If you’ve carefully read and fully digested my thoughts in all prior posts - you, like me, have quite possibly come to the conclusion that Tolkien gave us a tantalizing glimpse of Middle-earth Faërie. But also, one might note, in this ‘adult fairy tale’ he demanded something from the reader. And that was for us to decipher his ‘riddle in the dark’ - possibly a continuation of the hit theme from
The Hobbit.
Tolkien, in Arthur Conan Doyle* fashion, spread out the evidence leaving the barest of allusions. He left it to us to fill in gaps using reasoning and logic while providing deftly buried clues.
But why did he do it? And why didn’t he ever tell us?
We will probably never know for sure, but if he had - this ‘wild goose chase’ that has been embarked upon - does seem to be something Tolkien could well have dreamt up. Clearly he had a formidable arsenal of cryptic techniques at his fingertips along with the necessary skill to both invent and clandestinely hide riddles. So perhaps we should not be so surprised if ‘stuff’ has been secretly hidden within his opus. At this point, I’m reminded of what Clyde Kilby relayed in
Tolkien and The Silmarillion when Tolkien offered up:
“... if I would hold it confidential, he would ‘put more under my hat’ than he had ever told anyone.”
Unfortunately Kilby also related:
“... any discussion of his most deeply private world was simply impossible for him.”
These statements are interesting in that they were made in 1966. And if Tolkien indeed told the truth (there really is no reason to doubt him, or Kilby’s account) then nobody knew of the true depths of
TLotR - not even his son and chief collaborator, Christopher. That’s how secretive Tolkien Sr. could be!
* Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond document:
“King Edward’s School Chronicle … comment on the high popularity with the boys of books by Arthur Conan Doyle, … By 1913 Tolkien must have read … Arthur Conan Doyle’s The White Company (1891), …”.
–
The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide 2017 Edition, A Reader’s Guide, Reading – pg. 1054, C. Scull & W. Hammond