Lalwendė
"Gandalves"! What a fine term. It made me smile, but it also contains a great deal of truth!
Davem -
Quote:
We have all this just in Tolkien's own writings - when we come to the versions of the texts which were 'edited' by CT we find ourselves in even greater difficulties. As Child says, these are basically insurmountable difficulties - if we wish to look at them in that way.
But these aren't 'problems' unless we demand some kind of consistency across all Tolkien's writings. We have internal consistency within each work, which is all we really need to enter in & be convinced by the 'reality' of the 'secondary world'. To demand any more would be unfair. Probably it would have been impossible for Tolkien to write LotR if he had stuck too closely to TH. He had to break free of the style & mood of TH before he could produce LotR.
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I couldn't agree with you more. To me, the differences in the texts are very real, and I can't gloss them over with a simple rewrite of the Riddles chapter. The varying characterization of Gandalf is just one part of a wider puzzle. A talking purse for a troll and a multitude of Elven rings simply don't exist within the Middle-earth of the Silm or LotR. These are only two small examples from many that could be highlighted. But even these two small changes suggest a different world, one where magic plays a primary role. I believe that we are dealing here with more than simple variations in tone, narrative voice, and characterization, or understanding that one part of the Redbook was written by a less mature Bilbo or a more naturally solemn Frodo, although all these factors are worthy of discussion and certainly play a role.
Lke you,
Davem my "solution" to all this would be
not to impose a solution at all, but simply to enjoy the variation and diversity expressed in the different texts. I think you are correct when you suggest that one of the things holding Tolkien back from doing revisions on the Silm was his desire to have complete consistency within the Legendarium. And, like you, I actually prefer much of the content of HoMe and UT to that of the Silm. The stories are richer and show what Tolkien thought at different points in his life. I also have less trouble deciphering the mind of CT from that of his father.
The funny thing is that this is exactly what historians are compelled to do, especially when dealing with the very wiggly chronicles of the medieval period. Sometime it's possible to find a way to synchronize differing accounts of things, but at other times the only real option is to leave the differences extant (and perhaps have an argument about which comes closest to the 'Truth'). So,in a certain sense, the legendarium with all its funny twists and side alleys is truthfully more like "real" history than a more sanitized version would be.
Fordim has made an excellent point in noting that the sentiment Gandalf expresed at the end of The Hobbit could also have been uttered by the later Gandalf of LotR. There are underlying themes and ideas that have to do with morality and a view of the world that we can see consistently through allTolkien's writings. These ideas helped to form and shape his characters, and they do not change. In that sense, we may have multiple Gandalves, but there is one core set of values that animate him, however differently they may be expressed.
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BTW, no one has mentioned my favorite Gandalf of all who shows up in an intriguing piece of the Hobbit story that lies outside the actual book. I love "Quest of Erebor" and how it reveals a picture of Gandalf as a maia sent to Middle-earth to choose someone for a task. This whole section also adds great depth to the character of Bilbo that goes beyond anything we read in the original tale.
Although dealing with the Hobbit tale, the Quest was probably written in 1953-1955, as the appendices for LotR were being fleshed out. The original intent was to include the material as part of Section III of Appendix A concerning Durin's folk. This was not done, most likely because of pressure from the publisher to keep things down to a reasonable number of pages. Still, I am glad it was published as a separate essay rather than trying to find a place for these ideas in the Hobbit itself.