Tolkien and the Book

[Child of the 7th Age]

Interesting post, Fordim . My image of Elves and books is quite different than your own. I have always imagined Rivendell as having quite a collection of Elvish works. This is based on the quote that Mr. Underhill mentions as well as another brief comment in the Prologue to LotR in regard to Bilbo's work on the Translations from the Elvish. The italics are my own....

These three volumes were found to be a work of great skill and learning in which, between 1403 and 1418, he had used all the sources available to him in Rivendell, both living and written. But since they were little used by Frodo, being almost entirely concerned with the Elder Days, no more is said of them here.

The wording in this is such that, to me, it implies the existence of a considerable library of works in Elvish. Sure sounds like the Elves were history buffs, which would go along with their general orientation to things. Unfortunately, we know little about the compilers of these works.

[Bêthberry]

Another intriguing thread with which to embroider our thought! Good to see you returning to the shuttle and loom, Fordim. I hesitate--but not overly long--to say, with a woof and warp.

I have always been intrigued by that description of the effect of the Elven music upon Frodo. But to consider it here under a new light: For Frodo, the visions which the music and singing inspire are of sights unseen and lands unknown. This would seem to imply the experience of fiction--nay, fantasy. Yet at the conclusion of the experience, which Frodo says he begins to understand only towards the end, we find that the final piece has been created by Bilbo and Strider/Aragorn. And it is a tale of history.

Is the elven art devoted entirely to recounting tales of yore, the artistic remembrance of times past. À la recherche du temps perdu? Does elven art include the conscious and deliberate creation of stories that are wholly imagined but presented as if they 'really happened'? I know the demarcation is tenuous between history and fiction, yet we ourselves have this artistic difference, of stories wholly made up and stories that are histories. Did the elves? Is their 'knowledge', their 'lore' only completely associated with their past? Aside from Merry's Herblore of The Shire, which is limited to one botanical species only and is a history at that, are books associated with anything other than history in Middle-earth?

A secondary observation is that the elves don't appear to have something which we might recognise as dramatic productions.

not very entish today... in haste.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Is the elven art devoted entirely to recounting tales of yore, the artistic remembrance of times past. À la recherche du temps perdu? Does elven art include the conscious and deliberate creation of stories that are wholly imagined but presented as if they 'really happened'?

Intriguing question. Essentially, the difference between memory & written record is that memory is 'active' & unfixed - what it records is changeable & updatable if new facts are discovered or enhancements desired. In short, memory is a living process.

Writing on the other hand is fixed, static, unchangeable - or if you do change it you are in effect producing something different. Records held in the memory are alive, written records are dead. Its perhaps significant that those who do not die have (are) living records of the past, so that in a way the past is 'alive' & evolving within them, whereas those who do die produce 'dead' fixed, records.

Hope that makes some kind of sense - the way a race or culture's lore is retained (in fact the very nature & form :fixed or changeable, active or static, open -ended or precisely defined) is a product of that race/culture's nature.

Except.....

Rohan is an oral culture, without written records of any kind.

('I'll get me coat....')

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Intriguing question. Essentially, the difference between memory & written record is that memory is 'active' & unfixed - what it records is changeable & updatable if new facts are discovered or enhancements desired. In short, memory is a living process.

I imagine that the living history of the Elves would be influenced greatly by how events have turned out over time. Like looking at the place a pebble (or boulder) has been dropped in the water. When you are close to it, you tend to fix your eye on the spot and see nothing else, but as the ripples drift out and you are very far from the epicenter (forgive the pun) you look back and see happenings in relation to a whole backdrop.

I wonder at how different the same tale might become given a few intervening Ages.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

the way a race or culture's lore is retained (in fact the very nature & form :fixed or changeable, active or static, open -ended or precisely defined) is a product of that race/culture's nature.

I think this is right, and the example of the Rohirrim keeping oral histories can be explained by the fact that they have a very different culture to the Gondorians. Rohan is a relatively young nation and it is a culture which is quite literally 'moving' all the time; in LotR chapters dealing with the Rohirrim tend to be filled with movement, conveying the idea of an active people. The culture of Minas Tirith on the other hand is very static, almost stagnant; this is a much older culture, well established and is represented by a lack of movement, and with much self-examination by characters such as Denethor. A comparison might be found between the US (or Australia or India etc) and the UK at the time of gaining independence; the former striving and growing, the latter tending to build upon itself rather than looking outwards.

This is not to say that the Rohirrim are 'uncultured' because they do not (as far as we know) keep written histories; their culture is more fluid than that of Gondor. In contrast, the Gondorians seek to 'save' their past and to protect it from the passage of many long years by recording it.

I think that the Elves would broadly have little use for written histories due to their long lives, however, Elves can still be killed and do not return to Middle-earth so some need for written histories may have been necessary. In the case of Rivendell having books, it seems to have been a place which was not entirely closed off to Men and other mortals, who would have need of books and histories. No doubt it would have been useful for Elrond and his kin to be able to despatch visitors to a library rather than recount long tales to each and every visitor! In contrast, Lothlorien was not a place which Men would tend to visit, and so I would imagine it had much less need for written histories.

What is very odd indeed is that such a person as Tolkien who was clearly well and truly a bookworm should leave out mention of extensive libraries in his own story. Have other writers done this too? There is a fabulous library in Gormenghast, and a book collector in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; Harry Potter also features a wonderful library and uses the 'book' as a plot device. Maybe Tolkien cared more for what books did, or what they contained (i.e. stories) than books as artefacts or repositories?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Intriguing question. Essentially, the difference between memory & written record is that memory is 'active' & unfixed - what it records is changeable & updatable if new facts are discovered or enhancements desired. In short, memory is a living process.

Not so with the elves, though. They've embalmed their memories. Their tragedy is that all they do is look back. There is no active growth principle in their art.

But this living/dead dichotomy doesn't really pertain to what I find intriguing, how their art is fixated on history and its reconstuctions. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure there's anything in their stories that are "make believe." It is all "once was."

Strange, too, that Tolkien would make the Rohirrim such an oral culture, for the Anglo-Saxons of course did leave written records. Not that I mean to make a crude Rohirrim = Anglo Saxon analogy.

Originally Posted by Lal

What is very odd indeed is that such a person as Tolkien who was clearly well and truly a bookworm should leave out mention of extensive libraries in his own story. Have other writers done this too? There is a fabulous library in Gormenghast, and a book collector in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; Harry Potter also features a wonderful library and uses the 'book' as a plot device. Maybe Tolkien cared more for what books did, or what they contained (i.e. stories) than books as artefacts or repositories?

You know, I'm not so sure Tolkien was a book person per se. I think language was his bag, language in all its shifting and shifty complexities. And perhaps that's why he was so drawn to creating languagues and then hanging cultures on them. I think he was caught in the web of performative language. Think of all those hours in the Bird and Baby! And the Inklings reading their works aloud. We're back to 'cellar door' territory.

Hilde, that image of being torn between the waves and the pebble's drop is quite beautiful and extraordinary!

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

But this living/dead dichotomy doesn't really pertain to what I find intriguing, how their art is fixated on history and its reconstuctions. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure there's anything in their stories that are "make believe." It is all "once was."

This is an intriguing point that I'd not considered (love when that happens). Of course, I am forced to ask, if one lives in a world in which the story of Luthien and Beren actually happened, why would one need to make believe? The history of the Elves is already itself (written by Eru?) the most fabulous (in the sense of fabled and wonderful) of stories -- mere invention pales by comparison.

When I cast my mind back over the story, the only instances I can come up with of "true" invention (i.e. "make believe") was Sam's song about the trolls and that wonderful shin-bone! Oh, and Frodo's song about the cat and the fiddle. There are more I'm sure, but it seems interesting that the only true story-tellers (as opposed to history/memory recallers) are the Hobbits...they are also, as Mister Underhill has pointed out, the race most deeply interested in books (to the references to Elrond's library I would respond that the only people who seem interested in using those tomes were the Hobbits and the Wizard -- not the Elves! And I do think that it is relevant that Elrond is a Half Elven: in Lorien there's not even a single piece of parchment that I can recall, and that's the last place in Middle Earth where one can find the Noldorian culture in full, if failing, flower).

But the other aspect of orality/literacy that bears mentioning is the difference between communal and individual action: oral cultures are communal (teller and listeners) literate cultures are privat (the book and the single reader). And yet in M-E each reference to a book is made in reference to its communal function:

-- The Book of Mazarbul is read aloud by Gandalf to the Fellowship; it has multiple authors

-- The Red Book of Westmarch is also read aloud by Sam and Rose to their children (and by their children); it also has multiple authors

-- The books of lore in Elrond's library are examined by pairs of characters (Gandalf and Aragorn, Gandalf and Elrond, Bilbo and Frodo) who discuss the contents of the books ("take counsel" with them).

Given this I think that Bethberry may be quite right in her view of Tolkien as being a 'language man' rather than a 'book man'. It's almost as though the only "good" book for him was a book that performed or acted like an oral tale. Which means, of course, he would be delighted by this kind of reading community (and perhaps even by the RPGs?) which is dedicated to taking the book he wrote and putting it into constant communal performance.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Not so with the elves, though. They've embalmed their memories. Their tragedy is that all they do is look back. There is no active growth principle in their art.

Maybe. I do wonder whether the works they create - from handicrafts to Lorien - are straight recreations of what was, or whether they are 'idealised' versions, which they have built up in their minds over the millenia. If they have no (or few)books & depend mainlElves y on memory then maybe those memories aren't as 'fixed' as they may at first seem. Human memory seems to work not through exact recollection but rather through a process of 're-creation' - is Elven memory totally different?

Whatever. I've asked a few times on various threads why the Elves don't 'sub-create' in the strict sense of creating secondary worlds in the mind - ie fictions - which Tolkien claims is innate in us as children of a Creator. Is Lorien (& Rivendell, Gondolin, etc) such a -sub creation? If so, then to what extent are they 'copies' & to what extent 'enhancements' (ie, fictions)? Certainly, their innate sense of sadness & loss will affect how they experience reality, so even if they were to copy/store things in as pure a form as they were capable of, they would not prove to be objective sources. They don't, after all, 'embalm' facts but perceptions.

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Originally Posted by davem

I've asked a few times on various threads why the Elves don't 'sub-create' in the strict sense of creating secondary worlds in the mind - ie fictions - which Tolkien claims is innate in us as children of a Creator. Is Lorien (& Rivendell, Gondolin, etc) such a -sub creation? If so, then to what extent are they 'copies' & to what extent 'enhancements' (ie, fictions)?

Do we have any real sort of indication that elves don't indulge in 'making things up' other than Tolkien not including examples? We are generally exposed to the elves in reference to world affairs. Very sober times. But I do not find it hard to believe that the elves of Rivendell in the Hobbit would spin yarns, if of course you concider them truly elves. And that such gifted artists would not play with words just for the love of language, seems unlikely to me.

But as for the purpose of written language, it might not be such a leap to assume that it might have been developed for another purpose than merely recording events or ideas. For example, having just watched the movie Hero, I am particulary thinking of the connection that movie places between calligraphy and swordsmanship.