The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post

davem · 04-23-2004, 01:01 PM

Saucepan Man

Well, if the Gandalf of the Hobbit & the Gandalf of LotR are the 'same', just try swapping them over. I don't think you can change a character in a story wthout changing the story itself - the character is not seperate from the tale he or she inhabits - hence the 1st ed Hobbit is a different story from the revised Hobbit, because the encounter with Gollum is changed by the substitution of Gollum (2) for Gollum (1). The Hobbit instantly becomes the prequel to LotR. They are different stories, with different aims & a different momentum by the change in Gollum's character.

I never said that my 'fanfic' had any academic value. I was playing a game - taking an idea from the Tolkien 'canon' - the stories in which it appeared are set in 'this' world, & Tolkien uses it himself in Mythopoea - transmission of ideas/experiences across time, but from one living mind to another living mind, & expanding it to encompass the idea of the transmission of 'canonical' ideas within Tolkien's 'mythos'. It is a kind of 'Lost Road' fanfic in that sense. So, the premise of the' story' is that a writer, alive & well at one point in time, can communicate, mentally, with a reader at another point in time, by means of a printed text, as we communicate across space via the web. This is a 'fanfic' within the limits of the Legendarium - it is not an 'alternate universe' idea - even if the stories that inspired it are less well known to readers. We have a case of 'living shapes that move from mind to mind'. At the same time, it steps 'outside' the invented world of the Legendarium, by making the author of the Legendarium, & we as readers, into 'characters' in the fiction. Yet at the same time, it is within the Legendarium, as it makes use of the ideas on which the legendarium is based, & uses the rules by which the Legendarium operates. In other words, it amalgamates (in a stumbling way) the two alternatives set up in this thread - the book or the reader, in order to explore with the whole idea of 'canonicity' , what it means & what its effects are on our freedom as co-creators, & what limits, if any, it imposes.

Bethberry

Quote:'My great hesitation was with the way you reiterated that your definition of worth was the only one tenable and that the entire project could only be made legitimate by recourse to a final, ultimately 'authentic' 'authoritative' source, even after, it seemed to me, there were compelling arguments not only as to the value of the project for many and also about the legitimacy of literary activity as process regardless of 'end result.' I was in fact questioning your aim as much as you questioned that of the project.'

I wasn't saying that my definition was the only one tenable. - though I accept it may have come across that way. Of course, if there is no final, 'authentic' authoritative source, then any value a 'revised' Silmarillion has will be a matter of personal opinion, rather than it having any objective or even academic worth. And if, in order to create it (as opposed to re-creating it - it cannot be recreated because it never existed) one has to cut sizeable chunks from the original sources then it seems to me that it cannot tell us anything -one could construct an 'archetypal' greek vase from sherds from hundreds of different vases, but would the resulting object be anything more than a curiosity - & couldn't it be argued that by breaking bits off the individual sherds to make them fit together, one had done more harm than good, simply in order to create an object that had never actually existed? I'd say that was a pointless exercise, even if I knew that the person who did it was a decent guy, with his heart in the right place, & wouldn't mean it as a personal attack

In fact, I'd question the danger of that vase misleading the public into thinking Greek vases were like that. The idea behind the project, as I understand it, is to somehow produce a 'better' Silmarillion than the one CT has given us. But I can't see how it can be better - unless one knoked together 'Greek' vase can be said to be 'better' than another knocked together 'Greek' vase. The only way to judge which was better would be to judge on aesthetic grounds - but you woouldn't be judging which was the 'better' vase, only which was a more pleasant object to look at, & the 'Greekness' of the objects would play no part in that decision - unless you also judged on how intact the pieces were which had been used to construct the relative vases - & if that was your criteria for judgement, then the original sherds would be best of all, in the shape you found them, & they would certainly tell you more about the Ancient Greek individuals & society that produced the originals from which you'd cobbled your 'ideal' versions together.

Its the inevitable 'falseness' of the result of trying to construct a 'single' Galadriel, or Gandalf in this way, let alone a 'single' version of the fall of Gondolin which grates with me. I think its a serious mistake, & will inevitably create a false impression in readers, which will, as you imply, need to be countered - & would not need to be countered if this revised Sil didn't exist. As far as I'm concerned its a dead end, & a much more fruitful field of research would be found in attempting to understand the individual stories, & what the author was attempting to say. It seems to me he is saying very different things to us in FoG & in Tuor, & taking some bits from one & some bits from others - as you might with historical accounts of an event, in order to try & discover what 'really' happened - in order to produce a 'truer' or more 'accurate' account of the History of Gondolin will lead you to miss what Tolkien is saying in those two very different stories. Gondolin is not Troy. The real danger is that we do throw out the author, by pretending there wasn't one. One of the most significant statements in this regard in the whole of HoME is in the introduction to vol 12:

'Since the ceaseless 'making' of his world extended from my father's youth into his old age, The History of Middle Earth is in some sense also a record of his life,a form of biography (my italics), if of a very unusual kind. He had travelled a long road.'

Which is the point - the whole Legendarium is a 'biography' of his inner life. A story such as FoG in BoLT cannot be seen as simply an early version of Tuor - or vice versa, so, they cannot be run together with any real hope of producing anything of more than curiosity value - & while I accept that others find it worthwhile, I still, after all the opposing arguments, cannot see anything of value (& I speak here only for myself) in doing it. CT realised the mistake of making a 'Silmarillion' only after he'd completed & published it. My own feeling is that those involved in the revised Sil project will realise he was right when they've finished what they're doing.

Of course, as I have said before, I may be wrong!

Findegil

Sorry, but it seems to me that your 'revised Sil' with the massive appendix will be very large & confusing, & that it will only appeal to those who have read HoME, & will have formed their own opinions about what should & shouldn't be there anyway. I honestly don't get the point of it, & I'm afraid all the explanations of yourself, Awendil & Maedhros have not made the idea behind it any clearer for me. I just can't see this 'fox' you're all chasing. What will this 'Silmarillion' be for, what will you, or anyone else, actually do with it when its finished, that they couldn't do without it? Is it, as Aiwendil seems to think, a literary work, or as you seem to think, an academic work? Is it designed to enchant readers or to inform students? Are you Schliemanns or Homers? or is it to be Homer annotated by Schliemann?

Aiwendil

I hope I've covered most of your points in the foregoing - we seem to have posted at the same time. One thing though, I don't think the 'multiple Galadriel's (& Gandalfs & Gollums) is merely 'semantics'. They are different characters - as I've pointed out Galadriel (2) is not an exile in ME, Galadriel (1) is, & their stories, & more importantly, their motivations are different. It seems to me that this points up the problem I find with your whole approach - this idea that there is a 'coherent' Sil to be dug out from among all these different texts from different periods in Tolkien's life. Of course, you could construct one - maybe an interesting one - maybe even produce a masterpiece - but it would be your 'masterpiece', not Tolkien's. And that would be of relevance to your fans, not Tolkien's.

Your example of fragments of LotR being put together doesn't work for me - it wasn't a bunch of fragments - it was the work of a man with something specific he wished to communicate. And that's the point - however faithful you try to be, you can't know his mind, or his intent, you can only guess at it, & your guess is as likely to be wrong as right (unless he can communicate with you across space time

)

04-23-2004, 01:01 PM	#139
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	Saucepan Man Well, if the Gandalf of the Hobbit & the Gandalf of LotR are the 'same', just try swapping them over. I don't think you can change a character in a story wthout changing the story itself - the character is not seperate from the tale he or she inhabits - hence the 1st ed Hobbit is a different story from the revised Hobbit, because the encounter with Gollum is changed by the substitution of Gollum (2) for Gollum (1). The Hobbit instantly becomes the prequel to LotR. They are different stories, with different aims & a different momentum by the change in Gollum's character. I never said that my 'fanfic' had any academic value. I was playing a game - taking an idea from the Tolkien 'canon' - the stories in which it appeared are set in 'this' world, & Tolkien uses it himself in Mythopoea - transmission of ideas/experiences across time, but from one living mind to another living mind, & expanding it to encompass the idea of the transmission of 'canonical' ideas within Tolkien's 'mythos'. It is a kind of 'Lost Road' fanfic in that sense. So, the premise of the' story' is that a writer, alive & well at one point in time, can communicate, mentally, with a reader at another point in time, by means of a printed text, as we communicate across space via the web. This is a 'fanfic' within the limits of the Legendarium - it is not an 'alternate universe' idea - even if the stories that inspired it are less well known to readers. We have a case of 'living shapes that move from mind to mind'. At the same time, it steps 'outside' the invented world of the Legendarium, by making the author of the Legendarium, & we as readers, into 'characters' in the fiction. Yet at the same time, it is within the Legendarium, as it makes use of the ideas on which the legendarium is based, & uses the rules by which the Legendarium operates. In other words, it amalgamates (in a stumbling way) the two alternatives set up in this thread - the book or the reader, in order to explore with the whole idea of 'canonicity' , what it means & what its effects are on our freedom as co-creators, & what limits, if any, it imposes. Bethberry Quote:'My great hesitation was with the way you reiterated that your definition of worth was the only one tenable and that the entire project could only be made legitimate by recourse to a final, ultimately 'authentic' 'authoritative' source, even after, it seemed to me, there were compelling arguments not only as to the value of the project for many and also about the legitimacy of literary activity as process regardless of 'end result.' I was in fact questioning your aim as much as you questioned that of the project.' I wasn't saying that my definition was the only one tenable. - though I accept it may have come across that way. Of course, if there is no final, 'authentic' authoritative source, then any value a 'revised' Silmarillion has will be a matter of personal opinion, rather than it having any objective or even academic worth. And if, in order to create it (as opposed to re-creating it - it cannot be recreated because it never existed) one has to cut sizeable chunks from the original sources then it seems to me that it cannot tell us anything -one could construct an 'archetypal' greek vase from sherds from hundreds of different vases, but would the resulting object be anything more than a curiosity - & couldn't it be argued that by breaking bits off the individual sherds to make them fit together, one had done more harm than good, simply in order to create an object that had never actually existed? I'd say that was a pointless exercise, even if I knew that the person who did it was a decent guy, with his heart in the right place, & wouldn't mean it as a personal attack In fact, I'd question the danger of that vase misleading the public into thinking Greek vases were like that. The idea behind the project, as I understand it, is to somehow produce a 'better' Silmarillion than the one CT has given us. But I can't see how it can be better - unless one knoked together 'Greek' vase can be said to be 'better' than another knocked together 'Greek' vase. The only way to judge which was better would be to judge on aesthetic grounds - but you woouldn't be judging which was the 'better' vase, only which was a more pleasant object to look at, & the 'Greekness' of the objects would play no part in that decision - unless you also judged on how intact the pieces were which had been used to construct the relative vases - & if that was your criteria for judgement, then the original sherds would be best of all, in the shape you found them, & they would certainly tell you more about the Ancient Greek individuals & society that produced the originals from which you'd cobbled your 'ideal' versions together. Its the inevitable 'falseness' of the result of trying to construct a 'single' Galadriel, or Gandalf in this way, let alone a 'single' version of the fall of Gondolin which grates with me. I think its a serious mistake, & will inevitably create a false impression in readers, which will, as you imply, need to be countered - & would not need to be countered if this revised Sil didn't exist. As far as I'm concerned its a dead end, & a much more fruitful field of research would be found in attempting to understand the individual stories, & what the author was attempting to say. It seems to me he is saying very different things to us in FoG & in Tuor, & taking some bits from one & some bits from others - as you might with historical accounts of an event, in order to try & discover what 'really' happened - in order to produce a 'truer' or more 'accurate' account of the History of Gondolin will lead you to miss what Tolkien is saying in those two very different stories. Gondolin is not Troy. The real danger is that we do throw out the author, by pretending there wasn't one. One of the most significant statements in this regard in the whole of HoME is in the introduction to vol 12: 'Since the ceaseless 'making' of his world extended from my father's youth into his old age, The History of Middle Earth is in some sense also a record of his life,a form of biography (my italics), if of a very unusual kind. He had travelled a long road.' Which is the point - the whole Legendarium is a 'biography' of his inner life. A story such as FoG in BoLT cannot be seen as simply an early version of Tuor - or vice versa, so, they cannot be run together with any real hope of producing anything of more than curiosity value - & while I accept that others find it worthwhile, I still, after all the opposing arguments, cannot see anything of value (& I speak here only for myself) in doing it. CT realised the mistake of making a 'Silmarillion' only after he'd completed & published it. My own feeling is that those involved in the revised Sil project will realise he was right when they've finished what they're doing. Of course, as I have said before, I may be wrong! Findegil Sorry, but it seems to me that your 'revised Sil' with the massive appendix will be very large & confusing, & that it will only appeal to those who have read HoME, & will have formed their own opinions about what should & shouldn't be there anyway. I honestly don't get the point of it, & I'm afraid all the explanations of yourself, Awendil & Maedhros have not made the idea behind it any clearer for me. I just can't see this 'fox' you're all chasing. What will this 'Silmarillion' be for, what will you, or anyone else, actually do with it when its finished, that they couldn't do without it? Is it, as Aiwendil seems to think, a literary work, or as you seem to think, an academic work? Is it designed to enchant readers or to inform students? Are you Schliemanns or Homers? or is it to be Homer annotated by Schliemann? Aiwendil I hope I've covered most of your points in the foregoing - we seem to have posted at the same time. One thing though, I don't think the 'multiple Galadriel's (& Gandalfs & Gollums) is merely 'semantics'. They are different characters - as I've pointed out Galadriel (2) is not an exile in ME, Galadriel (1) is, & their stories, & more importantly, their motivations are different. It seems to me that this points up the problem I find with your whole approach - this idea that there is a 'coherent' Sil to be dug out from among all these different texts from different periods in Tolkien's life. Of course, you could construct one - maybe an interesting one - maybe even produce a masterpiece - but it would be your 'masterpiece', not Tolkien's. And that would be of relevance to your fans, not Tolkien's. Your example of fragments of LotR being put together doesn't work for me - it wasn't a bunch of fragments - it was the work of a man with something specific he wished to communicate. And that's the point - however faithful you try to be, you can't know his mind, or his intent, you can only guess at it, & your guess is as likely to be wrong as right (unless he can communicate with you across space time ) __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects." Last edited by davem; 04-23-2004 at 01:40 PM.