‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[The Saucepan Man]

Excellent thread, Mr Hedgethistle. It raises issues which lurk just under the surface of many threads (in the Books forum at least), but which are rarely discussed directly.

Interpretation of the text in the sense that I’m working with as it pertains to the meaning and not just the factual accounts of the narrative – how much freedom do we have in this act? I accept that I cannot willy-nilly make up new elements of Middle-Earth ... but I do enjoy a certain latitude in interpreting what is already on the page, even if that interpretation goes against Tolkien’s own, do I not?

Of course you do. Everyone is free to interpret the meaning of the events portrayed in the book in whichever way they choose. The way that they choose will, however, depend upon the manner in which they approach the story. A reader who enjoys it as a cracking good yarn, but without any inclination to explore further the world which Tolkien created, will not be bound by (and most likely will be unaware of) the author's intentions. Those who are interested in learning more about Tolkien and his works (such as most, I should think, who post here) will be more inclined to accept such meaning as Tolkien himself attributed to his works. It is, I think, beholden upon those posting seriously here to at least acknowledge, if not accept, Tolkien's own thoughts on what he wrote.

An interesting point does arise, however, when a person crosses from one stage to another. Until I joined this site just over a year ago, the only works which I had read were the Hobbit and LotR (having made one failed attempt to read the Silmarillion aged 14). I have since read the Silm and Unfinished Tales, and I am currently working my way through Tolkien's Letters. And much of what I have learned in doing so has been a great revelation. As you would expect, it has added greatly to my knowledge and understanding of Tolkien's conception of Middle-earth and the events and characters portrayed in the first two books that I read. But I have also come across things which are at odds with the impressions which I originally formed when reading those two books. For example, when I first read LotR, I had no knowledge of the existence (within the imaginary world) of Eru, and so I had no conception of Gollum being pushed over the edge of the Crack of Doom by "God's finger" (as you so delightfully put it). I saw it as a fortuitous accident.

Now many of these "alternative views" I find relatively easy to accept, and I am able to adjust my understanding of the story without too much difficulty. The explanation of Gollum's fall is one such matter. But there are still one or two areas where I find Tolkien's own views on what he wrote difficult to reconcile with my own impressions, initially formed some 25 years ago. For example (staying on the Gollum theme), I find it difficult to accept that Gollum (in my conception of him) would, in any circumstances, voluntarily have thrown himself into the fires of Orodruin to destroy the Ring, as I think Tolkien suggests in one of his Letters that he might have done in different circumstances.

This is, I would have thought, an issue which affects most (if not all of us) since most people's first experience of Tolkien's writings will be the Hobbit and LotR, and they will inevitably form their own impressions of the characters and events portrayed. As serious Tolkien enthusiasts, are we justified in clinging to those first impressions, even when they may be at variance with Tolkien's own views, as subsequently discovered?