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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
How 'purist' are we to be? You can't get any better than Christopher Tolkien in terms of a Tolkien expert.
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I don't think it's a question of being purist.
Aiwendil has already demonstrated on the Chapter by Chapter discussion of The Silm some of the very significant editorial changes which CT made to The Silm papers. I don't condemn CT for this, but merely note that such changes are significant.
I suppose we can argue until the elves are untied from Arda's fate about who would be the best expert to handle the Tolkien papers. However, the very nature of the closeness between father and son makes me at least hesitate to accept unconditionally texts from CT's hands or even from the Tolkien Estate.
Often families wish to preserve an untarnished image of their famous member for history's sight. They withhold information which they regard as too deeply personal, about both themselves and about the famous author. They withold letters which they view as possibly too negative. They withhold things which in all superficial fairness they think are not significant, being blinded by their closeness to possibilities of significance. All families have skeletons, as do all writers, particularly dead ones.
The Letters we have now of Tolkien's are incomplete. What letters have been withheld or even suppressed? Isn't there a diary that has been preserved?
Why, for instance, are we not to have Tolkien's translation of
Beowulf?
It's a delicate balance, being a literary executor and editor, of insight, respect, intuition, knowingness, objective sense. Being a son or friend does not always mean having the clearest vision.
I suppose, rather than dithering back and forth, we ought simply to wait to see what the book brings.