‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[doug*platypus]

if the author hadn't intended us to know anything besides what was in the published stories only, then he didn't have to leave it around to be published later. But he *wanted* to publish the Silmarillion; he *wanted* to respond to (respectfully phrased) questions about Middle-Earth and its denizens.

Fordim, your first post is an excellent and refreshing train of thought, not to mention very well written. On the whole, however, I agree with Mark 12:30. Tolkien's rigid insistence on continuity and almost pedantic ability to fill in minor details do not leave us a lot of elbow room. I can't help but feel that the more we carelessly speculate about Orcs and Balrogs, the more likely we are to come up with ideas that run contrary to those of the Professor, who is ultimately the author of his own works.

Does Tolkien's authorship give him absolute control over those works? No; once they were published and widely read, they began to take on a life of their own, in the minds of others, apart from Tolkien. This is an incredible thing, especially in the case of Tolkien, since his works struck a chord with so many of us. But it is not always a good thing. Without entering into a discussion about them here, I'd like to bring up the Movies. The filmmakers had the daunting task of filling in many, many gaps in detail, without the collaboration of the author. While the cast and crew did a bang-up job overall, many glaring... differences... (for the sake of this discussion I won't call them errors!) between the text and the script have been noticed.

Given this idea (which, again, was Tolkien’s own) of the writer-as-historian, then does this not mean that we – the readers – are not only able, but compelled, to seek always to reinterpret the tales from our own standpoint rather than continually try to figure out what the ‘first’ historian made of them?

Well, we now have a large-scale modern reinterpretation to judge by. My question is, can the original intentions of an author be subverted by those of a later interpreter? At what point do we say, "this is no longer a faithful representation of the original", or "this is only loosely based on the original", or cry "SACRILEGE!"? And if the material as reinterpreted comes up greatly different from the original, shouldn't the reinterpreter (great word) just come up with their own vessel for telling a new story?

I agree wholeheartedly that we have not only the ability, but the obligation to examine the works of Tolkien, and well, everybody to the depth that they deserve. I also feel that during the course of our reading it may be possible to discover things in Middle Earth that Tolkien himself may not have consciously put there. Fordim's description of the class struggle in the Shire is a possible example of this. However I feel that if he were able today, JRRT would like to have the last say on such reinterpretations. Judging by many of the negative comments contained in Letters, the last say would not always be pleasant.

[mark12_30]

Fordim wrote:

am I really “free to let my imagination run wild?” Can I ‘make’ the people of Ered Luin into creatures with six arms and wings, who eat nothing but the bark of oak trees and kill their enemies by bombarding them with sea-shells…just by imagining them as such?

Sure. You just can't call it 'canon'. It's now your own imagination.

Once I would have been horrified by your six-armed, winged, shell-throwing bark-eaters; but then I reread the Sil, and re-discovered (to my horror) that Luthien by her arts had changed Beren into a werewolf, and herself into... a bat. Horrors! How undignified! Professor, you can't be serious.

(EDIT: I realize on rereading that was hazy... I say this because I think Tolkien had a very adventurous side. I would never turn an elf into a bat, would you? So how do you know he'd be horrified by your new creatures? He might be, but who knows? He'd be far, far more horrified if you married Frodo off or described Aragorn cheating on Arwen. ...end edit)

Once you begin creating new creatures that aren't in Tolkien's writings, you're doing your own subcreation now. If you were writing fanfiction, you'd put in the copyright part, "Tolkiens' creations belong to him, and mine belong to me" or some legalese version of that (I'm no lawyer.)

The professor's reaction might have been, put them in somebody else's mountains, not mine. But I don't think he would have told you to stop sub-creating.

Interestingly, as soon as you say this, you seem to back away from such an absolute freedom of the reader by insisting that “if we want to re-arrange Tolkien's world, we may do so, but let's not call it Tolkien's 'canon' in the process.”

And I stand by that. Perhaps it seems contradictory. But then, Tolkien both hoped/wished/expected his mythology to be added to by others, and, jealously guarded it to be his own. THere's a contradiction there too.

So you would seem to be suggesting that the “freedom” you talk of is a lot more complicated than it would appear: I can “re-arrange” the world, but without having any kind of ‘real’ effect on it?

Just like Jackson did; he rearraged many things; but the books are still there, on my shelf, unabridged, unedited and reliable.

How much freedom is that? It sounds more like the freedom of the deranged man to say what he wants about the world, since, as everybody knows, he’s mad and therefore harmless: we already know what the ‘truth’ is so let him have his little say.

Frankly, I’d like to think that there’s a bit more room for me in the sub-creation of Middle-Earth than that!

It depends on whether you are trying to write something which might make Tolkien happy (some writers do) or whether you're trying to do something original using Tolkien as a starting place. Or to put it another way, it depends on whether you want to write "Gap fillers" which should be strictly canonical by definition, or, take some liberties and go off on a tangent. What would an elf have to say about your winged-six-armed-bark-eaters, anyway? It's a free country; you can write a story about a canonical elf encountering something very, very strange and 'non-canonical'. Just don't make it a "gap filler."

Maybe we need a table of applications for the word "canonical". It's been discussed before. Pio made the point in this thread that as soon as somebody else starts writing/ inventing other than the professor, it's no longer canon. I'd agree. SO I suggested (allow me the conceit of quoting myself) the following categories for RPGs or fanfics (they'd apply to any TOlkien-related creativity) :

Canon-Consistent: no deviations allowed. Pure Tolkien. If it's not in, alluded to, or clearly allowed (erring strictly on the side of safety) by one of his (later??) books, you can't do it. Or perhaps, you would have to argue your case before the moderator.

Canon-Friendly: Not quite so strict. If it's close, with pretty much Tolkien's style and grace and flavor, we'll go with it, and hope he wouldn't frown too hard.

Alternate Universe-- the What-Ifs. What if Frodo got married, what if Boromir didn't die...

and... Other.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Just like Jackson did; he rearranged many things; but the books are still there, on my shelf, unabridged, unedited and reliable.

Ah, but this is the point I’m working through here…the text itself is unedited by anyone else’s interpretation, but how “reliable” is it, really? We’ve moved away a bit from where we started, I think, insofar as we’re talking more and more about the kinds of ‘adding’ that come about through rewriting the text in whatever way (e.g. fanfiction, rpg-ing, speculation). This is really my fault, I know, as I simply could not resist those six-armed bark eaters! But to return to the point that I really wanted to address…

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 (and that list you’ve provided Mark 12:30 from Pio is remarkably useful and concise in this), 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?

The example I can use here is the climactic moment of LotR as Gollum goes into the fire. This moment has been clearly interpreted for us by Tolkien himself in the Letters (and elsewhere); he says that the struggle and moral choices of Frodo and the other heroes have lead to this moment, and brought about the right circumstances in which God’s finger ‘intrudes’ into the story and ‘pushes’ Gollum into the fire. (I don’t have my books with me at the moment so I can’t check his exact wording.) But there are at least two other ways I can interpret this same moment, without questioning/rewriting the ‘facts’ of it:

1. Gollum falls in by pure chance. There is no ‘push’ from outside the event by Providence, Eru or Anyone else. It’s just dumb luck that saves the day.

2. Gollum jumps in himself – the last bit of him that is Smeagol realises that he cannot hope to keep the Ring for his own, so he chooses to end his life in possession of the Ring rather than face having it taken from him again, OR perhaps he even does it with his last shred of goodness to save the world, OR perhaps he does it in response to Frodo’s earlier ‘command’ in the Emyn Muil (“If I should command you to throw yourself into the fire when I had it [the Ring] on, you would be compelled to do so” – again, I’m not sure this is exactly right).

I’m not actually trying to argue for any of these interpretations, I only give them to point out that they are all at least possible: they are all supported by the facts of the book, and each one of them makes sense. The only grounds we have to reject these interpretations in favour of Tolkien’s own is that Tolkien, as the sub-creator of this world, has more ‘right’ than the reader to declare what’s ‘true’.

And here we go back to the quote that Bêthberry has wonderfully provided us with:

I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

As soon as we declare that Tolkien’s interpretation is ‘right’ and all others ‘wrong’ we are, in effect, becoming Nazgûl to Tolkien’s Sauron! We are claiming that the only source of truth in Middle-Earth is Tolkien’s and giving way, gleefully, to the “purposed domination of the author”. We get to be ‘right’ about the work and everyone else is ‘wrong’ because we’ve read the Letters and know what’s what, while others not so enlightened are out there crazily and wrongly coming up with what they want to about the world.

But it gets even more complicated!!! To declare that my interpretation number one (above) is right, is to call into question the whole moral fabric of Middle-Earth, as it was conceived by its sub-creator. Just because a particular reader does not believe in Providence, does not mean that he can make the history of Middle-Earth non-providential, for that history is not of the primary world, but of Tolkien’s secondary world. Eru is as ‘real’ as Frodo or the Silmarils, so we can’t question Him or His plan. But then where is the “applicability” of the text for a reader who interprets Gollum’s fall in manner number one?

So we get stuck, I think, between some hard choices. On the one hand, we want to accept Tolkien’s authority on how to interpret this moment, since it is his world after all (Eru/Providence pushed Gollum) – but to do this is to give way to the “purposed domination of the author”. On the other hand, we want to interpret this moment for ourselves, since we are the ones reading it after all (it’s possible to read Gollum’s fall as blind luck) – but to do this we put in jeopardy the “applicability” of the tale by questioning, or overthrowing outright, the ‘rules’ of Tolkien’s secondary world in favour of our own understanding of the primary world.

I do hope that this overly long post makes sense – if anyone gets to the end of it, let me know and I will throw a few reputation points your way as a thank you.

[piosenniel]

Here is a former thread for perusal which might have a small bearing on this:

Canon and Fanfiction

And one other, for those readers wondering what 'canon' might refer to, as I did when I first found the Downs:

Questions of Canon

[Imladris]

I don't have time to read the links that Pio so kindly offered, but I would like to say something.

In a book, the writer doesn't "do" everything. The writer and reader have to meet half way. I think it's like the writer is pointing the way from point A (the beginning) to Point B (the end of the book) for the reader to follow. How the reader gets to point B depends on himself to a certain extent. Hopefully he won't come up with some wild theory that is definitely anti Tolkien.

In life, there is more than one way to do things, so there is more than one way to interpret a story. Take your example of Gollum and the Ring. I think we can all agree that because of Gollum's pride (his gleeful dancing about instead of putting the Ring on and disappearing) was his fall (Pride cometh before a fall). However, specific ideas such as Eru pushed him in, he merely fell in, or Smeagol took over for a bit and decided to save the world, etc, are merely details that fit a person's world view. That's one of the reasons why, I think, Tolkien touches so many people. He left those details (religious details if you would) out, letting the reader decide for himself.

Of course, a reader can't deny that Eru didn't exist because he obviously did. However, they don't have to accept Tolkien's definition of it.

Those are my amateur thoughts on the subject.

[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?

[Lord of Angmar]

This thread is such a marvelous read. Thanks to all parties involved, discussions such as this seem few and far between nowadays (for me, at least).

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?(Saucepan Man)

This is certainly an interesting point; should we as readers feel compelled, or even responsible or obligated, to dispossess any "first impressions" if they are found to conflict with or vary from the views and ideals of the author put forth in the piece we are reading? I am conflicted. To an extent I would like to say that yes, we are or should be obliged to keep in mind the author's views as we read a piece of literature, since otherwise how can we possibly do said piece the justice that its creator feels it deserves? At the same time, though, I think the reader should cling to some of those initial impressions, if it enhances their reading experience. I will never forget the first time I read the Lord of the Rings, and the impressions I had of certain places, things and events in the book that stuck with me even after multiple readings and delving deeper into the Tolkien Legendarium, even though I now know many of those impressions to be incorrect or slightly "off" from what I reasonably feel the Professor would have liked. The Tolkien enthusiast as a reader, I believe, should err on the side of his/her own personal enjoyment of the experience of reading Tolkien's works. The Tolkien enthusiast as a discusser, however, should not be obliged to use his/her own theories about unresolved Middle-earth issues as anything more than theories - however well-educated on the subject the theorists might be.