. I can see why the first edition forward would be preferable, though the best might be a rewriting of the initial forward with some of the parallel but more sonorous language of the second.

"This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring.." -> "This tale grew in the telling..."

"But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all..." -> "...during which time I had many duties I did not neglect..."

etc.

[Elthir]

Tolkien himself once commented (about the original version): "This Foreword I should wish very much in any case to cancel. Confusing (as it does) real personal matters with the "machinery" of the tale is a serious mistake."

At the moment anyway, I respectfully disagree.

In The Art of the Foreword: Tolkien's Shortest Works, Janet Croft writes:

The fiction that Tolkien was the translator and editor of a found manuscript also made its appearance in the Foreword that preceded the Prologue in the first edition of The Lord of the Rings. But Tolkien grew to think it had been a mistake to [confuse] real personal matters with the machinery of the Tale (qtd in PoM-e 26).

The substantially revised Foreword to the 1965 edition, however, does not entirely eliminate the found manuscript frame; Tolkien still speaks of the "ancient history" and "older world" being "discover[ed]" and "revealed", though he also unequivocally refers to himself as its author several times."

If the characterization here is true, then one might aim another arrow here and suggest to JRRT that he "should" keep the voice (the voice of either author or translator) consistent in the Foreword . . .

. . . but in any case, I'm not sure this characterization necessarily holds, especially within the larger context
(if these are the only examples, that is, as I must admit I did a quick read today). For instance, Tolkien could say that
he "discovered" Faramir, or that Faramir was "revealed to him" in the year 19-whatever, but that could refer to Faramir "arising" to the imagination as a character rather than (something like): in the year 19-whatever, JRRT got around to translating certain texts about Faramir.  

Or something.