Christopher Tolkien

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've often wondered what it is like for Christopher Tolkien, always living in his father's shadow. How much time he devoted to sorting and editing those notes! He was a professor himself and could have worked on something of his own. But he chose to dedicate his life to the completion of what his father's great genius started, working methodically as his father never could. I agree with Squatter that monetary motivation can't have been the primary reason; the family has earned more on royalties of Hobbit and LotR than the HoME can ever earn.

I think it was rather selfless of Christopher Tolkien to devote himself to the work of preparing the great mythology of Middle-earth for publishing! He certainly did us and our discussions a favour.

[Durelin]

I just think we need to thank God for Christopher Tolkien! I think of poor Charles Schultz and how his son wouldn't continue the 'Peanuts' comics, and just think of how fortunate it was that one of Tolkien's children took an interest in his work.

but tried to squeeze every possible buck out of every letter and doodlescrap of his fathers.

Hmmm...and why not, is all I have to ask. Christopher Tolkien has 'filled in the cracks,' as kboleen said, and now he is able to make money off of the 'enterprise' his father created. I do think it has become a true enterprise. And Christopher has been doing great things for it. Why not benefit from it?

I myself am glad that he is benefiting from it, and think that Estelyn wrapped up the 'why' very nicely.

Somehow I can't believe he's so old already - after all, I've always thought of him as "Tolkien's son". And most likely - sigh - he will be gone in just a few years. How healthy is he, anyways?

About Christopher Tolkien being modivated by money - I don't think anybody can really accuse him of that. Think about how much work he devoted to reading every freakin' letter and note his father left behind. He spent years doing that, and, in the end, he earned a couple of bucks and published some books that have the name "J.R.R. Tolkien" written in cover.

[Gorwingel]

I have never ever even had the thought that he was just publishing for the money. In my opinion much of the work that he has edited together and released is stuff that Tolkien would have published anyway, if he just would have lived longer. I know that there are a lot of movie fans that have been angry at him for not allowing the opening of a film museum (for which they need the estate's permission), his opinion of the films, and the disgust that he has shown about the plans for a Hobbit film. He has just been saying what he personally believes, and of course what many other Tolkien fans believe too. But I believe that he has done a very good job taking care of the estate, and if he was really just out for money, I don't think that he would have taken such care.

[Legolas]

Somehow I can't believe he's so old already - after all, I've always thought of him as "Tolkien's son."

JRR was born in 1892. Chris was JRR's second youngest child (born in 1924), but surely we wouldn't expect him to have a son past the age of 40 - still, that's 1932. This was all quite a long time ago, even to the oldest members here Older than my parents' parents.

[Snowdog]

I don't see publishing several different versions of stories in the Silmarillion "fills in the blanks". Now the Unfinished Tales did fill in the blanks, and there are surely tidbits of good stuff sprinkled throughout the 12 volumes of HoME but I am of the opinion that it was overkill.

To be fair, he was probably well-off enough financially for his motives in publishing the letters and HoME not to have been entirely monetary; and I for one am glad he has published what he has.

I never said he wasn't well off, but it does come across as trying to get as much as possible. As for me, it don't matter how Middle Earth is supposed to be like our Earth in some way or the other, so I won't be paying for the HoME.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I'm not of that opinion. I am especially not of the opinion that just because someone can't understand the point of something it must be a shameless cash-in. Unfinished Tales fills in blanks, The Silmarillion as a complete published text is a fulfillment of J.R.R. Tolkien's lifelong dream, but The History of Middle-earth is not meant as something to fill in the blanks in a fan's knowledge. It is intended to give the reader an insight into how the legends developed, what inspired them, and the amount of time that J.R.R.T. spent developing and refining his mythology and languages. Some of the writings in the HoME were unknown to C.R.T. when he published the Silmarillion in 1977: this wasn't a small collection of papers that he was editing together, but sixty years of constant invention, revision and composition, which had been kept in an extremely disordered condition. There were bound to be omissions from the final edited work, and the HoME is intended to lay before the reader a lot of excellent writing that couldn't be included in the Silmarillion or was still sitting at the bottom of a box of documents in 1977. If this writing is of no use to someone who wants a definitive final version of the legends of Middle-earth (as possible and likely a thing as there being a definitive version of Hellenic or Norse mythology), it is still of use to someone who is interested in J.R.R. Tolkien's creative process or who doesn't care how many times something was superseded as long as it's an enjoyable read.

I am currently reading The History of Middle-earth, and so far it has been a fascinating journey through the mind of a truly remarkable man. The Silmarillion by its very nature cannot explain how and why it came to be written, or what inspired its author: the creative process is hidden by a complete and finished narrative. However, Christopher Tolkien was unhappy with the editorial work he had done, so he laid as much of the material he had used before interested readers as he could. The Revised Silmarillion project on the Downs is only possible because of this later work of CJRT's.

Even if the publication of HoME was superfluous, why can we not assume that it was a love of his father's writing (of which he was one of the first fans) that kept Christopher Tolkien editing his way through his father's works instead of devoting his time to his own professorial career? I and many others have found that the HoME have enriched our appreciation of the Tolkien corpus and deepened our understanding, not to mention made available some of his best writing, dropped because a newer version came along or because it was lost in his notes. As Terentianus Maurus pointed out in the quotation I gave above, it's all down to the reader. Go looking for something that tells you 'this is what happened at this point in LotR' in HoME and you will be disappointed. Go looking for an idea of just how fecund was Tolkien's mind or how he approached creative writing and you will find a wealth of information; go looking for good writing, previously unpublished because it failed to fit in with some grandiose all-embracing mythological vision and you will find it.

Again I would like to point out that with Christopher Tolkien people always assume that he's on the make, trying to squeeze as much money and mileage out of his father's work as possible. Not only do I not agree (although I can imagine that I might want to get paid for twenty years of work as well), but I am also mystified at why people are always assuming the worst of Christopher Tolkien, but giving the makers of the recent films the benefit of the doubt. It seems to me to be a completely wrong-headed double standard that profits no-one.