[Child of the 7th Age]

Laying aside all matters of family discord, which are not ours to comment on, I feel that Christopher is the victim of some very peculiar thought. And some wrong thought, as in the Boston news article Child links to, which is full of errors. CT was chosen by his father as the person best suited to oversee what is both a complex and highly lucrative estate. We must trust that JRR chose the right person putting all family issues aside.

Hmm. I am divided between respect for private property and the betterment of the masses here. Is it really that wrong of CT to control the works of his father from hordes of legitimate scholars with nevertheless unknown agendas that we can only guess?

I believe these two statements, though seemingly contradictory, both contain a great deal of truth. No decent person would want the kind of name calling and innuendo that appears in the original blog, and a writer like the one for the Boston Globe clearly has a personal axe to grind and is more concerned with grinding that axe than arriving at the truth.

Even so, there are troubling things that have previously been discussed on the BD and in other articles and websites concerning the actions of the estate. Many people of good will on this site and others have used words like "over-litigious" to describe what is going on. (I could link to prior posts but won't.) CT is rightfully the one who still makes the big decisions on things like this, and personal comments about him often surface in the course of these wider discussions, which has to be frustrating.

Still, Saurreg asks a legitimate question: exactly where should the line be drawn? I have a personal bias here. I was a librarian in charge of book selection for a large metropolitan system, and I feel there are legitimate issues of free expression.

It goes far beyond serving the interests of an "elite few". For instance, there used to be many Tolkien map sites on the web with a variety of resources. Some of these maps were copyrighted, but others were simply produced by readers who were responding to the books. These were small websites so financial considerations were not an issue. The estate threatened to bring lawsuits and all these sites were shut down so that it is now difficult to find a good online map. Writers outside the circle chosen by the estate have had trouble publishing some materials.

I also feel that studying Quenyan and Sindarin is more than an esoteric exercise reserved for a few. It gets into scholarly questions of the crafting of man-made languages and how these are different and similar to so-called natural languages. It is at least a legitimate question to ask if access to the linguistic papers should be restricted to just four people, when many others have petitioned to use them. These are not crackpot media types but legitimate scholars trying to do work.

The most vexing problem to me is the one posed by Tolkien's translation of Beowulf. A few years ago, everyone was abuzz with the news that Profesor Michael Drout had been authorized to begin preparing that manuscript for publication. A short time later, after undue media hype and craziness, the estate withdrew that permission, though Drout himself was not involved in anything inappropriate. No one knows if and when Tolkien's scholarly work on Beowulf will ever see the light of day. That flies in the face of everything I believe about academic inquiry, to say nothing of the many people who will never get a chance to read what Tolkien has written.

The sad fact is that decisions about Tolkien's writings are tainted by commercial considerations as well as the fact that the press acts irresponsibly. Although Beowulf may be a scholarly work, its publication could again place the family in the spotlight, and they are undoubtedly sick of that. Still, it is immeasurably sad that Tolkien's work as a medievalist is being hidden away because of problems like this. It's also impossible to say whether this situation will improve or not once control of the estate passes to the next generation. It is looking more likely that this control will rest not only with family representatives but scholars like Hammond and Scully. Christopher's son Adam also seems to be taking a larger role, and he is doing an excellent job in interviews. See here for Adam Tolkien's discussion of the upcoming Children of Hurin, which is a fascinating read. (Scroll down past the Spanish for English.)