‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'? That would imply that some statements are 'right', & that even Tolkien could be wrong in the facts he stated about Middle earth. What strikes me most strongly is this sense that on some level we feel we can judge even Tolkien to have got things 'wrong' - even Aiwendil & I agree that some of the later writings (Myths Transformed) where Tolkien rewrites the cosmology, are 'mistakes' - they don't work - as CT himself more or less admits. Why this general agreement on where Tolkien got it right & where he got it wrong?

As to Tolkien's role in the mythology:

Originally Posted by SpM

He plays a very small role in the tale and acts purely as its archaeologist and translator. Within this fiction, the account was written by various Hobbit hands and unearthed and translated by the fictional Tolkien. He plays only a very limited editorial role in providing notes on translation and, on rare occasions (restricted almost entirely to The Hobbit and the Shire-based beginning of LotR), including the odd "story-teller's comment". Isn't that all we need to know about him (the fictional Tolkien, as opposed to the factual author) to understand his role in the story?

One could argue the same in regard to Eriol in the Lost Tales, but I don't think that actually stands up in his case. Aelfwine is actually a major character, with a detailed history, & to an extent Tolkien never completley rejected this 'framing device'. The point for me is that The 'translator' role is not necessary, & Tolkien, like the writers of every other fantasy novel could have left the idea out. It is this idea that Tolkien is merely passing on an already existing story/mythology, that adds to the verisimilitude of the world. We are repeatedly told by the translator, 'this really happened, I'm not making this up', & on some level we believe that, feel it to be true - because we have a sense of what is 'correct' & what is 'incorrect' - this has been pointed out in one of the currect 'Women' threads, the way some events in the story feel 'wrong' & 'break the spell' - but how are we making this judgement, & what are we basing it on? If the Art has no inherent 'meaning', does not 'refer' to or connect us with something 'objective' then where does the feeling come from? Because (imo) it is a different kind of feeling to the one I get with other works of fiction - I often feel that a writer has lost the plot, or failed to write a convincing character, or forced a situation in order to tie up loose ends, but almost never get the sense as I do with tolkien on rare occasions, that he has written something 'wrong', that it 'didn't happen that way'.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'? That would imply that some statements are 'right', & that even Tolkien could be wrong in the facts he stated about Middle earth. What strikes me most strongly is this sense that on some level we feel we can judge even Tolkien to have got things 'wrong' - even Aiwendil & I agree that some of the later writings (Myths Transformed) where Tolkien rewrites the cosmology, are 'mistakes' - they don't work - as CT himself more or less admits. Why this general agreement on where Tolkien got it right & where he got it wrong?

I agree that my question touches on the issues that you have been exploring, davem, for the reasons that you have stated. Although the "objective reality" theory does not provide the only answer. It could simply be that, having inwardly digested Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, we have become conditioned to his style and to the "atmosphere" (for want of a better word) of the world that he (sub) created and that we are therefore able, almost instinctively, to recognise what fits within that style and that world and what doesn't.

And it's also worth bearing in mind that there are areas where we, as individuals, will disagree on what fits and what doesn't. It is clear from discussions on this board that we will have different views on certain issues which will be incapable of being proved objectively as "right" or "wrong" by reference to Tolkien's works. The issue of homosexuality is one such issue. I personally see no reason why homosexual characters should not exist within Middle-earth, indeed it would seem strange to me if they didn't. And yet others see no place whatsoever for same sex relationships in Middle-earth. Similarly, when I raised the Gollum example above on another thread some time ago, there were those who posted to the effect that Tolkien's speculation on this point worked for them. And there are no doubt those who will happily accept Tolkien's re-writing of Middle-earth cosmology which you and Aiwendil find objection with. These individual variations in what fits in Middle-earth and what doesn't would seem to mitigate against the "objective reality" theory.

And yet, viewed at from the angle at which I have re-phrased the issue, I can see merit in the theory. There is, to use an oxymoron, a "fictional reality" upon which most, if not all, of us can agree, comprising the body of unpublished material which does not conflict with, or which can at least be reconciled with, the published works. It may even go further than that to encompass fan fiction writings (such as Mithadan's Tales of Tol Eressea, which seem to have met with almost universal acceptance) and individual theories on Middle-earth facts and events. Since this material is "unpublished" (in the sense that I am using the word) and, in the case of "universally acceptable" fan fiction etc, does not even flow from Tolkien himself, there is no reason why we should accept it as forming part of our image of Middle-earth almost without question. And yet we do. Why would this be if it were not in some sense real to us, even if it is a "fictional reality"? Hmm, I need to ponder this further ...

[HerenIstarion]

Just a minor point, for I believe the status of being published is less definitive to the canonicity issue then it may seem. It is very much circumstantial affair - if there were no shortages of paper in the post-war England, or if prior to the war the reader of the publishing house have seen the whole bulk of materials sent in, not the fragments of lays only, or if the post offices worked less or more bona fide and lost or did not loose (this latter we do not know, of course) one or more letters in correspondence of Tolkien with his publishers, if, if, if, if etc, the:

A. Published texts may have been different
B. There may have been more of them

Or, to put less words around it, the origin is what matters - i.e. the work should be written by Tolkien, but it's status as of being published or not is of less consequence

Or, I'm more or less in for historiography issue again - i.e. it matters if the source is genuine, it does not were it bound in leather and gold in its time or daubed on a hut wall.

[davem]

Originally Posted by H-I

Just a minor point, for I believe the status of being published is less definitive to the canonicity issue then it may seem. It is very much circumstantial affair - if there were no shortages of paper in the post-war England, or if prior to the war the reader of the publishing house have seen the whole bulk of materials sent in, not the fragments of lays only, or if the post offices worked less or more bona fide and lost or did not loose (this latter we do not know, of course) one or more letters in correspondence of Tolkien with his publishers, if, if, if, if etc,

This is a good point - something I speculated on in the latest Chapter by Chapter thread, where as Awendilpoints out CT says in HoME 7 that Bilbo's song of Earendil that appears in the published text is not the final version, the one that Tolkien intended to publish, its just that when it came time to send the poem to the publisher the final text was mislaid. So, if in the new 50th anniversary edition due out in November (which is supposed to be a definitive version, overseen by CT, & according to the publishers the LotR asTolkien would have wished it to appear) the final version of the poem replaces the one we've had for 50 years, which would be the 'canonical' version? It will include the facsimilies of the pages of the Book of Mazarbul which Tolkien wished included, but were left out for cost reasons - should they be included, as Tolkien originally wanted them in, or excluded, as Tolkien didn't publish an edition including them in his lifetime. And what about smaller errors in the text - ie, in the scene where Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli are pursuing the Uruk Hai, Aragorn finds Pippin's tracks, & says that they must be Pippin's as he was 'smaller than the other' CT points out that this obviously should have been 'smaller than the others, as the first version is quite insultingly phrased. So, which version should stand?

[Bêthberry]

Oh, this should be fun. More bones with some meat this time to throw into the cauldron of story.

We shall have to look at the structuralists of the last century who amassed their versions of fairy stories and consider their methods in determining the "prime" or "first" version out of which all others derived. Except we would be working forwards.

Or, we could all just dance on the head of a pin. It would be a springle ring dance of course.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I can see the debates now: how many BDers can dance on the head of a pin?

And would they be winged or not, as they did so?

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'?

Again we come to the "underlying reality" idea, which, I must confess, I still don't really understand.

Is this underlying reality just a convenient shorthand for referring to some specific fictional reality, such as "Middle-earth as Tolkien would have intended it if he had lived long enough to come to a final decision on everything?"

Is it a Platonic reality - the "essence" of Middle-earth - that exists, factually, on a different plane from our reality?

Is it a literally real place?

At different times, it has seemed to me like each of these contradictory definitions was intended.

But, like The Saucepan Man, I must say that I find it odd to maintain both the fundamental importance of the author and the objective existence of Middle-earth. It seems to me that you can't have it both ways. If Middle-earth has an objective, independent existence and Tolkien was merely "discovering" then you cannot see his work as essentially a manifestation of himself, any more than you can see the Pelopponesian war as a mere manifestation of Thucydides.

On the other hand, if art is really to be thought of in the modern way as a manifestation of the artist, then Middle-earth's origin, in fact its entire existence, is in Tolkien himself, as an artist.

Personally, I don't go for either view - Middle-earth as a real place or art as a manifestation of the artist. But my point here is simply that those two views seem to me to be inconsistent.

As for why we are capable of feeling that certain parts of the text are "wrong" - I see no real mystery about this. For a fact about Middle-earth to seem incorrect it only need contradict, explicitly or implicitly, another fact or set of facts about Middle-earth, one that the reader in question takes to be "true". In the case of The Saucepan Man's example about Gollum - here, based on the facts given in LotR, The Saucepan Man concludes that Gollum would have acted in a certain way had he regained the Ring at Mt. Doom. Tolkien's claim contradicts his conclusion, so he considers Tolkien's claim wrong. The contradiction need not be simple or literal.

In the case of Myths Transformed, I, at least, feel that the new cosmology was "wrong" in the sense that it damaged the story. There was no need for, nor in fact possibility of, Tolkien making the Silmarillion scientifically believable; hence the contortions he went through trying to achieve that believability only harmed the story. I don't need to hypothesize that there is a real Middle-earth and that it started out flat in order to come to this conclusion.

[mark12_30]

Again we come to the "underlying reality" idea, which, I must confess, I still don't really understand.

Tolkien also asked a similar question, it seems to me:

Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?