[Aiwendil]

The Saucepan Man wrote:

Now, I accept that it is unlikely to be in the nature of CT to introduce any changes which he does not believe represent his father's intentions. But I disagree with Aiwendil that he would not implement a change merely because he felt that it would improve the work.

Allow me to clarify. I believe that the criterion CT uses is always that the action is question is justified if and only if it represents his father's intentions better than all alternatives. When I discuss a hypothetical change that he "merely feels will improve the work" I mean one that does merely that and does not, in his view, bring the work closer to his father's intention.

One could say, I suppose, that he believes his father's intention was that the work be as good as possible, and so he could justify to himself any change that he believes improves the work. But that would really be a kind of dishonesty, at least in spirit. Every argument of Christopher's that I've ever seen has always struck me as extraordinarily objective, and I think that in most cases his analyses are quite correct.

Unlikely? Perhaps while the work remains in CT's care. But what of those who follow him as guardians of Tolkien's legacy? Perhaps they will consider themselves entitled (morally as well as legally) to continue tinkering with the text to better acheive what they see as Tolkien's original intent. Or perhaps they will take a less scrupulous approach than CT and seek to 'improve' on it for less worthy reasons.

If and when this happens it will be most unfortunate. But it has not happened yet. It seems a bit premature to start worrying about it - especially since, as you point out, this ought to be just as much a concern for any literary work. I do not think that CT's precedent makes some future distortion of the text much more likely.

Bethberry wrote:

Aiwendil, you make several assumptions which, were I to reply to them, would take this thread off topic. For instance, I think that "textual evidence" is as liable to faults of "recollection" as are other forms of interpretation. I have seen too many cases in the sciences where not just the methology but also the "world view" of authors has been questioned, sometimes approiately so , sometimes not. One of my husband's favourite books (he's a scientist) is Lies, D**n Lies, and Statistics.

Well, I don't wish to get into empiricism or constructivism or Bayes's theorem, so I will say nothing more about science.

But with regard to Christopher. Perhaps I'm being obtuse; but I do not see how any of his arguments or analyses are based on recollection in such a way as to make them subject to faults of memory - unless we are to suppose that he reads a sentence and immediately forgets it.

Child of the 7th Age wrote:

Taken as a whole, I do not see the string of these revisions, even those dating from 1974 on, as "marring" Tolkien's core text or meaning. But neither do I see them as a great restoration of his original vision.

Indeed; I think it fairly silly to suppose that "marring" or "restoring" Tolkien's vision is a matter of a few minor changes to the text - or even 360.