Of course, Tolkien made, what, half a dozen attempts to start LotR, & what's significant is that the narrative voice changes subtly with each one, starting out by being as prominent as in the Hobbit, & by the end apparently disappearing.
Paul Edmund Thomas' essay 'Some of Tolkien's narrators' (in Tolkien's Legendarium) is definitely worth reading in full, as he examines Tolkien's use of narrative 'voice', but here's a few qoutes from it:
Quote:
‘My father’ says Christopher tolkien in the foreword the Return of the Shadow, ‘bestowed great pains on the creation of LotR’, & ‘the first part of the story, before the Ring left Rivendell, took by far the most labou to achieve.’ The first chapter, which CT considers a ‘rather extreme case’, shows signs of these emense pains because it evolves through six versions & was revised three times before the hobbits ever shouldered their packs & set off on their eastward journey....
The title of the opening chapter, with its playful allusion to ‘An Unexpected Party’’ obviously shows tolkien’s attempt to write a sequel to The Hobbit, to maintain continuity with it, & yet to write something new. Tolkienattempts the same things with the new narrator.
One similarity that the new narrator appears to share with his predecessor is the amiable tendency to address his readers directly: ‘I am going to tell you a story about one of his [= Bilbo’s] decendants, & if you had only read his memoirs up to the date of Balin’s visit - ten years at least before his birthday party - you might have been puzzled’. As his predecessor did, this new narrator directly tells the readers the subject of his story, & thus he appears to be as self conscious & as solicitous for his readedr’s understanding as his predecessor....
However, examining the similarity illuminates a notable difference. the narrator of the Hobbit is an informed historian who knows much about things like Dragons, the history of the Elves, & the nature of Hobbits. Yet although he is learned in the ways of hobbits, he is clearly not a hobbit....
The new narrator, on the other hand, is not so easily discerned, for he reveals niether his nature nor his knowledge with clarity. ...The narrator (of the first version) appears to know none of the details of Bilbo’s journey to the Lonely Mountain: he seems to know only that Bilbo disappeared, which to his mind was an ‘odd’ thing to do& something that Bilbo never explained...He appears to have no patience for Bilbo’s contribution to the Red Book, which he calls ‘a nonsensical account’. Thus in contrast to the narrator of the Hobbit, he appears to be ulearned & unliterary. This narrator seems to believe that Bilbo’s disappearance was socially abnormal, & he says that it took some time for the community to feel easy about Bilbo afterward....In brief, the new narrator seems to be a conventional Hobbiton Hobbit. ...(But is this really the case? Thomas goes on):.. the first version offers evidence that instead of having created an ignorant & narrow minded hobbit as the narrator, Tolkien has created a sophisticated ironical narrator who speaks opinions tongue in cheek. ...If the narrator were an ignorant hobbit, why would he allude with precision to a text that he has already dismissed as ‘a nonsensical account’? Second, after making himnself the spokes man for public decency in Hobbiton, this new narrator suddenly turns on the hobbits & criticizes their intelectual ability.
(In the third & fourth versions), Tolkien continues to intensify the irony in the narrator’s voice by juxtaposing more pointedly ignorant uterances with the knowledgeable ones he penned in the second version.
Fifth version: It is clear (the narrator) knows both the stories that Bilbo told & the information in the book in which Bilbo ‘recounted things he had never spoken about.’ Further, this narrator does not seem to find fault either with Bilbo’s stories or with Bilbo’s memoirs.
(Sixth version) The remarks of this narrator are not pointedly ironical: he does not pretend to be ignorant while demonstrating his knowledge. And he is not judgemental: the interpretive remarks about ‘strange happenings’ & about Ham Gamgee’s having ‘the most attentive audience’ do not seem to be his opinions; rather, they seem to be the opinions of the community, which he is reporting. This narrator seems impartial: he sides neither with Bilbo nor with the community who think him strange.
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(Anyone still here?) Anyway, the question that arises for me, is the extent to which the narrative style determines the story, & to what extent the changes in the story dictate the change in narrative 'voice'.
Its almost as if we have (in the beginning) half a dozen different accounts, all of which, if the narrator was to be given free reign, would go off in different directions - six different Hobbit sequels, & Tolkien simply makes a choice as to which story he's going to tell us. And it seems as if the determining factor is his decision to write not a sequel to the Hobbit, but the final chapter of the Legendarium. Perhaps that's when it started to become a 'consciously Catholic' work - or at least when the seed was planted.