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Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle
Any news yet on when Jackson's letters are to be published?
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Well, of course I am somewhat skeptical of gossip, but I heard that Jackson does not in fact use letters,
Fordim. He uses email exclusively, except for legal contracts. What tends to give this story credence as far as I am concerned is the fact that this Tolkien guy
has apparently already published his Letters. I know, I know, my argument is a bit convoluted, but let me explain.
Consider this for a sec. Tolkien is getting wind of the kind of thinking that we Downers here are in the forefront of promulgating--that he is just a second rate hack standing on the shoulders of giants to win acclaim and fortune--and he's getting nervous. So he's doing some spin to reposition himself.
What kind of spin? He's trying to present himself as the original, primal source, not some post-movie bandwagon writer. Talk about spin, eh? He is doing this by imitating the habits of communication used in the early twentieth century before movies and the internet provided us with ideas as they happen. Tolkien is going back to the old form of correspondence, letters.
So Tolkien's Letters are part of his attempt to place his work in the past, as a prequel to Jackson's. To show what ends he went to, to create this verisimilitude of a primary world, apparently he even supplied smudged carbon copies of letters he claimed to have sent.
So, that’s the extent to which this sorry interloper will go to create evidence of his primacy.
This of course leads me to wonder if Tolkien would have spread the story himself, a bit of agitprop, that Jackson does not employ letters?
At the same time could be just another old wives' tale of course. Maybe we'll just have to wait until Jackson is dead before we find out if he prefers letters or some other form of posting.