Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Sauron the White]

A question for the experts here. I have seen mention in several places that in a letter JRRT expressed a desire that others would take up his mythology of Middle Earth and add to it in writings and other artistic expressions.

Is this true? And if so where can I find the actual JRTT words on this?

[davem]

A question for the experts here. I have seen mention in several places that in a letter JRRT expressed a desire that others would take up his mythology of Middle Earth and add to it in writings and other artistic expressions.

Is this true? And if so where can I find the actual JRTT words on this?

Its from a letter to Milton Waldman of Collins

"But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

Note - he specifies 'paint, music, & drama' - not new tales.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Note - he specifies 'paint, music, & drama' - not new tales.
Now that's a very interesting point, davem! We have talked about those lines from the Waldman letter often enough, taking them as a justification for fan fiction and RPGs, but I can't recall ever having looked that closely at the exact words.

According to that point of view, he should have approved of the movies - after all, they are 'paint', as in visuals (admittedly one of the movies' best assets); 'music' - and we all agree that Shore's score was brilliant; and 'drama', or a dramatization at least, whether we like the changes or not.

The musical also includes those elements, so could be considered a legitimate 'Leaf' on Tolkien's Tree.

The many excellent artists who have illustrated Middle-earth would be unquestionable contributions - not only the pros like Howe, Lee, and Nasmith (I'm not quite sure about the Hildebrandt brothers though! ;) ), but the ones whose paintings are not (yet) as well-known, like Anke Eissmann.

Music - We know that JRRT enjoyed Swann's music to a number of his poems. I assume that more modern ones could be considered variations in taste, though I have my doubts about the metal scene which used Tolkienish ideas as a basis for some pieces.

But what about the high quality fan fiction/RPGs that fill the empty spaces in Tolkien's spirit? Non-canonical stories could be rejected, but would the good ones still be valid?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But what about the high quality fan fiction/RPGs that fill the empty spaces in Tolkien's spirit? Non-canonical stories could be rejected, but would the good ones still be valid?

He was violently opposed. When one reader wrote him with an outline of a proposed fanfic 'sequel' to Lord of the Rings, he called him a "young ***" and referred the matter to Allen & Unwin's lawyers. Tolkien very clearly felt that he was the only qualified 'historian' of Middle-earth.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Music - We know that JRRT enjoyed Swann's music to a number of his poems. I assume that more modern ones could be considered variations in taste, though I have my doubts about the metal scene which used Tolkienish ideas as a basis for some pieces.
I guess the Prof wouldn't be much happy with the black-metal-type bands, although, who knows, he might be content and say: "See? That's what I meant Melkor played at the Music." :D But seriously, I think even the metal bands, if they hold to the canon - like Blind Guardian, for example - should be ok with that. I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. However, the bands who only include the words "Sauron, Saurooon, Mordor, Mordooor" in one of their songs without any logical connection to the rest of it, should be hardly even thought of.

But what about the high quality fan fiction/RPGs that fill the empty spaces in Tolkien's spirit? Non-canonical stories could be rejected, but would the good ones still be valid?
Good ones? Surely. For example your "Time", without questions ;)

But all in all, the trouble is that peoples' opinions are different from person to person, look even how some people regard the Hobbit, and if there were suddenly fifty thousand fan fictions, which some would glorify and some would burn. Example: I like Star Wars films, but I "don't believe" or how should I call that, the expanded universe the books and video games created. For me, having another Sith Lord or even greater threat after the death of the Emperor is completely devalving the main plot. But there are many many people who read it and are all happy when a book describing what happened between the scene 4 and 5 in Episode II appears.

The main point is, when you have one creator, the work is consistent. With several more people, you have the "broken light", and one likes green, one likes yellow and one likes blue. It may be good or may not. But if all of it were cannonized, I would for example like the "green", but not "yellow", and I'd find hard to accept that in my Middle-Earth there actually are Entwives living in the Shire, just because Arry Otter wrote a fanfic on it.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Yes, Davem is right. Tolkien approved of artistic and musical adaptations and certain plays, but never included stories in print.

On the other hand, I read something interesting a few weeks ago. I believe it was in one of the early society publications (not the main Tolkien society). (Those early fan publications include some interviews with JRRT, articles by certain members of the Tolkien family, etc....tidbits of information not available anywhere else.) One of the other members of Tolkien's family actually did a fanfiction tale based on either Hobbit or LotR. Possibly a teenage son, but don't hold me to that identity. Of course, it wasn't called "fanfiction". Tolkien incidentally said he was delighted with it.

But the real question to me is this. If the Legendarium constitutes a myth rather than mere contemporary novels/poems, then won't we reach a point perhaps years down the road where others try their hand with it? Even now, CT's work with Hurin suggests this. When is an editor more than an editor....perhaps, when he makes a decision to publish a stand-alone story where none existed before, even if leaning heavily on the author's own words.

For the Legendarium to be "successful" on Tolkien's own terms of creating a myth, then don't others have to read it and be inspired to retell it in their own way. Sometime in the misty past, individuals came up with the ideas to form the germ of the Arthurian tales, but those tales have now been told and retold in a hundred different ways. The same holds true for the Illiad and Odyssey. In an age of printed books and computers, we are unlikely to "forget" the orginal creation by Tolkien. Still, five hundred years from now, will we be better off with only the original tales frozen in ice or with a continuing chain of creativity? There will be drek, just as exists for the Arthurian legends but won't the best ultimately come to the surface?

[Macalaure]

But what about the high quality fan fiction/RPGs that fill the empty spaces in Tolkien's spirit? Non-canonical stories could be rejected, but would the good ones still be valid?

He was violently opposed. When one reader wrote him with an outline of a proposed fanfic 'sequel' to Lord of the Rings, he called him a "young ***" and referred the matter to Allen & Unwin's lawyers. Tolkien very clearly felt that he was the only qualified 'historian' of Middle-earth.

One of the other members of Tolkien's family actually did a fanfiction tale based on either Hobbit or LotR. Possibly a teenage son, but don't hold me to that identity. Of course, it wasn't called "fanfiction". Tolkien incidentally said he was delighted with it.

I think I would (rather unqualifiedly) say that the difference between the two is the same difference that lies between 'sub-creation' and 'creation'. The one tries explore the possibilities within the given limitations, while the other tries to impose new things upon the whole. Of course J.R.R. Tolkien was opposed to the latter, especially when it concerned his own work. What he would have thought of works with the intention of sub-creation, and of high quality, is debatable I guess.


Note - he specifies 'paint, music, & drama' - not new tales.But he also doesn't mention sculpture. Does that mean he was opposed to it? I would doubt that.The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.I think the important matter here is not the specification of paint, music and drama, but the question what this "scope" includes and what it excludes.


(sorry for excessive quoting)

[davem]

But he also doesn't mention sculpture. Does that mean he was opposed to it? I would doubt that.I think the important matter here is not the specification of paint, music and drama, but the question what this "scope" includes and what it excludes.


I think Tolkien is pretty clear - he doesn't object to depictions in other media of what he's created. He's careful to exclude other minds & hands adding to the stories. In fact, the only person he's ever authorised to add to or alter his work is Christopher. Raynor Unwin even stated in an interview that 'One did not edit Tolkien' - or words to that effect.

And I would also add that in that letter Tolkien is attempting to 'sell himself' to a potential publisher, & perhaps is being overly careful not to come across as too 'precious' regarding his work.

[narfforc]

I do not wish to lower the standard of this wonderful thread, I have kept up with the various statements and find it enthralling. However all I can say is I wish he had said ' In written form also', I have been ardent in my believe that someone if not some others could write a sequel within canonicity. If my poor skill as a wordsmith was somewhat greater I am sure that I could work with another to bring forth a credible storyline. I have said before on this site that I have already done this thing, however it was for myself and some very close friends, I do not believe I made any mistakes although you would be asked to make some great leaps of faith, but they wouldn't be absurd. I am not sure of this new story, I am positive especially if the person I was working alongside had been a Christopher Tolkien, another who I feel could do this thing is the very learned Alex Lewis, maybe working with Tom Shippey and Charles Noad, what I am trying to say is that it would not be impossible to write a very good story, as long as the reader would not approach the finished result with any bias against it on the basis of negativity due to the idea that Middle-Earth is sancrosanct, of course the world would be split on this one.


Niggle wants some help to finish...............................something?

.

[The 1,000 Reader]

You could capitalize your name.

[narfforc]

My name starts with an invisible and silent A, a capital one :) ;) .


.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I doubt it would really be possible to fill Tolkien's shoes. To write new M-E stories might be possible, even if one expects a standard rather higher than that of typical pulp fantasy; but to reproduce the magic? Tolkien was Tolkien precisely because he was an intimidatingly intelligent and learned man. Who else could remotely reproduce the story-mould of that utterly unparallelled mind? It's like those computer programs that can spit out a "Bach" fugue: technically correct, but lifeless. The hand of the Master is missing.

(I might as well throw in the elegy (almost certainly by Ford) which Norton insisted on including in its latest Shakespeare anthology, even though a blind mule could tell the Bard never so much as spat upon that piece of turgid dreck).

[narfforc]

Yes William you are right, anything written would be like Celebrimbor trying to recreate the Slimarils, I for one would marvel at a jewel he made that maybe glistened at times yet I would discard a lump of dead glass created by Melkor. It would be unfair to say that no-one will ever be born that would or could not recreate the magic, never is a long time.

[davem]

I can see someone with a knowledge of M-e equal to Tolkien's coming along one day. I can also see someone with his genius for storytelling coming along one day. What I can't see is that they will ever be the same person.....

It strikes me that a true creative genius would want to create their own world, not simply take up someone else's.

That said, Tolkien in his Will authorised Christopher to continue his work

’Upon Trust to allow my son Christopher full access to the same in order that he may act as my Literary Executor with full power to publish edit alter rewrite or complete any work of mine which may be unpublished at my death or to destroy the whole or any part or parts of any such unpublished works as he in his absolute discretion may think fit and subject thereto’

So its entirely possible that Christopher will do the same. In other words, a continuation or addition to the mythology is not entirely out of the question - JRRT actually gave Christopher the right to do just that. That Christopher did so little 'completing'/re-writing is a testament either to his respect for his father's work - or an acknowledgement that he was not up to doing more than he has.

Either way, Tolkien himself clearly was not opposed to Christopher adding to the Legendarium.

[narfforc]

If I am not mistaken Davem did not Tolkien write to Christopher almost pleading with him to try his hand at writing, and if he could not find his style why not try his (fathers) own. I have always looked at this as Tolkien wanting Christopher to expand on his own writings, knowing in some way that the vast legacy he would leave behind was unpublished. Imagine working on something that took most of your life and seeing it rot in the garage, I think Tolkien may well have had the foresight to involve Christopher in his work, however it took two lifetimes to achieve what we all love today, and left no time for Christopher to find his feet.

[Rikae]

I think Tolkien is pretty clear - he doesn't object to depictions in other media of what he's created. He's careful to exclude other minds & hands adding to the stories.Hmm. Doesn't this go a bit against the use of the phrase "leave scope"? The possibility of stories merely being interpreted in another medium can't really be concieved as requiring any kind of "scope" be left at all; a strict, literal interpretation in another medium would not necessitate any awareness of the "majestic whole",but only a dogmatic adherance to what is written, and furthermore, something merely "sketched" cannot be completed without some degree of storytelling involved, whether it be in flim, paint, or what-have-you.

[Bêthberry]

There's a fair bit of irony involved in Tolkien's appropriation of authorial "ownership", although I suppose it can be understood as his business practice in defending his right to income from his "intellectual capital."

Still, as the writer of a mythology and as a profoundly inspired reader of the ancient mythologies, Tolkien would have been very aware of how mythologies take on a life of their own, a narrative existence not limited by copyright, etc. He must have been torn by his own niggling over 'getting it right' and his understanding that stories evolved and change focus and direction depending upon the social and cultural climate that gives them life.

Stories, like languages, change.

[Child of the 7th Age]

The point I want to make does not pertain directly to JRRT, but does touch upon Christopher and the estate in terms of their views on LotR RPGs. John Rateliff makes his living working with videogames, developing guides and such. By all accounts, he has the blessing and approval of CT for his two-volume work on the Hobbit. In fact, the way it's generally been described is that the estate asked him to do for the Hobbit what CT was already doing with LotR and the material for Silm.

The interesting thing is that Rateliff is the author of a guide for a LotR RPG. See here. (http://cgi.ebay.com/Lord-of-The-Rings-RPG-used-LOTR-RPG-Decipher_W0QQitemZ270020311230QQihZ017QQcategoryZ4 4111QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem) Admittedly, an RPG of this type is not a fanfiction or a piece of straight writing. It is a videogame. Still, it's interesting to me that Christopher felt comfortable with Rateliff, given this aspect of his background. I believe that at the time their relationship started Rateliff was working in the Marquette archives and was in graduate school. He took over the Hobbit project from an older colleague who unexpectedly died (and took many, many years to finish it! :D) As far as I know, Rateliff's relationship with CT has continued to be cordial. Isn't Decipher a licensed product that grew out of the movie? Still, it's interesting that Rateliff's involvement with a videogame/movie has not posed a problem for the estate.

[davem]

I'm not sure CT sees the games as having anything to do with Middle-earth - actually this is pretty much the reason he didn't include the early drafts of TH in H0M-e.

Wikipedia has

When Christopher Tolkien began publishing The History of Middle-earth, a twelve-volume series documenting J. R. R. Tolkien’s creative writing process in the creation of Middle-earth, with texts dating from the 1920s to the 1970s, he made a conscious decision not to issue a volume detailing the creation of The Hobbit. According to him, The Hobbit was not originally a part of the Middle-earth universe and was attached to his father's earlier, far darker legendarium only superficially, although the existence of The Hobbit forever altered the legendarium. The tone of The Hobbit is much lighter and more appropriate to a children’s tale than that of J. R. R. Tolkien’s other writings.

As Christopher Tolkien was not going to embark on a published study of The Hobbit, the task was given to Taum Santoski in the 1980s. Santoski had connections to the Marquette collection of Tolkien material, which is where the original manuscripts reside. He died in 1991, and ultimately the task passed to John Rateliff. Although Christopher Tolkien did not work directly on The History of The Hobbit, the work will be in a very similar vein to the "literary archaeology" of his History of Middle-earth.[4]

Rateliff submitted a finished draft of the book to Christopher Tolkien, who, approving of the work, gave The History of The Hobbit his personal blessing to be published in association with his father’s other works.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Ironically, JDR's thesis (with condiderable supporting evidence) is that The Hobbit was always tied to the Silmarillion universe.

It's probably accurate to say that CRT doesn't feel animosity toward those who work on (legal) projects which are not to his taste. Alan Lee's involvement with the movies (which CRT loathed) certainly didn't prevent CRT's specific request that Lee illustrate The Children of Hurin. In JDR's case the only issue was whether his scholarly abilities were up to snuff- and as Mr Baggins has received the nihil obstat and imprimatur they plainly were. Whether on his own time an author attends comic conventions wearing furry hobbit feet is his own business.

[davem]

Ironically, JDR's thesis (with condiderable supporting evidence) is that The Hobbit was always tied to the Silmarillion universe.
.

Well, I'm up to the point where the party leave Rivendell, & I've read a lot of Rateliff's 'evidence' & I have to say I'm not convinced. Of course, its clear that Tolkien drew on the Legendarium for background for the story, but its set in a 'fairy tale' world &only touches the Sil world tangentially - its hardly a part of the Legendarium. Yes, there were references to Beren & Luthien in the first version, & references to Gondolin survived, but there were also references to Shetland ponies, the Hindu Kush, tinkers, & 'policemen on bicycles'. Clearly the original version Tolkien set down had no stronger links with the Legendarium than Roverandom did.

We also have Tolkien stating in one letter that

“I don’t much approve of The Hobbit myself, preferring my own mythology (which is just touched on) with its consistent nomenclature – Elrond, Gondolin and Esgaroth have escaped out of it – and organized history, to this rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves out of Volüspá, newfangled hobbits and gollums (invented in an idle hour) and Anglo-Saxon runes.”

I think its clear from this statement that Tolkien, even in 1937 when TH was complete, didn't consider it part of the Legendarium - & hardly even to be set in the same world as The Sil - Elrond, Gondolin & Esgaroth, to Tolkien's mind, didn't belong in the world of TH, but had 'escaped' out of the Sil into it - as had 'Faerie in the West' into Roverandom.

Rateliff puts the case for TH being part of the Legendarium, but doesn't offer the counter argument.

In short, I don't see that TH is 'tied' all that strongly to the Legendarium itself, merely that it makes use of some characters & places in order to give 'depth'.

[NoahDesclian]

I'm not sure if the section of letter quoted above is evidence to say that Tolkien thought of The Hobbit as not being a part of the Legendarium, though I've never read the full letter and there might be more hints. The Hobbit might not have been a large, massive part of the full legendarium, but I don't see why it would be as unrelated to the Silmarilion and Lord of the Rings as Roverandum, or any of his other stories. From Sam and Frodo's chat about stories before they descended into Mordor (among other places), we can see how deeply important Tolkien felt continuing tales are. The Hobbit was a link within the larger story of Lord of the Rings (if we take the first of the wars of the ring as part of that story). Most likely Tolkien, charactaristically, was unhappy that he had not made everything fit together perfectly. Also, since he began to write it seemed as if Tolkien was constantly changing aspects of his stories, and the only reason he couldn't have gone back and tweek The Hobbit (or rewrite it all together) was that it was actually published. Who knows how many times he smoothed things over in his head, or on paper, but who knows how much he did the same for Lord of the Rings.

So, what I mean is that while The Hobbit is a children's story, and possibly just a "foot-in-the-door" for Tolkien's other writing, I can definitely see it being part of the Legendarium, at least as it's published now. Maybe Tolkien had something else in mind, but what he's given us is a step the Ring took before it ended up with Frodo.

[Feanorsdoom]

Many here read much into JRRT's letters that is certainly seriously meant, but I think the majority is overlooking a foundation of his work. Tolkien did not write the Legendarium as a man eager to create a singular, perfect opus meant to remain untouched by unclean hands. He was, practically from birth, a man in love with language and The Epic Story. He based his works upon older (and he would probably say much richer) traditions. Did he shirk from borrowing characters or plot elements from other authors? Whatever he thought about the quality of writing that is done in his Me world, I find it unimaginable that he would deny authors their creative impulse, even if that impulse led to continuing his legacy. It is an author with a cold heart (and not one I would admire) who could not be moved to acceptance of a talent equal to or greater than himself. Remember, JRRT was first a reader of myths; second, a speaker of tongues; and only third, a writer.

[davem]

Did he shirk from borrowing characters or plot elements from other authors? Whatever he thought about the quality of writing that is done in his Me world, I find it unimaginable that he would deny authors their creative impulse, even if that impulse led to continuing his legacy. It is an author with a cold heart (and not one I would admire) who could not be moved to acceptance of a talent equal to or greater than himself. Remember, JRRT was first a reader of myths; second, a speaker of tongues; and only third, a writer.

Well, I 'd argue over your analysis that Tolkien was a writer 'only third'. I consider him to be a great writer, & a writer first & foremost. However, the real reason why no-one should be allowed to follow Tolkien & write more M-re stories has been eloquently & succuinctly summed up by Tom Simon: http://superversive.livejournal.com/49083.html

What you would get is an endless stream of over-written trilogies 'extruded' by hacks. No writer of genius would want to write other people's stories. They would want to communicate their own vision. What publishers want (as Simon makes clear) are long books, churned out as quickly as possible in order to cash in - because apparently that's what the public want to buy. No way would anyone commissioned to write a Tolkien sequel be allowed to get away with writing a story as short as CoH - they woud be expected to produce at the very least a trilogy equal to LotR - whether there was sufficient material to justify it or not. Can you imagine a writer being commissioned to write new M-e stories being allowed the 12 years Tolkien took to produce LotR? No way. They'd be told 'We want a trilogy & you've got a year. Pad it out, man - that's what the public want.

BTW Tom Simon is my new hero - check out his review of CoH if you haven't already done so http://superversive.livejournal.com/49730.html#cutid1

[Lalwendë]

Sorry but I get the feeling Tolkien would have hated people writing new stories based in 'his' created world. He seemed keen to put a stop to almost every endeavour to adapt his work (was especially filled with hatred for Disney) and while I don't doubt he might have been amused by some of the better efforts - the art in particular - I get the distinct feeling he'd have been rolling his eyes at the greater excesses of fandom.

He was none too keen on the 'obsessed' fans, especially those who rang him up at night, and as a keen reader of Sci fi and fantasy fiction he'd probably have quite liked to read some good, original work. I know I get sick and fed up with 'Tolkien wannabes' *cough* Terry Brooks *cough* myself and would quite like to see people instead put their prodigious talents into creating some work of their own. RPGs excluded of course as that's about interaction ;) but I'm not comfortable at all with the idea of people spending creative time on all that lengthy serious fan fic that Just Aint Tolkien - Aint Never Gonna Be. Humour and smut yes - as that's essentially a new creation, being as Tolkien was not known for being ribald, but serious stuff? Why not do some of your own work?

Plus he'd have been tormented to feel obliged to read all the stuff too, as he was with his letters - just like poor old Bilbo having to let all them Dwarves into his home because he was Just A Hobbit Who Couldn't Say No ;)

:eek:

[Raynor]

I get the feeling Tolkien would have hated people writing new stories based in 'his' created world. He seemed keen to put a stop to almost every endeavour to adapt his workWell, davem has already quoted Tolkien as saying that (at least once) he intended to "leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama", to complete his work. More to the point in the cases of movies, he confessed in the letters that he is either "willing to play ball", if the producers are open to advice, or that he should "welcome the idea of an animated motion picture", even with the risk of vulgarisation. What he didn't like was bad art, or lack of skill/profesionalism, but that's another story. If he wants readers to submerge in his world, and delight in it, I don't see why he wouldn't want them to dream on their own.

[davem]

Now, I may be going a bit too far here, but it seems to me that those wanting more M-e novels are the same poeple who preferred the movies to the book, & who, as far as the book goes, preferred the Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli storyline over the Frodo/Sam/Gollum one. They probably also prefer playing the computer games over actually reading the books anyway. What they want seems to be to have Tolkien's world turned into a series of hack & slash sword & sorcery 'epics'.

Given the choice of reading unpublished works like The Fall of Arthur, the New Volsungasaga, or even Tolkien's translation of Beowulf or a new trilogy by some fantasy writer like Steven Erikson or Robert Jordan, full of big battles & Elven warriors & Wizards (preferably young Wizards who they could 'identify with'), they'd choose the latter. In other words, they aren't Tolkien fans, they're fantasy fans. The fact that if this kind of trash was published as a 'continuation' of Tolkien's work it would wreck any chance of him being seen as a serious literary artist by simply confirming the prejudice of the 'Literati' that Tolkien just wrote trivial juvenilia with no real depth or value, is neither here nor there to them, as they just want some cool stories about Middle-earth (preferably without the 'boring' stuff about Hobbits trudging through Mordor - 'just give us shield-surfing Elves, & stubbly heroes killing Orcs, please!').

In short, I think this is all about the desire of fanboys & Leggy fanciers for more trashy Dungeons & Dragons stuff. Tolkien was a poor writer as far as they're concerned, but came up with some decent ideas for books (preferably ones that will be turned into movies as quickly as possible after publication, so that they don't have to actually read them) by 'better' writers.

Look, the bookshops are full of enough sub standard Tolkien rip-offs to keep those who want them busy for decades to come. I don't see the point in licensing a bunch of hacks to produce another stupid Sword & Sorcery franchise.

[Raynor]

Well, I guess there are several issues at play. No one can prevent anyone from writing or publishing new books based on Tolkien's (as far as I know, at least); also, I wasn't arguing that we/I/some need more mass-produced books, of whatever kind. And I find it a bid hard to believe that the people who want more Tolkien books are those who are commercial-fantasy addicts, as there is plenty to read. I even wonder if all members of this forum have read the Silmarillion. What I tried to say in the previous post was that the professor himself would have likely approved of others continuing his work.

[Sauron the White]

davem ... in your latest post I think you perhaps over-characterized and stereotyped many people. I would love to see well written and carefully researched Middle-earth tales which fit in to the historical timelines that JRTT gve us. There are huge and chasmlike gaps that would make for very good stories.
I would like the author selected by the Tolkien Estate and would like that same author to recieve guidance and assistance to make sure the stories keep to the faithfulness of the ME that Tolkien created.

Does that make me guilty of the things you listed?

but it seems to me that those wanting more M-e novels are the same poeple who preferred the movies to the book, & who, as far as the book goes, preferred the Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli storyline over the Frodo/Sam/Gollum one. They probably also prefer playing the computer games over actually reading the books anyway. What they want seems to be to have Tolkien's world turned into a series of hack & slash sword & sorcery 'epics'.

-- I look at the movies and the book as two different tellings of the same story. I do not compare them for quality of "which is best". I try to appreciate and love each for what they are and accept them on their own merits and terms given the constraints and realities of the various mediums.

-- as for preferring one storyline over the other, again I cannot and will not make this choice since both are integral parts of the story. Its like SOPHIES CHOICE - which kid do you want to live?

-- I do NOT play computer games be it Middle-earth based ones or any other type (D&D included) , so I am not guilty of that.

-- I have read the books (LOTR and HOBBIT) at least eight or nine times, SILMARILLION four or five times and the entire HOME at least once with portions being read several times.

-- When I discovered LOTR back in the early 70's, yes I did then try to find other books "like them" and found only garbage and watered down dreck. I have no interest in the sword and sorcery genre.

I have no interest in reading the Professors translations of other books including BEOWULF so perhaps that makes me guilty of some transgression in your eyes. I sorely wish that the time the Professor spent on that project he could have worked more on his Middle-earth tales. But thats just me.

[davem]

I would love to see well written and carefully researched Middle-earth tales which fit in to the historical timelines that JRTT gve us. There are huge and chasmlike gaps that would make for very good stories.
I would like the author selected by the Tolkien Estate and would like that same author to recieve guidance and assistance to make sure the stories keep to the faithfulness of the ME that Tolkien created.

This is the whole problem as I see it. This approach sidelines Tolkien, & reduces him to the status of a provider of synopses. No-one, but no-one, can write Middle-earth tales like Tolkien did - it was his creation. Its like asking for a composer to complete a few manuscript pages by Mozart, or a poet to 'finish off' a poem left unfinished by Dylan Thomas. These stories do not exist, & to get someone to knock them up is a completely pointless exercise.

Tolkien could (& did) change his creation as he wrote - everything from storylines, through characters, to the languages his characters spoke. Tolkien could take off on the maddest tangents, & make the most extreme changes (look at 'Myths Transformed). Who could be authorised to do the same kind of thing? No, what you'd get is yet more fantasy novels.

Middle-earth is JRR Tolkien, & JRR Tolkien is Middle-earth & that's the long & short of it. This is why, however you feel about the quality or otherwise of the movies, radio series or stage shows, they are not, & can never be, Middle-earth, because JRR Tolkien didn't make them. The only thing that anyone else can produce, whether authorised by the Estate or not, is a fake. I still say that those who want more M-e stories by other writers are like those who want more Dylan Thomas poems or Van Gogh paintings & decide that as there aren't any more, they'll get someone to knock up some more. The point is, however good these new M-e tales might be, they would be fakes. This is nothing more than an attempt to remove Tolkien from M-e, to treat it as though it is something that exists external to Tolkien.

Middle-earth is not a 'mythology'. Middle-earth is the vision of a man, who had specific experiences, lived in a specific time, believed specific things, a ferocious intellect who created a visionary masterpiece. 'Let's get Fred Bloggs to knock up another trillogy for the fans.' misses the point by a very, very long way.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Ay-men, Brother!!!





No one can prevent anyone from writing or publishing new books based on Tolkien's (as far as I know, at least)

Oh yes they can...

[Elmo]

When does the copyright on Lord of the Rings run out? When it does, wouldn't that open the floodgates?

[Sauron the White]

davem ... the overwhelming weight of my post was in response to yours as a stereotpyed characterization of people who want more Middle-earth tales. I thought then, and still do now, that you set up these people as weak strawmen and then you dealt with them with derision and sarcasm. I thought that was unfair. You are obviously an extremely well informed Tolkien scholar who has very well thought out opinions. For my two cents, you stand on much more solid ground when you deal with the actual issue at hand rather than attempt to unfairly stereotype people with ideas different than the ones you hold.

[Lalwendë]

Oh yes they can...

Too right. I think the day the Tolkien estate allows 'novelisations' is a long, long, long time off - if ever. Tolkien will be no 'Virginia Andrews'!
;)

Seriously, this stuff is great for fun, or if you do something completely different - some humour, satire, parody, smut, incorporating aspects into wholly new creations blah blah...but if you have the talent to spend hours writing fan fic, why not take the leap and write some of your own stuff? Even fan fic is OK in comparison to some of the 'serious' or 'scholarly' attempts to rewrite and so forth - a certain TS member is alleged to have browbeaten one of the family into allowing a certain rewritten book to be published but even then they only allowed a print run of something like 50 copies, and it's a long way from being accepted! These fans are probably the ones wasting talents more than anyone. Please, get out there with your own work! It's not that the Tolkien written work is not good (on the contrary so much of it is wonderful) but it will never be officially sanctioned and I often lament about the original books that will never be written. :(

It's worth noting Tolkien envisioned art, music or drama to enrich his writings - isn't there enough there to be getting creative with?

[davem]

The whole problem is in the way people who want continuations of Tolkien's stories are looking at this. Its as if they see Middle-earth as equivalent to Ancient Egypt . A Historian writes a series of books on the history of Egypt, but leaves gaps in the narrative. Unfortunately he dies before he can complete his project, but some readers are so fascinated by the period that they demand other historians take up the baton & complete the story. And that's possible because Egypt has a history, & the truth about it can be discovered & made available.

Now, Middle-earth in not like that. The gaps in the story are there because Tolkien never invented anything to fill them. There is nothing to be discovered. The fact that Tolkien failed to fill the gaps, while at the same time focussing on other parts of the story to the extent that he re-wrote them over & over, tells us a great deal about the man who invented the world. To 'fill' those gaps is effectively to create a false impression of the creation.

Look. its like an American fan wishing that Tolkien had visited the US in the 50's to promote LotR. The fan decides that in order to satisfy his desire he will invent a promotional tour by Tolkien, including meetings with prominent American fantasy & Science Fiction writers, & attempt to get this included in a reprint of Carpenter's biography - why not, if its a good story, well written, & serves to entertain other Tolkien fans?

Well, because its not true. Tolkien never went to America in the 50's. Just as Tolkien never completed his Legendarium. But its incompleteness is part of its nature. To add new stories by new writers just to 'fill in the gaps' is equivalent to deciding to stick arms on the Venus de Milo. Of course you could get a decent sculptor to knock up a pair of arms & attach them in order to 'finish the thing off' - in fact, that at least could be justified in that the statue did have arms at one time.

But look at this, an unfinished work by Michelangelo http://www.ablemuse.com/premiere/bhouston_unfinished.htm

Should we hire someone competent to finish it off? Read the accompanying poem. If we got someone to finish off the sculpture, what, exactly would we have gained, in comparison to what we would lose?

Its the very fact that the Legendarium is incomplete that adds to the poignancy, the feeling of what might have been, if only...

Its a metaphor for life ;)

[Raynor]

The gaps in the story are there because Tolkien never invented anything to fill them. While this is valid for issues like Bombadil & co, I doubt we can safely generalise this for all the gaps. From what can be seen from CT's comments in various places, in many cases Tolkien simply forgot to close gaps.
Look. its like an American fan wishing that Tolkien had visited the US in the 50's to promote LotR. The fan decides that in order to satisfy his desire he will invent a promotional tour by Tolkien, including meetings with prominent American fantasy & Science Fiction writers, & attempt to get this included in a reprint of Carpenter's biography - why not, if its a good story, well written, & serves to entertain other Tolkien fans?However, can we equate writing fiction with presenting false events (the tour) as being real?
Should we hire someone competent to finish it off? Read the accompanying poem. If we got someone to finish off the sculpture, what, exactly would we have gained, in comparison to what we would lose?

Its the very fact that the Legendarium is incomplete that adds to the poignancy, the feeling of what might have been, if only...The "Legendarium written by Tolkien" will remain incomplete, no matter how many books, written by others, appear to complete it; it is a truism. Your analogy does not hold because if we attach arms to Venus, it will most likely destroy its unicity; same with the Michelangelo's work. However, the unicity of the Legendarium will remain, no matter what other books of fiction appear; it cannot be affected.

[davem]

While this is valid for issues like Bombadil & co, I doubt we can safely generalise this for all the gaps. From what can be seen from CT's comments in various places, in many cases Tolkien simply forgot to close gaps.

I was referring to the untold, or unfinished stories - like the fall of Gondolin & the War of Wrath, or Beren & Luthien.

However, can we equate writing fiction with presenting false events (the tour) as being real?

We can in this case, as the fiction, in a real sense, is the man.

The "Legendarium written by Tolkien" will remain incomplete, no matter how many books, written by others, appear to complete it; it is a truism. Your analogy does not hold because if we attach arms to Venus, it will most likely destroy its unicity; same with the Michelangelo's work. However, the unicity of the Legendarium will remain, no matter what other books of fiction appear; it cannot be affected.

Why the desire for other writers to tell new M-e stories then? The generally expressed reason is that people want to know more, to have the gaps in the Legendarium filled for them. They're using that letter to Waldman to support 'other hands' taking up the story & continuing it.

[Feanorsdoom]

Davem, I understand your belief in the importance of keeping Tolkien's work distinct from that which might be done in his name; no one here wants to see Disney's The Hobbit II. But Tolkien's world is very much like the historical Egypt before modern archaeology. There are minds every bit as creative and subtle as the Master's, however you may idolize him, and some of those minds will not be content to let the beauty of Middle-earth languish in dusty volumes. Arda began as a thought in one man's head and that man is gone, but Arda is not. The Silmarils are still waiting to be found, and some day, they will be.

[davem]

Davem, I understand your belief in the importance of keeping Tolkien's work distinct from that which might be done in his name; no one here wants to see Disney's The Hobbit II. But Tolkien's world is very much like the historical Egypt before modern archaeology. There are minds every bit as creative and subtle as the Master's, however you may idolize him, and some of those minds will not be content to let the beauty of Middle-earth languish in dusty volumes. Arda began as a thought in one man's head and that man is gone, but Arda is not. The Silmarils are still waiting to be found, and some day, they will be.

No they won't. Never. Some hack may make up a story about how they were found. And some hack may make up a story about how Turin & Nienor didn't really die, that it was all a trick to escape Morgoth's curse. Any mind as creative as Tolkien's will do its own thing, not flog stolen goods. Arda is Tolkien & Tolkien is gone. All the rest is lies & fakery. Sorry, I know you want it to be true that there is some genius waiting in the wings to take over, but reality isn't like that. The universe throws up geniuses every now & then. They blaze & pass.

This desire to have reams of fake Tolkien to read when there are so many works by other artists out there baffles me.

There isn't any more genuine stuff. Anything else will be fake.

I can't fathom why this is so difficult to understand. I know you wish there was more stuff. I understand the regret. But wanting more doesn't work like a magic spell to make more appear. Life isn't like that.

That's actually what LotR is saying - things come to an end. They stop, & there isn't any more. The Elves have gone. Sorry, but that's life.

[Lalwendë]

Davem, I understand your belief in the importance of keeping Tolkien's work distinct from that which might be done in his name; no one here wants to see Disney's The Hobbit II. But Tolkien's world is very much like the historical Egypt before modern archaeology. There are minds every bit as creative and subtle as the Master's, however you may idolize him, and some of those minds will not be content to let the beauty of Middle-earth languish in dusty volumes. Arda began as a thought in one man's head and that man is gone, but Arda is not. The Silmarils are still waiting to be found, and some day, they will be.

Well those minds must be content to let their own visions of Middle-earth either exist in their own heads, find another art form (like painting, music, crafts etc) or face the fact that their writing will remain a fan pursuit. The Estate keeps a tight ship on written work and rightly so - I've said it many times before and I will continue to say it, that Tolkien's work will not and must not end up cheapened and diluted like the Universe of Star Wars and many others.

Sorry to say but if someone really does have the same genius as that possessed by Tolkien then they will also have the genius to create their own visions of other worlds. There are geniuses out there today and that's what they are doing right now. Gaiman for one. Pullman for another. That's part of the inherent quality of genius - you do not ape others, you go and create something of your own which astounds and confounds.

[The 1,000 Reader]

As I mentioned earlier, Tolkien's works and fanfiction should never mix. The only person who has the right to write about Middle-Earth is Professor Tolkien, and he is dead to boot. As Davem said, Middle-Earth went with Tolkien. While a mythology of sorts, Tolkien's works are ultimately a work of fantasy and Tolkien's alone. On a lesser note, the few things I have seen that are attempted offshoots are written terribly. Tolkien's works are Tolkien's works, and were meant to be Tolkien's works, are Tolkien's works, and hopefully will remain Tolkien's works.

As for being inspired by Middle-Earth, you can, yet leave Middle-Earth be. Just acknowledge the fact that the story is finished and the gaps are simply things of no importance. Seriously, it's finished. Done.

[Lalwendë]

Spot on. There's nowt wrong with having some fun and playing RPGs and writing fan-fic etc (I've done it - am I gonna slate myself eh?), and if you write parody/satire you might see that in print because that is something new and different, but taking yourself too seriously and believing you can actually meet or even challenge the Authority of Tolkien (or CT) in serious writing to add to the canon is a little...precious? ;)

[Raynor]

I was referring to the untold, or unfinished stories - like the fall of Gondolin & the War of Wrath, or Beren & Luthien.My bad, I misread "invented" as "intended"; talk about writting after midnight. I would say the jury may still be out on that one, seeing that some say that a good/most part of Tolkien's writtings is not published yet.
We can in this case, as the fiction, in a real sense, is the man.I would call this as true as saying that this tour did take place :). Author and work are separable, esspecially if one gets to know the letters and other materials on Tolkien's life and personality, and if one takes into consideration that his work was continuously evolving.

As far as "keeping it real", I see no problem; as long as Tolkien's name does not appear as author of a new book, what's the biggie? It's all down to personal choice what standing we give to a book; some people exclude even works of Tolkien from canon, and frankly, as long as we give to Ceasar what is unto Ceasar, in public discussions [that is, we give relevant information about source, as it is good practice on Tolkien discussions], then anything goes. Not to mention that the Wheel of Time books are publicised in Romania as "tales of the fourth age, completing Tolkien's work".

[davem]

Just to go back to Feanorsdoom's point about the 'Silmarils being found one day'. I take it this is referring to the potential for some other writer to tell that story.

Yes, someone could indeed write that story - in fact I would be very surprised if someone hadn't already done so - there's so much fanfic around I suspect that every possible idea has been explored & written up by somebody.

However, what seems to be being suggested is an 'officially' sanctioned work by another author, published under the auspices pf the Tolkien Estate & that would stand on equal terms with LotR & TH, or at least with The '77 Sil & CoH. Now that I simply cannot see ever being accepted by most fans or students of Tolkien. It would be no more than published fanfic & be held in no higher authority than any other such work.

There can be (& probably will be shen copyright runs out - though I note that recent editions of Tolkien's work are copyright The Tolkien Trust, not JRR Tolkien) new M-e stories. But there will never be another writer who can say with perfect truth (as Tolkien did) that 'the Silmarils are in my heart'. The absolute best you could hope for would be a good fantasy novel (or more probably fantasy series). But it wouldn't be Tolkien. It would be a second hand vision. Even the style would either have to be fake Tolkien or the writer's own - in which case it would feel false.

To me this desire is more like the desire of someone who sees the Mona Lisa & becomes fascinated with the landscape background & wants another artist to paint other pictures showing more of the landscape to left & right. Apart from the fact that all you would end up with is a couple of landscape paintings with a vague connection to the original painting, the person wanting those paintings would have completely missed the point of the original....

Let's imagine a writer authorised to write a continuation - the first thing he or she is going to do is hit the solid brick wall of 'Myths Transformed' - does he or she ignore or incorporate those changes? Of course, that's just the first & most obvious example. The Legendarium is not a coherent, self consistent tale with a few gaps to fill, which any half decent writer can come along & fill in. It was a constantly evolving work, changing over Tolkien's long life, with far more internal conflicts & inconsistencies than many fans are willing to admit.

Sorry, you can analyse the writings, you can analyse the writer, but what you can't do is just write 'gap fillers' or continuations - anyone who thinks you can simply doesn't understand what Tolkien produced & the nature of teh materials he left.

[Feanorsdoom]

Davem, you have come closest to the truth in saying that no one could see M-e as JRRT did, and the fact that it was never a finished model to work from cements that; but 'filling in the gaps' or continuing the overall story in some sense are things that are being done, and will continue to be done, despite what you may wish. You say no one can internalize Tolkien's world like he did, and that's true, but it was never complete or adequately idealized in him, either. If you mean to say that no one could be as masterful as him without necessarily wanting to write outside of M-e, presumably for reasons of pride if not that genius can only be a purely individual nature, you may also be right, but I doubt it. Le Mort d'Arthur wasn't the first story about King Arthur, and no doubt won't be the last.

I'm not saying that the Tolkien family should bow to fan pressure and sanction a campaign of novel knockoffs like in the Star Trek universe(s) or AD&D, but fanfic is being written, and will be for the forseeable future. Somewhere in there might be writers of good quality, even great. To say that none can ever match the skills, vision, or dedication of JRRT himself is close to calling Tolkien divinely inspired and his works scripture. Before you key up another "never", I'd like to ask just how far we should go to keep people from publishing a new, non-Tolkien, Middle-earth novel. Should we just sue them for copyright infringement, or should we burn them for blasphemy?

JRRT was not a prophet, an apostle, or a messiah, and The Silmarillion is not the new, improved Bible. There will be authors his equal, and not all will share your idea that Middle-earth is sacrosanct to JRRT alone. Yes, his M-e is lost to us, except for the works he left behind; but if you are saying that no one's vision of M-e could ever be as beautiful, then I think you should question yourself as to how seriously you should be taking this line of thought. This isn't a cult; at least, I hope it's not becoming one.

Love for Tolkien's works can be expressed in many ways. Most of us can only read them, but many can't leave it at that. Surely, the human race isn't so impoverished that it can't come up with someone who both loves Tolkien's works and has the ability to add to them something worthwhile? Shouldn't we at least aknowledge the possibility, or should M-e be protected from outside ideas until it becomes a cult, then a new religion? That way leads to madness.

[davem]

Sorry, but I haven't argued that Tolkien's work should be treated like some kind of religious text. All I've argued from the start is that what we've got is what there is, & if anyone else adds to it what they add will be fake.

What you don't get is that Middle-earth is not a real place, with an objective existence that others can investigate & discover new things about. Middle-earth is what JRR Tolkien wrote. There isn't anymore, & won't be anymore because he's dead. There is lots of fanfic out there (in a mad moment I knocked some off myself & its there over on the Downs fanfic section if you want to read it. I enjoyed writing it, & some who read it said they liked it. But its not, & could never be, part of the Canon - even if it were a thousand times better than it is.

You appear to want other writers to be able to publish their own tales about Middle-earth & have them treated as canon - on equal (or higher) terms than Tolkien's own work. I'm saying this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Tolkien's work & a failure on your part to realise that the man is the work & the work is the man.

Yes, anyone can write stories about Elves & Balrogs which are set in Arda. They may be good stories. They may be entertaining, moving, even profound. What they won't be is part of Tolkien's Legendarium.

Look, let's get down to brass tacks. Which writer(s) are you talking about? This whole 'One day there may come a writer of genius who can take up his pen & tell us great tales of Middle-earth.' stuff is getting us no-where. One day I may be kidnapped by aliens. One day Tolkien may be cloned from DNA left on the stem of his favourite pipe. One day a great many things may happen, but if that's all your argument hangs on I think its a bit pointless to go on with.
\

[Estelyn Telcontar]

As a musician, I would like to add a footnote to this discussion that is applicable to writing and other arts as well as to music. Beginning composers usually try out different styles, often copying other composers, as part of the process of developing their own style. That's part of learning the craft, the 90% perspiration that brings the 10% inspiration onto paper and eventually, to the concert halls/exhibitions/printing presses. The better the predecessor, the better one learns the craft, so it's vital to choose the best. From there, upon having internalized the basic techniques, one can move on to stretching them, developing them, filling them with new contents in new styles - and perhaps even destroying them completely to make way for individual creativity.

What better writer could one choose to emulate than Tolkien?! (Granted, there are other excellent choices in other areas of writing out there, but those are not our topic here.) In "Meditations on Middle-Earth" (which sounds like cheesy devotionals, but is a compilation of authors' experiences with Tolkien's influence), a number of authors who have gone on to create their own worlds tell how they started out by emulating Tolkien.

I would in no way advocate selling others' products as canonical Tolkien, but fan fiction and RPGs can not only prepare budding authors for their own careers, the stories can give great pleasure to those who read them - if well-written, of course.

[Lalwendë]

The thing with fan-fic is that there is plenty of great stuff out there, and the Estate allow it to be written and published online or privately, just it must never have Tolkien's identity attached to it. I don't see what's wrong with leaving it at that. Some of the fan fic is so good it garners a sizeable audience of its own - fair enough! The vital thing is that it is kept entirely separate from the canon.

We must remember that Tolkien's stories are very different from stories of Arthur or Robin Hood. Those are ancient stories based on reality, based on history - nobody in particular created them, they were created collectively we might say as they are genuine myths and legends. As such they are nobody's and everybody's creations and we are free to play with them and create profit-making Art based on them.

No matter how hard you screw up your eyes and wish upon the Tooth Fairy, Tolkien's work is not Myth; it is Art, it is Fiction. Yes, it should and must be protected from dilution by other writers as to allow anything else would dilute and ruin Tolkien's immense hard work. As I say, the Estate are kind enough not to prevent fan-fic (some writers do, so think yourself lucky everyone!) in its current form, why can't we leave it be?

[davem]

The other problem with this approach is simply that (as I stated earlier) there is no final, coherent form to the Legendarium. There are conflicting versions of teh tales written over a period of six decades. Which version of the Tale of Gondolin, for instance, do you take as a basis for an 'official' retelling? The 1917 BoLT version (which is the only complete version) or the QS version, or do you take up the 1951 version as published in UT? Or do you just cobble together a version from the bits?

There isn't a coherent Legendarium for someone to take up. 'Middle-earth' is not, as I keep repeating, an objectively existing place, but a series of variant versions of tales composed over a long life by a man. Its not what some people insist on seeing it as. You can't, in all honesty, pretend that its something it isn't. No writer can take up the reigns & write a new story that would be accepted by either the Estate or fans as 'official', because however careful & competent the writer was he or she would inevitably contradict something Tolkien himself wrote, woud have to reject some of Tolkien's ideas - in effect 'finish off' Tolkien's painiting by painting over huge swathes of the original work. You'd lose the original work simply in order to get the canvas covered up.

Writing fanfic is one thing. Writing a new story that would be accepted as canonical is another. The first is open to anyone. The latter is rendered impossible by the very nature of the raw materials Tolkien left.

[Bêthberry]

While davendë ;) , as always, makes a very persuasive argument, I think it might be interesting to step back for a bit and ask why there is this sense that other Middle-earth stories could be written.

Obviously, there are holders of copyright who have sold the right or have hired other writers to pen stories of their universe. Top names here are Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame and George Lucas of Star Wars fame. Interestingly, both of these universes became known to fans first visually through the drama of film or television, rather than in written format. Both those media employ stables of writers; screenplays and TV scripts are cobbled out of a group effort. Royalties accrue to the original creator (or his estate, in the case of Roddenberry), but no one would ever say that others cannot participate in the concept. Who can is controlled by the business enterprise.

Now, Tolkien didn't come to us this way initially. He came in book form, and his books are substantively different from the early writings of the Star Trek and Star Wars universes. But two things have happened to Tolkien since his initial publication: Peter Jackson's film and Christopher Tolkien's productions.

The presence of the films, with their legal right to use the name Tolkien, makes it difficult for many people to distinguish between Tolkien and these Hollywood fantasists--rightly or wrongly. People are going to ask, why not with T as with R and L? The fine points of arguments about canon make little sense given that the practice is so widespread. (Note, I'm not agreeing with this; simply pointing out that many people will want to know why this is an apples and oranges argument when what they expect is the ambrosia of mixed fruit.)

The role of Tolkien's literary executor has substantially muddied this situation. What are the specific instructions Tolkien left for CT? True, literary executors do generally have the right to bring to the public eye postumous works of writers. Yet how many literary executors have done what CT has done--pulled together books from separate pieces of writing. The guiding principle here has, I think, been CT's understanding of the Legendarium and his desire to bring narrative continuity to the fragments which his father left. The son clearly had "access" to his father's understanding of Middle-earth and a sincere and profound imaginative grasp of it and of many of the works which went into his father's cauldron of stories. Clearly, no one will ever be in the same position as CT, who was offerred drafts of LotR for commentary while the book was being written and who was the first audience for TH. Yet the very presence of Christopher Tolkien's work, compounded with the progessive and framentary nature of JRR Tolkien's writing habits, provides a context which creates this sense that a hard and fast canon does not close off the possibility of other stories.

There is a world of difference between CT the scholar and the writers of the ST and SW universes. Yet hasn't CT invited, even inflamed, the desire, whetted by these other situations, for other Middle earth stories? Once JRRT opened up his imagination to CT, a subtle knife cut into the canonicity issue and the dust spills over.

[Sauron the White]

Is it possible that there can be some acceptable world in between those of THE CANON as written directly by Tolkien himself and the fan fiction area?

Yes, there will always be THE CANON because that is what it is. Like Robert DeNiro said in THE DEERHUNTER... "this is this". But given the reality of the present economics and publishing pressures, is it not inevitable that someday, someway, somehow, the Estate may decide that the best way to fight complete abdication of the copyright is to sanction a new hand selected writer to write Middle-earth tales? The literary estates of many other authors had to face that problem as copyright faced expiration - J. M. Barrie and PAN comes to mind of late - the Margaret Mitchell estate sanctioned a sequel to GONE WITH THE WIND, the James Bond books, just to name a few.

Perhaps we can find an area that is not considered THE CANON but is considerable more authoritative than fan fiction.

[Lalwendë]

There are never going to be economic pressures laid upon the Estate by Harper Collins as the Estate merely make use of the services owned by the publishing house, and the Estate are not beholden to them. Nor is the Estate in any way short of cash. Or ever likely to be!

And the difference between CT and anyone else is that he is an editor, there to sift through the fragments and put them together with maybe a note or two along the way. He only issues what his father had intended to do more with had he had more time in this world.

Books based on films may be one thing - but to have them based on Tolkien's work smacks of one thing only - dumbing down in the name of profit. Who knows, maybe one day a Literary Executor will come along with a burning desire to build himself a Tolkfork in the Oxfordshire countryside and build up a collection of Ferraris. Until then, why should the Estate pander to the wishes of the film fans, when they've already had not only the films but already have some perfectly good books to read - though to be nasty, maybe they are a bit too difficult for them? ;)

Anything outside of the canon simply is not authoritative, never has been, never will be. Which is why matters of canon regarding the texts we already have are still so hotly debated. ;)

[Sauron the White]

What will happen when the copyrights begin to expire?

[davem]

There is a world of difference between CT the scholar and the writers of the ST and SW universes. Yet hasn't CT invited, even inflamed, the desire, whetted by these other situations, for other Middle earth stories? Once JRRT opened up his imagination to CT, a subtle knife cut into the canonicity issue and the dust spills over.

I don't know. CT produced the '77 Sil because his father had been promising to publish the Silmarillion for years, & had always wanted to see it in print. CT's 'contribution' was mainly the final 3 chapters, which Tolkien had not brought into a sufficiently complete state (probably the understatement of the century). For the rest CT has basically published what his father left in pretty much the state he left it.

CoH is a case in point. That is 99.99% Tolkien pere, & CT's contribution has been in the main to provide linking sentences:

In the result, while I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight, in the longer text here presented. The text is nonetheless artificial, as it could not be otherwise: the more especially since this great body of manuscript represents a continual evolution in the actual story. Drafts that are essential to the formation of an uninterrupted narrative may in fact belong to an earlier stage. Thus, to give an example from an earlier point, a primary text for the story of the coming of Túrin's band to the hill of Amon Rûdh, the dwelling place that they found upon it and their life there, and the ephemeral success of the land of Dor-Cúarthol, was written before there was any suggestion of the Petty-dwarves; and indeed a fully-developed description of Mîm's house beneath the summit appears before Mîm himself.
In the remainder of the story, from Túrin's return to Dor-lómin, to which my father gave a finished form, there are naturally very few differences from the text in Unfinished Tales. But there are two matters of detail in the account of the attack on Glaurung at Cabed-en-Aras where I have emended the original words and which should be explained. (CoH Composition of the Text)

If any of the other tales were in such a virtually complete state, I'd be all for them being published. They aren't - nowhere near.

Is it possible that there can be some acceptable world in between those of THE CANON as written directly by Tolkien himself and the fan fiction area?
Perhaps we can find an area that is not considered THE CANON but is considerable more authoritative than fan fiction.

No, there's Tolkien's creation. Anything else is fanfic (whatever you choose to call it). Look, there is little chance of anyone producing authoritative or acceptable versions of the other 'Great Tales' (Fall of Gondolin & Beren & Luthien) for very good reasons - the Gondolin material is too confused & contradictory in nature, style & content for anything better than CT has produced in the '77 Sil to be produced ( I suspect that anyone trying to put together a novel length version of it would find themselves very bogged very quickly) & Beren & Luthien should simply be considered untouchable out of respect for Tolkien. B&E simply meant too much to him, was too personal. The idea that someone would turn it into an adventure story is about as distasteful an idea as I can imagine. This is not to treat the story as 'Holy Writ', merely to show proper respect to Tolkien.

The earlier suggestion that someone could one day write a story about the finding of the Silmarils shows a complete misunderstanding of the symbolism of the Jewels finding their end in Air, Earth & Water, & would be as silly as the repeated death/resurrection of the bad guys in trashy horror movie sequels.

The other option would be to write novels, or series of novels, set in Middle-earth, with Elves, Dwarves & Hobbits going off to have adventures - which would basically reduce Middle-earth to a standard fantasy world franchise & cheapen Tolkien's creation. And I hope any response to that point can avoid the 'Well, one day a genius may come along...' argument.


What will happen when the copyrights begin to expire?

I'm sure the vultures will gather & wring every penny out of Tolkien's genius they can.

[Morwen]

I'm sure the vultures will gather & wring every penny out of Tolkien's genius they can.This of course would be one of the signs of the Apocalypse.;)

More seriously, people who wish to write fan fiction do so now. Good for them. I gather they do so for their own amusement, not to publish or be considered authoratative. In such cases the blessing of the Estate is irrelevant.
As for the Estate annointing someone to create a Non Canon body of work this sounds like the kind of thing Hollywood movie moguls engage in, trying to capitalise on a brilliant original by churning out sequels of questionable quality. And I think the question of quality has to be a real concern. As observed earlier, it's overly optimistic IMO to think that the Estate or Fate is going to find "some genius" who is willing to spend his/her time diligently channeling the dead.

[Bêthberry]

This of course would be one of the signs of the Apocalypse.


I think some of those horsemen are already riding pretty hard. ;)

I don't know. CT produced the '77 Sil because his father had been promising to publish the Silmarillion for years, & had always wanted to see it in print. CT's 'contribution' was mainly the final 3 chapters, which Tolkien had not brought into a sufficiently complete state (probably the understatement of the century). For the rest CT has basically published what his father left in pretty much the state he left it.
. . .


This is the point over which there is much controversy, much contention. Anyone who has been reading Aiwendil's Chapter by Chapter discussion on The Silm knows that this statement is equally an understatement--although of course I know you, davem have sworn off the chapter by chapter discussions, so likely I'm sure your take would differ from Aiwendil's. STill, you should take a look at what has been posted so far.

CT's role has not been strictly speaking that of an editor who comes on the scene like Athena, fully armed. (I think it was Athena--Roman mythology is getting so hazzy these days.) One could well say that rarely has has a writer been able to create--one might say educate or even perfect--a reader for his own work. CT was first an audience of what was close to if not precisely an oral telling of one of the tales (however much you might discount its canonicity, davem.) (Heavens! There's JRRT muddying up his own Legendarium. ;) ) CT was also a member of The Inklings; his name is included on that hand written list which hands on the wall of the Bird and Baby--and Tolkien even wryly identifies himself as the father of the above named 'Christopher Tolkien.' CT must then have been party to all those wranglings and recitals over manuscripts. He also was what would now be called a beta reader, so intimately was he involved in the writing of LotR, Tolkien Sr. sending off chapters to him while he was waging war in South Africa. Then of course he became literary executor and by his own acknowledgement he regrets some of the creative work he did when producing The Silm.

In fact, I think it fair to say that Tolkien Sr. created not only an ideal reader for his work in his son, but he created an ideal inheritor of the mantle of Middle earth translator.

And none of this had anything to do with vultures or money. It is this situation which is so starkly unique in the literary world which gives breathe to the aspirations of other readers. And Tolkien created those conditions.

[davem]

This is the point over which there is much controversy, much contention. Anyone who has been reading Aiwendil's Chapter by Chapter discussion on The Silm knows that this statement is equally an understatement--although of course I know you, davem have sworn off the chapter by chapter discussions, so likely I'm sure your take would differ from Aiwendil's. STill, you should take a look at what has been posted so far.

Probably wasn't clear enough there - by 'for the rest' I meant UT & HoM-e, not 'the rest' of the '77 Sil.

his name is included on that hand written list which hands on the wall of the Bird and Baby--and Tolkien even wryly identifies himself as the father of the above named 'Christopher Tolkien.'

Its not genuine - its a photocopy of the Frontispiece from Carpenter's 'The Inklings' (fooled me too, but Lalwende's cynicism proved correct). No connection with the Bird & Baby at all. Apart from that I'd have to agree with your point.

It is this situation which is so starkly unique in the literary world which gives breathe to the aspirations of other readers. And Tolkien created those conditions.

Perhaps. I suspect it has a lot to do with the illusion of Secondary Reality Tolkien communicated so well - too many readers think of Middle-earth as a place with its own history, & just don't get that it is artifice - what Tolkien didn't create doesn't exist.

[Sauron the White]

I asked this question

What will happen when the copyrights begin to expire? and was provided with this answer:


I'm sure the vultures will gather & wring every penny out of Tolkien's genius they can.

Please allow me to ask this again and to say I am looking for something more fact based and less of an editorial comment.

At what point in time does the copyright lapse on any of the Middle-earth based tales?

[davem]

Please allow me to ask this again and to say I am looking for something more fact based and less of an editorial comment.

At what point in time does the copyright lapse on any of the Middle-earth based tales?


In theory 75 years after Tolkien's death.

However, recent editions of LotR (& other works) are copyright to the Tolkien Trust, not JRRT himself, so I'm not sure how long the copyright in this case will hold for. It will outlast me at least, for which I'm grateful.

[Sauron the White]

This is from Wikipedia in the article on copyright law.

Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions, with different categories of works and the length it subsists for also depends on whether a work is published or unpublished. In most of the world the default length of copyright for many works is generally the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years.

Can anyone identify the reasons why with Tolkien it would be 75 years as davem provided in his latest post? Also does anyone know what determines if it is 50 years or 70 years? Does this mean that - in some parts of the world - we could be looking at the issue 50 years after the 1973 death date? That would mean 2023 which is 16 years away.

-------------------
more info... The revised British law recognizes 70 years after an authors death. Before the mid 1980's it was only 50 years. Some other countries have shorter periods.

[Lalwendë]

Copy right is 70 years from the death of the author - or 70 years from the publication date of posthumously published works. All unpublished works remain in perpetual copyright until published - e.g. any letters you might have - and the intellectual rights over them rests with the estate of whoever wrote the letters. Some works are in perpetual copyright - e.g. Peter Pan. International boundaries must respect the limits of other nations as far as I know - Spain has a limit of 80 years.

However the Tolkien Estate has also registered as Trade Marks a lot of the necessary words you'd have to use in order to write a fan-fic and have it published. They exist as long as those words/phrases are in use. Note that copyright expiry allows you to publish cheap One Quid copies of novels, not to use the intellectual property to make new stories - and the existence of extensive Trade Marks will reinforce that. Put that together with the Trust and you ahve an exceedingly complex situation.

So don't hold yer breath...

...or you'll go blue...

As I say the Estate are exceedingly accommodating by allowing such extensive fan-fic as it is, as they are quite within their rights to prevent us all from using certain words and types of character, no doubt. It's a pleasant situation as it is, why change it? It smacks of people being vultures to me, when they could go off and use such prodigious talents to publish something original in order to make a few bob if it's so important. Fan-fic as it is stands as a touching (in many ways, not all of them 'touching' in a good way ;) ) tribute by fans to their favourite writer.

[davem]

Can anyone identify the reasons why with Tolkien it would be 75 years as davem provided in his latest post? .

davem was rushing & citing from memory. Just after hitting 'Post' he realised he had given the wrong time period. However, by that time a certain person had grabbed his computer because her own doesn't work & she can't be bothered to get it fixed 'cos she can just borrow his 'for five minutes' (& if he's lucky he might just get if back the same day ;) )

That said, I think we should all try & avoid snidey comments aimed at making other people look ignorant. We don't want tears before bedtime, do we?

Now, back to the topic.......

[Feanorsdoom]

Well, whatever I say seems to be passed off as overly optimistic, and that I'll concede. But simply defining Middle-earth as belonging only to JRRT forever is moot, since he's dead. One can define The Canon in any arbitrary way one chooses; he'll never come back to argue. The important part, as Morwen puts it, is the quality of writing that would be considered authoritative. You can argue through vague passages in JRRT's letters whether he would have accepted new authors taking up his work or not, but don't try to pretend the Legendarium is wholly without precedent and a pure work of his mind alone. That, indeed, shows a profound misunderstanding of the work; not just an idle thought that someone may find a way to complete a certain fate implied for the Silmarils (if they are meant to end in earth, air, and water, then Arda will never be remade? The Silmarils were always meant to be found). There are many more, if disguised, hands in the works of Middle-earth than just JRRT; and he wasn't above selling a direct translation or two of another's work. Beowulf and Sir Gawain were certainly not born in Beleriand.

However, I am not advocating rewrites of "The Fall of Gondolin" or a novelization of Hurin or Beren's stories. These have been done beyond the need for any reworking by me or anyone I know of. Nevertheless, whole Ages and families of Elves and Men await to be given life. Davem says that they do not wait, that all that can ever be said about M-e has been said and that any, any, other voice would be fake. That's his view, but he's not JRRT, nor am I or anyone here. And when CT dies, that will effectively end any sign of explicit permission to handle JRRT's works from the man himself. But I say again, and thousands of works since written in Arda of the full variety of skill will attest, that Middle-earth is not dead and that to assume that JRRT would forever cut off his own work from all others under the heading of "Canon" is no less than considering it sacred. Saying that other works like those about King Arthur and Robin Hood are built around historical figures and so are qualitatively different is wrong, as much of the Silmarillion was built around existent myths and stories and JRRT took great pains to show his influences. Arda wasn't, as Melkor may have you believe, created straight out of the void, and to believe it is would again be placing it in a sacred position never to be touched by mortal hands.

I don't have a handy quote to show that JRRT would have happily accepted a new author to take up his work, but I defy you to show me one saying that he believed his world to belong to himself alone or that all of it that ever will exist is contained within his own writing.

[davem]

The point is most fans, & no students, of JRR Tolkien, will accept works by any other author as having any relevance, or even much relation, to Tolkien's Legendarium. You could dress such works up how you wanted, stampt the JRRT monogram on the cover, & even include a talking hologram picture of CT saying 'This is far, far better than anything my father wrote about Middle-earth' & still most of us would not consider them to have anything more to do with Tolkien's Middle-earth than one of the DragonLance Chronicles, or volume 9,856 of The Wheel of Time.

As I said earlier, what you would end up with is M-e turned into a franchise like the Star Wars universe. The effect would be to cheapen & trivialise Tolkien's work.

Personally, I have a deep loathing of what is currently churned out under the lable 'Fantasy' & there are no more than half a dozen writers in that genre whose work I can be bothered with. I don't want Robert Jordan or Margaret Weiss churning out 'Extruded Fantasy Product' full of 'cute' Hobbits & ethereal Elves.

[Lalwendë]

"Authoritative" - isn't the clue in the word itself? It includes the Author - no mention of Robert Jordan, Alex Lewis or anyone else.

Author...itative - whatever 'itative' means, but there you go. Authoritative means the Author.

:p

[Morwen]

The important part, as Morwen puts it, is the quality of writing that would be considered authoritative.


That's not what I said. You're fusing two different points.
(a) I expressed a view that fanfic writers do not mean for their works to be seen as authoritative. This has nothing to do with the quality of their writing.

(b) As for the Estate annointing someone to create a Non Canon body of work this sounds like the kind of thing Hollywood movie moguls engage in, trying to capitalise on a brilliant original by churning out sequels of questionable quality. And I think the question of quality has to be a real concern. (emphasis added)I specifically raise a question about the quality of a Non Canon body of work, work that isn't part of the canon and therefore not authoritative.

[Sauron the White]

davem..... I was really not trying to be snide or smart when I asked that .... I thought that perhaps you knew of some special circumstances that would give the copyright 75 years. I do thank you for your intial information.

[Bêthberry]

The point is most fans, & no students, of JRR Tolkien, will accept works by any other author as having any relevance, or even much relation, to Tolkien's Legendarium. You could dress such works up how you wanted, stampt the JRRT monogram on the cover, & even include a talking hologram picture of CT saying 'This is far, far better than anything my father wrote about Middle-earth' & still most of us would not consider them to have anything more to do with Tolkien's Middle-earth than one of the DragonLance Chronicles, or volume 9,856 of The Wheel of Time.

As I said earlier, what you would end up with is M-e turned into a franchise like the Star Wars universe. The effect would be to cheapen & trivialise Tolkien's work.

Personally, I have a deep loathing of what is currently churned out under the lable 'Fantasy' & there are no more than half a dozen writers in that genre whose work I can be bothered with. I don't want Robert Jordan or Margaret Weiss churning out 'Extruded Fantasy Product' full of 'cute' Hobbits & ethereal Elves.

Actually, it's already been done.

Anyone remember George Lucas' Willow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_%28movie%29)

I grant the sad aspects of franchise and serialisation--one reason why I've never taken up either the SW or the ST novelisations. Still, I can't help but note that no matter how derivative people felt Lucas' Willow was--it has garnered a better rep now through posterity--Lucas' own imaginative involvement with Tolkien clearly helped propel Lucas into his own vision. That is a different topic than the one here--did JRRT encourage new M-e stories--yet I cannot help but think that to condemn all writing done in the spirit of Tolkien is in fact to lessen the great inspiration which Tolkien provides, both to fans as well as to those writers who would do their own thing.

This thread seems to be arguing two things--the business aspect of franchising and the inspirational aspect of Tolkien's influence. Tolkien does whet the appetite for writing.

[Lalwendë]

As I've said many times there's nowt wrong at all with having some fun writing stories based in Middle-earth. And in fact if you are talented and sensitive to Tolkien's style, then they would be worthwhile reading for the sheer fun of it, even if they are not going to expand your knowledge of Tolkien's work. I know of a fair few people who seek out the best ones and some are popular writings in their own 'right'.

BUT there has already been adequate space made by the Estate to indulge such whimsies - they are quite entitled to disallow any kind of fan-fic or RPG if they so wish. Why do they not allow 'novelisations'? Because Tolkien wrote Books, big long things with lots of words in them, lots of infinite scope for your imaginations to wander - a very different thing to films which are restrictive universes and so lend themselves more readily to expansion via novelisation. But even in that ouevre 90% of novelisations are Pants! Not just Pants, but Big Smelly Pants! Not only are they often cheesy, they confuse matters. Yeah, a new novel about Hobbits tootling round at some point in the 4th age may be entertaining but it might also be extremely confusing. Reading such things may even Ruin Your Tolkien Knowledge if you are not careful - judging by the ongoing silly confusion over names of Nazgul created by Dungeons and Dragons imaginings... :rolleyes:

Why do people want to have their names and their work linked to Tolkien so badly?

To reflect/bask in the glory? Make themselves seem more important amongst the fans. I know of one person who has a sanctioned and published fan-fic out there (in severely limited quantities) who has actually made himself look like a bit of a you-know-what by his posturing in this way. ;)

To make money? If so, then that makes me slightly sick.

Or do you just want to read more stories? If so then what are you belly-aching over?! There's enough good uns out there - for starters, just direct yon cursor to top o't' page and you'll find some great 'uns on this here site's own fan-fic section....

Or does everything have to be Brand Names these days? :rolleyes:

[Morwen]

In Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys, writes about Mr. Rochester's mad wife, a character from Jane Eyre. The story is about who this woman was before she became an insane, attic dwelling pyromaniac.Now if the novel had been written by Charlotte Bronte it would have been a prequel to Jane Eyre. You could have used info found there to discuss, say, the development of the character of Mr. Rochester. But Wide Sargasso Sea is the work of Jean Rhys. It's an independent work with merit of its own but it does not contribute to or expand the world of Jane Eyre. Only Charlotte Bronte could do this and indeed I don't know that it was ever Jean Rhys' intention to try. And I don't know that Bronte scholars use Ms. Rhys' work as a tool for analysing either Rochester or his mad wife. At least I have not heard of this. I would welcome corrections on the point.

Now I have understood some to say that other persons should pick up where Tolkien left off and compose new stories set in Middle Earth and I suppose using the frame work that Tolkien has provided. However, I don't see stories by other authors as adding to or expanding what Tolkien created. They would be creating something distinct. Now these works may have a value of their own but I agree with Davem that they would not be used by Tolkien scholars to discuss his work. And I also think that a lot of fans would distinguish between Tolkien's Middle Earth and the stories told by John Smith and Jane Doe.

[davem]

In Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys, writes about Mr. Rochester's mad wife, a character from Jane Eyre. .

Have to say that was one that popped into my mind - haven't read it but I did catch the recent BBC adaptation of it.

Now, I've never stated that it would be impossible for someone to write a great book based in Middle-earth. Perhaps one day they will. It won't be Tolkien though. As to it being seen as independent of Tolkien's work, that would depend on it not being authorised by the Estate - if the Estate authorised it it would inevitably be seen as part of the Legendarium. But no stories of Middle-earth can be published without the authorisation of the the Estate. Catch 22.


I just don't see that anyone will ever have the skill & insight that Tolkien had - such a writer would have to have Tolkien's intimate knowledge of Middle-earth history & languages & be as great a writer - something I think is often underplayed. AN Wilson makes some good points here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2007%2F06%2F04%2Fdo040 5.xml#9512571522693538744
(ignore the typos!)

Now the army of Tolkien imitators and creators of alternative universes fill the fantasy sections of the libraries. They are books largely written by and for nerds.

Yet with the master, it isn't so. In this new book, as in The Silmarillion, you feel yourself in the presence of a personal genius.

It is an odd thing to say, since his aim was to create an impersonal mythology, and you can see the affinities it has with Hebrew, Greek and Nordic equivalents. The ineluctable tendency for events to go wrong, and for the beautiful and the delicate to be vanquished, knows no let-up.

Yet, though there is not one word of preaching in The Children of Hurim, you never doubt that it is worth being good, even though evil triumphs.

You close it thinking how extraordinary was the life of Tolkien, who for well over half a century, while pursuing an academic career, continued to evolve - unpublished and without much encouragement - a self-contained world of myth.

That first bit is worth re-reading: 'Now the army of Tolkien imitators and creators of alternative universes fill the fantasy sections of the libraries. They are books largely written by and for nerds.'

I think that's what we'd get - however much some may wish for a genius to give us a masterpiece.

[Bêthberry]

What Rys'work does is contribute a way of considering Brontë's Jane Eyre. It suggests readers ask why Rochester's first wife went mad--that is, it prompts readers who might not think to question Rochester's version of events. Certainly the events are momentous enough that Jane solidly understands the potential for her to become a second madwoman, (and who knows, perhaps she does) even as many readers fall under the sway of Rochester.

I'm not particularly a fan of Wide Sargasso Sea as I always felt that it could have done better at exploring the Creole woman's plight. Still, it stands as an interesting extrapolation of a world beyond the constricted Victorian moors--Caribbean colonial expansion, race relations, second sons and remittance men. In giving 'voice' to a character who is spectacularly silent in the original text, it of course presents a perspective which may or may not have been outside or beyond that of the original author. That is, it gives us a more contemporary reading of one aspect of the original work.

There's lots being done about Victorian fiction this way. Consider The French Lieutenant's Woman, or A. J. Byatt or even Johanna Clarke. If this is 'fair'--that contemporary writers look at the silent spots in earlier work, to explore those gaps from our world view--then there's no reason why a writer can't do the same thing to Tolkien. It wouldn't necessarily be from a "politically correct" point of view, but would in fact represent a way one writer critically rewrites a predecessor. This, I think, is a far different kettle of fish than that earlier discussed here.

Frankly, I'm waiting for a post modern deconstruction of Tom Jones. Fielding already provided one for Pamela but I think Fielding is ripe for the taking. ;)

[Morwen]

What Rys'work does is contribute a way of considering Brontë's Jane Eyre. It suggests readers ask why Rochester's first wife went mad--that is, it prompts readers who might not think to question Rochester's version of events. Certainly the events are momentous enough that Jane solidly understands the potential for her to become a second madwoman, (and who knows, perhaps she does) even as many readers fall under the sway of Rochester.
I'm not particularly a fan of Wide Sargasso Sea as I always felt that it could have done better at exploring the Creole woman's plight. Still, it stands as an interesting extrapolation of a world beyond the constricted Victorian moors--Caribbean colonial expansion, race relations, second sons and remittance men. In giving 'voice' to a character who is spectacularly silent in the original text, it of course presents a perspective which may or may not have been outside or beyond that of the original author. That is, it gives us a more contemporary reading of one aspect of the original work.

These are things that I think make Wide Sargasso Sea interesting to discuss as an independent work. But if I were analysing Bertha or Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre I don't know that I could or should rely on interpretations of those characters that Bronte never suggested. And this is why I think that Rhys' work has to be treated as distinct.

Originally posted by davem
As to it being seen as independent of Tolkien's work, that would depend on it not being authorised by the Estate - if the Estate authorised it it would inevitably be seen as part of the Legendarium. But no stories of Middle-earth can be published without the authorisation of the the Estate. Catch 22.
But shouldn't one draw a distinction between what authorisation would mean for Tolkien scholars as opposed to readers/fans? For the former authorisation by the Estate wouldn't matter, the works still wouldn't be Tolkien's and therefore wouldn't fall within their area of study/research. (Of course your area of study may strictly be Middle Earth in which case authorisation might make a difference.)

For readers/fans I can see such authorisation dividing that group into two camps - purists who wouldn't accept such works as part of the Legendarium and others who would wish to refer to and quote such works in Tolkien discussions. The debates on Balrog wings and Bombadil will pale in comparison.

[Lalwendë]

Alas the Wide Sargasso Sea is a case in point of exactly why we should not allow Tolkien rip-offs. No student now can read Jane Eyre unadulterated, no student can take Charlotte Bronte's word for what it is - it is now forever tarnished thanks to Jean Rhys and her provocative, oppositional take on Bronte's work. She's entitled to do this of course, but I think it should have been left as an iconoclastic curiosity - instead it has been taken to heart by generations of lecturers scrambling for 'different interpretations'. Sigh. Poor Charlotte. But then she were only a humble Yorkshirewoman. What did she know in comparison to these clever Postmodernists. ;)

Nothing wrong with Wide Sargasso Sea on its own, but alas, it is what it has been used for that makes it a good example here. It has been used and abused as a 'tool' to alter the thoughts and interpretations of a whole generation or more of students and young readers. And the original author cannot defend herself. I can see this happening in a hundred years' time - some post-post-modernist interpretation of Beren and Luthien in which Luthien is an oppressed Elf, raped by Beren in the woodlands and forced to go on a quest by him - and so the original thoughts of Tolkien, that it sprang from his own love for his wife, will eventually be drowned and lost.

Alas, I don't think it would even amount to that with Tolkien's work being re-interpreted and turned over for bones of spurious stories - he is not yet a literary icon, so I fear such 'books' would just be lurid nerd fodder and would only stoke the fires of those who shout about Tolkien being a load of tripe and not worthy of serious attention. :(

Interestingly, there are some 'follow-ups' to Jane Austen's novels too - but they did not get good reviews and the Austenites seem to hate them, no matter how skillful the author who wrote them. And look at the incredible fuss made when whoever wrote the script to the recent film of P&P had Lizzie and Darcy kiss at the end. Just think of the book bonfire if someone tampered with Tolkien in that way! ;)

Note - I read earlier this afternoon that some novelisations from Serenity/Firefly will be written soon. However the fans are already yelling loudly that these will NEVER be accepted as canon as Joss Whedon is not involved with them! So which fans, exactly, would be lapping up the Tolkien Pulp Fiction?

[Feanorsdoom]

Again, the assumptions are being made that A) no one could understand M-e in the intimate way JRRT did (never mind that it is a flawed universe that Tolkien himself never finished); B) that no one could wish to continue the tradition for any reasons but money or self-agrandizement; C) that Middle-earth will now and forever be considered by fans and "Tolkien scholars" only within the scope of what was written by JRRT; and D) that fans and scholars would be asked thereby to consider new stories alongside the old as both being within "Tolkien's world".

A) M-e, as written by Tolkien, never was intimately understood by anyone, even Tolkien. See HoMe for details.

B) Some of us actually love M-e, and a few can actually write well, to boot.

C) Tolkien scholars can study the Tolkienesque parts of M-e stories; scholars of Middle-earth can study all stories written about it. There is no reason to equate Tolkien scholarship with Middle-earth necessarilly; in fact, there are Tolkien scholars who might only be interested in his other writings.

Also, who speaks for all or most fans of Middle-earth? I dare say that a good percentage of them are under 20, had never read any Tolkien before the movies came out, and could not get halfway through the Silmarillion. Who are we to consider our opinions more true or important than theirs?

D) Middle-earth is no longer Tolkien's world. If you don't believe me, just ask him.

[davem]

A) M-e, as written by Tolkien, never was intimately understood by anyone, even Tolkien. See HoMe for details.

M-e is not a place external to Tolkien's writings. Tolkien's writings are M-e. Who understands what is neither here nor there in this context.

B) Some of us actually love M-e, and a few can actually write well, to boot.

Agin, I can't see how this relates to whether there should be officially sanctioned sequels.


C) Tolkien scholars can study the Tolkienesque parts of M-e stories; scholars of Middle-earth can study all stories written about it.

There are only 'Tolkienesque' parts of M-e. The idea they are two different things is a misunderstanding, based primarilly on how successful Tolkien was in creating the sense of secondary reality.

There is no reason to equate Tolkien scholarship with Middle-earth necessarilly; in fact, there are Tolkien scholars who might only be interested in his other writings.

I think your second point is pretty much a non sequetur -


Also, who speaks for all or most fans of Middle-earth? I dare say that a good percentage of them are under 20, had never read any Tolkien before the movies came out, and could not get halfway through the Silmarillion. Who are we to consider our opinions more true or important than theirs?


Good point. I think the teenage movie fans who can't manage to actually read Tolkien's books should have the last word.

Really! If we're talking here about people who couldn't actually manage to get through The Sil, I can just imagine the quality & depth of these proposed new stories.

D) Middle-earth is no longer Tolkien's world. If you don't believe me, just ask him.

Let's form a circle & hold hands & see if we can channel him.....

[Lalwendë]

Again, the assumptions are being made that A) no one could understand M-e in the intimate way JRRT did (never mind that it is a flawed universe that Tolkien himself never finished); B) that no one could wish to continue the tradition for any reasons but money or self-agrandizement; C) that Middle-earth will now and forever be considered by fans and "Tolkien scholars" only within the scope of what was written by JRRT; and D) that fans and scholars would be asked thereby to consider new stories alongside the old as both being within "Tolkien's world".

A) M-e, as written by Tolkien, never was intimately understood by anyone, even Tolkien. See HoMe for details.

B) Some of us actually love M-e, and a few can actually write well, to boot.

C) Tolkien scholars can study the Tolkienesque parts of M-e stories; scholars of Middle-earth can study all stories written about it. There is no reason to equate Tolkien scholarship with Middle-earth necessarilly; in fact, there are Tolkien scholars who might only be interested in his other writings.

Also, who speaks for all or most fans of Middle-earth? I dare say that a good percentage of them are under 20, had never read any Tolkien before the movies came out, and could not get halfway through the Silmarillion. Who are we to consider our opinions more true or important than theirs?

D) Middle-earth is no longer Tolkien's world. If you don't believe me, just ask him.

A - nobody can understand it like he could. That's a fact. When he said he was 'finding out what happened' it didn't mean that Middle-earth actually existed at some mysterious point beyond platform 9 and three-quarters, he was talking about the creation which existed within his mind, as many creations exist within many minds. I have my own and find out new things about it daily - it doesn't mean it is real. It's like the explanation that Father Ted had to give Father Dougal about Dreams and Reality. ;)

B. First off, if you don't want money or fame then what's wrong with writing fan-fic as you can right now? What possible reason could there be for you to want to publish a book when the internet already offers you the chance for your fan-fic to be well loved by fans? If, of course, you are prepared to make the effort that is...

And anyone may well be a good writer, they may well be the best writer, but they are not nor ever will be Tolkien - many nuances go into creating a writer and their unique style, from their early education and influences to where they live, their specific social class, their gender, race, even what technical methods they use to write - pen or word processor. Nobody could ever hope to replicate those circumstances. And look at the controversy over how much and if his religion influenced him - how could anyone hope to get over that?

C. I'm neither interested in anything written in Tolkien's name by anyone so utterly pretentious as to call themselves a 'Tolkien Scholar' nor by some 15 year old Christopher Paolini clone. Hmmm, funny how that 500 years down the line Shakespeare's work has not been 'expanded' by the ponderings of ghost writers - you know, there is no Midsummer Nights Dream Part VIII (in the manner of Police Academy's many interminable parts). Why would Tolkien be any different? Only if he's to be considered not as a serious writer but as a producer of mere entertaining pap of course.

D. Legally, it is I'm afraid. And is likely to remain so due to use of Trade Marks. We're privileged enough to be allowed to write and independently publish on the net our fan-fics, which is very generous of the Estate as it is. Wanting more for ourselves is just submitting to Greed and likely, Pride too.

[Feanorsdoom]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë
A - nobody can understand it like he could. That's a fact. When he said he was 'finding out what happened' it didn't mean that Middle-earth actually existed at some mysterious point beyond platform 9 and three-quarters, he was talking about the creation which existed within his mind, as many creations exist within many minds. I have my own and find out new things about it daily - it doesn't mean it is real. It's like the explanation that Father Ted had to give Father Dougal about Dreams and Reality.

B. First off, if you don't want money or fame then what's wrong with writing fan-fic as you can right now? What possible reason could there be for you to want to publish a book when the internet already offers you the chance for your fan-fic to be well loved by fans? If, of course, you are prepared to make the effort that is...

And anyone may well be a good writer, they may well be the best writer, but they are not nor ever will be Tolkien - many nuances go into creating a writer and their unique style, from their early education and influences to where they live, their specific social class, their gender, race, even what technical methods they use to write - pen or word processor. Nobody could ever hope to replicate those circumstances. And look at the controversy over how much and if his religion influenced him - how could anyone hope to get over that?

C. I'm neither interested in anything written in Tolkien's name by anyone so utterly pretentious as to call themselves a 'Tolkien Scholar' nor by some 15 year old Christopher Paolini clone. Hmmm, funny how that 500 years down the line Shakespeare's work has not been 'expanded' by the ponderings of ghost writers - you know, there is no Midsummer Nights Dream Part VIII (in the manner of Police Academy's many interminable parts). Why would Tolkien be any different? Only if he's to be considered not as a serious writer but as a producer of mere entertaining pap of course.

D. Legally, it is I'm afraid. And is likely to remain so due to use of Trade Marks. We're privileged enough to be allowed to write and independently publish on the net our fan-fics, which is very generous of the Estate as it is. Wanting more for ourselves is just submitting to Greed and likely, Pride too.

If you will forgive me for staying slightly off topic in this manner...

A) My point here is that, as an objection to new M-e fiction, merely acknowledging that JRRT had a unique voice, etc. does not mean that M-e should be given in only one voice, or that JRRT himself would not have allowed it.

B) Here, I have not meant that fanfic is not allowed in some fashion or that the Estate isn't being generous in this, but that the overwhelming opinion here seems to be that such writing (regardless if it might be done by members here) is frivolous by nature and should never be considered otherwise. The assumption is made that to wish for official recognition is always vain or in hopes for (undeserved) money. Can you not see how such assumptions are, at best, overly all-consuming and, at worst, insulting to the fanbase in general?

C) I'm not particularly interested in "Tolkien scholars" myself, although I think it would be prudent to consider CT to be the preeminent specimen; however, it wasn't I who first mentioned these scholars, hence the quotes. The presumption, again, was that only JRRT's writings constitute scholarship in M-e in general, thus "Tolkien scholar", as opposed to "student of the mythology and stories of Middle-earth", which need not include only JRRT.

Always, the replies come with cute remarks like "not as a serious writer but as a producer of mere entertaining pap". Unfounded assumptions that all "serious" writers can't possibly wish to, or be able to, contribute to M-e. Shakespeare also rewrote older stories by other writers, you know, beside expanding upon histories of kings. In fact, the Wiki states-"Romeo and Juliet is a dramatization of Arthur Brooke's narrative poem 'The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.'" Shakespeare, what a "producer of mere entertaining pap".

D) Legally, M-e is the property of the Estate, indeed. That's not what is being argued. The question is whether JRRT discouraged new stories and, my tangential angle, that the idea shouldn't be shrugged off so contemptuously. JRRT could argue up and down while alive that no one but he should be allowed to write in his world (although at least one story written by a family member was reportedly accepted happily, if not canonically), but did he ever say that no one should be allowed to write in it after he was gone? And the fact remains that he is gone. There will be no more decisions on the matter coming from his pen, so it is up to the living to decide. I welcome the Estate's authority in the matter, especially because of the conservative nature they have shown in the past, but I simply don't believe JRRT wanted the matter to be closed forever. He didn't write the stories for himself only, why be so adamant that he wanted no one else to write them also?

[Raynor]

"Authoritative" - isn't the clue in the word itself? It includes the Author - no mention of Robert Jordan, Alex Lewis or anyone else.

Author...itative - whatever 'itative' means, but there you go. Authoritative means the Author.

:pIt is interesting to see that you now hold the author to have ultimate rights over his work, while in previous threads you and davem argued that your own personal interpretations hold water no matter what Tolkien said elsewhere, be it letters, HoME, UT, Silmarillion. If subjective interpretation was the primary criterion you accepted as valid in judging his work, then surely you must accept that everyone can choose to consider relevant whatever ideea, or in the context of this thread, writting. Else, you are using a double standard.

[Feanorsdoom]

Oh, and davem, your continued insistence that M-e only exists in the works of JRRT is fine, but it's an opinion. Every reader, indeed everyone who has had any connection to the stories, even by rumor only, has some conceptualization of M-e within him. I think we would agree that none of those can be the same as JRRT's, but they do exist. If only the concept of M-e that matters died with him, then why read it? Why make movies or paintings or even fanfic? Does M-e not exist for you when you put down the books? If not, then I pity you. But let the rest of us keep it alive.

[davem]

It is interesting to see that you now hold the author to have ultimate rights over his work, while in previous threads you and davem argued that your own personal interpretations hold water no matter what Tolkien said elsewhere, be it letters, HoME, UT, Silmarillion. If subjective interpretation was the primary criterion you accepted as valid in judging his work, then surely you must accept that everyone can choose to consider relevant whatever ideea, or in the context of this thread, writting. Else, you are using a double standard.

I've never argued that - sorry if my earlier posts were over subtle.

My argument has always been that what Tolkien said has to been seen in the context of what he wrote & when he wrote it, & most importantly who he was writing to. The idea that every single statement he ever made, on the record & off, to correspondents in personal letters, to newspapers, on film, in writings which were subsequently amended must all be given equal weight, is, frankly, a ludicrous position. Context is the issue.


The argument here is whether anyone else can 'do a Tolkien', effectively, become another Tolkien.

Oh, and davem, your continued insistence that M-e only exists in the works of JRRT is fine, but it's an opinion. Every reader, indeed everyone who has had any connection to the stories, even by rumor only, has some conceptualization of M-e within him. I think we would agree that none of those can be the same as JRRT's, but they do exist. If only the concept of M-e that matters died with him, then why read it? Why make movies or paintings or even fanfic? Does M-e not exist for you when you put down the books? If not, then I pity you. But let the rest of us keep it alive.


This, again, is not the point. The point is whether anyone else can do what Tolkien did, have Tolkien's insight in to his own creation sufficient to enable them to create convincing stories set in his world. The answer is no.

The other point which seems to be consistently ignored is Tolkien's absolute control over his creation - the fact that he had the power to change, amend & completely do away with whole chunks of his creation as it suited him. No other writer can do that. Tolkien could take off on the most extreme tangent (read 'Myths Transformed') & it is accepted as valid - even if many of us consider it to have been a mistake. No new writer could make even minor changes without being criticised.

Personal interpretation/experience is not the issue here. We all experience M-e in a unique way. That is essential. What you seem to be asking for is another writer's personal interpretation to be given extra weight by being officially sanctioned.

Fanfic is fanfic - whether its free via the Internet, or published by Harper Collins in a nice hardback with the JRRT monogram on it & priced at £18.99. If its not by JRRT its fanfic.

[The Saucepan Man]

*Hesitates before entering, takes a deep breath, and plunges in*

As someone who, after reading LotR, hoovered up all kinds of fantasy fiction (some of which I enjoyed immensely, some less so), got into playing AD&D, and failed to finish reading the Silmarillion at first attempt (aged 14), I find some of the opinions expressed here to be somewhat patronising. Is it not double standards to criticise the likes of Germaine Greer for her dismissive approach to Tolkien’s works, yet at the same time adopt an equally dismissive approach to other works of the ‘fantasy genre’? Whether or not someone enjoys a work and sees value in it is a very subjective thing. Greer and her ilk don’t like Tolkien, which is fair enough, but they then go on to attempt to force their opinion on others by ridiculing and disparaging the object of their dislike. Let us not adopt the same approach to other fantasy novels just because they are not for us or because we feel that, in our opinion, they do not match up to the standard set by Tolkien.

Anyway, be that as it may, views, opinions and arguments on a pinhead are being thrown around all over the place here (something that I would never do ;)). So let’s get back to the facts.

1. Copyright in Tolkien’s published works lays with the Estate and that will remain the case for many years to come.

2. People write fanfic for their own personal enjoyment and for the enjoyment of others, and this appears to be tolerated by the Estate, provided that it is not done for commercial gain (which would most likely represent a breach of copyright in any event).

3. No work based upon Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings is likely to be commercially published or considered in any way authoritative unless authorised by the Estate, at least for the next 40 years or so.

In light of these facts, what is the argument about? Fanfic will continue to be written and people who like that sort of thing will be able to continue to read and enjoy it. No authoritative work will be produced or marketed without the blessing of the Estate. That is a matter for the Estate. It is unlikely to happen, given their approach but, were it to happen, the work concerned would need to be of high quality and very much in line with Tolkien’s intended spirit in order to receive the Estate’s blessing, thus avoiding the ‘cheapening’ the Legendarium with ‘pulp imitators’. So where is the issue?

[Bêthberry]

These are things that I think make Wide Sargasso Sea interesting to discuss as an independent work. But if I were analysing Bertha or Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre I don't know that I could or should rely on interpretations of those characters that Bronte never suggested. And this is why I think that Rhys' work has to be treated as distinct.



Alas the Wide Sargasso Sea is a case in point of exactly why we should not allow Tolkien rip-offs. No student now can read Jane Eyre unadulterated, no student can take Charlotte Bronte's word for what it is - it is now forever tarnished thanks to Jean Rhys and her provocative, oppositional take on Bronte's work. She's entitled to do this of course, but I think it should have been left as an iconoclastic curiosity - instead it has been taken to heart by generations of lecturers scrambling for 'different interpretations'. Sigh. Poor Charlotte. But then she were only a humble Yorkshirewoman. What did she know in comparison to these clever Postmodernists.

Reading books is a dangerous thing. No telling who will come off better or worse, the ancients or the moderns.


Hmmm, funny how that 500 years down the line Shakespeare's work has not been 'expanded' by the ponderings of ghost writers - you know, there is no Midsummer Nights Dream Part VIII (in the manner of Police Academy's many interminable parts). Why would Tolkien be any different? Only if he's to be considered not as a serious writer but as a producer of mere entertaining pap of course.


Shakespeare didn't write a mythology, didn't create a Legendarium, as Tolkien, Lewis, Asimov, Lucas, Whedon have done. And the interminable parts belong to the debate over who actually wrote the plays. ;)


The point is whether anyone else can do what Tolkien did, have Tolkien's insight in to his own creation sufficient to enable them to create convincing stories set in his world. The answer is no.


There's the rub: convincing stories set in his world. convincing is a subjective state, so no follows only for you.


What you seem to be asking for is another writer's personal interpretation to be given extra weight by being officially sanctioned.


The original post asked if Tolkien encouraged others to take up his mythology. No mention of official sanction there.

[Lalwendë]

Well SpM is saying what I'm trying to say which is where is the beef?! You can all read and write as much fan fic as you like!

But no, it seems it has to have a brand name on it these days - alas that's the world we now live in where Nike Tolkien is going to be better than Tesco Value Tolkien. Never mind what's inside, just feel the packaging, check out the gold leaf JRRT Logo!

Yet how about Tolkien's own feelings about the machine? His name being utilised to Brand Name spurious extra 'stuff', more 'product'?

So for those who want to get Back To Basics, even though there is no argument to be won as Nobody Is Stopping You From Writing Fan-Fic, what did he say?:

But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

Yes, nothing about writing more stories. And if you're not reading that quote right then I sincerely hope you're not thinking yourself good enough to follow in his footsteps. :p

[The Saucepan Man]

But no, it seems it has to have a brand name on it these days - alas that's the world we now live in where Nike Tolkien is going to be better than Tesco Value Tolkien.Actually, I suspect that the choice would be between Tesco Tolkien and Tesco 'Read the Difference' Tolkien - same thing, just more nicely packaged and double the price. ;)

[Lalwendë]

Actually, I suspect that the choice would be between Tesco Tolkien and Tesco 'Read the Difference' Tolkien - same thing, just more nicely packaged and double the price. ;)

And in this day and age of climate change we should be more environment conscious so maybe fan-fic on t'internet is more eco-friendly even than them nice shiny new editions of Children of Hurin. ;)

See, it's better for your soul. :p

[Bêthberry]

Yes, nothing about writing more stories. And if you're not reading that quote right then I sincerely hope you're not thinking yourself good enough to follow in his footsteps. :p


Tolkien omitted tapestry and embroidery and quilting too, so I suppose that means no Middle-earth Bayeux Tapestry (http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/Index.htm) either. No need to say England should have a copy of her (?) own. :p

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien omitted tapestry and embroidery and quilting too, so I suppose that means no Middle-earth Bayeux Tapestry (http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/Index.htm) either. No need to say England should have a copy of her (?) own. :p

Though you would assume that 'paint' means Art - it is just a more poetic and subtle way of putting it of course that may be lost ;)

Who wants the Bayeux tapestry? French muck. :p

[Bêthberry]

Though you would assume that 'paint' means Art - it is just a more poetic and subtle way of putting it of course that may be lost ;)

Who wants the Bayeux tapestry? French muck. :p

Nothing poetic about it, as it isn't inclusive. For centuries after the middle ages, the domestic arts were ignored as art forms in favour of the "higher" art of painting and sculpture, which were largely (although not entirely) the realm of males. It's something similar to that argument that to call the human race 'man' is to ignore half of the species. That argument, though, may be lost on some. ;)

[davem]

There's the rub: convincing stories set in his world. convincing is a subjective state, so no follows only for you.





All my statements should be taken as subjective. The fact that they also happen to be objectively true merely strengthens my position.

[Lalwendë]

Nothing poetic about it, as it isn't inclusive. For centuries after the middle ages, the domestic arts were ignored as art forms in favour of the "higher" art of painting and sculpture, which were largely (although not entirely) the realm of males. It's something similar to that argument that to call the human race 'man' is to ignore half of the species. That argument, though, may be lost on some. ;)

I know but we're talking about Tolkien and he was wise and cultured enough to know that the visual arts included a lot more than formal painting - he even had his Elves be Craftspeople instead of churning out Old Masters of Elrond (for Elladan to draw a moustache and beard on...). He was a follower of Morris.

[Morwen]

Also, who speaks for all or most fans of Middle-earth? I dare say that a good percentage of them are under 20, had never read any Tolkien before the movies came out, and could not get halfway through the Silmarillion. Who are we to consider our opinions more true or important than theirs?


If I were petitioning the Estate to officially sanction new stories this is not an argument that I would use. If the fans you mention have not exhausted what material is currently available then why exactly should they be clamouring for more stories? If their problem is that they cannot "get through" the available material then what sort of stories should the Estate be sanctioning for them? Some sort of Middle Earth Lite fiction?

[davem]

If their problem is that they cannot "get through" the available material then what sort of stories should the Estate be sanctioning for them? Some sort of Middle Earth Lite fiction?

With lots of pictures & the long words spelled phonetically.....

[Bêthberry]

I know but we're talking about Tolkien and he was wise and cultured enough to know that the visual arts included a lot more than formal painting


The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

So I suppose then we take that last word to include writing and those last three words to include musical productions?


With lots of pictures . . .

Yes, great achievements in graphic novels require those.


All my statements should be taken as subjective. The fact that they also happen to be objectively true merely strengthens my position.

How very considerate of you to provide a post for Eomer's rather dormant To the Merriment (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?p=434221#post434221) thread.

[davem]

Yes, great achievements in graphic novels require those..

'Kapow!' 'Foom!' 'Whack!'

[Bêthberry]

'Kapow!' 'Foom!' 'Whack!'

Your comment is a bit short there, even for your usual flippancy. I'd say you're about 997 words short.

You know, I wonder-- if we assigned 1000 words to each picture drawn by every Tolkien illustrator and artist, that would probably exceed the length of LotR, wouldn't it? I think Tolkien got his wish.

[Feanorsdoom]

Of all this I can but finally concede that unless some genius does arise who can put on paper a vision of Middle-earth beautiful enough that the Tolkien estate, as well as the majority of its literary fans, accepts it as worthy to be placed beside JRR Tolkien's own works, our comments are only echoes of the eternal battle between the hopeful and the conservative. That genius, if he ever exists, will not be relying on hope, nor will he shrink in the face of conservatism; and the next great story of Middle-earth won't be written in a literary forum.

[davem]

Your comment is a bit short there, even for your usual flippancy. I'd say you're about 997 words short.

You know, I wonder-- if we assigned 1000 words to each picture drawn by every Tolkien illustrator and artist, that would probably exceed the length of LotR, wouldn't it? I think Tolkien got his wish.

i know 'graphic novels' are considered by many as high art, & I'm sure there are some good examples of the genre (Lal raves about Sandman). However, just as this 'genius' who will take up Tolkien's pen will (in my opinion) remain ever elusive & the job be taken up by some hack writer who will churn out genre fantasy, I expect that rather than presenting us with a work worthy to stand alongside Tolkien's own, that a graphic novel continuation of Tolkien's work would be squarely aimed at the hard of thinking demographic, who want to see Legolas surfing down stairways ('Whoosh!) while shooting Orcs ('Twang!' 'Arrgh!).

It seems to me that there can only be justification for asking for 'fuller' or completed versions of tales left unfinished by Tolkien, & I think its been shown that such versions are pretty much impossibilities. There is no justification (beyond the joy obtained by writers & readers of fanfic) for 'officially' sanctioned versions by other writers, as these writers have neither the absolute knowledge nor absolute control that Tolkien had over his creation - hence for that reason, however good & faithful said works were, they would ultimately be pale shadows of the original creation.

The demand for 'other tales' set in M-e is asking for something that doesn't actually exist (Tolkien didn't tell those stories, didn't invent that part of M-e). Its like asking for someone to decorate your fifth bedroom when you live in a four bedroomed house - & I just know someone is going to respond by saying 'Well, you could employ someone to build an extention!' - which is the whole problem with analogies: people think that because they can demolish the analogy they can as easily change the reality the analogy is pointing up.

The idea of 'graphic novels' of Tolkien's creation - whether adaptations of existing tales, or original stories - doiesn't really add anything to the argument of whether there could, or should be new tales - the form they may take does not really add anything to the discussion till we've reached a consensus on whether they are possible - or at least desirable.

[narfforc]

So Davem you think my Return of the Two Towering Kings and their Ring of Fellowship wouldn't sell then? :p , better start writing Potty Harry and the Goblins on Fire instead, or would you suggest Hairy Potter and the Prisoner is on a Razorban :D . All joking aside, if one person emerged that could and would write as the equal of Tolkien, there would be many more that would write junk, the world would be awash with piffle if it wasn't vetted properly. Fanfic does me quite fine, it's harmless fun and of which I have participated, of course I wish someone could write some more, but that wish would be wasted, for if I had one it would be that Tolkien had written more.

[davem]

. Fanfic does me quite fine, it's harmless fun and of which I have participated, of course I wish someone could write some more, but that wish would be wasted, for if I had one it would be that Tolkien had written more.

As said earlier, I wrote some fanfic myself & stuck it over on the Downs fanfic section. Fanfic is fine & fun & (to continue with the alliteration) free. I think this is fantasic, fabulous - free fiction for fans.

And so on.

What I don't get is why people want to pay for something they now get for free. It seems that what people want is to be told by the Estate what fanfic is good & what is bad. This seems to me to demonstrate a lack of the most basic critical judgement - of course, one admires the person who is so aware of their own lack of aesthetic sense that they are willing to pay to be told by those in authority what fiction is good & what is bad, & yet at the same time sad that it has to come to that. Their plaintive cries of 'Please tell me what is good Fanfic, O ye Lords of the Tolkien Estate, by putting JRRT's monogram on it & charging me £20 to buy it in hardback with nice colour plates by Ted Naismith! Else shall I not know whether the Middle-earth tales I come across on the Web are good or bad, for I am under a curse, as t'were laid on me by Morgoth himself, that I cannot tell whether a tale be worth the reading or not!' wring the heart of even the greatest cynic & the most unfeeling among us. Certes.

Of course, the irony is that when copyright expires & people are free to publish new tales of M-e all Tolkien's works will instantly appear FOC on the net, so that people will be able to get Tolkien's work for nowt, & yet have to pay for the sequels that will appear to glut even the most desperate fan of fic - all of which will be published perfectly legally, & 99.9999% of which will be drivel.

[Lalwendë]

So I suppose then we take that last word to include writing and those last three words to include musical productions?


Given Tolkien's feelings about Drama, he would most certainly not count it as 'writing'! He saw Drama as something strictly for performance, not for reading, so No! Drama would not include other forms of writing to Tolkien!
:eek:

Anyway this discussion brings to mind The New Shadow, where Tolkien himself attempted to write another Middle-earth story but failed miserably. The biggest stories of course had already been 'done' - any other Middle-earth story could only be a 'smaller' kind of tale unfortunately, and not half as good. Tolkien knew that the most he could hope for was to produce a kind of 'thriller' but any other story would entirely lack the sense of myth found in those he had already written.

So, Tolkien failed to add more Middle-earth mythology. What makes us think we would be any better at coming up with something new and as exciting as LotR?

[Sauron the White]

I simply am astounded how people can accurately look into the future and say with firm conviction and certainty that if anyone ever writes a real book (not fan fiction) about Middle-earth that it will be worthless crap. Sure, that is a possibility. But so is a real possibility that it could be good and enjoyable.

Could those who know the future so clearly please send me the winning lottery numbers for the next few weeks? It would be most appreciated and your talents would be praised with great praise.

So somebody can get joy out of reading fan fiction but nobody will get joy from reading an officially sanctioned Middle-earth book written by somebody else? Really now? And this is known just how? Back to those lottery numbers I guess.

I would think that unless the Estate does get a very good professional writer to perform such an undertaking and provides them with guidance and direction, the chances of an artistic failure are increased. Bit of a self fulfilling prophecy then to speculate than anybody who writes a Middle-earth tale would produce garbage.

[davem]

I would think that unless the Estate does get a very good professional writer to perform such an undertaking and provides them with guidance and direction, the chances of an artistic failure are increased. Bit of a self fulfilling prophecy then to speculate than anybody who writes a Middle-earth tale would produce garbage.

I actually never said it was impossible for someone to make a decent effort, & that judged as a story it could be good. My point is that it wouldn't be Tolkien - it wouldn't be genuine. It would be simply a good fantasy novel using names & places invented by Tolkien - but if you think that that would be enough for it to stand alongside Tolkien's writings as part of the Legendarium you simply don't get it.

I simply am astounded how people can accurately look into the future and say with firm conviction and certainty that if anyone ever writes a real book (not fan fiction) about Middle-earth that it will be worthless crap. Sure, that is a possibility. But so is a real possibility that it could be good and enjoyable.

Yes, yes, & nobody can disprove that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters given an infinite amount of time wouldn't produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

You're right. Its not logically impossible. I just think that if we're going to have a sensible discussion on this we need more support for our arguments than 'Well, you can't prove 'X' won't happen one day.'

[Morwen]

So somebody can get joy out of reading fan fiction but nobody will get joy from reading an officially sanctioned Middle-earth book written by somebody else? Really now? And this is known just how? Back to those lottery numbers I guess.


Middle Earth fanfiction currently exists and is most likely currently enjoyed. Therefore those who want more stories are getting precisely that. So why then, in your opinion, does the Estate need to give an official sanction to someone to create Middle Earth stories? Is there some particular reason why the informal vehicle of fanfiction is not enough?

[Sauron the White]

How many people enjoy these tales written on fan sites versus the numbers who would be customers in mass market book form? I personally loathe trying to read lengthy fiction on a screen. I much prefer the printed page of a traditional book. I would make a wild guess that I am not alone.

CHILDREN OF HURIN - a tale that has been around for a number of years now in several forms and is hardly "new" - is selling some half a million copies.

Maybe someone here could tell me what is the single most famous and best written piece of Middle-earth fan fiction and provide the number of how many hits it has gotten. Then compare that to a traditionally published book.

And we are not talking about hypothetical legions of trained monkeys on typewriters. To compare it to that is simply not honest.

[Morwen]

How many people enjoy these tales written on fan sites versus the numbers who would be customers in mass market book form? I personally loathe trying to read lengthy fiction on a screen. I much prefer the printed page of a traditional book. I would make a wild guess that I am not alone.

CHILDREN OF HURIN - a tale that has been around for a number of years now in several forms and is hardly "new" - is selling some half a million copies.

Maybe someone here could tell me what is the single most famous and best written piece of Middle-earth fan fiction and provide the number of how many hits it has gotten. Then compare that to a traditionally published book.

And we are not talking about hypothetical legions of trained monkeys on typewriters. To compare it to that is simply not honest.
And why is access to fanfiction a concern of the Estate?
If you had to pitch this idea to Christopher Tolkien would you seriously tell him that he needs to authorise new stories to facilitate your reading needs or so that people can conveniently purchase books his father never wrote?
It seems to me that if the Estate were to be persuaded to authorise new stories, the reasons given would have to be less 'reader-centric'. It would have to be shown that this would benefit the Estate. Money I guess would be the easiest selling point but assuming the Estate might be more interested in the preserving Tolkien's legacy than in quick cash, why would it be interested in authorising new stories?

[davem]

Middle Earth fanfiction currently exists and is most likely currently enjoyed. Therefore those who want more stories are getting precisely that. So why then, in your opinion, does the Estate need to give an official sanction to someone to create Middle Earth stories? Is there some particular reason why the informal vehicle of fanfiction is not enough?

And if anyone wants they can even print out the stories they like & get a bookbinder to knock them up a nice leather bound volume with the title in gold leaf on the spine.

It seems that what is being asked for here is for a story/stories which are officially sanctioned in order to make them 'more' significant, & which can then be discussed & argued over on Internet fora. That & the desire to have a bunch of 'new' M-e volumes on people's bookshelves.

Oh, these 'fantastic' books which are waiting to come into being! These books which don't exist in any shape or form.

Has it occurred that to demand to have something which doesn't exist, simply because it is not logically impossible that it may one day exist is a bit of an odd demand to say the least?

Sauron the White & Feanorsdoom - Now, if you had come across a fan work that you sincerely believed was good enough to stand alongside Tolkien's works I could understand you maybe contacting the Estate & petitioning fans for support in getting it published. As it is you seem to be arguing that one day such a story might be written & that it should then be published. You argue that the Estate should 'take a writer under its wing' & help & encourage him or her to be the next JRRT. I have to ask you in all sincerity who is this writer? Has anyone volunteered to become this writer? Have they written any M-e fiction as yet?

Or is the Estate to advertise for a writer in the small ads? Are they to send out invitations to famous writers offering them a contract - even if the writers in question have no desire to write new M-e stories?

Can we move away from this 'Well, its not logically impossible for someone one day to
write new M-e stories" & have some names & background? Do you actually know of anyone who's putting themselves forward? If so, let's see what they've written & then we can decide whether they're likely to be any good.

[davem]

How many people enjoy these tales written on fan sites versus the numbers who would be customers in mass market book form? I personally loathe trying to read lengthy fiction on a screen. I much prefer the printed page of a traditional book. I would make a wild guess that I am not alone.

Sorry, I missed this post - firstly I'd have to say, print out the stories you want to read then. Second, I'd have to say this would come under the heading of 'Your Problem' not Christopher Tolkien's.


CHILDREN OF HURIN - a tale that has been around for a number of years now in several forms and is hardly "new" - is selling some half a million copies.

Which proves people want to read JRR Tolkien's stories, not those of FRR Bloggs. I absolutely guarantee that half a million people would not read a M-e novel by anyone else.

Maybe someone here could tell me what is the single most famous and best written piece of Middle-earth fan fiction and provide the number of how many hits it has gotten. Then compare that to a traditionally published book.

Maybe nobody cares about fanfic like you do. If you find something you like let us know.

And we are not talking about hypothetical legions of trained monkeys on typewriters. To compare it to that is simply not honest.

No - apparently we're talking about hypothetical 'geniuses' who're sitting by the phone waiting for Christopher Tolkien to call them...

[Raynor]

I've never argued thatI still am not sure what you mean, and you didn't read my PM request for clarification, apparently. If you agree that subjective perception is the only thing that matters, then how come you make judgements of value which you consider to be objectively true??
So, Tolkien failed to add more Middle-earth mythology. What makes us think we would be any better at coming up with something new and as exciting as LotR?I believe you are mixing issues here. In regards to the New Shadow, it is not that no new story can be added by anyone, but that such stories, in the fourth age "after the overthrow of Sauron", are "not worth recounting" - most likely because Sauron is the last mythological evil "power point", according to Myths Transformed. We know from various places, such as Tolkien's comments on Beowulf, that great foes may give a story 'lofty tone and high serioussness' and they may endow a hero with great significance - in the extreme, a resistance without hope is a perfect one. But, as stated previously, there are no such worthy enemies in the fourth age - and I believe this is the reason that any story is likely to not match the tone of the stories concerning the first three ages. But when talking about a new story about M-E I doubt anyone has in mind (or at least not first and foremost) a story about the fourth age.

[Sauron the White]

I am not arguing that the Tolkien Estate needs to do anything in these matters at this time. Regardless of if it is in their interest or not. Copyright law being what it is, it looks like the legal protections extend to the year 2043 some 70 years after the death of JRRT. That is 36 years from now so the problem is not one that will be encountered soon. In fact, The Estate and its officials can well ignore this problem for the next three decades. The "problem" I refer to is the lapse of copyright protections on the world of Middle-earth.

Yes - I do understand that the Estate will employ various legal strategies to extend these legal protections and thwart Middle-earth stories even after this time.

Yes - I do understand that a certain hardcore Tolkien following will resist any efforts to introduce new works in exactly the same spirit that we have seen evidenced here.

Yes - I do understand that there will always be a hard and firm difference which can never be changed or altered between what was written by JRRT and anyone else no matter how good or how bad.

Speaking for myself - and not trying to foist anything on anyone be it my opinion, my predictions for the future, or anything else - I simply would like to see many of the gaps filled in regarding the tales and histories of Middle-earth. I would like to see talented writers tell many of the tales about events, dates and people that are now only briefly sketched out or mentioned. I would enjoy this a great deal.

Regardless of how anyone intreprets the words of JRRT in his letters, I do think this is in the spirit of his statement.

I think it is a self fulfilling prophect to take a position which essentially says:
- nobody can ever write anything about Middle-earth other than JRRT other than obscure fan fiction which is read by a small cadre of people outside of the main literary world
- anything written by anyone else will not be as good, would most likely be crap or garbage so should be discouraged at all cost
- current followers of JRRT will never accept it regardless of quality or sanction so the Estate should keep arms length from ever even considering official sanction.

If those positions prevail, then what will happen is that in some 36 years much of what you fear will come true.

What I would like to see: ideally - some sort of effort every few years where writers across the world are asked to submit stories of Middle-earth to a group set up by the Estate and their official publishers. A vetting process could be employed to insure quality and historical accuracy within the canon of work that we have now. Rules could be laid down to tell writers they cannot change anything that Tolkien already has established within that world. Then a book published - perhaps every few years - of authorized Middle-earth stories which clearly state who wrote them and they are not the work of JRRT, Christopher or anyone else Tolkien. I think that would be the best compromise that we could see.

But thats just my opinion. It i not intended as a strategy for the Estate or anyone else. Its just what I would like to see. I do think that the sales response to CHILDREN OF HURIN - an old tale being disguised and marketed as a "new book" shows that there is a thirst out there for more Middle-earth.

[davem]

What I would like to see: ideally - some sort of effort every few years where writers across the world are asked to submit stories of Middle-earth to a group set up by the Estate and their official publishers. A vetting process could be employed to insure quality and historical accuracy within the canon of work that we have now. Rules could be laid down to tell writers they cannot change anything that Tolkien already has established within that world. Then a book published - perhaps every few years - of authorized Middle-earth stories which clearly state who wrote them and they are not the work of JRRT, Christopher or anyone else Tolkien. I think that would be the best compromise that we could see.


After reading that I just give up on the whole thing. I hope that if they do it the first volume is dedicated to you.

[Morwen]

Yes - I do understand that a certain hardcore Tolkien following will resist any efforts to introduce new works in exactly the same spirit that we have seen evidenced here.

Yes - I do understand that there will always be a hard and firm difference which can never be changed or altered between what was written by JRRT and anyone else no matter how good or how bad.
Well I've never thought of myself as a hardcore Tolkien follower. Let me say this though - when you speak of efforts to resist the introduction of new tales this conveys the idea that the creation of new ME stories is simply a natural and logical progression. Speaking for myself, I don't see it that way. I see Middle Earth as Tolkien's creation, in the way that any author's writings are his/her creation. If there are "gaps" he never filled, then so be it. IMO I don't think that their existence is an argument for saying that someone must officially take up the task of telling those stories.



What I would like to see: ideally - some sort of effort every few years where writers across the world are asked to submit stories of Middle-earth to a group set up by the Estate and their official publishers. A vetting process could be employed to insure quality and historical accuracy within the canon of work that we have now. Rules could be laid down to tell writers they cannot change anything that Tolkien already has established within that world. Then a book published - perhaps every few years - of authorized Middle-earth stories which clearly state who wrote them and they are not the work of JRRT, Christopher or anyone else Tolkien. I think that would be the best compromise that we could see.


While you may understand that there is a hard and firm difference between the works of Tolkien and latter day efforts I'm not sure that others will maintain that distinction even if it is made clear that the later stories are not the work of Tolkien. It seems to me that if the Estate expressly authorises someone to write stories to "fill in the gaps" it will end up changing the way in which the existing material is read and how existing characters are perceived. And inevitably that alters the Legendarium. Just my view, but I don't see that as a good thing.

[Sauron the White]

davem ... I certainy respect your opinion and your scholarship. We will agree to disagree -- hopefully.

Allow me to ask this of you and others .... according to current laws, it will be 36 years until copyright expires barring future changes. If the copyright expiration were only a couple of years away, would you be more open to some sort of sanctioned ME stories by others with the blessing of the Estate to publicly and openly differentiate them from the eventual floodgates being opened and every hack writer trying their hand at it with no oversight at all? You probably cannot stop them once copyright expires, but you may be able to carve out a sanctioned vs. unsanctioned niche that would help readers make their choices with their purchasing dollars.

[davem]

Allow me to ask this of you and others .... according to current laws, it will be 36 years until copyright expires barring future changes. If the copyright expiration were only a couple of years away, would you be more open to some sort of sanctioned ME stories by others with the blessing of the Estate to publicly and openly differentiate them from the eventual floodgates being opened and every hack writer trying their hand at it with no oversight at all? You probably cannot stop them once copyright expires, but you may be able to carve out a sanctioned vs. unsanctioned niche that would help readers make their choices with their purchasing dollars.

I think the problem is in the way we think of Middle-earth. I don't see it as a fictional world' that other writers can write stories about, but rather Tolkien's attempt to explore & communicate his ideas about myth & language, & to tell specific kinds of tales. There is a strong autobiographical element which colours what he wrote, & that no-one else can re-create.

I can only repeat that this is not about whether another writer can write entertaining stories set in Middle-earth, but whether they would be 'genuine'. What I'm arguing here is that what distinguishes Tolkien's creation from other fantasy worlds (& this statement would apply to Howard's Hyborean Age, Mirlees' Lud in the Mist, Dunsany's Pegana, Peake's Gormenghast, Eddison's Mercury, etc) is what he brought out of his experience. Other great fantasy worlds are great because they are unique. There are lots of generic fantasy worlds out there which anyone could set stories in, but the great fantasy worlds are special because of who wrote them.

In short, what you're asking for is impossible. I've read some good M-e fanfic. I wrote a (so-so) M-e fanfic. The problem is, no fanfic is 100% convincing - there's always something 'missing', some point at which you stop & think, 'No, that doesn't seem right. And its not because the writer is a bad storyteller. Its because they're not Tolkien.

If you haven't done so yet, get hold of John Garth's 'Tolkien & the Great War'. That will spell out to you as clearly as possible why only Tolkien could write convincing M-e stories.

EDIT

Look. If you take CoH as an example, you have one of the darkest, most hopeless, most tragic pieces of fiction ever produced. Its also one the earliest M-e stories Tolkien wrote. It has two 'sources', or two 'seeds'. First, mythological - the characters of Kullervo in the Kalevala & of Sigurd in the Volsungasaga, & second, 'biographical', in that it came into being in the post WWI period, when Tolkien had lived through the horrors of the Somme, & lost two out of his three closest friends. Garth talks about Tolkien 'seeing the world through enchanted eyes'. In other words the myths & fairy stories he had loved since childhood coloured his perception of the horror & loss he knew. There was a kind of 'feedback loop'. Myth fed into reality & reality fed into myth.

What I would argue is that CoH could only come out of a personal experience of horror & loss of the most extreme kind. If another writer who had not had that kind of experience tried to write a tale like CoH they would either produce melodrama or farce. Same with Beren & Luthien - too autobiographical (as is Gondolin - as Garth shows).

Other writers could, as I said, set stories in M-e. They could perhaps write good stories, as good, in their own way as Tolkien's own. But the 'Tolkien' element - which is the unique element in the M-e tales he gave us - would be absent.

[Bêthberry]

Post #111:

After reading that I just give up on the whole thing. I hope that if they do it the first volume is dedicated to you.

Post #114:

I think the problem is in the way we think of Middle-earth. I don't see it as a fictional world' that other writers can write stories about, but rather Tolkien's attempt to explore & communicate his ideas about myth & language, & to tell specific kinds of tales. There is a strong autobiographical element which colours what he wrote, & that no-one else can re-create.

I can only repeat that this is not about whether another writer can write entertaining stories set in Middle-earth, but whether they would be 'genuine'. What I'm arguing here is that what distinguishes Tolkien's creation from other fantasy worlds (& this statement would apply to Howard's Hyborean Age, Mirlees' Lud in the Mist, Dunsany's Pegana, Peake's Gormenghast, Eddison's Mercury, etc) is what he brought out of his experience. Other great fantasy worlds are great because they are unique. There are lots of generic fantasy worlds out there which anyone could set stories in, but the great fantasy worlds are special because of who wrote them.

In short, what you're asking for is impossible. I've read some good M-e fanfic. I wrote a (so-so) M-e fanfic. The problem is, no fanfic is 100% convincing - there's always something 'missing', some point at which you stop & think, 'No, that doesn't seem right. And its not because the writer is a bad storyteller. Its because they're not Tolkien.

If you haven't done so yet, get hold of John Garth's 'Tolkien & the Great War'. That will spell out to you as clearly as possible why only Tolkien could write convincing M-e stories.

EDIT

Look. If you take CoH as an example, you have one of the darkest, most hopeless, most tragic pieces of fiction ever produced. Its also one the earliest M-e stories Tolkien wrote. It has two 'sources', or two 'seeds'. First, mythological - the characters of Kullervo in the Kalevala & of Sigurd in the Volsungasaga, & second, 'biographical', in that it came into being in the post WWI period, when Tolkien had lived through the horrors of the Somme, & lost two out of his three closest friends. Garth talks about Tolkien 'seeing the world through enchanted eyes'. In other words the myths & fairy stories he had loved since childhood coloured his perception of the horror & loss he knew. There was a kind of 'feedback loop'. Myth fed into reality & reality fed into myth.

What I would argue is that CoH could only come out of a personal experience of horror & loss of the most extreme kind. If another writer who had not had that kind of experience tried to write a tale like CoH they would either produce melodrama or farce. Same with Beren & Luthien - too autobiographical (as is Gondolin - as Garth shows).

Other writers could, as I said, set stories in M-e. They could perhaps write good stories, as good, in their own way as Tolkien's own. But the 'Tolkien' element - which is the unique element in the M-e tales he gave us - would be absent.

My, for a brief spell there I thought Sauron the White had actually got davem to forsake his MO of always having the last word. I was mistaken, obviously.


Given Tolkien's feelings about Drama, he would most certainly not count it as 'writing'! He saw Drama as something strictly for performance, not for reading, so No! Drama would not include other forms of writing to Tolkien!


But it would then include such productions as the LotR musical currently in pre-production in Drury Lane and late of Toronto? It appears that Tolkien did countenance such productions, along with "paint" and "music." Productions by other hands.

However, if the defining criteria of acceptable writing about Middle-earth by another authors is this issue of "authenticity" -- lacking the genuine Tolkien element of autobiographical mind-mold (if not leafmold)--then why doesn't this issue of being genuine apply to Tolkien's own acceptance of his mythology in other art forms by other people? Autobiographical genuineness clearly didn't matter to Tolkien there.

[davem]

My, for a brief spell there I thought Sauron the White had actually got davem to forsake his MO of always having the last word. I was mistaken, obviously.

Yes, but I was addressed directly & asked for a response. I think you would be the first to admit that politeness is my greatest fault.

Autobiographical genuineness clearly didn't matter to Tolkien there.

I think it did. We need to keep in mind that Tolkien was, in that letter to Waldman, attempting to 'sell' his books to a publisher who he hoped would agree to publish both LotR & The Sil.

That said, I think we have to go back to the vision of the TCBS if we're to understand where Tolkien was coming from in that desire that 'other hands' would be moved to add to his creation. Their sense of themselves as another pre-Rapaelite Brotherhood, the source of a potential moral regeneration of England is behind Tolkien's words.

Finally, I can't help but feel that Tolkien underestimated his skill as an artist. He may have wished for other hands to add to his creation, but I think its clear that he, also, was wishing for this elusive 'genius' to appear out of nowhere.

As with most of the letters, its best not to just take his statements at face value.

[Lalwendë]

But it would then include such productions as the LotR musical currently in pre-production in Drury Lane and late of Toronto? It appears that Tolkien did countenance such productions, along with "paint" and "music." Productions by other hands.

However, if the defining criteria of acceptable writing about Middle-earth by another authors is this issue of "authenticity" -- lacking the genuine Tolkien element of autobiographical mind-mold (if not leafmold)--then why doesn't this issue of being genuine apply to Tolkien's own acceptance of his mythology in other art forms by other people? Autobiographical genuineness clearly didn't matter to Tolkien there.

He'd no objections to songs and stuff as he worked with Donald Swann, but I don't know if he'd have gone much for the music in the current musical as he was known not to be fond of pop music at all, as you might expect for someone born when he was.

But somehow I don't think the 'authenticity' issue is of any matter when someone is adapting a story that's already been written by Tolkien. What are they gonna do? Hop in the nearest Tardis and go back and change details of his life?

[Bêthberry]

Yes, but I was addressed directly & asked for a response. I think you would be the first to admit that politeness is my greatest fault.

I believe you have me confused with Estelyn Telcontar, who has met you and who has attested to your politeness. Having never met you, I cannot of course admit to anything, even if by chance our paths had crossed unknowingly some three years ago when I was in York, Oxford, and London--of the English variety.

I think it did. We need to keep in mind that Tolkien was, in that letter to Waldman, attempting to 'sell' his books to a publisher who he hoped would agree to publish both LotR & The Sil.

So when Tolkien attempts to persue monetary gain, that's okay.


But somehow I don't think the 'authenticity' issue is of any matter when someone is adapting a story that's already been written by Tolkien. What are they gonna do? Hop in the nearest Tardis and go back and change details of his life?

Authenticity is an issue when biography is used as one of the main criteria for explaining the provenance of the texts, because even adaptations will be effected by biography.

Raynor, I appreciate your query about subjective perception and objectively true statements.

[davem]

So when Tolkien attempts to persue monetary gain, that's okay.

Well, I have no problem with it. Genius deserves payment (though how that fits in with my unpaid posting here on the Downs I'm not certain). Its people attempting to cash in on Tollkien's work that I have a problem with....

Raynor, I appreciate your query about subjective perception and objectively true statements.

Me too.

I still am not sure what you mean, and you didn't read my PM request for clarification, apparently. If you agree that subjective perception is the only thing that matters, then how come you make judgements of value which you consider to be objectively true??

Of course, I don't see that the former necessarily precludes the latter. One can give absolute priority to the former, & note, en passent, that the latter is also the case. Or vice versa. You could even argue that the former position is 'subjective' & the latter 'objective'.

And yet, I don't see that this is anything other than a side issue, a crazy tangential foray down a dead end road n'stuff. We're supposed to be discussing whether JRRT encouraged new M-e stories, not psycho-analysing each other, or indulging in a philosophical debate on subjectivity vs objectivity.

[Raynor]

One can give absolute priority to the former, & note, en passent, that the latter is also the case. But we are not talking about what would be true in a particular subjective perception and what would be true in a general objective judgement. Accidentally, this two may coincide in some cases, but it is reasonable to believe that, given a large enough sample, objective judgement will be at odds with some subjective perceptions. What is at stake is which position is acceptable: the objective one - or the subjective one (in which case, this discussion is superfluous, since anyone can chose what works to accept or not, and if others, including scholars, have an issue with that, no biggie).
And yet, I don't see that this is anything other than a side issue, a crazy tangential foray down a dead end road n'stuff.

We're supposed to be discussing whether JRRT encouraged new M-e stories, not psycho-analysing each other, or indulging in a philosophical debate on subjectivity vs objectivity.As noted above, I believe this is the core of the problem, whether we take an objective or a subjective stance. Since this is an issue of art, perception, taste, I believe the answer is obvious.

You previously phrased the subject in the subjective terms of whether someone can "create convincing stories set in his world"

"The point is whether anyone else can do what Tolkien did, have Tolkien's insight in to his own creation sufficient to enable them to create convincing stories set in his world."

We need to define a common point of reference, that is, are we talking objectivity or subjectivity, and not attempt to simultaneously play two irrenciliable positions.

And, frankly, I expect even the "objective" position to be variable in time or geographically - just as morality is, as you and Lalwendë argued in other threads.

[Lalwendë]

Authenticity is an issue when biography is used as one of the main criteria for explaining the provenance of the texts, because even adaptations will be effected by biography.


Err, the question here is simply this:

Did Tolkien write the story or was it written by Bubba Ray Bloggs? The former - then it is authentic. The latter - then it is not. No amount of 'cognitive dissonance' or some other babble such as might come forth from Brian Sewell can alter that. ;)

Though I do like to see the old subjective/objective psycho-babble eventually rear its ugly head on a thread yet again. It usually signals that there are no further useful contributions to make and the discussion can now move on to other matters. ;)

[Raynor]

Did Tolkien write the story or was it written by Bubba Ray Bloggs? The former - then it is authentic. The latter - then it is not. No amount of 'cognitive dissonance' or some other babble such as might come forth from Brian Sewell can alter that.I believe you are refering to the formal aspect of authenticity. It is not a given that the original author can make each and every time an authentic story in regards to a particular universe he created; in fact, in the case of Tolkien, he discarded many of his stories (even storylines) several times. Also, as mentioned previously, it is not a given that no other author, but the initial one, can make a story which is authentic in regards to that fictional universe.
Though I do like to see the old subjective/objective psycho-babble eventually rear its ugly head on a thread yet again. It usually signals that there are no further useful contributions to make and the discussion can now move on to other matters.In various debates you raised the subjectivity argument, that no one can tell you what to think in regards to a particular M-E subject (despite the evidences, I might add). Funny thing that you now characterise such an action in this way.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Although it's apparent that I don't speak for everyone here, I think that the very much greater part of us are fans of Tolkien, not fans of Middle-earth. We love Giles and Smith and Niggle as well, and the Letters- all as windows into an idiosyncratically brilliant mind. Who on earth would read a book about Leopold Bloom by somebody other than Joyce? Would you give two pins for the Further Adventures of Huck Finn by I. M. A. Hack--- or even by Saul Bellow?

Great authors are unique. They're not fungible commodities.

[Bêthberry]

I simply must bring to everyone's attention a post Guinevere made on the Autobiographical Tolkien thread--"Leaf by Niggle" (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?p=524918#post524918).



"There is a place called "heaven" where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued."

[Lalwendë]

Although it's apparent that I don't speak for everyone here, I think that the very much greater part of us are fans of Tolkien, not fans of Middle-earth. We love Giles and Smith and Niggle as well, and the Letters- all as windows into an idiosyncratically brilliant mind. Who on earth would read a book about Leopold Bloom by somebody other than Joyce? Would you give two pins for the Further Adventures of Huck Finn by I. M. A. Hack--- or even by Saul Bellow?

Great authors are unique. They're not fungible commodities.

Eggzackly. ;) It's all fine and dandy all this postmodern footling and pottering, but there are ultimately a few rules and one of them, no matter how much French academics in the 60s doped up on who-knows-what try to be all clever about the Author being Dead, is that a particular person writes a book. No, you don't write it. No, I don't write it. Only one person writes it. Sorry, but there is no glory in the reader claiming to be the author too, because they aren't. They are a reader, and are free to make up what 'meaning' they will from a book, but they did not sit there and put the words on the page, and that's the end of it.

Theories? There's only so far that the theory can go until like all theories, it collapses in a gibbering heap somewhere around its own hairy navel and we all start laughing at it. If that makes me no better than one of the apes who puzzles at the monolith at the beginning of 2001 A Space Odyssey then so be it. Rather that than make myself disappear up said ape's butt.

[Raynor]

Although it's apparent that I don't speak for everyone here, I think that the very much greater part of us are fans of Tolkien, not fans of Middle-earth.I daresay it is not the author, but a particular style of writing. Sure, many of us would read some works by the author, even if he doesn't "deliver" anymore. But besides the abstract concept of the author behind the book, it is the "palpable" part, that is, what we perceive of the work, that ultimately matters to us, readers. If some of us perceive it in a new work, by a different author, then why not?

[Morwen]

Originally posted by Raynor
Also, as mentioned previously, it is not a given that no other author, but the initial one, can make a story which is authentic in regards to that fictional universe.So origin doesn't matter? Authenticity is merely a question of getting the details right?

[Bêthberry]

So origin doesn't matter? Authenticity is merely a question of getting the details right?

Authenticity can be determined or guided by consistency with the text, the work itself. After all, medieval scholars like Tolkien often worked with texts with unknown authors, and so they did their work based on textual and linquistic considerations, not on who the author was.

You know, Lal, there was a time when the Downs had a very strong sense of courtesy and decorum regarding how to conduct our discussions. We would query and refute the ideas but we would not resort to attacking our "opponents" by claiming they situated themselves in scatological places. Cleverly contrived ad hominem attacks, even with wit, are still attacks on the person rather than the ideas. They demean the entire discussion.

[Raynor]

So origin doesn't matter? It is not the only issue; if the value of the work itself dissapears, or its relation to the original fictional universe, then what would drive one forward is simply curiosity, I believe
Authenticity is merely a question of getting the details right?I doubt that art can be reduced to this.

[Lalwendë]

Authenticity can be determined or guided by consistency with the text, the work itself. After all, medieval scholars like Tolkien often worked with texts with unknown authors, and so they did their work based on textual and linquistic considerations, not on who the author was.

You know, Lal, there was a time when the Downs had a very strong sense of courtesy and decorum regarding how to conduct our discussions. We would query and refute the ideas but we would not resort to attacking our "opponents" by claiming they situated themselves in scatological places. Cleverly contrived ad hominem attacks, even with wit, are still attacks on the person rather than the ideas. They demean the entire discussion.

Maybe Downers should not dish out such tasty dishes of vitriol and then complain when their dinner guests serve up bile on the return visit? When I have a fight, if my opponent chooses a brace of pistols I will not be satisfied with accepting a mere wet handkerchief for myself. One is not the only shrew around these parts. ;)

Oh yes, the thread....Tolkien working on the text of Beowulf with its unknown author is a whole different kettle of fish than one of us thinking about Tolkien - who was, errr, Tolkien! Or maybe Lewis wrote LotR, in a kinda 20th century Shakespeare/Marlowe type twist? That way madness lies.....
:eek:

[Child of the 7th Age]

Frankly, I think SpM's earlier post summed up the current situation with a fair degree of accuracy. There is little doubt as to the short-term answer to this question. There is little financial or literary reason for the Estate to open up the floodgates to one or more "authorized" extensions of Middle-earth. Whether we want more stories or hate the whole idea of any additions to the Legendarium, I doubt it's going to happen in the short term beyond what is registered on ephemeral fanfiction sites. So where does that leave us?

I would say that the ins and outs of what will happen in the next fifty years--which "products" or "expressions" are licensed and which are not-- hold only limited interest for me. What I am more interested in knowing is this: what will happen to Tolkien's writings and to Middle-earth 200 or 500 or 1,000 years from now? That seems to me a much more legitimate question, and one that does not have a clear cut answer. The Estate as a legal entity is unlikely to exist. Copyright will be gone. Will interest in Tolkien still be as strong and vibrant as it is today? Will people connect with the story and characters on some essential level, or will Middle-earth simply be regarded by a few interested scholars as a pleasant but anachronistic expression of the twentieth century?

Earlier in this thread--I am too lazy to lay my hands on it, Davem dismissed the idea that the body of Tolkien's writings could be viewed as mythology. I do not agree. I feel that if the Legendarium holds meaning -- real long term meaning that spills over into the future -- then Middle-eath will ultimately be viewed as a mythic creation rather than a series of discrete novels and poems. Interestingly, it's the work of Christopher that has made this possible. By presenting us with HoMe, we are given a wider picture of Tolkien's world than is possible from merely reading those stories that were published in the author's lifetime. It's also because of the work of scholars like Flieger and Hammond and especially Shippey. We understand to what extent Tolkien drew on existing myth and legend and history for his own subcreation, just as all true myth does.

And like other true myths, the Legendarium touches us because it explains something about how our world and feelings and values evolved. It does this by creating a world and a time that have no exact parallel in the historical framework of mankind as we know it. That is exactly what works like the Illiad and Odyssey or the Arthurian legends do. Some people see the Legendarium's meaning in the context of Christianity; others focus on faerie, on the natural world, the Norse/Finnish paradigm, or even the "post-modern" dispair of the Children of Hurin. But almost all who read Tolkien are seeing and hearing not just the specific characters he's created, but ghostly spirits of meaning that haunt the surrounding landscape.

If the Legendarium is nothing more than a number of specific, finite pieces of literature (however well crafted), then it would be inappropriate for anyone to try and write another story and say that it is a legitimate extension of Tolkien's Middle-earth. But if Middle-earth is more than that, if it comes to be regarded as myth or the creation of an alternate world, why can't we have other people continuing the same story some 500 years from now?

I'm not afraid about the quality of the stories that will be passed on. There are some dreadful retellings/extensions of the Arthurian legends, but there are also wonderful and vibrant expressions of these stories in the form of novels, poetry and drama. These adaptations have enriched our understanding; they have added to the orginal telling rather than diminished it in any way. Moreover, time and good taste has winnowed the good from the bad. We don't remember the potboilers. We do remember retellings by folk like Malory, T.H. White, Tennyson, and Charles Williams. The same is true for the ancient legends. I am willing to admit that Homer (or whoever he was) stands head and shoulders over all his later interpreters, but I wouldn't want to lose the latter, simply because they didn't supply the original genius. And, again, I don't think their adaptations in any way diminish what Homer accomplished.

Why can't it be the same for Middle-earth?

[Lalwendë]

Why can't it be the same for Middle-earth?

Because it is only a faux mythology. Sorry, but that's what it is. It was created out of the imagination of one man. A Mythology or legend is wholly different and springs from the collective mind. Tolkien, unless he had some kind of split personality disorder, was a man with only one mind.

Myth cycles are/were sacred to the peoples who wrote them down and who passed on the stories. They are religious texts in effect which have become denigrated by other religions and regimes which followed. They have been left free to muck around with as we see fit.

I have to say that Tolkien would have been horrified to think that his little story, his personal creation, would one day replace all the genuine myths and legends out there, would stomp all over the fragility of our real history. Arthur was a real person, so was Robin Hood, and Atlantis is from the collective ancient memory. They are ours, but can so easily be lost. Once we start muddying the waters - as the French did with Arthur - what was real will so easily be lost. Not only can we lose our genuine Mythology but we could lose the coherence of Tolkien's Art too.

Someone once said in relation to Tolkien's misquoted line about dedicating a mythology to England (not replacing one, or providing one, but honouring us as a people with one he had made up) that he was wrong. What he achieved in actuality was to create a mythology for Americans. And I think that's the way it is going - you can see it in the Disneyfied Hobbit holes being built, the way a very different type of Christian to what Tolkien was is claiming the text for themselves, the way the Beautiful People of the Elves have been latched onto...Someone may well be the brightest, most creative Tolkien expert in the world, but if they are a sunny Floridian Baptist product of a right wing meritocracy then I'm afraid they are worlds away from the mindset of a gently eccentric, Middle class, Oxford boffin living in post war austerity England.

Sorry to bust a few daydreams of RPG-ers but under all this clever talk of postmodernism blah blah lies the simple fact that if you are any good at writing and have an ounce of creativity then one day you ought to go and found your own worlds instead of copying Tolkien. Not only is that lazy but it also means the general public will continue to suffer from a dearth of genuine, decent original fiction and have to continue to put up with the derivative pap that calls itself 'postmodern'.

And there's the rub. Some people see it as legitimate fun, which it genuinely is in its current state. But as for commercial gain or getting the ego boost of the shiny gold JRRT logo on a book with your name on it - I see that as cheap and tacky. Tolkien's might only be a faux mythology but it's as fragile as a real one.

[Raynor]

Because it is only a faux mythology. Sorry, but that's what it is. It was created out of the imagination of one man. A Mythology or legend is wholly different and springs from the collective mind. Tolkien, unless he had some kind of split personality disorder, was a man with only one mind.The very fact that a Legendarium is made by several persons goes against your argument. If a Legendarium is better/ more real/ more authentic based on the fact that more people contributed to it, then, by your own line of reasoning, we need more authors to contribute to this Legendarium. Ironic ;).

Anyway, Tolkien had zero problems with making myths. Not only did he consider this possible, even nowadays, he also didn't exclude anyone from being able to make myths, as far as I am aware. And as far as your statement that "Myth cycles are/were sacred to the peoples who wrote them down and who passed on the stories", Tolkien did consider myths as a spiritual instrument.
Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.

[Lalwendë]

Legendarium is an archaic word chosen by Tolkien to distinguish between his created faux mythology and a genuine one.

What we are forgetting is that Tolkien intentionally left holes in his work as real mythology has holes. He left enigmas that cannot and maybe ought not be explained:

even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally).

It is an incredible work of forgery on one level, a work which makes you believe you are reading real myths and legends. I could go on for days listing all the clever tricks he uses, but one of them is to fool you into thinking there is something else, just there, over the horizon...make you think there are untold tales. But there aren't. It's the scenery. And he warns us that like Fairy Gold, if we go chasing after it we might not find it, nor might we be very pleased when we get there and find it was just an illusion:

I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [of finalizing The Silmarillion]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. Also many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil.

All this wanting to 'perfect' Tolkien's work - where does it end? We don't do this to other writers or artists, we don't scrape little bits off Monet's Lily Pond and make it nicer! We're free to use it as a basis for witty parody and paint a new one with a shopping trolley dumped in the middle (like Banksy did) but not to rearrange the original to fit our own needs. I have to say that this tendency displays a lot about Tolkien fans - do we have this Asperger's type tendency to be pedants and want to alphabetise everything? Have it in order? Gather every 'factoid' as a geek might say? Can't we just enjoy what we have rather than treating his work as some science experiment to be 'written up' at some point in the future? At the heart of this lies a simple decision to be made - do you view Tolkien's work as literature or as 'product'?

Tolkien has had people fooled - making us think he left gaps to be filled, to be rearranged, but he left them there just because. He was an Artist. Leave Him Alone!

[davem]

Seems Lal said a lot of this while I was writing this post, but I'll add it anyway.

Sorry, but JRRT didn't create a myth – for all the reasons Lal gave. One man cannot create a mythology. A mythology is the remnant of a religious system, not simply a set of stories.

What Tolkien did was create a pseudo-mythology, & did it so well that he fooled a lot of his readers into thinking it genuine – or at least that it has the potential to become genuine. And that's an interesting angle.

You could treat Tolkien's creation as a mythology, & open it up to other contributors. Yet at that point it would cease to be what it is & begin to become something wholly other. Tolkien's original would become no more than a starting point, & ultimately his writings would have no more 'authority' than those of any other writer – that's the central point about a true myth – no version has authority – some may be seen as more 'authentic' – but even that is a value judgement. No. As soon as you declare Tolkien's writings to be a 'myth' you turn Tolkien himself into one among many creators of M-e.

IF you're not prepared to relegate Tolkien to that position you're already denying that the Legendarium is a true mythology. If it’s a myth then its up for grabs for anyone to do anything with it. If its not up for grabs in that way then its not a true myth –which is a possession of mankind to do with as it will.

The idea of 'authorising' certain individuals to continue the story is a clear denial of the idea that we are dealing with a 'myth' in the true sense. And if its not a 'myth' then it’s the creation of one individual – a work of Art rather than a myth, & from that point of view the artist is the only true source.

Sorry, but the Legendarium is no more a 'mythology' than the work of an artist who produced a new 'medieval' manuscript by using authentic materials & bindings & cleverly aging the product so as to make it look like it was centuries old. That's effectively what Tolkien did.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Yet, Mr Davem, would you say that it was Tolkien's wish to create a mythology? He did say that he wanted a mythology for England. Yet at later points he describes Middle Earth as being this earth at 'a different level of imagination'. The constant connections with this world that one finds in the Legendarium (as are mentioned in HoTH1) sort of point to this.

So, coming swiftly to the question of this thread "Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?" I would say... possibly. I do not know if, by the time he had got as far as he had with it, the Legendarium had become something he regarded as set in stone or did not want to be messed with, but the original intention was possibly for a mythology that would grow. Perhaps when Tolkien became more engrossed in his legends, the characters felt more like his own, so to speak. This is all assumptions though.

The thing is, when a tale is so well crafted and complex, it becomes difficult to say what should be added other than details about characters here and there. In some way, that is what tends to happen with most Mythologies, there is a set number of main characters who are explored and investigated through the many tales about them. New characters may come along, but often they only serve as 'scaffolding' to an original character's development by a separate author. Another view to take is that where so much of the story is written from one man's perspective and own views and biases, when others come into the Frey, it is difficult to maintain something that 'fits in' to the world that Tolkien made.

I think that it is probable that Tolkien would originally have wanted his 'mythology' to grow by the hands of others. But I think it has become too much 'his own' and meddling often goes unnoticed. That doesnt mean, I think, that fans should stop exploring or questioning a character from the story, even in the medium of their own story. The thing is, that these new stories just won't become par of the cannon.

[drigel]

You guys are killing me. When did JRRT NOT discourage new ME stories from other persons than himself? Riddle me that question.

[Morwen]

Originally posted by drigel

You guys are killing me. When did JRRT NOT discourage new ME stories from other persons than himself? Riddle me that question.


That can't be the question. Unless an author specifically encourages others to make additions to his works, there can't be a presumption that this is what he intended.

[Lalwendë]

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of fairy story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the large backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. It should possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our 'air' (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things), it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land now steeped in poetry. I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

Stuck that on again as it's always useful to see the words ;)

The thing is, he never ever wanted to create anything for England. He wanted to dedicate his Art to England which is a very different thing. he wanted to encapsulate elements of Englishness in his work (which is why I believe an understanding of the nature of true Englishness is as vital as an understanding of anything else if such things be needed - and indeed many arguments I have stem from people not always knowing the nuances of Englishness - things you cannot learn from a Hugh Grant film ;) ).

However, while we are all bellyaching here, there are two things which wrap up what he says here and they are:

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen)

and

Absurd.

So is he being entirely serious? I suspect that like all English people, he might occasionally think of some fancy ideas, but he dismisses them as just that, fancy ideas. Strangely, his work does have the Northern Air, and it does read just like a real mythology (though we have a lot more of it than any genuine mythology and should think ourselves lucky). He really did succeed in creating a faux mythology. He was superb at his Art.

But really, you have it in a nutshell here:

That doesnt mean, I think, that fans should stop exploring or questioning a character from the story, even in the medium of their own story. The thing is, that these new stories just won't become par of the cannon.

No, nothing wrong in having fun with fan-fic, and you are currently allowed to write it (though the estate could stop you if they wanted, those names being Trade Marks) and even publish it on a not for profit basis. My objection is that given all of this, why on earth do people want more if not to either a. leech off Tolkien's name and get some spurious name for themselves or b. make money, in which case, such people would be despicable.

[drigel]

Morwen,

That was my point. Prove to me that he never discouraged new writings from other folks, then the conjecture that he might have encouraged new writings, will somewhat make sense.

[Morwen]

Hmm....seems I misread you initial post.

But yes, I think the presumption with respect to any author has to be that he/she doesn't intend other people to expand on his/her work unless otherwise suggested.

[Bêthberry]

If the Legendarium is nothing more than a number of specific, finite pieces of literature (however well crafted), then it would be inappropriate for anyone to try and write another story and say that it is a legitimate extension of Tolkien's Middle-earth. But if Middle-earth is more than that, if it comes to be regarded as myth or the creation of an alternate world, why can't we have other people continuing the same story some 500 years from now?



I think you have put the question in a true light, Child, thinking not now of fanfics and Estates and canonicity questions, but ruminating on how people might respond a hundred, two hundred, five hundred years from now. I don't think the question can be absolutely determined ideologically, by saying either yay or nay to definitions of mythology, copyright, etc. It will be determined by how the stories themselves take life in the mind of readers and tellers. If the stories do come to ressemble our Arthurian legends, or the Greek ones, or the Norse ones in their status as stories told and retold, then in fact Tolkien will have encouraged new ME stories, through the inspiration of his stories, rather than through any prose edict or letter.

The elder myths were oral tales which were then collected and written down. Who is to say that whatever lies ahead for this planet, the reverse cannot happen, that written tales come to have life as oral tales. That scenario may or may not depend upon the eradication of books and reading, but even now it is amazing to hear what tales be retold and reshivered around summer campfires in my part of the world.

[Sauron the White]

One of the things I remember from my Debate class in college (so many many years ago) was a lesson very early that went like this:

"One of the most important things in Debate is the definition of terms. How you define the important terms central to the issue - broadly or narrowly - can significantly determine your success."

Its sad that these type of things always come down to definitions and how people attempt to twist them to their own purposes. This latest business about how JRRT was NOT creating a mythology but a fake mythology is simply more intellectual craftsmanship designed to "win" this particular argument. What ever happened to all I have read over the years that one of the goals of JRRT was to create a mythology for England?

All of this becomes an exercise in semantics and legalism and borders on the arcane. Intellectual gymnastics employed to justify a particular personal position on an issue which is not clear at all. More heat than light is shed.

[drigel]

What ever happened to all I have read over the years that one of the goals of JRRT was to create a mythology for England?

In a casual sense, yes, he did. But anything beyond the alternate faerie world that his works inhabited, I would say that Beth's term (in another context) is apt. He would consider anything beyond the story as pornography in its most base sense.

[Morwen]

Originally posted by Sauron the White

What ever happened to all I have read over the years that one of the goals of JRRT was to create a mythology for England?


In all that you have read where does Tolkien say that he wanted others to write stories about Middle Earth? When he specifically mentions that scope is left for persons to contribute to what he has written using paint, music, drama why does he specifically leave out further tales, stories?

[Sauron the White]

So then, to honor the intentions of JRRT, I can take what he has created and use the medium of drama to add to it?

Is this a correct assumption based on the words of JRRT?

"But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. "

[Child of the 7th Age]

The elder myths were oral tales which were then collected and written down. Who is to say that whatever lies ahead for this planet, the reverse cannot happen, that written tales come to have life as oral tales. That scenario may or may not depend upon the eradication of books and reading, but even now it is amazing to hear what tales be retold and reshivered around summer campfires in my part of the world.

Yes, Bêthberry, thanks. That was the basic mindset behind my post. The advent of new technologies and methods of dissemination for both stories and music is already making old paradigms obsolete. This is true not only in relation to Tolkien but for other authors and composers as well. I am not sure what the future will hold but I don't think it's wise to shut the door and deny the reality of further change. I can't say with one hundred percent certainty that the Legendarium will be regarded in the same light as the Arthurian tales are today, but I think there is a strong possibility this will happen.

In any case, I am uncomfortable with looking at things purely from the vantage of 2007, and saying that our present framework is set in stone and will never change. The one consistency over time is change. Five hundred years ago, books were uncommon; today we have mass market paperbacks and people sharing their creations and thoughts on the internet. While I have no precise idea what tomorrow will bring, I do see a general trend that is already in progress: the freer dissemination and spread of ideas and stories. This not only affects the reader; it also affects the author and the way stories are created, spread, and retold.

In terms of retelling or expanding on the Legendarium, I would prefer to focus on Tolkien's own behavior during his lifetime rather than second guessing his words after his death. The change I'm describing had already started in the sixties when appreciative fans regularly published fanfiction stories in the zines of local Tolkien groups, at least within the U.S.. (I am less familiar with what happened in Britain.) JRRT was certainly aware of that fact. Interviews with the author and other family members (especially Priscilla) appeared in the very same issues of journals that contained new Middle-earth stories. These stories were generally written by people who were more than "casual fans"; the authors were individuals like Vera Chapman who cared about Middle-earth and who spun stories very much in keeping with the values and ideas expressed in the Legendarium (or the portion of the Legendarium that was publically known at that time). Some of these folk (like Chapman) did go on to create their own published fantasy novels. These same people attended annual conferences and meetings and shared stories in small group sessions. In all those years, I can not recall a single instance when JRRT complained about what these people were doing.

Today we have millions of folk around the world who call themselves fans of Middle-earth. Back then, it was different. Fan groups were small and intimate; many had personal ties with the author. I know at least two people from college who wrote Tolkien and received courteous replies. If at any time in these years, Tolkien would have objected to fanfiction stories (as Anne Rice, for example, has done), the local societies would have pulled back and never published any additional stories. They respected Tolkien too much to go against his wishes. But that never happened because no complaint was ever made by JRRT or any other family member.

JRRT did howl about the way professional screenwriters proposed to treat Lord of the Rings; he disliked what they were doing to his characters and plot. His attitude towards what was happening on campuses in the U.s. and in local Tolkien groups was quite gentle. He was baffled and amused by the craziness: activities such as donning costumes, writing fanfiction and songs, mimicking hobbit behavior, distributing Middle-earth buttons and taking Middle-earth names. But, although JRRT considered such intense involvement with the Legendarium as rather odd, he did not express anger or take a strictly dogmatic position. He even proposed a scheme for doling out names for conference attendees: every delegate should be called by the name of a particular community in the Shire.

Over the years, with the explosion of the fan base, the proliferation of fanfics (including ones that would have made JRRT groan), and the fact that major bucks are definitely at stake, the situation is no longer this fluid or friendly. The Estate has understandably taken a more conservative stance. Things have become institutionalized. There's nothing wrong with this. It's needed. But we should remember there was a time when things were different, and we can't assume that the future will be an exact replica of what exists in 2007. Needs, techologies and perspectives probably will change in ways I can't even imagine.

Plus, I still can not get over the fact that Tolkien himself felt that he was "subcreating" a world. He used the word mythology to describe his own writing. My gut feeling is that there are many points of similarity between bodies of myth/legend like the Illiad, Beowulf, and the Arthurian tales and what Tolkien produced. Beowulf is certainly not based on any significant historical fact, but who would deny that the story has become part of the legends of the western world? And it has been told and retold by other minds. Ninety percent of what is in the Odyssey and Illiad is sheer fantasy despite the tiny grain of historical fact that lies at the center. Given the passage of 500 years, I don't think we'll see a huge distinction between these works and what Tolkien did.

And if you deny that Tolkien was producing "written myth", then how do you account for the Kalevala and the author's own attitude towards the modern rendition of that work? Tolkien was certainly inspired by these tales. He considered the modern telling to be a form of myth. The modern telling went far beyond the original tales almost to the point of transforming them. Moreover, Tolkien himself wrote a "fanfiction" based on the tale of Kullervo. Eventually, those themes and ideas came peaking through in his own rendition of the Children of Hurin. Just how different is that? Tolkien drew upon faerie paradigms as well as character names, northern attitudes, and even plot twists that originated in Norse and Germanic legends. He took these one step further and subcreated another world. I see this as one step in a continuing process that does not stop, and eventually other voices and other retellings will be heard....perhaps 500 years from now...long after anyone here is around.

[Quempel]

/delurk/

After reading this thread more than a few times I thought I would chime in.

I believe that Tolkien himself is the only expert on ME. Since he is no longer with us, other's have tried to take up the helm of ME. Are those new writings legitimate ME stories? In my opinion no, they are the new authors take on ME. Only Tolkien would know his own mind on ME. However, this does not mean a new author could not take what is already written by Tolkien and write new, and dare I say, better stories on ME or the mythology of ME. Should we discount new writings on and about ME, no. But should we say they are official Tolkien stories, no, Tolkien did not write them, they would be official John Smith stories on ME.

This can be said of the movies also. PJ and co. did not write the stories, but they made great movies of what their own interpretation of the stories. Could another director and co. make worse movies, yes (RB comes to mind), but could another director make better movies about the same story, yes. Could someone besides PJ make a better Hobbit, maybe, maybe not. But the bottom line is Tolkien is still the composer, PJ is just directing the players to his interpretation of the story. Does it make PJ's interpretation better or worse than what Tolkien original work that is totally up to the audience to decide.


/lurk/

[davem]

http://desicritics.org/2007/06/12/042334.php

Mythmaking is normally a product of the relentless march of history, when the passage of hundreds of years rubs and rubs against a tale until it has the warm, glowing veneer of antiquity. Time shapes a tale's language, giving it the ring of proclamatory truth; time shapes its texture, adding further strands of plot and character; time shapes its appeal, stretching it to include elements that, at the risk of over-simplification, can only be called universally human.

Now, Tolkien did not create a 'myth' in this sense. What he did was, through his familiarity with myth, create the illusion of 'myth'. His work reads like myth, but it is art, illusion, fantasy.

In order for the Legendarium to become a true myth it would have to be taken up by an entire people, adapted, modified, & made in to something 'other'. It may provide the seed for a new myth, but it would not be the myth, & half a millenia from now the 'Tree' would be as different from the seed as an oak is from an acorn. The point is none of us would recognise that tree, & none of those who knew the tree would recognise the seed.

So then, to honor the intentions of JRRT, I can take what he has created and use the medium of drama to add to it?

Is this a correct assumption based on the words of JRRT?

"But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. "

And do you understand the context of those words? Are you really Milton Waldman of Collins - was that letter addressed to you?

Firstly, Tolkien states that though that may have been his original intention, 'his crest had since fallen' - ie - he recognises that such a project is no longer an option. And why? What happened to cause that crest fallen state? My suggestion would be that what happened was WWI & its aftermath. Read John Garth's book 'Tolkien & the Great War', & look at the dreams of the TCBS for a 'moral regeneration' of England, their hope to become a new 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood'.

In short, 'other minds & hands' does not necessarily mean you, me, or FRR Bloggs. These 'other minds & hands' - even if Tolkien hadn't completely given up hope of finding them (which the statement in the letter seems to imply) may have referred to specific individuals - Christopher Tolkien for example. In short, you don't have the right to decide who those 'minds & hands' belong to - only Tolkien did, & he's gone. There's no way that that statement can be taken to imply a free-for-all.

Look, a wealthy man may declare that he intends to leave his fortune to 'the needy'. That would not justify you turning up at the reading of the will & demanding some cash because you're in need yourself. You may well be needy, but you are not necessarily among the 'needy' the man meant. What we know is that in his will JRRT gave only ONE mind & hand the right to take up his work & continue it, & that mind & hand belonged to his son Christopher. I'm certain that JRRT was intelligent enough to realise that he could have placed his work in the public domain & authorised a free-for-all if he'd wanted to.

[Morwen]

So then, to honor the intentions of JRRT, I can take what he has created and use the medium of drama to add to it?

Is this a correct assumption based on the words of JRRT?
Quote:
"But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. "

You haven't answered my question. Where in the above quote or any other that you have to hand to do find an assertion by Tolkien that he wanted other persons to write stories on Middle Earth?

[Sauron the White]

Morwen
I have... and I have not found what you ask about.
It seems that this issue ... and sadly most issues debated on the net ... come down to a definition of terms and how well someone knows the tricks and devices of debate.

Here is the passage from the oft-quoted letter to Waldman.

I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. "

It clearly does not say "new books, novellas or short stories of Middle-earth". But it does clearly indicate that the great tales are not all drawn out in fullness. It clearly says that other minds and hands can link them to the whole and that paint, music and drama can be employed as tools to do this.

JRRT does not say "other minds and hands of my choice and my choice only". He does not say "and all these creations should be kept private and strictly for the enjoyment of the individual creator".

It would seem to me that there is a lot of room here to draw the conclusion here that JRRT welcomed others to add to at least the "sketched" portions of his created world using at least the devices mentioned.

So now we come to the issue of what constitutes DRAMA or MUSIC. Dictionaries at the ready anyone?

[drigel]

I am not sure what the future will hold but I don't think it's wise to shut the door and deny the reality of further change. I can't say with one hundred percent certainty that the Legendarium will be regarded in the same light as the Arthurian tales are today, but I think there is a strong possibility this will happen.

It is an interesting idea, contemplating how the works will be regarded in the future, but I think that is overevaluating the internet. Tokien (among other great authors) utilized a spark that ignites the imagination and creative passion. But because more people have access to it (fanfics or the like), rather than the few close geek friends (or no one) in past years, doesnt elevate the phenomena. Just puts more eyes on it.

Change is inevitable for culture, but not for the product of JRRT. Just like any other classic - its all about the source material. Anything other than the source is tangential. If you want your child to learn about Homer, are you going sit him\her down with James Joyce?

I dont have the Letters handy, but I was always under the assumption that JRRT was distressed and a little perturbed by fans who took his work too..... seriously (ME weddings, etc). The idea that his stories would take a Paul Bunyan type of living legend to them .... in my opinion, would be that he would take affront and offense as an artist.

I consider ME about as "real" as RE Howards Hyborian kingdoms. I would assume that JRRT considered his legendarium about as "real" as the Arthurian legends or the Kalevala. ME was JRRT's own splinter of light. It has always been those little grains of "Truth" that makes a story a Story. That Truth is what gets passed on, not the story.

Like what Lal said, if your a writer then write. If you a painter then paint. It's all those little truths that make all those little splinters. Find your own splinter, rather than hallowing out Tolkien's, and trying to make a log out of it.

[Lalwendë]

Its sad that these type of things always come down to definitions and how people attempt to twist them to their own purposes. This latest business about how JRRT was NOT creating a mythology but a fake mythology is simply more intellectual craftsmanship designed to "win" this particular argument. What ever happened to all I have read over the years that one of the goals of JRRT was to create a mythology for England?

All of this becomes an exercise in semantics and legalism and borders on the arcane. Intellectual gymnastics employed to justify a particular personal position on an issue which is not clear at all. More heat than light is shed.

Twist things to my own purposes? Excuse me but I am English and speak and read English and Tolkien did not say he wanted to create a mythology FOR England - please tell me how 'dedicate to' means 'create for'? The two are wholly different things. Not least because Tolkien of all people would know that England certainly did not need someone to come along and impose a fictional story upon it.

He bases his stories on a lot of English cultural touchstones, he hopes he loads his work with 'Englishness', and finally, he has what he admits is a slightly pompous aim - to create a work of Art for us.

As to what happened to all you have read about him creating a mythology For England you can put that down to Ye Olde Misquoting. Beginning with Humphrey Carpenter, alas. ;)

It might well be an exercise in semantics or whatever but what Tolkien said was as clear as it could be. And he did not say he wanted to create a mythology for England. Sorry but this cannot be stressed highly enough as not only does the misquoting reflect incorrectly on Tolkien's intentions, but it gives the impression that England does not have a mythology of its own, when it has one of the richest folk histories in the world. And even if we didn't have one, then Tolkien of all people, as an expert in the subject, would not be so presumptive as to hope he could impose one on any nation.

Now bring me my chariot of fire... ;)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Whatever Tolkien may have intended or wanted the fact is that people are writing new stories, and there's nothing that's going to stop them from doing so. And no matter how the Professor would have reacted to these tales there are lots of people reading and enjoying these new stories.

The horse, as they say, has already left that particular barn...

[Sauron the White]

Lalwende

Humphrey Carpenter is not beyond making a mistake. Anyone can of course.
I do attach some extra importance to the fact that the Carpernter biography of JRRT is labeled as THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY. Its right there in big capital letters at the very top of the book dust jacket TOLKIEN. So this book - and it contents, its statements, its claims, it reporting of the 'facts' were authorized by whom?

Allow me to wildly speculate - The Tolkien Estate.

Was the manuscript not read? Were the facts not checked, double-and triple checked? Was Carpenter allowed to pass off lies and mistruths as part of the Tolkien biography with the blessing of the Estate?

The subject of mythology for England is discussed in Part III 1917-1925 : The making of a mythology. On page 89 of the chapter Lost Tales, it clearly states that Tolkien wrote his stories in part out of "... his desire to create a mythology for England." (the italics are those of Carpenter)

If this statement is in error as you claim, has it been officially corrected by the same people who authorized its printing in the first place?

[Lalwendë]

Whatever Tolkien may have intended or wanted the fact is that people are writing new stories, and there's nothing that's going to stop them from doing so. And no matter how the Professor would have reacted to these tales there are lots of people reading and enjoying these new stories.

The horse, as they say, has already left that particular barn...

Well there is - the fact that many of the words are Trade Marks. The estate could stop it all tomorrow if they wished - how could anyone write stories about Half-Things or Hoff-Bits (unless it was parody - given narfforc some ideas there :P ) and make them sound sensible?

But they are kind enough to allow people to go on writing their not-for-profit fan-fic. As am I, if they so wish! It can be fun! That's up to you.

What is at question is if it ought ever to be allowed for profit or to be authorised as 'canon' by the Estate. To which I would say the answer to the former is a resounding Moral No and the second a resounding Legal No - enforced by Trade Marks and refusal by Harper Collins to publish fan-fic (as the Estate can disallow them all further publication of further cash cow canon Tolkien books in a heartbeat if they so wish, as they would do if Tolkien's own work became muddied) when copyright runs out.

One thing we forget in all of this is that that man's hard work, his scribbling after midnight, was to finally earn his family some money, a family he struggled to feed and clothe and keep in medical bills during the 30s. It continues to care for his family even now. They aren't rich, the Tolkiens, they are very modest people, but they deserve their legacy - they are even kind hearted enough to give so much of it to charity and to allow all of us to have fun and write a little fan-fic, even smutty stuff. They DO allow people to properly publish parodies, make films and paint pictures as re-imaginings of the professor's work.

I get a little sick of the bleating about the 'evil Tolkien estate', not allowing people to get access to the Beowulf papers, not allowing fan-fic to be published. They are nice people - they give us more than enough already. Give them a break and please do not leech off them. In contrast to their needs, I care not one fig for some random fan-fic writer's spurious 'freedom' to create new Hobbits or whatever and earn a nice profit from them. It's a distinctly morally correct choice for me NOT to support others' dreams of making profit from what should just be treated as good fun.

[Lalwendë]

Lalwende

Humphrey Carpenter is not beyond making a mistake. Anyone can of course.
I do attach some extra importance to the fact that the Carpernter biography of JRRT is labeled as THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY. Its right there in big capital letters at the very top of the book dust jacket TOLKIEN. So this book - and it contents, its statements, its claims, it reporting of the 'facts' were authorized by whom?

Allow me to wildly speculate - The Tolkien Estate.

Was the manuscript not read? Were the facts not checked, double-and triple checked? Was Carpenter allowed to pass off lies and mistruths as part of the Tolkien biography with the blessing of the Estate?

The subject of mythology for England is discussed in Part III 1917-1925 : The making of a mythology. On page 89 of the chapter Lost Tales, it clearly states that Tolkien wrote his stories in part out of "... his desire to create a mythology for England." (the italics are those of Carpenter)

If this statement is in error as you claim, has it been officially corrected by the same people who authorized its printing in the first place?

I am not going to argue over what Carpenter misquotes. Suffice it to say I am quite sure that all those years ago the estate would not have even considered that one day in 2007 two pedants on an internet forum would disagree over just one of many mistakes that Carpenter made in a biography.

All you need to do is look at what TOLKIEN says.

Unless Tolkien was Nookie Bear and Carpenter Roger de Courcy, throwing his voice somehow into the letter to Milton Waldman, I am afraid i shall go only on what Tolkien says.

Now who's trying to twist things eh? Kettle? Pot? Pot? Kettle? Hmm? ;)

Just read the Waldman letter and have done.

[Sauron the White]

Since we both agree that we both speak English .... there can be different meanings to the same term. DEDICATED TO (the phrase used by JRRT in his Waldman letter) can be intrepreted different ways.

One way would be that Tolkien is honoring England by dedicating his mythology to it in the same way that one would dedicate a book to honor someone. It seems - and correct me if I am wrong - that is the way you are intrepreting this phrase.

DEDICATED TO - can also mean that a certain work has been set aside for a specific purpose.

I could use this phrase... "I am going to write a book dedicated to the early years of the work of Mozart." Clearly I am not saying I am honoring Mozart but am saying that I am writing about his early years of work.

I think that one can read the statement of Tolkien and come to the exact same conclusion that Carpenter did in the Authorized Biography TOLKIEN.

It is ironic that we are disputing the meaning of words attributed to JRRT - a man who worked on the OED defining a few of his own. :)

[drigel]

The horse, as they say, has already left that particular barn...

Fordim,

I know what I have said goes against the grain of the dominant opinion at this site. Dont get me wrong, I am not advocating that all that fanfic is wrong and should be stopped. Internet sharing=doing it for the love. Commercial release=doing it for the ego\glory\money IMO.

I did it for a long time. It is good practice. There may even be a market for it. Im sure what is envisioned is a Star Wars\Trek kind of universe out there, in regards to JRRT. I just dont think that time has come yet, especially considering the authors original intentions for his product.

[Morwen]

Whatever Tolkien may have intended or wanted the fact is that people are writing new stories, and there's nothing that's going to stop them from doing so. And no matter how the Professor would have reacted to these tales there are lots of people reading and enjoying these new stories.

The horse, as they say, has already left that particular barn...
The fact that stories are being written and enjoyed doesn't answer the question of what status is to be accorded to these stories or how they should be read in relation to Tolkien's own Middle Earth writings. I think his intention is relevant to determing that question.

[davem]

Re: 'A Mythology for England'.

Again, we have to go back to Tolkien the young man. One of Tolkien's great inspirations was Lonrot's Kalevala. The Kalevala was presented as 'Finland's mythology' - a 'mythology for Finland'. & it had a momentous effect on Finland - ultimately it proved to be the spark that produced Finland's independence. The nation was transformed - it got a mythic history of its own & that created a sense of national identity. The 'myth' rejuventated the people & gave them a new vision. The fact that it was to a great extent 'creative accounting' on Lonrot's part, & that he wasn't averse to 'inventing' & 'constructing' what he couldn't find, is not really the issue.

Tolkien wanted the same - for a while. He wanted to create not a wholly new mythology for England, but to draw together what had survived of ancient myth & legend. Tolkien believed that two things had devastated England's native mythology - the 'War' (ie the Norman Invasion) & the Industrial Revolution - the first by bringing in French influence/legends (of which the Arthurian Legends are the classic example, because its not the Celtic Arthur but the French version who took over. In other words, its Chretien's Arthur, rather than the Arthur of the Mabinogion's Culhwch & Olwen) |& the second by breaking up the closed rural communities which had preserved legends, folklore, & songs for so long.

Of course it could be argued that England never had the kind of complex, coherent mythology that Tolkien dreamed of 'recreating'. However, that's another question. The point is, he, & the TCBS dreamed of an English Mythology having the same effect on their own land that the Kalevala had had on Finland. There would be a new mythology built from the bricks that survived of the old. England would take up the myth, be inspired like the Finns, a sense of Englishness would inspire people to return to decency, morality & faith.

The TCBS was obliterated on the Somme - two of the four died, but the vision lived on. Tolkien clearly felt that he had an obligation to continue the work. He was invalided back to England with Trench Fever, & began The Book of Lost Tales, & continued on, developing the Silmarillion.

Yet, by the time of the Waldman letter, his 'crest had fallen', & by the time of the Second Edition of LotR he could state (in the Foreword to his most successful & famous work) that the book had 'no inner meaning or message'. The TCBS went to war driven by a desire to transform their country via a new 'mythic history' of its people. Thirty-odd years later Tolkien has, perhaps regretfully, left behind that desire. Fifteen or so years after that, when writing the Foreword to the Second Edition in the mid sixties, he could declare it was 'Art' & only itself - certainly not a 'mythology for England'. So why the change?

Well, certainly if Mythology had been shown to have a power for good via the Kalevala, it had also been shown to have a power for evil via Wagner & the Third Reich.

The problem with myths is their power. They are difficult to control & their effect is too unpredictable.

[Lalwendë]

Since we both agree that we both speak English .... there can be different meanings to the same term. DEDICATED TO (the phrase used by JRRT in his Waldman letter) can be intrepreted different ways.

One way would be that Tolkien is honoring England by dedicating his mythology to it in the same way that one would dedicate a book to honor someone. It seems - and correct me if I am wrong - that is the way you are intrepreting this phrase.

DEDICATED TO - can also mean that a certain work has been set aside for a specific purpose.

I could use this phrase... "I am going to write a book dedicated to the early years of the work of Mozart." Clearly I am not saying I am honoring Mozart but am saying that I am writing about his early years of work.

I think that one can read the statement of Tolkien and come to the exact same conclusion that Carpenter did in the Authorized Biography TOLKIEN.


One can come to that conclusion being the operative word. As that is a very singular way of using English.

Just think for a moment how that might appear. "I am going to dedicate a work to the purpose of England." The purpose? And is England a purpose in itself? I suppose it might be if you are of that mind, but it doesn't really make any sense as it would be a hanging sentence. You may complete it of course by adding a purpose to the England referred to in the sentence, but then of course you would be putting words into the mouth of the man who wrote the sentence.

No, I am afraid that is rather a little more forced than a packet of Mentos stuffed into a coke bottle and might explode just as spectacularly if given more than a light shaking.

Of course, if dedicate in this context means set aside for the specific purpose of (and we are not going to include the word 'purpose' in our sentence but instead have it as a definition outside of the actual words spoken) then that would mean Tolkien's work was provided specifically for England only and lots of people the world over ought to hand in their books right now. ;)

On the other hand it is much easier to simply read what was written and not try and force the meaning into something else. Even at the risk of making the delightful (for he was) Carpenter look like he made a slight error, which would be a fruitless trifle (mmm) to worry about anyway as he made others.

[davem]

Even at the risk of making the delightful (for he was) Carpenter look like he made a slight error, which would be a fruitless trifle (mmm) to worry about anyway as he made others.

Certainly, as Garth points up, Carpenter overplayed Tolkien's 'dislike' of both Shakespeare & Wagner.

[Raynor]

Legendarium is an archaic word chosen by Tolkien to distinguish between his created faux mythology and a genuine one.You claim to protect Tolkien's authenticity and heritage, yet you disregard his own view on myths, and his work as myths. I keep getting amused in this thread.
What we are forgetting is that Tolkien intentionally left holes in his work as real mythology has holes. He left enigmas that cannot and maybe ought not be explained:Some are intended enigmas, as Bombadil, some are simply unfinished stories. The very quote you gave leaves room for new stories, provided that "new unattainable vistas are again revealed".
Now, Tolkien did not create a 'myth' in this sense. What he did was, through his familiarity with myth, create the illusion of 'myth'. His work reads like myth, but it is art, illusion, fantasy.So, like Lewis, you think that myths (or these myths) are simply lies, "breathed through silver"? Again, you would be at odds with Tolkien's own ideas. I am certain you are familiar with the discussion from the Biography which I quoted previously.

[davem]

You claim to protect Tolkien's authenticity and heritage, yet you disregard his own view on myths, and his work as myths. I keep getting amused in this thread.
Some are intended enigmas, as Bombadil, some are simply unfinished stories. The very quote you gave leaves room for new stories, provided that "new unattainable vistas are again revealed".

And he also made references to works like 'The Fall of Gil-Galad' ("which Bilbo must have translated" which he never actually wrote, or intended to write. The idea of 'lost' works was deliberate, & adds to the sense of M-e having a 'real' historical existence. The fact that some tales which Tolkien intended to complete remained incomplete actually adds to that sense. Completing unfinished tales & writing new ones would actually work against the effect.

So, like Lewis, you think that myths (or these myths) are simply lies, "breathed through silver"? Again, you would be at odds with Tolkien's own ideas. I am certain you are familiar with the discussion from the Biography which I quoted previously.

So, like (fill in the blank) you like to put words in people's mouths in order to create straw men which you can knock down?

You are confusing Tolkien's views on myth with the nature of myth itself. One person cannot create a mythology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology.

Historically, the important approaches to the study of mythological thinking have been those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lávy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.[12]

Myths are narratives about divine or heroic beings, arranged in a coherent system, passed down traditionally, and linked to the spiritual or religious life of a community, endorsed by rulers or priests. Once this link to the spiritual leadership of society is broken, they lose their mythological qualities and become folktales or fairy tales.[13] In folkloristics, which is concerned with the study of both secular and sacred narratives, a myth also derives some of its power from being more than a simple "tale", by comprising an archetypical quality of "truth".

Myths are often intended to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation myths" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions or rituals, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself. This broader truth runs deeper than the advent of critical history, and it may or may not exist as in an authoritative written form which becomes "the story" (preliterate oral traditions may vanish as the written word becomes "the story" and the literate class becomes "the authority"). However, as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl puts it, "The primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development."[14]

Most often the term refers specifically to ancient tales of historical cultures, such as Greek mythology or Roman mythology. Some myths descended originally as part of an oral tradition and were only later written down, and many of them exist in multiple versions. According to F. W. J. Schelling in the eighth chapter of Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology, "Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding."

Tolkien could not have created a genuine mythology - mythologies cannot be 'created' by individuals. Tolkien wrote a series of interlinked tales. I don't know if you genuinely do not understand the nature of 'mythology' or whether you're just attempting to score points here, but we have to get our terms right if we're to get anywhere in this discussion. If Tolkien created a 'mythology' then every writer of fantasy stories has also created a 'mythology'. Making up a story with gods & goddesses in it is not 'inventing a mythology' - though that phrase may be a convenient shorthand.

Myths, clearly, are not 'lies'. They were, in origin, religious tales, believed in as completely as the stories in the Bible or Koran. And that's the point - no-one (if they're classifiable as sane) believes Tolkien's stories are remnants of genuine beliefs. Of course, Tolkien played the game of being merely a 'translator' in both the Hobbit Forword & the Foreword to the First Edition of LotR - though that foreword was re-written for the Second Edition & any idea (however tongue in cheek) that LotR was anything other than a fictional work was removed.

Homer drew on a existing mythology (as did Dante) to produce their Art. Tolkien invented a 'mythological' background for his tales.

Its vital to distinguish between mythology & 'mythology' here.

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien could not have created a genuine mythology - mythologies cannot be 'created' by individuals. Tolkien wrote a series of interlinked tales. I don't know if you genuinely do not understand the nature of 'mythology' or whether you're just attempting to score points here, but we have to get our terms right if we're to get anywhere in this discussion. If Tolkien created a 'mythology' then every writer of fantasy stories has also created a 'mythology'. Making up a story with gods & goddesses in it is not 'inventing a mythology' - though that phrase may be a convenient shorthand.

Myths, clearly, are not 'lies'. They were, in origin, religious tales, believed in as completely as the stories in the Bible or Koran. And that's the point - no-one (if they're classifiable as sane) believes Tolkien's stories are remnants of genuine beliefs. Of course, Tolkien played the game of being merely a 'translator' in both the Hobbit Forword & the Foreword to the First Edition of LotR - though that foreword was re-written for the Second Edition & any idea (however tongue in cheek) that LotR was anything other than a fictional work was removed.

Homer drew on a existing mythology (as did Dante) to produce their Art. Tolkien invented a 'mythological' background for his tales.

Its vital to distinguish between mythology & 'mythology' here.

Personally I think it might help if I could find a YouTube clip of a certain episode of a now defunct Irish sitcom where Father Ted has to explain to Father Dougal the difference between Dreams and Reality. You know the one where he has all little fluffy bunnies hopping round inside of his head? ;)

Or else something about writing style. I mean, did Helen Fielding really find a certain dizzy thirtysomething's diary on the Circle Line or was it...um...a work of fiction perhaps?!

Mind, I'm quite taken with the idea that one day Discworld might be found to have been a remnant of genuine 20th century belief and that the Tony Robinson and Phil Harding of the 31st Century are sent on a wild goose chase trying to dig for the remains of Ankh-Morpork.

[Raynor]

The fact that some tales which Tolkien intended to complete remained incomplete actually adds to that sense. Completing unfinished tales & writing new ones would actually work against the effect.Again, we are talking about a personal opinion, being satisfied with it is and what is not. Far from being an objective truth, because an absolute, objective truth in this field does not actually exist; it may be adopted in certain places, in certain times. But that's it.
So, like (fill in the blank) you like to put words in people's mouths in order to create straw men which you can knock down?Since you qualified his myths, among others, as illusions, I find that me asking you (not putting words in your mouth) if you consider myths as lies, is quite an appropriate question - and the parallel I drew with Lewis a valid one.
One person cannot create a mythology.That is quite a statement. What evidence do we have in that regard, seeing that we are talking about past, oral traditions? In fact, since it has been already pointed that myths come down from religions or some spiritual beliefs - it is often the case that a religion or a spiritual belief comes from one individual, through revelation, or other means. Therefore, at least some myths or mythologies, at least in origin, come from one individual. How much did others add to this? I don't know and I doubt anyone can proclaim that he does. And if anyone has concerns about me taking a parallel between Tolkien's myths and religious-originated myths, it was Tolkien's idea, mentioned in the letters or biography, that myths contain religious truths also. When talking about a mythology we have therefore a "semantic" aspect (what it transmits) and a historical/social aspect (who adopts it). I daresay that at least on some level (bening, of course) some of the many readers of Tolkien have adopted, have internalised, the message of his work - and therefore, even the historical/social condition may be satisfied. At least in the modern sense of the word (or in the modern, disperse, conditions), we have a live, "true" mythology, whose message and images are adopted. Maybe not by the majority of readers, maybe not in all cases in a sufficientl way. But even past mythologies were not adopted by all their formal followers, nor were they completely internalised in all cases.

[Lalwendë]

I have to say there's a deep irony in someone who bangs on about subjectivity all the time basing an argument on something as subjective as the concept that God personally wrote down every single word that is in the Bible/s. ;) And before you burn me at the stake, go and ask a bible scholar about the history of that particular mythology.

[Raynor]

I have to say there's a deep irony in someone who bangs on about subjectivity all the time basing an argument on something as subjective as the concept that God personally wrote down every single word that is in the Bible/s.You misunderstood me. I am not saying that it was God who personally wrote, but that some myths/mythologies can be traced back to one individual. As far as the first part of your statement, this is a discussion that ultimately relates to personal tastes, and therefore, subjectivity should take the stage. We are not debating evidences, but artistic preferences.

[Lalwendë]

You misunderstood me. I am not saying that it was God who personally wrote, but that some myths/mythologies can be traced back to one individual. As far as the first part of your statement, this is a discussion that ultimately relates to personal tastes, and therefore, subjectivity should take the stage. We are not debating evidences, but artistic preferences.

Which mythologies, exactly, are based on the word of one person? I'm sure the experts would like to know!

[davem]

I think that by its nature no mythology can be the product of a single mind. A mythology is a cultural product. Its what a people do with experiences/events. Its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS. In origin all myths were 'religious'. They were what a people believed to be true, stories about the gods they worshipped.

No-one in our world ever believed that the stories of M-e were true. No-one in our world ever worshipped the Valar. We all know that M-e is a fictional creation. It may be that in the far distant future people will have turned M-e into a mythology - but, at the risk of stating the glaringly obvious, that would be a terrible thing, & could only be a result of some kind of disaster. We, thousands of years after Homer wrote, know that The Illiad is 'fiction', & four centuries after Shakespeare we haven't turned MacBeth into a God. Being an optimist (in the long term) as regards the human race, I'm pretty sure that our decendants a thousand years down the line will still have access to some kind of computerised database/library system, & will be reading The Sil & HoM-e on e-books & not sitting round fires in dank caves worshipping Manwe - or believing that we did.

I even have faith that most of them will realise that there are other authors out there, whose works are just as interesting as Tolkien's & actually choose to read some of them, rather than sitting around in despair over the fact that they can't spend their whole existence reading stories about Middle-earth by A.N. Other-Writer.

[Bêthberry]

I really want to thank Child for her post which has so strongly stimulated this most recent aspect of the topic at hand. And I want to thank davem for his insistence on defining the word mythology. Definitions are very helpful in forwarding discussion. They do not, however, necessarily influence human behaviour at the time of the act. (To use an analogy: I suppose there are some people who might stop and refer to their illustrated copy of the Kama Sutra and then return to the activity they were engaged in, but I doubt if many would find that kind of engagement really pleasurable, more an exercise in logistics. )

It is the modern scholars of mythology who davem references who have given us this sense of tribal superstitions and which claim that the religious aspects were paramount the ancient socieities. That is not to say these scholars have an objectively true explanation of what the mythologies meant: what they have is a definition/understanding which satisfies them in their time. They could be wrong--after all, social scientists display the same kind of scepticism which hard scientists claim.

From a narratological point of view, the idea that mythologies derive their power from the representation of religious belief is too limiting. Such an explanation does not really provide, for instance, an explanation of the power of narrative in our culture, which supposedly does not tremble in caves, but climbs in them for sport and leisure. What might be more important in terms of mythologies is not their truth factor (that is, their semantic content) but their psychological value. Mythologies may have derived their power from the importance of story telling to humans. It is the narrative act which gives mythologies their coherence and significance. Anyone who has ever been to a funeral will understand how those left behind use stories to deal with their grief and to celebrate the life that has passed. Story telling is a hugely important aspect of the human mind, both for individuals and for the group, be it familial, local, tribal, national, or world.

So what this could well mean to our exploration of mythology in Tolkien is that mythology may not necessarily have to have this component of belief system. It is the telling of the stories which is important, not whether the speakers actually think that Manwe or Yavanna (or their REB counterparts, as the case may be) will keep watch over them. Ritual is not limited to religion, and increasingly we understand that ritual (as opposed to fetish) has a place even in a modern or post modern world.

So, if it is true that a mythology is not written by one mind, but by many over the telling, (and for the record, I don't think that Tolkien's work was written by one mind, but represents the creative response of one mind to the myriad reading that one mind did.) then what might be going on here is indeed what Child speculated: a coming together over story, with various hands providing aspects of that story. It is entirely possible that mythologies in the cultures of the 21st century need not have religious compoments in order for them to have power in the communities which tell them. It is the very fact that so many hands are engaging in the storytelling of Middle earth that proves Tolkien did create the story components of mythology.

And I do hope I have provided a bit more humour for Raynor. And Fordim, who would have thought your canonicity thread would rise up again in new form?

[Lalwendë]

But they aren't though.

Ther aren't thousands, hundreds or even dozens of minds engaged in telling Tolkien's stories. There is one. Tolkien.

The only way you can start thinking along that track is if you accept the following:

1. That fan-fic is 'telling Tolkien's stories' - no matter how cruddy or how many Princess Tippy Toes characters childish minds chuck at you.

2. You believe post-modern/structuralist/insanity theory that nothing has any meaning apart from what people decide to give to it. And if you do, beware! For the Four Horsemen of Theory Change are saddling up and ready to go in the form of Remodernism (see Stuckism, Tracy Emin, Billy Childish and Franz Ferdinand etc for further info) which reasserts the place of Meaning.

3. There's some vague chance that somewhere along the line, Tolkien fans will ever agree on how many Balrogs it takes to change a lightbulb. News. This will never happen. Why? We are nerds. Nerds by nature do not agree. They love nothing more than pedantry and feed on it like Ungoliant sucks on Light.

4. You must entirely suspend your sanity to think that Tolkien's work was written by davem, by me, by whoever reads it.

Oh yes, and a mythology does not need to be religious either, it can be based on history but the important thing is that it is not written by one mind, and I have not got such need of Lithium yet that I have the delusion that I had any hand in writing Tolkien's stories. I read them, I interpret them, I imagine them. I do not, did not and cannot write them.

Cut to the chase - lots of folk here write fan-fic and stuff like that. Perhaps they are being driven by their own daydreams of one day seeing that stuff in print? ;)

[Sauron the White]

Lalwende - your #3 item put a big smile on my face. That pretty much says it all.

ITs not just this particular site, but often when reading many internet chat sites I find these debates remind me of the great Emo Phillips story about God and religion. For those who may not have heard it before allow me -

The Wisdom Of Emo Phillips
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?" He said, "Baptist!" I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?" He said, "Baptist church of god!" I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?" He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!" I said, "Me too! Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off. -- Emo Phillips

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Which mythologies, exactly, are based on the word of one person? I'm sure the experts would like to know!

Ummmm.....The Book of Mormon? Scientology? The Quran?

[Lalwendë]

Ummmm.....The Book of Mormon? Scientology? The Quran?

None of 'em. ;)

Especially the Book of Mormon which was nicked from other texts - as for the Koran/Quran (however we're spelling it), like the Bible it had multiple hands involved in writing it. I don't know of any Scientology texts as I'm not a billionaire. :D But whatever Tom Cruise and co read at bedtime, like the Book of Mormon, it all stems from other stuff and it's not mythology anyway, just textbooks.

[davem]

I think the essential feature of any true myth is that at some point it was believed to be 'true' (whatever 'true' meant to our ancestors). They believed that the world worked that way. So the mythology was a reflection of their beliefs, philosophy & science. They didn't 'invent' it.

Tolkien clearly did make the whole Legendarium up. It may have started as an attempt to recreate England's lost mythology, but Tolkien didn't believe things had really happened that way. Of course, he pretended that it was a translation from an 'old book' (a la Geoffrey of Monmouth), & that he was merely the last in a long line of redactors. A comparison between the First Edition Foreword & the more familiar Second Edition Foreword is interesting:

First Ed:

Lord of the Rings First Edition Foreword

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 assiduous, 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 recognised 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.

Tolkien is clearly claiming that LotR is not an 'invention' of his own, but an ancient history. Its an account of something that happened 'once upon a time'. Compare that to the Second Edition Foreword:

FOREWORD

This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great War of the Ring and included many glimpses of the yet more ancient history that preceded it. It was begun soon after The Hobbit was written and before its publication in 1937; but I did not go on with this sequel, for I wished first to complete and set in order the mythology and legends of the Elder Days, which had then been taking shape for some years. I desired to do this for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues. When those whose advice and opinion I sought corrected little hope to no hope, I went back to the sequel, encouraged by requests from readers for more information concerning hobbits and their adventures. But the story was drawn irresistibly towards the older world, and became an account, as it were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been told. The process had begun in the writing of The Hobbit, in which there were already some references to the older matter: Elrond, Gondolin, the High-elves, and the orcs, as well as glimpses that had arisen unbidden of things higher or deeper or darker than its surface: Durin, Moria, Gandalf, the Necromancer, the Ring. The discovery of the significance of these glimpses and of their relation to the ancient histories revealed the Third Age and its culmination in the War of the Ring. Those who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord of the Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a period in which I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me. The delay was, of course, also increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale had not yet reached the end of Book I. In spite of the darkness of the next five years, I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to Lothlorien and the Great River late in 1941. In the next year I wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book III, and the beginnings of Chapters 1 and 3 of Book V; and there, as the beacons flared in Anorien and Theoden came to Harrowdale, I stopped. Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought. ....

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. 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 a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, or to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short. As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, 'The Shadow of the Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels.

If we compare the two we can see that this is bigger than Tolkien simply re-writing the Foreword for the revised edition. Of course, the revision was 'forced' on him to some extent by the Ace Books problem, but the two Forewords are not just different in length, but in approach, & in what they say about the relationship of Tolkien to his material. In the SE Foreword Tolkien is stating as clearly as he can that he made the whole thing up - its not 'real', its a story. Now, there's no way that anyone reading the Foreword could make the mistake of believing its in any way 'true'.

If, however, the Ace Books problem hadn't created the need for a Second Edition, would we have ever got one? Would we have been treated to that new Foreword? Its possible we would still have the First Edition text, with Tolkien's clear statement that he was only a translator of an ancient history book. If that edition fell into the hands of one of our distant decendents would they take it at face value & believe it was indeed an account of a long past period in our history?

(on a side issue, one could also ask whether if the SE hadn't appeared we would ever have had an index in LotR - even up to the 1965 11th impression of the FE there is only an apology for its absence, & the 'Golden House' is that of Finrod, not Finarfin - another exapmple of a change Tolkien was free to make, but another writer of M-e stories would not be).

In short, Tolkien never believed the the Legendarium was in any way 'true' - in a literal sense at least. In fact, as 'Myths Transformed' shows, he eventually reached a point where he felt driven to change central elements of the story simply to make it fit with what science - not religion stated about the origin of the Earth.

[Raynor]

Which mythologies, exactly, are based on the word of one person?My argument was based on a conjecture, that if some myths are based on various religious beliefs which are in turn related to a one important individual, then these myths can be traced to one person. At least at this moment, I don't have the knowledge to be more specific.
And I do hope I have provided a bit more humour for Raynor. I am much in debt to all the participants on this thread that provide, willingly or not, delightfully amusing arguments ;).
Its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS.Where in OFS did he say that?
From a narratological point of view, the idea that mythologies derive their power from the representation of religious belief is too limiting. Such an explanation does not really provide, for instance, an explanation of the power of narrative in our culture, which supposedly does not tremble in caves, but climbs in them for sport and leisure. What might be more important in terms of mythologies is not their truth factor (that is, their semantic content) but their psychological value. Mythologies may have derived their power from the importance of story telling to humans. It is the narrative act which gives mythologies their coherence and significance. Anyone who has ever been to a funeral will understand how those left behind use stories to deal with their grief and to celebrate the life that has passed. Story telling is a hugely important aspect of the human mind, both for individuals and for the group, be it familial, local, tribal, national, or world.I believe yours and Child's approach to the subject is much better than the one I pursued (the parallels with religious myths). To emphasise the "inventive" aspect of the myths, I would say the following passage from the same chapter of the Biography is relevant:
You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.In this light, are we, as humans, to apply "literary" rights over formulations of truth? We might have "professional" reasons (or rather excuses) to do that, but that would be missing the point of the works of the "blessed legend-makers" that "kindle the heart with legendary fire". To make another paraphrase of Mythopoeia, in Paradise the eye error will not see, for error lies not in sound but in the tuneless voice.

[Bêthberry]

I can't find that source now where Tolkien says he felt like he was merely recording and not creating. I'm sure you folks with the pulse of the Letters and HoMe at your fingertip can find that passage, particularly if you think you can work it round to your side of things as the context and recipient and date must be pondered like the entrails of sacrificial animals.

For now, here's a very eloquent statement from a letter to Unwin. It's the letter where Tollkien talks about grace appearing "in mythological form"and where "Allegory and Story meet[. . .] somewhere in Truth." (bolding mine)


Well, I have talked quite long enough about my own follies. The thing is to finish the thing as devised and then let it be judged. But forgive me! It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other. I fear it must stand or fall as it substantially is. It would be idle to pretend that I do not greatly desire publication, since a solitary art is no art; nor that I have not a pleasure in praise, with as little vanity as fallen man can manage (he has not much more share in his writings than in his children of the body, but it is something to have a function; yet the chief thing is to complete one's work, as far as completion has any real sense.

As for putting "ahead" literary things over "formulations of truth", I'd go with what Tolkien said about the nature of mankind as subcreators in OFS.

[Raynor]

The passage in question appears after the much quoted paragraph about the mythology to be dedicated to England:
The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

Of course, such an overweening purpose did not develop all at once. The mere stories were the thing. They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labour (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics): yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.

[davem]

Where in OFS did he say that?

Let us take what looks like a clear case of Olympian nature-myth: the Norse god Thorr. His name is Thunder, of which Thorr is the Norse form; and it is not difficult to interpret his hammer, Miollnir, as lightning. Yet Thorr has (as far as our late records go) a very marked character, or personality, which cannot be found in thunder or in lightning, even though some details can, as it were, be related to these natural phenomena: for instance, his red beard, his loud voice and violent temper, his blundering and smashing strength. None the less it is asking a question without much meaning, if we inquire: Which came first, nature allegories about personalized thunder in the mountains, splitting rocks and trees; or stories about an irascible, not very clever, redbeard farmer, of a strength beyond common measure, a person (in all but mere stature) very like the Northern farmers, the bœndr by whom Thorr was chiefly beloved? To a picture of such a man Thorr may be held to have “dwindled,” or On Fairy Stories from it the god may be held to have been enlarged. But I doubt whether either view is right—not by itself, not if you insist that one of these things must precede the other. It is more reasonable to suppose that the farmer popped up in the very moment when Thunder got a voice and face; that there was a distant growl of thunder in the hills every time a storyteller heard a farmer in a rage.

As to the 'Not inventing but receiving' thing. I don't think Tolkien ever made that statement publicly - or if he did that it was anything more than a way of referring to his 'muse'. I've lost count of the number of writers who have claimed that once they started writing their story 'wrote itself' & that the characters 'took on a life of their own'.

I don't think there's a one that wouldn't sue for plagiarism anyone who wrote a sequel to one of their books. And why? Because however you dress it up, & whatever clever arguments you use & words you twist, stealing is stealing.

[Raynor]

Davem, the passage you quoted has zero relevance to your claim "its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS". As far as I can tell, it discusses the subject of a story, not its authorship.
I don't think there's a one that wouldn't sue for plagiarism anyone who wrote a sequel to one of their books. And why? Because however you dress it up, & whatever clever arguments you use & words you twist, stealing is stealing.I disagree. If I would write a book, I would definitely be thrilled if someone else picked up on it and write a sequel; I would hold the same to be true for a good deal of my friends. Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'. Some would be actually pleased to see that their message got across and that it begins to have a life of his own.

[Lalwendë]

I disagree. If I would write a book, I would definitely be thrilled if someone else picked up on it and write a sequel; I would hold the same to be true for a good deal of my friends. Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'. Some would be actually pleased to see that their message got across and that it begins to have a life of his own.

You do it then, if you are silly enough. Sorry but after the journey I have had to endure this morning with some of Britain's finest examples of scum I am not going to put up with silliness gently.

If you really do believe that All Property Is Theft then what about I wholescale copy your posts and post them as my own work elsewhere? maybe even put them in a pamphlet of some kind and self-publish it for profit? Would you like it if another University student say copied your work and handed it on?

Of course in this day and age it is not surprising that we follow the ideas of folk like Barthes who believed the Author Is Dead and we should have a free-for-all on intellectual property. After all, we live in a society where the young do not respect the old, the rich are not kind to the poor, the chav steals from the working person etc....Such intellectual ideas are OK with the sandal wearing Islington set as hey, man, they have the trust fund to fall back on, and like, man, they don't need the dough anyway, yeahhhhh.... while all around them other people who do not feel the same see millennia-old moral codes such as Do Not Steal crumble into dust.

Course, following Barthes idea is rarely followed to the letter. Firstly as if I was to copy out one of his works and pass it off as my own, the All Property Is Theft high-mindedness would soon disappear as the lawyers came rolling in to take some royalties (not that Barthes would see any, he was knocked down by a laundry van ). Funny how in the Real World people actually DO want to make some money from their work. Although in Cloud Cuckoo Land...

And secondly - if you are on here propounding the theories of Barthes, then kindly go right now and burn all your copies of Letters, of the Biography, in fact of anything which might make you think for one second of the Author. or you are a hypocrite.

But then that is the essential downfall of Barthes and his ilk, and their theories and why they are coming to a close at last. People cannot reconcile looking at what the author says with having to accept he is dead - though they are quite happy, thank you very much, to be allowed to Say What I Like And Like What I Ruddy Well Say. Sorry guys, but even Stevie Wonder could see right through the double standards of that one ;)

And finally if we have folk saying this:
Not all writers are in it for the fame, the money or whatever other perks come with 'intelectual property rights'.

Then what on earth is this thread still doing open?! Surely You Already Have The Opportunity To Write Fan-Fic?! is all that needs to be said. Now stop Bellyaching and go back to your desk and flipping write some, you moaning minnies! :rolleyes:

[Child of the 7th Age]

I wasn't going to weigh in on this again, but..... :Merisu:

Just to reiterate, I am not really interested in what is going to happen tomorrow or in the next 100 years. My interest in and reading of fanfiction is minimal. My concern lies on a broader scale. I feel this issue boils down to one central question: to what extent can/will the Legendarium be regarded as mythology and/or legend 500 years from now. Myth/legend can legitimately be told, retold, and expanded. No one, for example, would call Thomas Malory or T. H. White "fanficton" writers or look down their noses at them because they stole ideas from someone else. No poster on this thread (myself included) can answer that question with certainty, but I think it is a legitimate exercise (as Davem has done) to ask in what ways the Legendarium comes close to qualifying as "mythology" and in what ways it does not.

Davem,

You point to legitimate distinctions between the Legendarium and other forms of myth. However, I feel you stress these differences to the exclusion of some very important similarities. Specifically, I think that your proposed "tests" for determining what is myth and what is not fail to take into account the very complex and tangled nature of any mythology in terms of its creation and transmission. Your tests rest on certain assumptions about "natural myth" that I don't feel hold true.

Let's start with the question of "who" creates a myth. You see a stark line between "natural" mythology, which is created by "many" authors, versus the Legendarium, which you describe as the product of a single mind and, therefore, totally different. In reality, that distinction is not so clear cut. In 98% of the mythologies in our world, there are two phases of creation. First comes the oral tradition--verbal folklore and its transmission--that normally involves a multiplicity of tellers in a variety of settings. However, the process of telling, retelling, and creating does not stop there. The second phase is when the myth is reshaped , formalized, and most frequently put into writing. Almost always, this involves one or more specific individuals who take the older material and its many divergent and conflicting stories; make significant changes and choices; and eventually come out with a unified narrative, one that is loosely based on the old but which may be strikingly different in terms of emphasis, characters, and plotline. These differences may be so great that the author virtually creates a new myth.

Just look at the Illiad and Odyssey. With few exceptions, classical scholars have come to belive that Homer was a real person who made significant changes to the oral tradition of Greece/Asia Minor and thereby created the 24 books of the Illiad and the 24 books of the Odyssey. (Some have suggested that one writer was responsible for the Illiad and another for the Odyssey but 95% of recent scholarship is agreed that each was the work of a single author, and that this individual put them through multiple revisions before the final draft was produced.) Moreover, most classicists conclude that this involved much more than the simple retelling of an old story: the changes made by Homer were so significant that he virtually created a new story.

We can find the same process of creation and transmission if we look at Norse mythology. What started as loose oral tradition crafted by many minds was formulated and put to paper in the ninth through the twelfth centuries in what came to be known as the Elder (Poetic) Edda and the Younger or Prose Edda. In some cases, we know the names of the specific author.

The second phase of creation when the myth is sorted out by one or more specific persons and set down on paper is absolutely essential. Oral and folkloric transmission is not enough; it is the genius of a Homer or a Snorri (or a Tolkien) that allows the myth to be transformed and passed on to future generations. Without that step, without that specific person, we would be left in the dark.

While there are obvious differences between the role of Homer and Snorri on one hand, and Tolkien on the other, there are also points of similarity that should not be ignored. You have suggested that these works are different because the "natural" myths were based on an historical truth, while Tolkien's world was purely fantasy. It is true that there is a tiny grain of historical truth at the core of the Illiad and the Odyssey but 95% of the characters and episodes in those 48 books are not historical; they are fantasy--the product of Homer's imagination based on the earlier oral tradition. Thus, while Tolkien's Legendarium is "less historical" than Homer's poems, that difference is not as sharp as your posts suggest. Secondly, as Shippey and others have shown, Tolkien draws very heavily on the older mythic creations for his own subcreations. Names, races, themes, symbols--you name it--he derived them from existing myths that reach back into the oral tradition. Is this so different from what Homer and Snorri did?

Secondly, I am not comfortable with your assessment of how JRRT viewed his own work: first seeing it as myth but then consciously rejecting that formula as a result of what happened during the war. As a philologist, Tolkien was always careful about language. In the published Letters, right up to the end of his life, he referred to his writings as "mythology". Why would he use this word if he had rejected the idea of his writings as mythology? In the interests of brevity, I'll give just one example. There is a letter written in 1964 to Christopher Bretherton. It is filled with phrases like this:


....In O(xford) I wrote a cosmogonical myth.
....The magic ring was the one obvious thing in the Hobbit that could be connected with my mythology.
.....so I brought all the stuff I had written on the originally unrelated legends of Numenor into relation with the main mythology.

Altogether, he used the words "mythology" and "legend" five times in this letter when talking about his own writings. I don't think he would have loosely thrown around these terms unless they had some meaning behind them.

Another point that bears a closer look is that of belief, especially"religious belief", and its relation to Tolkien's writings. The gist of what you are saying seems to be that Tolkien cnosciously wrote fantasy. Since he did not believe these writings were "true", they could not be true myth.

I agree with your premise. At the core of a myth must lie a modicum of truth and belief. If those elements are missing, the Legendarium is not any form of myth whatever words Tolkien used to describe it. I sat and scratched my head over this for a while, but it was Bethberry's post that set off bells in my head. (Thank you. :) )

I can't find that source now where Tolkien says he felt like he was merely recording and not creating. I'm sure you folks with the pulse of the Letters and HoMe at your fingertip can find that passage, particularly if you think you can work it round to your side of things as the context and recipient and date must be pondered like the entrails of sacrificial animals.

Just take a look at a letter written to Carole Batten-Phelps in 1971. I am going to quote it at some length, because it is directly pertinent to this discussion of whether or not Tolkien believed what he was saying was true, and exactly where the Legendarium was coming from (the italics are Tolkien's):

I am very grateful for your remarks on the critics and for your account of your personal delight in the Lord of the Rings. You write in terms of such high praise that [to] accept it with just a 'thank you' might seem complacently conceited, though actually it only makes me wonder how this has been achieved--by me. Of course the book was written to please myself (at different levels), and as an experiment in the arts of long narrative and of inducing "Secondary Belief". It was written slowly and with great care for detail, & finally emerged as a Frameless Picture: a searchlight as it were on a brief episode in history, and on a small part of our Middle-earth, surrounded by the glimmer of limitless extensions in time and space. Very well: that may explain to some extent why it 'feels' like history; why it was accepted for publication' and why it has proved readable for a large number of very different kinds of people. But it does not fully explain what has actually happened. Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication--beginning at once with the appearance of Vol. I--I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? and Why?

I think I can now guess what Gandalf would reply. A few years ago I was visited in Oxford by a man whose name I have forgotten (though I believe he was well-known.) He had been much struck by the curious way in which many old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time. He brought one or two reproductions. I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures, as it clealy had been by cetainkinds of literature and languages. When it became obvious that , unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. suddenly he said: "Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?"

Poor Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: "No, I don't suppose so any longer." I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement. But not one that should puff any one up who considers the imperfections of 'chosen instruments', and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose.

The contents of this letter has always been mind-boggling to me. Obviously, Tolkien did not worship Manwe or believe that he actually existed, but on some level, there was belief: the belief that the Legendarium was not simply coming out of his own human brain but out of somewhere else. Tolkien's religious beliefs are such that he expresses this in terms of being a "chosen" instrument presumably of providence. Perhaps a number of us would feel more comfortable using terminology and images that draw on Jung. But, either way, aren't we talking about belief...the same kinds of belief that lies behind "natural myth"? What do we do with this letter? How else can we understand the sentiments that are expressed here?

And that isn't even getting into the question of the dreams of Atlantis that came to form the core of the Numenor myth!

[Raynor]

You do it then, if you are silly enough.I truly wonder, for how long does this notion of literary rights exist? Were all the writers, from the dawn of time of literature, born with it? And if not, were they silly for writting without expecting others to treat their work as untouchable?
If you really do believe that All Property Is Theft then what about I wholescale copy your posts and post them as my own work elsewhere? maybe even put them in a pamphlet of some kind and self-publish it for profit? Would you like it if another University student say copied your work and handed it on?Anyone can go ahead and do that for my posts; they have my blessing, and it won't affect my sleep at night. I would actually be quite pleased if my thoughts are worthy of repetition in other forums, or of publishing, or of being quoted in an University environment. Conditional joy is a source of suffering ;).
And secondly - if you are on here propounding the theories of Barthes, then kindly go right now and burn all your copies of Letters, of the Biography, in fact of anything which might make you think for one second of the Author. or you are a hypocrite.I hope that your flow of unjustified personal remarks will stop with your last post. I am not acquainted with the ideas of Barthes; but you pose a false dilemma, between participating with new stories to a particular universe, and valuing the contribution of the initial author; the two can perfectly coexist, without implying any fault of character on behalf of the new writer.

[Lalwendë]

I truly wonder, for how long does this notion of literary rights exist? Were all the writers, from the dawn of time of literature, born with it? And if not, were they silly for writting without expecting others to treat their work as untouchable?
Anyone can go ahead and do that for my posts; they have my blessing, and it won't affect my sleep at night. I would actually be quite pleased if my thoughts are worthy of repetition in other forums, or of publishing, or of being quoted in an University environment. Conditional joy is a source of suffering ;).
I hope that your flow of unjustified personal remarks will stop with your last post. I am not acquainted with the ideas of Barthes; but you pose a false dilemma, between participating with new stories to a particular universe, and valuing the contribution of the initial author; the two can perfectly coexist, without implying any fault of character on behalf of the new writer.

It's no fault of character nor is it personal but a fault of the theories of Barthes and his ilk, which are thankfully now being challenged and will soon enough be abandoned by the global education system (as theories inevitably are - they cannot resist change as nothing can - which is why it's a good idea not to be too wedded to them). If you choose to believe the Author is an outmoded concept and he/she has no rights over their own work then you must also desist from making reference to said Author. I am not saying you are a hypocrite personally, but alas, not many who opt to follow those reader response/author is dead theories can find the courage to completely ignore the existence of an author - it is the inevitable result of following such an incorrect theory which causes hypocrisy. You might compare it to these people who bang on about being Green but somehow manage to justify regular global flights or owning an SUV. Annoying, isn't it? ;)

From reading your past posts, you do seem to come down on the side of the Author - you like the Letters, you like to try to find out what Tolkein meant and get quite annoyed when people make 'subjective statements' - however this does not and cannot co-exist with the idea that Tolkien's work is also free to use as you want.

As for writers in ages long, long past, they were not making a living from their work as they are now - and like any worker a writer deserves to have their income protected - and that includes after death as that is their legacy to their family. You would not like it if the state took your house from you and installed a lot of civil servants in it when you hoped to pass it to your children? Tolkien's family deserve to benefit from his legacy - and not just his family, but all those charities - I reiterate again just what thoroughly nice people they all are.

Remember, Tolkien specified a person to have control over his literary assets - not me, not you, but Christopher and whoever CT might then deem fit. For all the muddling around over if it was mythology and if that means you may plagiarise in the next few decades at some point, The Law Says No. And Tolkien specifies that.

It's time to draw sides - are you on the side of the Marxist Barthes (far be it from me to deride a fellow leftist, but this is one who was an idiot) and want a free for all and no rights for the Author or are you on the side of the Estate, who are actually very generous to fans, already welcoming fan-fic and parody, which they are even happy to allow publication of?

[Child of the 7th Age]

It's time to draw sides - are you on the side of the Marxist Barthes (far be it from me to deride a fellow leftist, but this is one who was an idiot) and want a free for all and no rights for the Author or are you on the side of the Estate, who are actually very generous to fans, already welcoming fan-fic and parody, which they are even happy to allow publication of?

Lal,

I don't agree with the way you've posed this question. I'm uncomfortable with the "either/or".

I don't feel that anyone here is carrying a banner against the Estate or suggesting that they must immediately change an existing policy. And why must there be just two possible positions on this issue with the need to "choose sides"? On a question this complex, there can be a variety of views and approaches expressed. I almost sense that you see this as some sort of basic test of "loyalty". That also makes me uneasy.

The only thing we can be sure of is that there will be changes in the future. No one can say for sure what those changes will bring. There will be changes in technology, changes in the law, and changes in the way information is disseminated. We can only guess what all this will mean in relation to Tolkien and the Legendarium.

There are legitimate things to be said in favor of a freer sharing of information. For better or worse, technology is pulling us in that direction. There are also very legitimate things to be said in favor of protecting the author and/or the composer so that he or she can enjoy merited recognition and financial reward. But I don't think all the good or bad is on one side or the other.

If I've misread you in this, I apologize.

[Raynor]

If you choose to believe the Author is an outmodedI don't. I believe in cherishing the work and its author, esspecially in this case.
From reading your past posts, you do seem to come down on the side of the Author - you like the Letters, you like to try to find out what Tolkein meant and get quite annoyed when people make 'subjective statements' - however this does not and cannot co-exist with the idea that Tolkien's work is also free to use as you want.I believe that many readers, if not most, are capable of discussing about Tolkien's work, give it its due, and at the same appreciate a new work on this universe, if it is worth it.
It's time to draw sides To paraphrase captain Barbossa, I feel disinclined to aquiesce your request :D. Honestly, I don't know enough about this theory, and I am content with my own thoughts, as unstructured as they are. But perhaps the rest of my presented ideas can help you decide.
theories inevitably are [abandoned]- they cannot resist change as nothing can - which is why it's a good idea not to be too wedded to them
Then why insist on a perennial, objective theory about what should or should not be allowed?

[Lalwendë]

What makes me uneasy is this pushing at boundaries that are there, ultimately, for our benefit too.

As I keep saying - nobody is denied the opportunity to play in Middle-earth, to create anew and to rewrite as they see fit - and what's more, with the net you can share it. Why, you can even write up some absolute filth if that is how you get your kicks, and the Estate does not stop you, even though it can. If your mind strays to parody, why, then they will even allow you to publish it and profit from it. They even allow the TS, close afiliates of the estate, to publish fan-fic in their magazine and there have been numerous comic books and other interesting things based on Tolkien and his work, including a truly barking whacko mad Doctor Who novelisation (check it out, it's a hoot).

You are already adding to the stories. What more do you want?

Nobody has honestly answered that.

Raynor admits not to having a commercial or ego interest, in which case, where's the beef? Get writing! :cool:

You know who decides if this stuff is permissible within canon or not? The readers, and they say it's fun but it aint canon - so I guess that's where the gripe lies. If folk are hoping to convince readers that their creation Tharg, War-Dwarf of the Second Age, Wielder of ElfScraper is the long lost son of Gil-galad then you are going to face a long, hard struggle. Many's the time someone on here has confused a D&D or PJ creation with a Tolkien creation and been shot down in flames (ironically, by some arguing against me here I must note) with the anguished cry "Tolkien did not say that! You Infidel!"

Be honest now...

And don't flatter yourself that if you are a genuine expert and a genuinely good writer that you will get away with formally publishing even a mild re-write, a filling up the corners type of thing, because someone very well known in the TS did just that after 'persuading' a certain someone and has met with widespread approbation (and eventually ridicule) from the community. And then think of other fan communities, most of which are far less formal and pedantic than the Tolkien one (we are the biggest pedants going) and how much they hate the intrusion of non-canon material. The 'mythology or not' argument is a big stinky red herring - Star Wars fans have that one too and in the end they come down firmly against sanctioned fan-fic and some quite clever novelisations as inevitably they are not by Lucas. Despite outmoded literary theory (and pointing to why such theories are bunkum) to the reader, to the fan, the Author is still the Master of the Piece. ;)

What I say is be happy with things as they are - people will find the good stuff. They will find davem's poetic tale, they will find the witty Entish Bow, they will find the interesting Silmarillion project, and they may even find a certain narfforc's marvellous works on a shelf one day. Things are good. What do you want to start a war for? And more importantly to me, why?

Far more fruitful is to think instead how you might draw attention to the good stuff - as there aint half a lot of chaff too, everyone knows that.

[davem]

Davem, the passage you quoted has zero relevance to your claim "its impossible to trace any mythology back to an individual - as Tolkien points out in OFS". As far as I can tell, it discusses the subject of a story, not its authorship.
.

No, its absolutely relevant. The hardest thing about having a discussion is when your opponent takes statements used in support of your argument literally - for instance if an advert for a new Jaguar sports car stated 'The New electric Blue Jaguar - 0 to 250 mph in less than 5 seconds! *(also available in red)' & I offered this as evidence that I'd seen a Red Jaguar doing 250mph. You, seemingly would come back & state 'The advert only states the Blue Jaguar can do 250 mph!'

Now, on to the Homer/Malory point. What both H&M did was to produce a work of literature, not myth. They used an existing mythic background but they were pretty free with it. As was Tolkien in his use of Nortern myth.

There are two points to make here. First no individual can invent a myth in the true sense - all an individual can do is tell a story. That story may be taken up into an existing set of other stories/traditions/lore & be absorbed, adding something new to the mix. Second, there is a difference between Myth & revelation. One person may recieve a revelation & go on to found a religion, but that it not the same thing at all as a mythology.

From this perspective it is neither here nor there that Tolkien 'believed' that in some sense his creation was 'true'. It would not be a 'myth' in the real sense unless a whole people shared that belief. If one person believes 'x' its an idiosyncracy, if a hundred people believe it its a cult. If a few thousand people believe it, its a religion. What is isn't, in any of those cases, is a myth in the true sense.

Now, as for Tolkien being happy for other's to write & publish new M-e stories with any kind of 'official' status, I can only reiterate my earlier point that

HE DIDN'T PLACE HIS WORKS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN HIS WILL.

He could have done. In fact what he did was bequeath his unpublished works to his son, to whom he gave absolute control, even to the point of authorising him to destory them in whole or in part if he so chose. Does this seem to anyone evidence that Tolkien wanted sequels to his work?

I also accept that Tolkien used the term 'mythology' to refer to his work in various places - most of them in private correspondence, & I can only read it as a 'shorthand' way of referring to his creation. There aren't many other words one could use to communicate the idea. Most of his correspondents would have no-more knowledge of what a 'Legendarium was than Brian's mother had of what a 'balm' was:
Mandy: What is myrrh, anyway?
Wise Man 3: It is a valuable balm.
Mandy: A balm, what are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him.
Wise Man 3: What?
Mandy: It's a dangerous animal. Quick, throw it in the trough.

[Raynor]

What more do you want?What we already have, I guess. Freedom to decide each for ourselves what we consider allowable, appropriate, good in matters of art and culture. Regardless of the present scholar and judicial positions, be they worldwide adopted or not.
No, its absolutely relevant. The hardest thing about having a discussion is when your opponent takes statements used in support of your argument literally - for instance if an advert for a new Jaguar sports car stated 'The New electric Blue Jaguar - 0 to 250 mph in less than 5 seconds! *(also available in red)' & I offered this as evidence that I'd seen a Red Jaguar doing 250mph. You, seemingly would come back & state 'The advert only states the Blue Jaguar can do 250 mph!'

Now, on to the Homer/Malory point.I fail to see the grounds for your generalisation, and presenting opinion as fact is not helpful. In that section, Tolkien talks about the fact that the "personality [of mythological heroes] can only be derrived from a person", that all the aspects, even those of gods, are created by humans.
The gods may derive their colour and beauty from the high splendours of nature, but it was Man who obtained these for them, abstracted them from sun and moon and cloud; their personality they get direct from him; the shadow or flicker of divinity that is upon them they receive through him from the invisible world, the Supernatural.This is clearly a case of [conscious] invention of myths. Furthermore, at the begining of this chapter on the Origins (of fairy stories), he mentions that all the three possible origins (original invention, inheritance or diffusion) 'ultimately lead back to an inventor'. Taken figuratively or directly, neither of this passages constitute evidences of your position.

[The Saucepan Man]

In the interest of preserving the sanity of our readers, here is a handy guide to the issues raised in this thread:

Q: What was the original question?
A: Did JRRT encourage new ME stories.

Q: And the answer?
A: Well, the evidence presented seems to be that, while he did not explicitly encourage such stories, neither he nor the Estate are actively discouraging people from writing such stories (commonly known as fan fic) for their own amusement and publishing them on a non-commercial basis for the amusement of others.

Q: So what’s the rest of the thread about?
A: There would appear to be an underlying feeling that, were a sufficiently talented writer to come along and wish to add to the body of Tolkien’s published works on Middle-earth by publishing their own work based on it, this should be permitted.

Q: And the answer?
A: Well, it’s a matter of personal opinion as to whether it should be permitted. But, in practical terms, it’s up to the Estate - at least for the next 40 years or so, while the original works remain subject to copyright.

Q: Are the Estate likely to sanction such a work.
A: Unlikely, but not beyond the bounds of possibility.

Q: What about when copyright runs out.
A: Who knows? It’s far too distant in the future to be able to make any reasonable assessment.

Q: If such a work were produced, either with the approval of the Estate, or after copyright runs out, would it be canonical?
A: Don’t ask. Therein lies madness.

Q: So, if people can produce fan-fic at the moment and the prospect of any commercially published and officially sanctioned work is currently a matter for the Estate, what’s all the argument about?
A: Search me.

Q: What’s all this discussion about whether Tolkien’s Middle-earth works constitute a mythology?
A: I’m not certain, but I think that those who consider that Tolkien intended his work to constitute a mythology are asserting that this indicates an encouragement to those who might wish to add to it.

Q: And the answer?
A: There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer, but it’s irrelevant to the current situation anyway, given the practical and legal position, as noted above. There is an interesting residual question over how Tolkien’s works might come to be regarded in the future, which may be of interest to some, but this is certainly something on which no definitive conclusion may be reached.

Q: Anything else worth noting?
A: No, not really apart from a lot of unnecessary assertions and counter-assertions, much bluster, a modicum of personal prejudice and not a little showing off. :p

Q: Aren't you showing off by posting this?
A: Probably, yes.

[Lalwendë]

Q: So, if people can produce fan-fic at the moment and the prospect of any commercially published and officially sanctioned work is currently a matter for the Estate, what’s all the argument about?
A: Search me.

Indeed.

The only honest answer I've got to that so far is that I wanna be free, man. :smokin:

Oh honestly, quit bellyaching and go and write some fan-fic if you must, you lot - but no Princess Tippy Toes or you're dead! :eek:

[Sauron the White]

Saucepan ... very well done indeed.

I asked this back on page 3 but it got lost in all the higher level discussion. It seems very to the point of the JRRT original quote.

So then, to honor the intentions of JRRT, I can take what he has created and use the medium of drama, or art or music to add to it?

Is this a correct assumption based on the words of JRRT?

Quote:
"But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story....I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. "

[The Saucepan Man]

So then, to honor the intentions of JRRT, I can take what he has created and use the medium of drama, or art or music to add to it?

Is this a correct assumption based on the words of JRRT?You can do what you like. Whether it would breach any legal right is a different question.

As has been noted, fan-fic, fan art and the like is produced (and published on the internet) all the time with little or no objection from the Estate or anyone else. Even where this is strictly in breach of a legal right, it is generally not worth the right holder objecting, unless it is done for profit.

If you were to publish such material on a commercial basis, however, you would be at risk of legal action, unless this were done with the permission of, and under licence from, the holder of the relevant legal rights (which will be the Estate in most cases, although the film, stage and merchandising rights to Tolkien's works are owned, I believe, by Saul Zaentz).

[Bêthberry]

Just a few short remarks . . . well, maybe longish ones. *insert winking smilie here*

SpM, I appreciate your loyerly attempt to impose some sort of clerical order on the discussion here. However, the fact that a topic might never have a definitive conclusion, as you put it, has never stopped any Downs discussion in the past and there is little reason to believe it shall in the future; nor does it provide any kind of evidence as to the value or pleasure of said discussion. :p

The question of encouragement is a fascinating one, for it has many facets. Encouragement can exist in specifically expressed statements, whether they be public or private. (The distinction between those two does not negate the value of either one.) Encouragement can exist in a will, as with Tolkien's trust in the judgement of CT, a person who, one can say, was expressly educated to be the reader Tolkien wanted. In this case, CT has chosen to publish postumously his father's writing.

Encouragement can exist also as a quality of the writing. This seems to be a quality which Tolkien himself valued. Not only did he write to create the kind of story he wanted to read; he also wrote in order to explore the desireability of story. He wanted to make a story we couldn't put down. There's a lovely expression of this in one of his non fiction texts and I shall return with the reference when time permits. Or not.

It is this kind of encouragement which is the least "provable" but is certainly demonstrable in the efforts of many readers to "rattrapé" that quality of desireability. (Oh, my, there goes my French again. It must be the Canadian in me fighting against the Conquest.) It is also this quality which I think intrigues the historical questions raised by Child and possibly Raynor, if I understand him correctly. Oh, and I also want to commend Child yet again for pointing out that issues and topics are infinitely more complex than that "if you ain't for us, yore agin us" mentality.

The question of canonicity was not, to my mind, ever part of the initial question, nor the imprimatur of the Estate. Nor the quality of any inspiration. Red herrings, the lot of 'em.

Raynor takes the position of many performing artists, for whom it is a prime honour to be imitated and to inspire others in art beyond that of mere imitation, because such action speaks to the success of the art. Did Tolkien ask permission to write Turin? No, because the text gave him that "authority" when it inspired his own muse/work. Yet there are others who feel it is a matter of courtesy to inform an artist when his (or her) work has been 'appropriated'. Death limits this possibility, but both ideas exist within artistic communities.

It is well, also, to recognize that this concept of "Author" does not in fact equal the person. The person exists before the text is written, but only the writing of the text makes this entity "Author" possible. What we call "Author" (as opposed to the legal paraphernalia, which relate to the person) is an identity produced by the writing. It's not that a person didn't write a text but that the concept of Author and Authorial Intention can severely hamper the pleasure of a story.

Case in point. Sometimes that identity severely strains our understanding of a text. Consider Milton's Satan. Milton didn't mean, didn't intend, for Satan to be so attractive. But Satan is. Are we to deny that experience of the reading? No, it becomes a topic for discussion. Or for art, as William Blake showed. And I don't think Blake asked Milton for permission, either. But then did Milton ask for permission?

People have been leery of reducing books to authorial intent long before M. Barthes wrote his little work. For those who might be interested in the ideas--which are merely adumbrated by that title "Death of the Author" and more complex than the title--here are some links. Pop ones also available, but time limits--really I must wean myself of this Tolkien habit and go read someone else now. :D

Wiki on Barthes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author)
(Remember, Wiki isn't "authoritative" *insert winking smilie here* )

Barthe's essay (http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm) (Check out other online texts, too, in case of errors. Tolkien was forever sending his publisher lists of errata.)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I've been waiting for you to cite Barthes...

And allow me to say it again briefly -- whether or not Tolkien "wanted" it, or would have "accepted" it, or "condemned" it and whether or not the estate would legally accept it is really all moot. Middle-Earth stories are being written and disseminated and read. Movies are being made, pictures painted, songs written, musicals, puppet-shows, plays...everything Tolkien anticipated (with dread or without it). My point is simply this: each individual reader gets to decide:

a) which of these new stories or revisionings of the "originals" he or she will consume, and

b) whether or not to 'accept' it as part of the 'total experience' of Middle-Earth as constructed by that individual reader.

As there is nothing anyone can do to change this fact, it seems to me rather pointless getting into a froth over it.

But this is rather beside the points now being made. Back to Barthesian hermeneutics... (I am so tempted her to bring up the word simulacra but shall forgo...for the time being).

[Lalwendë]

Ho, more good examples of just how wrong Barthes was - arguments all over the place are the result!

The plain fact is that the theory that the Author Is Dead is against Reason. It is an intellectual return to primitives beating each other over the head with haunches of reindeer meat (or clubs - but reindeer meat is more visceral an image). The logical conclusion of the notion is that Nothing Is Right, Nothing Is True, All Is Chaos. Yet no writer sets out with this aim beyond those who devote themselves to pure free-form poetry or stream of consciousness gumpf. All writers have Purpose. It might be vague, it might be complex, it might be indecipherable, but it is there. All that the Barthes theory does is allow us to abdicate all sense of intellectual rigour and 'hey man', just go with the flow.

It also, of course, ensures that academics are never out of work or short on new papers to write as there's always something else to say, even if it is a load of carp. ;)

Hmm, how often do fans discuss whether Tolkien intended his work as Christian? Lots. We're discussing his Intent there of course. Basing discussion around his Intent does not mean we must accept his intent, indeed, we cannot agree that he did intend that. It is interesting and fruitful to talk about nevertheless. You simply do not get that if you want to follow Barthes. You just spend weeks on end going 'hmmmm' and 'after you' and nothing gets anywhere - and only the possessor of the longest words survives. Hermeneutics? Simulacra? Pretentious? Exactly.

And there's a deep irony in examining and subjecting Tolkien to a theory he would have deplored with all his heart. It was Barthes, Derrida, Foucault (their names make me feel quite ill) and his ilk who ethnically cleansed study of his great love, Etymology, from Universities worldwide. They stood for everything he hated.

[davem]

It is well, also, to recognize that this concept of "Author" does not in fact equal the person. The person exists before the text is written, but only the writing of the text makes this entity "Author" possible. What we call "Author" (as opposed to the legal paraphernalia, which relate to the person) is an identity produced by the writing. It's not that a person didn't write a text but that the concept of Author and Authorial Intention can severely hamper the pleasure of a story.

Case in point. Sometimes that identity severely strains our understanding of a text. Consider Milton's Satan. Milton didn't mean, didn't intend, for Satan to be so attractive. But Satan is. Are we to deny that experience of the reading? No, it becomes a topic for discussion. Or for art, as William Blake showed. And I don't think Blake asked Milton for permission, either. But then did Milton ask for permission?


Well, yes, but even if one accepted that authorial intention is neither here nor there (hence one is perfectly ok to read LotR as an actual history book - or to put it another way 'What's reality got to do with anything?'), there is a major difference between choosing to see Sauron as a tragic hero & ignoring an author's right to object to people ripping him or her off.

And that in the end is the issue. Anyone can write fanfic & make it freely available on the net, or in fanzines (yes, a few still exist - the Tolkien Society's bi-monthly journal, Amon Hen, regularly publishes M-e fanfic). The only restriction is on publishing such fiction for profit, & by extension on attempting to make a reputation as 'Tolkien's Literary Heir'.

And yet, and yet..... All that's happened is that we've sidestepped the main question - who? Who is this 'genius' who will take up the baton? Until we get a name (or names) this discussion will never be more than academic. Let's say the Estate changed its position tomorrow - who is this author who's going to start sweating over a hot computer, producing the next M-e novel?

Is it an already published writer - do people want Steven Erikson, Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan, Ursula Le Guin? Or do they want someone who's written a piece of fanfic they've read & enjoyed to be authorised - if so, gives us a link to it.

Or are we still on the 'If you authorise it, he will come.' kick? All the Estate has to do is give permission & this visionary artist will magically appear, manuscript in hand?

Still not getting it.....

[Lalwendë]

Well, yes, but even if one accepted that authorial intention is neither here nor there (hence one is perfectly ok to read LotR as an actual history book - or to put it another way 'What's reality got to do with anything?'), there is a major difference between choosing to see Sauron as a tragic hero & ignoring an author's right to object to people ripping him or her off.

Yep. Alas that kind of theory allows people to plagiarise and be able to have some way of defending it intellectually. However the biggest drawback is that in seeking to 'liberate' the readers it actually alienates them. They are supposedly 'freed' and allowed to respond in their own way despite the fact that they were free to do that anyway - people were seeing Milton's Satan as seductive when Barthes was just a twinkle in Le Milkman's eye. However, now readers are under no obligation to justify their claims with any kind of evidence. So you are, quite literally, free to make any kind of claim that you wish - I can claim Tolkien was writing a Neo-Fascist meisterwerke and there's nothing you can do to disagree with that as that's my right as a reader to respond how I feel. You cannot chuck me a quote out of letters about how much Tolkien despised fascism because it's irrelevant now.

Yet this is exactly why Barthes was full of rubbish - people have feeling and reason and inevitably as humans want to refute such claims. But you can't! You must accept it!

And as humans we seek meaning. We do soul-less jobs and travel on cattle-class public transport and are subject to directives and rules, rules, rules by those supposedly 'superior' to us. We crave Meaning.

The theories of Barthes were meant to stand alongside militant Atheism in a Brave New World. But the world aint like that, humans have proved they want Soul. So they watch an odd, quirky film like Donnie Darko or Lost In Translation and the first thing they say is "But what does it all mean?"

Being told "whatever you want it to" is so alienating. :(


Is it an already published writer - do people want Steven Erikson, Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan, Ursula Le Guin? Or do they want someone who's written a piece of fanfic they've read & enjoyed to be authorised - if so, gives us a link to it.

Or are we still on the 'If you authorise it, he will come.' kick? All the Estate has to do is give permission & this visionary artist will magically appear, manuscript in hand?

Not a chance. It's ruddy hard work getting a name and a reputation as a writer, let alone as a decent writer. No-one reputable is going to put that on the line to risk writing a book that will be torn to shreds by the fan community. Even those few who might look forwards to something about Middle-earth not written by Tolkien being commercially available in Wal-mart or wherever would rip it apart - inevitable as the reader would want to see if they could have done a better job themselves.

They'd be very lucky to get a hack writer. More likely it would be an inexperienced one.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

The Author is dead! But long live the disembodied Internet discussion board participant!

[davem]

I fail to see the grounds for your generalisation, and presenting opinion as fact is not helpful. In that section, Tolkien talks about the fact that the "personality [of mythological heroes] can only be derrived from a person", that all the aspects, even those of gods, are created by humans.
.

Of course. Just because a scientist shows how life originated on earth, it doesn't disprove your theory that it originated on the moon & was carried here by space monkeys - because while he spelled out how it originated on earth, he didn't actually write the words 'Life did not originate on the moon & there are no such things as space monkeys,'

[Thenamir]

Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, $%^&, DEAD! X

[Lalwendë]

Any fool could have told him that Le Chicken was just trying to get away from the farmer who wanted to stuff its liver full of fat until it exploded.

[Thenamir]

The only restriction is on publishing such fiction for profit, & by extension on attempting to make a reputation as 'Tolkien's Literary Heir'.

Interesting that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time volumes (for which, apparantly, he gets paid by the pound) are plastered with a quote from a New York Times reviewer, "Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." One can scarcely imagine the disgust such a quote engenders on this site.

[The Saucepan Man]

SpM, I appreciate your loyerly attempt to impose some sort of clerical order on the discussion here. However, the fact that a topic might never have a definitive conclusion, as you put it, has never stopped any Downs discussion in the past and there is little reason to believe it shall in the future; nor does it provide any kind of evidence as to the value or pleasure of said discussion.Far be it from me to attempt to bring this debate to any conclusion. There is, however, perhaps some merit in pointing out that some issues are incapable of any definitive conclusion, given the tendency of some to characterise their opinions as such, without necessarily imposing any finality on the debate. ;)

[davem]

Interesting that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time volumes (for which, apparantly, he gets paid by the pound) are plastered with a quote from a New York Times reviewer, "Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." One can scarcely imagine the disgust such a quote engenders on this site.

'Comparable to Tolkien at his best'. I remember reading that on a novel by one Fred Saberhagen, though I'm sure it would be very difficult to count the number of Fantasy writers who have been compared to Tolkien, promoted as the 'next' Tolkien, or, as with Jordan here, stated to be 'superior' to him.

What's interesting is that whether they are being promoted as his replacement, his equal or his superior, they are all compared to Tolkien. Tolkien is the standard by which they are all measured.

And those few who aren't compared to him seem to have an animus regarding him - one thinks of Moorcock & Pullman. It all seems to be about Tolkien in one way or another.

[Bêthberry]

Far be it from me to attempt to bring this debate to any conclusion. There is, however, perhaps some merit in pointing out that some issues are incapable of any definitive conclusion, given the tendency of some to characterise their opinions as such, without necessarily imposing any finality on the debate.

Your clarification makes an eminently worthy case and cause. I must say that in this instance I applaud the author's intention. :D


Interesting that Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time volumes (for which, apparantly, he gets paid by the pound) are plastered with a quote from a New York Times reviewer, "Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." One can scarcely imagine the disgust such a quote engenders on this site.

With such talk of domination, some readers might be forgiven for thinking that Jordan is Sauron returned. :eek: :D

[Sauron the White]

At its heart here it look like there is a contradiction which is sending two very different messages. One the one hand we have the oft-quoted statement from Tolkien

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.
Which seems to indicate - at least in 1951 - that JRRT wanted others to contribute to his ME mythology at the least through other artistic expressions such as paint, music and drama.

But then we have his will over 20 years later - years of success and royalty checks and giving him something substantial to protect and give to others - where he now says its all up the legalisms of Estates and lawyers and rights and permissions.

Obviously the will takes legal precedent over the 1951 statement in a letter.

But I wonder what would be said in court if one wrote a dramatic play based on events only "sketched" from the First or Second Age, put music to it, employed artists to illustrate it and then offered it to the public. Even JRRT said that "a solitary art is not art". I agree that the legal force of the law would be employed to show the individual putting on this drama had no permission. They would most likely, most probably, lose in court.

But I would love to hear the explaination of an Estate spokesperson on the witness stand who would have to publicly resolve the obvious contradiction.

We also have the entire idea of what is DRAMA? Is it the strictly limited theater production associated with the stage? Or is it a broader definition that could be used to describe TV, films or other such things?

It really seems to me that you can couch all this in very well meaning and high sounding terms and debate all about the nuances of the various issues but , in the end, this all comes down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. On all sides.

[davem]

But I would love to hear the explaination of an Estate spokesperson on the witness stand who would have to publicly resolve the obvious contradiction.


Why? The Letter was private correspondence, not intended for publication, so cannot be taken to have any weight legally. Also, Tolkien clearly states in the letter that, while that had been his intention at some point in the past, it no longer is ('my crest has long since fallen').

I am now assuming that the proposed new work(s) will be written by this unnamed 'genius'.

Could you please tell me who you think is going to write this 'play'? Please, ONE name, one author who you think will do a decent job.

Of course, I don't expect to get one - because whoever you name someone is going to object, & say they aren't the right person for the job. You see, the problem you have is that while in a fantasy world you can simply invent a writer of genius, in the real world you can't. Suitable writers don't just appear when you snap your fingers, or because you fancy reading a new M-e novel. Asking 'what would happen if someone wrote a 'dramatic play' (sic) based on First/Second Age events?' is a bit like asking 'What would happen if aliens landed in front of the White House & turned George Bush into a three headed chicken?' I can't prove that such an event is impossible, but before I spend time & energy speculating on how the free world would cope with a three headed chicken with its claw on The Button, I'd want some evidence its anything like a real possibility.....

[Lalwendë]

It really seems to me that you can couch all this in very well meaning and high sounding terms and debate all about the nuances of the various issues but , in the end, this all comes down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. On all sides.

Indeed. Which is why I feel strongly. For all that people chunner about mythologies, being an intellectual hippy, Barthes, whatever, it does come down to wanting to earn some cash. And if anyone has a moral right to cash made from Tolkien's work it is the family alone - he struggled to bring them up and they deserve some financial legacy, and it's not as if they are living the life of riley like Paris Hilton, they give the bulk of it to charity.

As for dramatisations - there have been many, many more than you would think. For example, I know of one of The Hobbit by Rony Robinson - no Tolkien expert, just a BBC Radio Sheffield DJ.

[Bêthberry]

It really seems to me that you can couch all this in very well meaning and high sounding terms and debate all about the nuances of the various issues but , in the end, this all comes down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. On all sides.

Wouldn't that more precisely be ₤?

But seriously (I always give reverence to Serious Cat), was Milton in it for the money? I seem to recall something about justifying the ways of God to man. Or the visionary Blake? Why must you assume the money would be the only motivator? It certainly wasn't uppermost in Tolkien's mind.



Could you please tell me who you think is going to write this 'play'? Please, ONE name, one author who you think will do a decent job.


Perhaps we could ask Fordim to set up a poll. I nominate Mithadan for one of the names. And then maybe our Silm project collective. ;)

[Quempel]

Indeed. Which is why I feel strongly. For all that people chunner about mythologies, being an intellectual hippy, Barthes, whatever, it does come down to wanting to earn some cash. And if anyone has a moral right to cash made from Tolkien's work it is the family alone - he struggled to bring them up and they deserve some financial legacy, and it's not as if they are living the life of riley like Paris Hilton, they give the bulk of it to charity.

As for dramatisations - there have been many, many more than you would think. For example, I know of one of The Hobbit by Rony Robinson - no Tolkien expert, just a BBC Radio Sheffield DJ.

I agree. The idea of others making profit off of the Tolkien works and his idea is rather sickening. The whole NL/PJ fiasco is a prime example of two different people/institutions that have made billions off of Tolkien's ideas. I know the estate made money off of the movies, but not nearly as much as NL or PJ and co. But the bottom line is if JRR Tolkien was not the master writer and genius he was, both NL and Peter Jackson would be turning out nothing so grand and profitable as the movies were. Neither NL or PJ has the ability or billiance to actually write a something as magnificent as the ME stories. That alone belongs to JRR Tolkien. Does it mean someone else can not write a brilliant story about ME, no it does not, but the chances are highly unlikely. Neither Shay nor Jackson put together has that much brain power.

Of course I am probably only one of a few that hate to see the Tolkien ideas get raped by mass media and hack writers in an attempt to make money. If someone wants to write a play about elfs and shiny jewels then they can write the book first. Maybe they can even stretch their brains enough to actually produce a new story, not a rip-off of Tolkien. But then again most don't care they just want more ME stories, take take take until its all gone. Disregard Tolkien so long as we get more ME stories. We don't care about Tolkien nor his children or grandchildren, we wants it all precious, its ours. Sorry I not Gollum or Melkor or Sauron. I don't need to cut down Tolkien to make pretty jewels so I can think for one minute that I am as great of a writer as Tolkien, or that I deserve his light.

[Raynor]

Well, while we are at it, I nominate Valandil, moderator at www.entmoot.com (http://www.entmoot.com) . You can check some of his writtings:
Letters of Firiel (http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=372975#post372975)
Tales of Nolduryon (http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=474289#post474289)
Visitors Come to Court (http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=520232#post520232)

[Sauron the White]

davem ... I have deep respect for your knowledge of Tolkien and his writings. I find your posts well written and well thought out.

However, comparing the writing of a drama about the First Age with the ridiculous possibility of aliens and Bush transforming into a chicken is simply absurd and demeans your own intelligence. One is a very real possibility given the realities of the world we live in. The other is just you being silly.

What good does a comparison like this do?

And I agree that Tolkien changed his mind from his earlier position. I agree that JRRT had that right and there is nothing wrong with his decision. I agree that he had a right to dispose of his property, real or intellectual or otherwise, anyway he deemed fit. Regardless, it is interesting that, at one time at least, his mind was of a different orientation regarding such contributions to his mythology.

[Morthoron]

Wouldn't that more precisely be ₤?

But seriously (I always give reverence to Serious Cat), was Milton in it for the money? I seem to recall something about justifying the ways of God to man. Or the visionary Blake? Why must you assume the money would be the only motivator? It certainly wasn't uppermost in Tolkien's mind.

"No one but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
-- Dr. Samuel Johnson (1704-1789)

Not saying this was necessarily Tolkien's case, as writing was his hobby for most of his life, not his vocation; however, based on his letters, he was certainly happy when those royalty checks began to come in regularly from Rayner & Unwin.

"If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies." -- William Faulkner (1897-1962)

The above quote has nothing whatsoever to do with Tolkien; I just found it amusing.

As far as the original premise of this thread, I believe Tolkien inferred that he would like others to add to his comsology, but as in many of his quotes he has proven to be elusively vague and infuriatingly contradictory. If you look at his early career, he was certainly interested in joint projects (with Lewis and the Inklings, for instance, and earlier with his schoolmates), but as he grew older he became more conservative and protective of his works, until at the end he only trusted his son, Christopher, with his corpus. I believe the entire idea of others working in tandem on his creation atrophied as he did.

Now it is merely conjecture. One might as well ask whether balrogs have wings. *winks*

[davem]

Well, while we are at it, I nominate Valandil, moderator at www.entmoot.com (http://www.entmoot.com) . ]

Well, the links are incredibly slow, but I'll keep trying.

For now I'll just ask, is it worth it? Once the Estate authorises a new M-e novel the floodgates will be open. M-e will no-longer be Tolkien's creation, but a franchise. There will be a stream of novels, as with the Star Wars/Star Trek franchises, some good, some bad, accepted by some, rejected by others - & all of them, ultimately, unnecessary.


However, comparing the writing of a drama about the First Age with the ridiculous possibility of aliens and Bush transforming into a chicken is simply absurd and demeans your own intelligence. One is a very real possibility given the realities of the world we live in. The other is just you being silly.

Reductio ad Absurdam & all that......

What you're suggesting (a 'genius' appearing to continue Tolkien's work, & enhance & deepen his creation) is just as 'absurd'. You only think its a real possibility because you've convinced yourself this 'genius' is out there, just waiting to start writing.

[Raynor]

Well, the links are incredibly slow, but I'll keep trying.Sorry to hear that; the links still work for me.
Reductio ad Absurdam & all thatReductio ad absurdam means that you derrive an absurd outcome from the premise, which indicates that the initial premise was wrong. I don't see any absurd conclusion in this case.

[davem]

Interesting in this context:

http://www.epinions.com/content_374810250884

The Fantasy Disconnect

Tolkien is often credited for inspiring the modern genre of fantasy literature, and in many ways his influence is inarguable. But The Children of Hurin reemphasizes the fact that what Tolkien was about was something very different from what fantasy has become.

While the express purpose behind publishing this book was to give the story an opportunity to stand alone, something it accomplishes only with a significant introductory note, it is always clear that the mode has more in common with history or legend than it does with the adventures found in today's bookstore aisles. This can be felt in the amount of context and trivia surrounding the story, the use of elevated language, and the narrative tone, which insists the book be read as the summary of events ancient and wonderful, as opposed to a full and neat telling of a story with the immediacy and involvement we've come to expect from fantasy.

Do not come looking for a child of prophecy, called to free his people, slay the dragon, save the princess, and defeat the dark lord. In The Children of Hurin those tropes are all twisted to evil parodies, and the hero's theme is failure and defeat. It is a far cry from the eucatastrophies of popular fantasy, or even of The Lord of the Rings.


Provident Evil

The victory of evil over the fading flower of a more glorious age is central to Tolkien's elegiac ethos, his inheritance from the Northern literature he studied as a preeminent philologist. A central mystery in The Children of Hurin is whether Morgoth truly has the power he claims: "The shadow of my purpose lies upon Arda, and all that is in it bends slowly and surely to my will."

[Lalwendë]

You have to question just how any writer would cope with the enigma that is Tolkien and his style. He continues to confound us from beyond the grave. Children of Hurin is a whole new thing as far as he's concerned. In stark contrast even to some of the darkest points of Rings, in that work we see a wholly different Tolkien - one who does not think of Light, of Hope or of Joy. Then you read some of the more esoteric writings such as Osanwe Kenta and you realise he had some incredibly peculiar ideas hidden away. What else is there?

Then you also have his incredibly mercurial character - for every bold statement in a letter there is another which refutes it. He was at once a serious academic in a closed world and at the same time, a wicked joker given to ASBO-inducing pranks. He loved ancient literature and at the same time gorged on contemporary fiction. He read both The Times and The Observer.

How would another writer cope with this unique author's wildly varying tone, vision and style? Could a non-British writer cope, given the subtle native nuances which his work is infused with? Would the new writer's personal vision deeply affect any new stories?

And finally, are we being just like Tolkien's stagnant, decaying Elves, wanting to constantly go back to the past and read more stuff about Middle-earth, when if we have learned anything from reading his work, surely we should all be forging ahead and founding new worlds?

[Raynor]

Then you also have his incredibly mercurial character - for every bold statement in a letter there is another which refutes it.How many examples of letters contradicting each other can you provide? Or would you like me to challenge you with 10, 20 such statements, and you find where they are contradicted? The letters only reflect the stage of the work in progress, and ocasionally we may find some pen slip -but that happens even with the final work.

[davem]

I don't see any absurd conclusion in this case.

I think it was Frank Herbert (author of the Dune Books) who said "The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."

[davem]

Perhaps Tolkien's creation was really the last of the Saga genre, rather than the first of the modern fantasy genre. And I think that's the problem with most fanfic - its written by people who read Tolkien in the wrong way. What I mean is that too many of them read Tolkien's stories as 'fantasy' novels, when in reality they belong with works like the Kalevala, the Eddas & the Icelandic Sagas. Anyone who is familiar with Saga literature would recognise CoH as pretty typical of that genre -in both substance & style. Most fanfic feels wrong because it is written in the wrong 'style' & forced to conform to the standards of modern fantasy. Anyone attempting to write a convincing M-e story would have to be steeped in the Sagas, & forget completely any fantasy (in fact any 'novels') they had read. Actually the closest thing I've read to CoH is Poul Anderson's 'The Broken Sword'. Maybe, just maybe, Anderson could have done it, but Anderson's dead.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

None of 'em. ;)

Especially the Book of Mormon which was nicked from other texts - as for the Koran/Quran (however we're spelling it), like the Bible it had multiple hands involved in writing it. I don't know of any Scientology texts as I'm not a billionaire. :D But whatever Tom Cruise and co read at bedtime, like the Book of Mormon, it all stems from other stuff and it's not mythology anyway, just textbooks.

I think you're missing my point, Lal. No matter what sources Joseph Smith may have borrowed from, there's no question but that he wrote The Book of Mormon just as much as Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings (which of course borrowed from a lot of sources.) Similarly the Quran was written by Mohammed, no matter what Hebrew and Christian influences show through. Scientology isn't contained in a single book, but who said a mythology has to be? And it certainly is or contains a mythology: the whole business with Galctic Overlord Xenu and his interplanetary DC-8's (I am not making this up!)

The important point is that millions of people believe that these accounts of gods and other supernatural beings are literally, historically true--and also that they were written (or "revealed") by one man.

I hope you're not suddenly suggesting that the Author doesn't matter! :)

[Lalwendë]

Apparently one of the main things about the Book of Mormon is the extent to which it was plagiarised - this is something I've been told by Mormons themselves, note, and read elsewhere. Joseph Smith didn't write that much of it.

Hmm, now with texts like the Bible and Koran, these were written by many scribes over time, not by one writer. They may be the 'revelation' of one man but that simply doesn't count - it's who writes it that counts. If you took that line then Coronation Street or Eastenders could be counted as mythologies - they certainly have a following in the UK that's several hundred percent higher than either religious text ;)

*shudders at the thought of people worshipping at a graven image of Pat Butcher*

How many examples of letters contradicting each other can you provide? Or would you like me to challenge you with 10, 20 such statements, and you find where they are contradicted? The letters only reflect the stage of the work in progress, and ocasionally we may find some pen slip -but that happens even with the final work.

All you need to do is look through some random threads and you'll find oodles of contradictory quotes folk have flung at each other so save yer brains ;)

However, how do we know what was a 'pen slip' and what was correct? Would that not be down to personal opinion? We agree with what supports our argument, no? ;)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Hmm, now with texts like the Bible and Koran, these were written by many scribes over time, not by one writer. They may be the 'revelation' of one man but that simply doesn't count - it's who writes it that counts.

I think you misunderstand the essential difference between the Bible and the Quran. While even the most hardcore snake-handling Bible-thumping KJV-only Baptist fundie will acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands over many centuries (even if he does believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch), it is a fundamental article of Islamic belief that Muhammed personally wote down every jot and tittle of the Quran as dictated to him by the archangel Gabriel, Allah's personal messenger. Very much like Joseph Smith and his angel, come to think of it.

Again, you're not going Bartheist on us, are you?

[Lalwendë]

I think you misunderstand the essential difference between the Bible and the Quran. While even the most hardcore snake-handling Bible-thumping KJV-only Baptist fundie will acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands over many centuries (even if he does believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch), it is a fundamental article of Islamic belief that Muhammed personally wote down every jot and tittle of the Quran as dictated to him by the archangel Gabriel, Allah's personal messenger.

Again, you're not going Bartheist on us, are you?

I'd bet a hundred shiny pounds that he didn't though. ;)

And I've committed two 'sins' at once there...

[Raynor]

All you need to do is look through some random threads and you'll find oodles of contradictory quotes folk have flung at each other so save yer brainsI would be in debt if you could mention one such thread where letters contradict each other :)
However, how do we know what was a 'pen slip' and what was correct? IIRC, Tolkien mentioned in a letter that it was the valar who destroyed Numenor; that appears only in one of the initial versios of the story; the rest of them have Eru do it. I would call that a pen slip - mixing versions, timelines, etc. As I mentioned, this happens even with the final version, where we know Tolkien pondered each and every word.

[Bêthberry]

What exceptional synchronicity! Just as I hit the quote button to reply to drigel's post about this thread jumping the shark, his post disappears! I was going to tell him that this thread just gets funnier and funnier.


Morthoron, thank you for those illuminating quotations from Dr. Johnson and that Southern Yankee who wrote about fetishes with dead bodies. We can probably find any number of authors who hold any number of positions regarding reimbursements and motivations, none which in any way discounts how other writers feel. However, I do think it is well to remember that in days long past when the darkness had not crept widely over the earth, giants reigned. They were giants because their vision and strength and honour outstripped those of other men. And as they walked the earth, other men trembled at their approach, so stern was their bearing and so noble their deportment and so pure their vision. These giants, if they were warriors, fled no battle, avoided no enemy, and feared no foe. They desired but to die nobly and with honour. A paltry remant of their code of honour survives to this day in the pitiable expression, "It is a good day to die." Yet not all these giants were warriors; some were of the noble calling yclept scop and bard and to them fell the honour and the duty to record the valorious actions of the noble warriors. In the mead hall and at the parting of the waves it was their words, pure and clean of the dross, which gave voice and vision to the warriors' laments and sacrifices. For this, the cup was raised in their honour, and many were the nights that the bards led the warriors in their cups. It was their just reward, before the evil days of publishers and agents darkened noble writ.

:D

But on to the response of my response to davem's plea for a name, a one name like a One Ring to rule them all. We seem to have such short memories here that I will remind anyone still reading this of his plea:


Could you please tell me who you think is going to write this 'play'? Please, ONE name, one author who you think will do a decent job.

Of course, I don't expect to get one - because whoever you name someone is going to object, & say they aren't the right person for the job. You see, the problem you have is that while in a fantasy world you can simply invent a writer of genius, in the real world you can't. Suitable writers don't just appear when you snap your fingers, or because you fancy reading a new M-e novel. Asking 'what would happen if someone wrote a 'dramatic play' (sic) based on First/Second Age events?' is a bit like asking 'What would happen if aliens landed in front of the White House & turned George Bush into a three headed chicken?' I can't prove that such an event is impossible, but before I spend time & energy speculating on how the free world would cope with a three headed chicken with its claw on The Button, I'd want some evidence its anything like a real possibility.....

Now, the criterion here is to Name That Writer Who No One Will Object To, otherwise known as Name That Writer to Whom No One Will Object. This is important, because in this pleas from davem there is no mention of The Estate. The sole criterion is to name a writer who is without stain.

So, I named a person from this forum who has garnered accolade after accolade for the quality of his fanfiction, the mighty Mithadan, whose Tol Eressëa
stories were held to be the highest and finest attempt to capture the elusive elements of Tolkien's writing. (I won't say anything about his REB fanfic, because he was positively scandalous there.)

And was this writer's work considered at all? Nay, suddenly cold feet seemed to sweep through the dusty, dark Barrows and in reply to my nomination, suddenly the criteria shifted, like tectonic plates grinding up against each other, but without the earth really moving.


For now I'll just ask, is it worth it? Once the Estate authorises a new M-e novel the floodgates will be open. M-e will no-longer be Tolkien's creation, but a franchise. There will be a stream of novels, as with the Star Wars/Star Trek franchises, some good, some bad, accepted by some, rejected by others - & all of them, ultimately, unnecessary.

Now it's The Estate who will authorise Mithadan. (Like Fordim, I don't give a hoot for a legal and formal imprimatur, for stories don't survive by critics and reviewers and publishers alone. The mark of The Estate is irrelevant here.) Yet where were the naysayers who repudiated Mithadan's writing? Left speechless to deflect the topic yet again back to the enigma of Tolkien's style. Now if that isn't funny, what is?

Raynor, I had time to skim only one of your links. You aren't by any chance a fan of Georgette Heyer, are you? ;)

The bogey of style and the bully of Estate authorisation are irrelevant. There's a clue, though, in the reception of Tolkien's work. Where once he was pooh-poohed and then cultishly embraced and then fan-adulated, he now is coming into greater and greater repute. Time does that, if you're good. Let the base imitators mimic and the imaginative writers take inspiration and somewhere down the line, as Child has suggested, the stories that matter will take hold on the consciousness of the reading and story-telling public. After all, Milton does not sound like the Bible, and Blake does not sound like Milton. But the cauldron bubbled.

There, like the proverbial cat, I think I've caught my tale again. ;)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I'm not quite sure in which direction you're tacking now.

After an extensive defense of the Author against PoMo drivel, I don't think that you're now taking the position that an Author who plagiarises doesn't count- even the act of choosing what to steal is still an independent creative act.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you're asserting that the Quaran has been 'garbled in transmission'- in fact its text from the oldest extant manuscripts down to the present are at least as consistent as the Vulgate and Septuagint.

There's no doubt in my mind that Muhammed, like Smith and Hubbard after him, set out consciously to create (or forge) a new "Mythology" as the fundamental step in that ancient scam, "Profiting Through Propheting."

[Raynor]

Raynor, I had time to skim only one of your links. You aren't by any chance a fan of Georgette Heyer, are you?I haven't heard of her :).

[davem]

So, I named a person from this forum who has garnered accolade after accolade for the quality of his fanfiction, the mighty Mithadan, whose Tol Eressëa
stories were held to be the highest and finest attempt to capture the elusive elements of Tolkien's writing. (I won't say anything about his REB fanfic, because he was positively scandalous there.)

And its very good....yet, a line of Aneurin's came to mind as I read, an elegy for one of the men of Gododdin who fell at Catraeth:

'He glutted black ravens on the walls, but he was no Arthur.' I don't want to sound too negative - I was impressed, yet some things jarred ("Pengolodh snorted" :eek: )

[drigel]

Just as I hit the quote button to reply to drigel's post about this thread jumping the shark, his post disappears!
The reason I put in the space that asks for a reason for deletion: manners

I have never wanted to offend anyone here. My hackles have been raised enough to warrant my self imposed exile. I havent lightened up yet. Im a purist, I suppose.

So, I named a person from this forum who has garnered accolade after accolade for the quality of his fanfiction, the mighty Mithadan, whose Tol Eressëa

So says the BDner's. Good enough quality, I suppose. And then the 20-40 other ME fanfic sites will support their hero. We can all have them fight Sparticus style at MSG. The winner will recieve a chat squirrel with oak cluster flourish. Then the ME mythology will take it's rightfull place somewhere, but well underneath, The Matrix, D&D, Star Trek\Wars and L Ron Hubbards alien invaders who like to get it on with with Australopithecus africanus women like the freaks they are. Then the pantheon of knock-off mythologies will be complete, amen. We are all free to do what we want, or not.

You see, I believe Davem's point is just that: if there was something that good out there, we would all have already heard about it, read it, and petitioned the Estate for endorsement. Thing is (for folks like me), unless you follow, contribute or participate in fanfics, it's really not that interesting or compelling. And if we read the whole thing, it's because we want to be polite. Because in reality, after about the 2nd or 3rd paragraph, we have completely checked out. Why? The author isnt Tolkien. As is the nature of these things, the product is never as good as it was fun to write.

go figure :)

[Child of the 7th Age]

Drigel,

Why do we have to be in this much of a hurry? People are too impatient. We’re not talking about something that starts and finishes in our lifetime. It’s a process that will sort itself out over hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Most of these retellings will be garbage, sinking to the bottom unread and unlamented. Maybe three percent will be worth a read. No one can be sure if any of those will be worth remembering. But, over 500 years, my bet is that someone will come up with something that actually touches some hearts and minds.

“Successor?” Ugh! Tolkien has no “successor” because he is unique. If crowning a “successor” is our only choice, I defer to Davem and throw the whole thing in the trash.. Again, I don’t think it’s that simple. Sagas and myths are normally told and retold from different perspectives over a very long time. Thomas Mallory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, T.H. White, Charles Williams, Vera Chapman, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Marian Zimmer Bradley and a host of others drew on the same body of Arthurian stories, each expressing them in a different way. I believe the same will eventually happen with the Legendarium.

Davem is wise in saying that the Legendarium is closer to saga than fantasy. I also agree with Bethberry on Mithadan. His writing at least points in the right direction. Mithadan’s stories feel like history written at some point in the past.

Since Tolkien stands at the end of the tradition of Saga, Davem suggests it would be impossible for latecomers to latch onto the tradition, and continue it on. I’m not so sure. Many readers fell in love with the ancient sources after reading LotR and ended up going back and devoting their lives to studying medieval languages or history or literature. I would guess about a third of medievalists teaching in colleges and unis today in this country owe some debt to Tolkien. As readers of LotR, these individuals were able to see beyond the veneer of "fantasy" and reconnect with that older heritage. If that recognition exists,it may be possible to continue with the tradition in written form. Not an exact replica, which would be impossible, but something that captures the spirit of the thing. I have never read any of Verlyn Flieger’s imaginative fiction. Just curious what tone is used in those.

All this assumes that people still care about Middle-earth 500 years from today. If they still care, they will retell and expand. The alternative is to think of the Legendarium as a series of very specific novels and poems, with no possibility of expansion.

Ironically, the one person who has done more than anyone to ensure that people think of the Legendarium as an expanding world rather than a series of discrete works with strict borders is Christopher Tolkien. Without Silm, without HoMe, without UT and Children of Hurin, Tolkien would look much more like a "conventional" author, and people would respond accordingly. There would be far fewer people who get the bug to retell the tale and to explore the hidden recesses of Middle-earth. By showing us more of what was in his father's mind, Christopher has actually helped writers break through to a wider Middle-earth. He has given us a tiny glimpse of the hidden vistas and distant mountains that Tolkien loved to put in his stories. If there are retellers of the future, it will because of Christopher’s very hard work, and I am extremely grateful for that.

[Morthoron]

“Successor?” Ugh! Tolkien has no “successor” because he is unique. If crowning a “successor” is our only choice, I defer to Davem and throw the whole thing in the trash.. Again, I don’t think it’s that simple. Sagas and myths are normally told and retold from different perspectives over a very long time. Thomas Mallory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, T.H. White, Charles Williams, Vera Chapman, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Marian Zimmer Bradley and a host of others drew on the same body of Arthurian stories, each expressing them in a different way. I believe the same will eventually happen with the Legendarium.

And I would suggest that the aformentioned authors' points of view regarding the Arthurian Cycle are as disparate as any in literature. Compare T.H. White's 'The Once and Future King' to Zimmer-Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon': save for the same general characters and fundamental plot, they might as well be talking about two separate epochs, so dissimilar are the treatments (personally, I've always favored White to any of those you mentioned, save perhaps for Malory).

So the point I am making is, when one is speaking of a successor to Tolkien, would the inference be that such a personage be chosen to ape Tolkien's style? I would suggest that such a treatment, even if it could be done plausibly and with much attention to detail, would render the work to be utter mimicry. Like the much repeated elements of the Arthurian Cycle, an author should be allowed the latitude to impress his/her own style on the tale rendered, lest it become a mere charade.

Since Tolkien stands at the end of the tradition of Saga, Davem suggests it would be impossible for latecomers to latch onto the tradition, and continue it on. I’m not so sure. Many readers fell in love with the ancient sources after reading LotR and ended up going back and devoting their lives to studying medieval languages or history or literature. I would guess about a third of medievalists teaching in colleges and unis today in this country owe some debt to Tolkien. As readers of LotR, these individuals were able to see beyond the veneer of "fantasy" and reconnect with that older heritage. If that recognition exists,it may be possible to continue with the tradition in written form. Not an exact replica, which would be impossible, but something that captures the spirit of the thing.

I am of the same mind as Child (or would you prefer 7th Age?). There is certainly an unlimited market for all-things-Middle-earth (why else would 'The Children of Hurin' -- a rather tedious rehashing of an excerpt from the Silmarillion -- manage to reach the top of the New York Times Bestseller List?). The Middle-earth chronicles are fast passing onward from a classic novelization of the fantasy genre into the rarified realm of such oft-retold tales as can be found in the Arthurian or Charlemagnic cycles. Face it, there are more Middle-earth roleplaying stories, novellas, games, fan-fics, etc. on more forum sites than all other such attempts combined, then trebled, then multiplied by a google complex.

It is not much different than the genesis of the Arthurian cycle, is it not? There is the initial germ of truth, and it passed through many hands in Anglo-Saxon England, made its way over the Channel to be enhanced among the troubadours, found its way to the trouvere Chretien de Troyes, then was diffused throughout Christendom (Germany, particularly), and finally passed back over the Channel to be reinvigorated by Malory.

All this assumes that people still care about Middle-earth 500 years from today. If they still care, they will retell and expand. The alternative is to think of the Legendarium as a series of very specific novels and poems, with no possibility of expansion.

Precisely. We are perhaps too close to the original author to conceive of an expanding Arda that will not smack of gimmickery or pulp-fiction rip-offs. But a century from now, or two? I would like to relate a story if I may...

Having finished reading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web with my six-year old daughter (complete with the accompanying tears when the loquacious grey spider sadly dies), we then decided to embark on a journey of a lighter vein by reading The Hobbit. I must say that a book I have long used just for reference material and for scholarly debate (whether or not you consider the book strictly canonical), has, through the eyes of a precocious and imaginative first grader, renewed my sense of wonder. It has brought back fond memories of the first time I sat enthralled in this sublimely simple tale, and likewise has so enchanted my daughter that she believes the events in the book actually happened once on a time. I asked her if Hobbits were real, and she merely looked at me in that Oh-dad-is-so-daft manner and replied, “Of course Hobbits are real, silly, because I can fly!”

Since the story had such an effect on her, it is likely she will continue to immerse herself in Middle-earth as she grows older, and might possibly read Tolkien's tales to her children and they to there's and so on. Eventually all original copyrights fail, and a story that spans generations, like The Hobbit or LOTR, will pass into the public domain. Who can say what will happen then?

[davem]

Just before I get off on me hols I just wanted to add something:

So the point I am making is, when one is speaking of a successor to Tolkien, would the inference be that such a personage be chosen to ape Tolkien's style? I would suggest that such a treatment, even if it could be done plausibly and with much attention to detail, would render the work to be utter mimicry. Like the much repeated elements of the Arthurian Cycle, an author should be allowed the latitude to impress his/her own style on the tale rendered, lest it become a mere charade.

The style/language associated with M-e is Tolkien's own, & in a strange way the tales, for me have to be told in that style, using that language. The style is an essential part of the tale being told. Hence my sudden feeling of 'NO!!!' when on reading Mith's tale of Eressea last night I came across 'Pengolodh snorted'. Elves do not 'snort'. Well, Tolkien's Elves don't. Come to that, I read one of the Downs RPG's long ago, in which a character had to run home for 'Lunch'. Now, lunch is wrong. 'Luncheon' is pushing it. 'Nuncheon' might work for a midday meal, but Hobbits would have Dinner at mid-day. Breakfast, dinner, tea, supper. That's what Tolkien's models in Warwickshire & Berkshire would call them. Hobbits, in short, never, ever have 'lunch'. Even something as trivial as that will jar some of us out of the story.

Anyway, I have to rush. Try & manage without me :p

[Raynor]

Hobbits, in short, never, ever have 'lunch'.I am not sure I follow; the term lunch is used several times in LotR in regards to the hobbits.

[Morthoron]

The style/language associated with M-e is Tolkien's own, & in a strange way the tales, for me have to be told in that style, using that language. The style is an essential part of the tale being told. Hence my sudden feeling of 'NO!!!'

Hmmmm...and which actual Tolkienic style would you deign to be acceptable? The archaic and solemn idiom of the Sil and CoH, or the more modern modes of speech presented in LotR? Would you even consider the lighter, fairytale quality of The Hobbit, or eschew it as non-canonical (even though without the success of the Hobbit, we should never have heard of the good Professor)? You are putting a succeeding author(s) in a position to fail by forcing them to mimic a famous and well-regarded author, rather than allow the new author the courtesy of offering their own style in describing whichever piece of Middle-earth lore they are endeavoring to expound. To me, it sounds like you would spend most of your time critiquing the author's mode of speech and literary style, rather than the actual story presented.

Certainly, there are morals and general cosmological and chronological principles that would be sacrosanct; Middle-earth is, after all, an ethical universe. But there are other voices in Middle-earth, not merely the Hobbits who compiled the Redbook of Westmarch. For instance, would the tone and manner of a Middle-earth piece be different if it were offered by, say, an Easterling bard who heard of the great defeat of his countrymen during the War of the Ring, but from second-hand accounts of returning warriors? Assuredly, the tone would be solemn, but would it necessarily mirror the cadences and dialects occuring in Tolkien's presentation of Western Middle-earth civilization?

[Aiwendil]

Hobbits, in short, never, ever have 'lunch'. Even something as trivial as that will jar some of us out of the story.


There were three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper). But lunch and tea were marked chiefly by the fact that at those times all the guests were sitting down and eating together.

Folco went home after lunch, but Pippin remained behind.

After lunch, the Sackville-Bagginses, Lobelia and her sandy-haired son, Lotho, turned up, much to Frodo’s annoyance.

‘The road goes on for ever,’ said Pippin; ‘but I can’t without a rest. It is high time for lunch.’

After a rest they had a good lunch, and then more rest.

It was now past mid-day, and they felt it was high time for lunch.

. . . all of which only goes to show that no one should be too hasty in declaring himself or herself an infallible judge of Tolkien's style. Though for what it's worth (which is probably not much), I do agree that 'Pengolodh snorted' is unsuitable.

Now you may go back to endlessly debating literary pseudo-questions.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Drigel,

I've made just 5 posts here out of 240, and it seems I'm already in hot water! I am sorry if the wording of my posts upset you but we hold different opinions on the long term fate of the Legendarium. As I said before, absolutely no one knows what is going to happen 100 or 500 years from now. You may be the one who is closer to the mark than I am. My opinion (and it is only an opinion) is that there will be people trying to retell this story. Tolkien's Legendarium, his total body of writings, is so different from most contemporary novels (even the very best of the best) that I believe its future course will also be different.

"Software engineers" for Tolkien? Five hundred years ago, printed books were just getting their start. Another five hundred years in the future and there will likely be no software engineers. Very few people in the year 1500 could have predicted the computer and the internet, and I think we also can not predict the shape of things over such a long span of time.

I am not the only one who feels this way. I recently attended a session which involved grad and undergrad students and one scholar from a nearby univerisity who had publshed several books investigating the medieval sources and connections of the Legendarium. There was a great deal of discussion on the earlier tradition of Arthurian literature, and whether Middle-earth could eventually evolve down a similar path, given modern modes of dissemination of stories. Like the present forum, the participants couldn't totally agree but there was a serious and respectful hearing given to the views on both sides.

Regarding the nature of this site, there is no fanfiction here. There is a separate older BD site which was used for fanfiction. It lies virtually dormant. Less than five pieces have been added there in the past year. There are RPGs on the main site. The RPG sections used to be quite active but for a variety of reasons (Werewolf games, mods who've pulled back a bit, fewer new posters) it is quieter of late. A few stories plod quietly forward. If you count up recent posts, most of the activity lies in Books (and Mirth). This is a Books site in origin and at its heart. I do not see that changing, nor do I want it to change.

I think that if there is a general "sagadarium", that JRRT created, it's the genre of modern fantasy. It's out there. You should try it. Writing it, I mean. It's tough, Ill warn you. You can spend years and years studying, perfecting, honing your mind to become an author of fiction or fantasy. Or, you can spend years and years on the internet being a JRRT monkey. woo hooo grab the twinkies....

There were authors writing fantasy like Morris and MacDonald long before Tolkien. However, he certainly sparked more creativity in the field. And most contemporary fantasy writers owe an enormous debt to Tolkien. Fantasy is not one thing -- there are so many types and forms that it is difficult to generalize, and this would take a very different thread. My only problem is your last sentence. You can't assume anyone who takes the opposite side in this argument is a "JRRT monkey". ;) (Ouch, that hurts!) Just for the record, I have never written a fanfiction in my life, and I am no fantasy writer. I've spent plenty of time with RPGs but those are a different creature, and it is all for fun. However, I do have "serious stuff" in print in history and library science so I am hoping that disqualifies me from the heinous sin of being a "JRRT monkey". :D

[Morthoron]

Regarding the nature of this site, there is no fanfiction here. There is a separate older BD site which was used for fanfiction. It lies virtually dormant. Less than five pieces have been added there in the past year. There are RPGs on the main site. The RPG sections used to be quite active but for a variety of reasons (Werewolf games, mods who've pulled back a bit, fewer new posters) it is quieter of late. A few stories plod quietly forward. If you count up recent posts, most of the activity lies in Books (and Mirth). This is a Books site in origin and at its heart. I do not see that changing, nor do I want it to change.

CotSA,
Do you have a link to the BD fan-fic site? I wouldn't mind reading some offerings and perhaps adding some of my own. As far as the RPG here, it is quite good, but I am more interested in novelized RP than the strict adherence to RPG'ing norms (that and the fact I have been doing novel-based RP'ing for the last eight or so years).

P.S. Never mind, I overcame my weekend lethargy and found the fan-fic forum by the sweat of my own brow (an epic journey in itself!). Now if I could only use mind control to have the beer bottle leave the fridge and float over to me on its own accord.

[Thenamir]

Elves do not 'snort'
But Elvish horses do...He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring. His sword broke and fell out of his shaking hand. The elf-horse reared and snorted.

[Bêthberry]

Drigel, I must apologize for anouncing that deletion of your post. You were/are of course absolutely free to delete as you choose. Most members have, I suspect, deleted posts and I hardly think we are required to give reasons, despite what that little blank box says. What prompted me to comment upon it was the timing. Literally, I read it, hit the reply button, and the reply screen came up blank. I still think it is extraordinary timing.

No doubt with all Tolkien's talk of pipeweed, you folks have entirely the wrong opinion about "snorting." The verb derives from Middle English and only later--going by the OED--do the slang uses of the word appear. It has a completely legitimate use to suggest human contempt or indignation. I recall that (and of course my memory at the end of long, hot day battling the elements in the garden is as liable to tricks as anyone's) the OED records uses by Dickens and Walter Scott to describe characters' reactions of scorn or ridicule to a statement, so the word quite legitimately is not limited to animal breathing noises only .

Besides, my quick perusal of the third part of Mithadan's story, shows that it is Gandalf who is described as snorting, in indigation to being called "father."


Ælfwine sat with Olórin and drained yet another cup. "Fine ale," he said. "And a fine night also! Your arrival was timely, father."

Olórin sipped carefully at his cup taking care not to wet his beard. "Father?" he snorted. "You may call me Gandalf. And yes the beer is good, but I have had better. But that was long ago.


I do believe this context is entirely in keeping with that meaning of indignation, especially for a Gandalf the Grey and his wit. I could, of course, have missed the line of 'Pengolodh snorted'--it could even be in one of the stories I haven't read, as I am not generally a reader of fanfiction and have never written any, althhough I have participated in RPGs--but even if I had, as I recall, there are some elves in Tolkien who do feel indignation, great indignation, particularly because of their own sense of their self-dignity, and who would, I suspect, again because of that lack of distance and self-deprecation, lack the wit of a Gandalf. I suppose it all comes down to context and how forgiving a reader is. After all, I seem to recall there are some historical whoopers in LotR like umbrellas. ;)

[Morthoron]

No doubt with all Tolkien's talk of pipeweed, you folks have entirely the wrong opinion about "snorting." The verb derives from Middle English and only later--going by the OED--do the slang uses of the word appear. It has a completely legitimate use to suggest human contempt or indignation.

v. snort·ed, snort·ing, snorts
v.intr.
1.
a. To breathe noisily and forcefully through the nostrils.
b. To make a sound resembling noisy exhalation: "The wind snorted across the Kansas plains" Gail Sheehy.
2. To make an abrupt noise expressive of scorn, ridicule, or contempt.

I can fully see a 1st Age Elf the likes of the haughty Caranthir or Curufin snorting. Eol was said to have snorted on any number of occassions.

[davem]

. . . all of which only goes to show that no one should be too hasty in declaring himself or herself an infallible judge of Tolkien's style. Though for what it's worth (which is probably not much), I do agree that 'Pengolodh snorted' is unsuitable.

Now you may go back to endlessly debating literary pseudo-questions.

Yes, sorry - I was due to rush off for a bus. However. 'Lunch' is a middle-class term. Most Hobbits are not middle class. Actually, out of all the quotes you give 'lunch' is a term used by the narrator - apart from the single use by Pippin. I still say that the average Hobbit would not use the term, & would prefer 'dinner' - unless they were 'putting on airs'.

However, I shall be more careful with my examples in future.

[Raynor]

So does Merry
- No, I don't think so, Merry laughed. But that is another story, which can wait until after lunch.

[davem]

So does Merry

Yes, another upper middle-class Hobbit, which puts him into a minority. And I refer you to the answer I gave earlier, 'cos I've lost interest in this point now - it was a throwaway point, generally correct, in that most hobbits are not middle-class & would not use a middle-class term like 'lunch' but would say 'dinner'. The point is that a writer of M-e fiction has to be aware of the subtleties of class distinction etc, & too many writers are not.

Middle-class Hobbits say 'lunch' & middle-class Hobbits are in the minority in the Shire. They are the exception. Hence, its true to say that Hobbits do not say 'lunch' - just as its true to say that Hobbits have nothing to do with Elves. Those Hobbits who do have anything to do with Elves are a tiny minority. LotR focusses on a tiny minority of unusual Hobbits. Hobbits don't wear footwear - (except for the minority who wear boots).

The habit of building farm-houses and barns was said to have begun among the inhabitants of the Marish down by the Brandywine. The Hobbits of that quarter, the Eastfarthing, were rather large and heavy-legged, and they wore dwarf-boots in muddy weather.
Geddit?

[Morthoron]

Yes, another upper middle-class Hobbit, which puts him into a minority. And I refer you to the answer I gave earlier, 'cos I've lost interest in this point now - it was a throwaway point, generally correct, in that most hobbits are not middle-class & would not use a middle-class term like 'lunch' but would say 'dinner'. The point is that a writer of M-e fiction has to be aware of the subtleties of class distinction etc, & too many writers are not.

Middle-class Hobbits say 'lunch' & middle-class Hobbits are in the minority in the Shire. They are the exception. Hence, its true to say that Hobbits do not say 'lunch' - just as its true to say that Hobbits have nothing to do with Elves. Those Hobbits who do have anything to do with Elves are a tiny minority. LotR focusses on a tiny minority of unusual Hobbits. Hobbits don't wear footwear - (except for the minority who wear boots).


Geddit?

No, I don't 'get it'. The term 'lunch' is a casual term, short for 'luncheon' (derived from the Middle English 'nuncheon'); in other words a noontime meal. I don't see any correlation to the word lunch being a Hobbitish upper-middle class term. 'Afternoon tea' would be more of a distinction among the squirearchy (and Pippin and Merry were indeed of that caste) than lunch, as even the poorer Hobbits insisted on at least three square meals (or four or five, if they could get it). You're out to lunch on this one, in a manner of speaking.

[Lalwendë]

The social consequences of mis-use of lunch/dinner and supper/dinner/tea are deep. Don't you believe otherwise. People have been hounded out of Yorkshire for over use of sinister words like 'lunch'. The only way you can get away with using the word lunch round these parts is to add -eon meat to the end of it. And even then someone will ask you if you're too stuck up for Spam. ;)

The matter is only slightly less dangerous than all the pitfalls to be had when using napkins (I avoid this by wiping me gob on me sleeve).

[davem]

No, I don't 'get it'. The term 'lunch' is a casual term, short for 'luncheon' (derived from the Middle English 'nuncheon'); in other words a noontime meal. I don't see any correlation to the word lunch being a Hobbitish upper-middle class term..

Yes, very good point, perceptive, insightful & well worth making - I think you'll find I made it myself in the post that started this tangent off:

Now, lunch is wrong. 'Luncheon' is pushing it. 'Nuncheon' might work for a midday meal, but Hobbits would have Dinner at mid-day. Breakfast, dinner, tea, supper.

However, you're missing the point. Hobbits are primarily working class English folk. Working class English folk do not have 'lunch' - we have dinner. Clever arguments based on derivations of words are all very fine, but are rarely relevant when it comes to how people from various classes actually use language. I am a member of the English working class. I grew up among the English working class, & my whole family without exception were of the English working class, & I can tell you that at mid-day the English working class, certainly up to very recent years, have 'dinner' at mid-day, not 'lunch'. In fact, in Yorkshire we have our 'snap' at dinner time - snap being food & providing the term 'knapsack' which was originally 'snapsack', or food sack.

And, if you can tell me how this whole digression is relevant to the thread I'll be happy to continue it. If not, I'm happy to leave it here.