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Old 08-18-2023, 01:09 PM   #4
Galin
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,031
Galin is a guest at the Prancing Pony.Galin is a guest at the Prancing Pony.
Quote:
"(. . .) If "composed" is a just word. Bilbo was not assiduous, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little."

JRRT, The Lord of the Rings, first edition Foreword
I suppose the problem of the "path to the Stone Trolls and so on" (the problem as laid out in The History of The Hobbit) can fall under such a general "out". JRRT worked on a proposed solution for the 1960 Hobbit, but for whatever reason, didn't fully incorporate this for the Third Edition Hobbit.

That said, I often end up disagreeing with folk what think Hobbity X or Y doesn't "fit" within the world of Middle-earth, like, as already mentioned, the giants and the singing of the Elves at Rivendell.

__________

aside: I realize Tolkien wrote a new Foreword to The Lord of the Rings.

I don't care

And I actually disagree with JRRT's reason for thinking the original Foreword needed to be replaced. The original, author-published Foreword is the version for me, as it's internal -- the second Foreword is Tolkien as author, not translator.
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