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I'm starting to wonder whether what we're all looking for isn't more likely to be found in (good) fan-fic than in 'Tolkien Studies'.
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Yes. Hopefully I will not be tossed out of the Books forum for saying this, but I agree.
I will not get into the discussion of the scholarly literature coming out this year, at least not in this particular post, since I am keeling over and about to fall asleep. And I will certainly concede that much of what passes as fanfiction is not well done. I've said this before on other threads, but I think it bears repeating. I feel that in the long run--the very long run after copyright expires--that,
if Middle-earth survives as "true myth", it will eventually go the same path as the Arthurian legend, albeit in a modern mode and with modern means of transmission.
The heart of the thing lies in the stories, and there will be---dare I say must be--other storytellers to carry on the world. Otherwise, it becomes a dead place that only scholars mull over. A dead place will lose its vitality and wither, and I don't want that to happen to Middle-earth. When Tolkien rhapsodized in his Letters about the need for other hands to fill in the empty spaces, I don't think he was kidding. Maybe he was thinking more of music and art, but I believe he would eventually have extended that to written and spoken words. That is the nature of myth. To survive in a meaningful form, myth must be constantly reinterpreted. The best way to do that is not by scholarly essays but by stories.
Some of my fondest depictions of the Arthurian world are through "secondary" authors like T. H. White, who essentially gave us a reinterpretation of Mallory. His story did not take away anything from Mallory but merely added something new. Someday, perhaps, eons in the future,
if the Middle-earth writings survive Tolkien will have a T.H. White as Mallory had one (and Mallory himself, of course, is a gloss on even earlier chroniclers of the Arthurian tale). As a man who loved and believed in myth, Tolkien, I think, would not have disapproved.
I love to read some of the threads in the Books forum but this is why I put most of my personal energy into the RPG forums and private short fanfics. I truly believe that, if all I had focused on was the scholarly end of things, I might have left the Downs some time ago. As it is, I feel I have a great deal more that needs to be said, but largely in story format. It's the pull of the story that draws me back.
This is probably way off topic from what you wanted and, if so, I apologize.
