‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Aiwendil]

Your examples of Beethoven's Ninth & LotR don't work for me - if we only had those works in the forms you describe (which i can't think we would have, as there would be no interest in having them, so no publisher would make them available) & all we got was a slew of different versions, no one would no which one to take seriously.

You don't think that if The Lord of the Rings existed only as fragments, it would be of any value for someone to connect and edit those fragments to create a fully realized narrative? Would this thing not have value in itself, even though it was not "canonical" Tolkien?

Perhaps you do in fact think that it would be worthless. Fine. But obviously, a lot of people would disagree with you.

If FoG is the young Tolkien's mythologisation of his experience of the Somme, which I feel it is, to a great extent, & Tuor is the Older Tolkien's attempt to write a legend based in ME, detached by time & his own lifetime of other experiences, the two stories will not fit together in the way you assume.

Who said that we assumed they would fit together in some particular way?

I could argue that, in fact, the old FoG is not really as different from the later Tuor as you claim. But that is beside the point. They are both part of that complex body of source material called the Silmarillion. There are innumerable ways in which they could be put together. We have put them together in one particular way, because that is a way that we find interesting.

Yes, we have characters with the same name recurring throughout the Legendarium, but are they the same characters.

I think that's a meaningless question. They are not real; they are defined only as logical objects within the network of source material. In one sense, they are the same characters. In another they're not. That's purely a matter of definition.

which part of her story do you throw out - The beautiful scene of her rejection of the Ring, & repentance for her 'sins' in LotR (G1) or her role as leader of the forces of the West against Sauron, a role which Tolkien says is equivalent to the role of Manwe in the battle against Morgoth (G2)?

You don't throw anything out.

Instead, you create a new thing out of the old contradictory elements. If you like, you create two new things - each one reconciling the contradiction in its own way.

To take bits from both versions of these characters & try to create a 'canonical' Gollum (1+2 = ?) or a 'canonical' Galadriel seems doomed to failure

I think that perhaps you misunderstood some of my post. I didn't use the word "canonical" at all except when I said something about the ambiguity inherent in the word and when I said that "canonical Silmarillion" is a misnomer. As I said, there is an infinite number of possible Silmarillions. None of them is "official" or "canonical". But I think that a great many of them have value.

[The Saucepan Man]

Fordim

I consciously chose not to call the Guiding Hand in LotR Providence as that is a concept from the Primary World ...

We are sitting in the primary world looking into the fictional world, so I see nothing wrong with using primary world terms to describe concepts in the fictional world. After all, we talk of the concept of evil in Tolkien's works without having to refer to it as Morgothism or Sauronism.

... and I wanted something that would more correctly refer to the version of that (Christian) concept as it is subcreated in M-E.

Careful. You'll set me off again. Darn, too late! My problem with the term "Erusim" is that it implies an awareness of Eru, which many readers simply don't have when they approach LotR. It also implies (to me at least) that it is a concept which can only truly be appreciated by one with Christian beliefs, which I would reject entirely. The concept may be rooted in Tolkien's Christian beliefs, but it is one which a reader can understand and accept as exisiting in the fictional world regardless of his or her own beliefs. After all, we don't have to believe in Hobbits and Elves in the real world to accept their existence in Middle-earth.

So I prefer a more neutral term. And it may be that "providence" is not appropriate in this regard, since it too has strong Christian connotations (although my Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as "the protective care of God or nature"). What I am looking for is a term which admits all possible ways of regarding this "force", whether it be Eru, the Authority, one's own God or Gods, the Valar (as drigel suggests), the spirit of nature, the personification of Arda, the embodiment of fate, or even Tom Bombadil (who, as we know, is not Eru ). Any suggestions?

And I am not so sure that it is just a discussion over terminology, since the terms that we use have their own substantive implications. That is the reason that I am not comfortable with "Eruism".

my current position (and I’m comfortable with it) is that the “struggle” that takes place is entirely internal to the individual reader (or, more appropriately, lest Bêthberry should read this ) to the individual moment of readerly engagement with the text.

Gosh! That makes it all sound like a terribly arduous (Arda-uous?) process. Whereas it is, in my experience, a most enjoyable one. Most readers choose the manner of interpretation that they are comfortable with, and this almost invariably occurs entirely at the subconscious level. It is not so much a "struggle" as a natural process. And when we try to analyse why we react to a text in the way that we do and, in so doing, perhaps perceive a struggle, do we not risk losing davem's "enchantment"?

Yes, ensorcelled is very much a word, in the OED and everything.

It is? It's not in my Concise OD. But I shall take your word for it and use it henceforth at every available opportunity.

Davem

In his case, I can sympathise, because there was no way the publishers would have leapt straight into the publicaction of HoME, & he felt an obligation to make his father's Sil writings available to the public. With the publication of HoME this is no longer necessary.

So, with the publication of UT and HoME, you no longer regard the Silmarillion as having any value? If I am not misunderstanding you, I regard that as a very curious position to take. It may not be "canon" in the strict sense of the word, but it is nevertheless greatly valued by most Tolkien afficionados that I have encountered. And, although it may not have the same gravitas, the "one of many possible Silmarillions" which Maedhros, Findegil and Aiwendil are working on will undoubtedly be regarded as having value by many of those same Tolkien afficionados when it is complete. Does that not make it a worthwhile endeavour in itself, even though you personally may regard it of little value?

And I am with Bêthberry in finding your idea of a living Tolkien speaking to us through the pages of his works as difficult to accept. What Tolkien is saying to us is cast in stone (or paper). We may learn more about him as we read more widely, but what he says to us in any particular passage cannot change. Nor can it react to our responses and interpretations. It is a one way conversation. In that sense, it is not vibrant, which is surely the very essence of life. No, Tolkien is no more alive in his text than a departed loved one is alive in our vivd memory of them.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I’ve debated whether or not to post this, as it might reveal some of the real life me that I like to hide here – but it’s just so darn pertinent to the discussion that I have to contribute.

The other day I was delivering a public lecture on Tolkien to a group of about 200 non-Tolkien experts. (Yes, I actually get asked to talk to groups about Tolkien – and what the heck, just to make sure that you all hate me – I sometimes even get paid to do it.) When I say non-Tolkien experts I mean really non-experts: most of them had never read LotR or TH, and only a few of them had seen the movies: many had seen only one or two. They were just interested in hearing more about Tolkien and M-E, I guess…

Given my audience I kept it pretty general and talked about the subcreation of M-E in light of Tolkien’s life and Catholicism; I got into the creation of the languages and worked through the implications of the names of Aragorn, Arwen and Frodo. I just wanted to give them a sense of how Tolkien subcreated his world from and for the sake of his invented languages. Most of the comments afterward were extremely positive and many people left saying that they were going to read the books now (huzzah!). But I did get one very interesting response that has been nagging at me since.

An elderly woman (with a walker no less!) cornered me and thanked me for the talk, but she said that I had rather put her off the idea of reading the books. Frantic to find out why, I asked her what I had said or done. She simply said that she felt there was “too much she had to know about the book before she could understand it.” I desperately tried to fight a rearguard action, disavowing all that I had said in the previous hour and swearing to her up down and sideways that the books are more than capable of being enjoyed without any kind of the knowledge that I had been discussing. But she was immovable. “It’s too late, you see,” she explained to me. “Now that I know how much more there is to the book, I don’t think I’ll be able to appreciate it without knowing about all the rest.”

To be utterly frank, I’m not really sure what to make of this. An example of the enchantment being broken before the spell is even cast…? Or a potent reminder of what Gandalf says to Saruman: “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”