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Old 10-28-2015, 12:10 PM   #4
jallanite
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
jallanite is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Priya Seth’s article seems to me typical. The explainer explains that Tolkien really didn’t mean it when he wrote that Tom was a enigma, usually lying that an enigma must have an answer. But see the definition of enigma at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/enigma or elsewhere. Tolkien may have meant that Tom was an unsolved enigma, which is what most references to the word use it to mean.

Priya Seth writes:
Key or not – ultimately any solution claimed has to withstand rigorous examinations, leaving no room for inconsistencies. It must comprehensively address the more curious behavior, deeds and words spoken by Tom (or about Tom) in the novel. And to be viable, it must also embrace noteworthy remarks in Tolkien’s letters. It must be a unifying theory that explains it all – down to the least detail. Well what a challenge – but let’s see how far I can go!
In short, Priya claims that if there is any failure or ambiguity in Tolkien’s explanation, as explained by her, then the explanation fails as a whole. Yet Priya claims that Tolkien:
… neatly solves the paradox of the Ent being “the oldest living thing … in Middle-earth” and Tom being “Eldest”.
Tolkien never himself points out this supposed paradox. Treebeard can only be “the oldest living thing … in Middle-earth” if Gandalf, Sauron, Saruman, Radagast, the Balrog of Moria, and the nameless things who gnaw the Earth and are unknown to Sauron because they are older than he are not counted. It is apparent that Treebeard may be the oldest of the kelvar still surviving in Middle-Earth at the end of the Third Age, but there are various other beings older than he. Her paradox does not exist.

Priya claims:
Tom pledged never to keep anything that belonged to another in the theater, for himself.
I don’t see Tom making such a vow. Priya is apparently referring to Tolkien’s suggestion that Tom role is to be compared to taking a vow of poverty. But this is only a comparison. Gandalf suggests that Tom would be an unsafe keeper for the Ring because such things do not interest him, not that Tom has vowed to abstain from them.

Priya claims:
At the point “Eä!” was uttered, the Universe was created and the Professor’s great drama could now be properly played out as a theatrical production.
Then does Priya claim that almost the entire “Ainulindalë” is not be included in Tolkien’s legendarium?

Priya notes:
We must take special care to heed how Tom said: “he remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn”. The Fellowship of the Ring text does not state: ‘felt’ the raindrop or ‘held’ the acorn. How believable would it be that Tom was physically in Middle-earth at coincidentally the exact places and times of these monumental scientific occurrences, and then accidentally witnessing them?
I don’t see what Priya is on about. My understanding is that Tom is referring to having witnessed the first raindrop in that part of the world, and having seen the first oak tree in that part of the world to sprout from an acorn. I don’t see that whether Tom actually ‘felt’ the raindrop or ‘held’ the acorn is thought important or that it is important that Fellowship does not tell us whether this happened or not.

Priya notes:
Unbeknownst to him, a beautiful yellow-haired nymph would emerge from water: Goldberry was awaiting ‘on stage’!
Now Tom forcibly seizes for himself another actor, not a member of the audience like himself, and takes her as his wife. Priya’s allegory becomes confused here. Or if Priya wants to imagine that Tom and Goldberry are supposed to only be acting, that is only her invention, not anything Tolkien wrote.

I could continue, but essentially I don’t find anything that Priya writes here convincing. She makes it clear that she thinks that Tom is Tolkien’s idea of an audience but her lack of any valid argument does not convince me.

Why did Tolkien not write this down instead of being coy, as she claims? Could Tolkien have actually meant what he did write down, that Tom was an Enigma‚ which I interpret to mean, and I believe this to be the normal meaning, unexplained enigma?

Priya Seth’s book Breaking The Tolkien Code was introduced to this forum by you and seems to have impressed no-one here but yourself favorably. At the time I posted in respect to a comment in which Nerwen suggested that you were possibly the author posting under another name, that you normally posted at The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza where you were credited with 139 posts, all but one pushing The Tolkien Code, which seemed normal. Now I find only the single post which is the lead to a thread on The Tolkien Code, which other than your lead article contains only 12 responses, most very negative. See http://www.lotrplaza.com/showthread....hlight=balfrog. So have your earlier posts at The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza been deleted?

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Oops! Have found the posts. See http://www.lotrplaza.com/showthread....hlight=balfrog and http://www.lotrplaza.com/showthread....hlight=balfrog. My error.

Last edited by jallanite; 10-31-2015 at 09:37 AM.
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