LotR - Foreword

[davem]

Think of these as tributes...

In what sense? Either they don't belong in the story, or they are placed there deliberately. They either shouldn't be there, if the story is to stand alone as a self contained story set in a self contained world, or they are chosen for a specific reason.

This brings us to the question of what Tolkien was doing. Was he really writing a story which had no specific inner meaning, or relevance to the primary world? Or at least no meaning beyond what the individual reader could find there. Did he have any hopes for the story, did he want it to produce any particular effect - beyond the emotional responses he mentions in the forword? And if the work did produce more profund effects in the reader, would he have disowned 'responsibility'?

His exploration of the nature of time & our experience of it, of language, of myth. Its all in the book - deliberately placed there. So does he want us to pick up on that or simply be carried along by the effect of those things - part of the 'spell' he is casting? Does he wish us to read the novel in that 'other' way I described? Its a Catholic work, as he said - does he want us to read it in that way, or is that 'private'? Or does his opinion in that count?

Are such things too personal to him, so that he will go out of his way to disuade us, as in the second forword, from exploring those things, seeking them in the novel? Why introduce the Incarnation into Middle Earth (Athrabeth). In his later writings he seems almost driven to Christianise Middle Earth, bring it into line with the history of this world - would he have published this, if given the chance, or would it have remained private?

All I have are questions. The Christianity is too blatant - perhaps necessarily, given the man. He is clearly writing about things he loves, but he's disguising them - though he disguises them less & less the older he gets. The Legendarium becomes increasingly a reflection of the man himself. How detached from it was he able to be at the time he wrote LotR? It seems that in the first forword he was closer to it (or it closer to him) than he was when he wrote the second one, but is that the case? And his tendency to refer to the devil as Sauron - in the essay its stated he considered the sacraments as a defense against Sauron. Men with chainsaws are 'Orcs'. Is this simple 'applicability'? or has the myth overlaid the primary world to the extent that they in the end they became one?

Perhaps in his mind Elbereth was the Virgin Mary - or her 'manifestation' in Middle Earth, so that Middle Earth really was this world 'seen through enchanted eyes'. In that case how could we treat Middle Earth as a stand alone work of art? To what extent was he able to detach himself from his creation, or to detach this world from the world he had invented?

Or should we even care? If Middle Earth can stand alone, shouldn't it? My weakness in this context is that I can't divorce the artist from the art. It all blurs together in my mind as perhaps it did in his. Perhaps he saw this as a problem, that if it happened it would stop the reader truly appreciating his creation - maybe this is why he refused to write an autobiography. Its interesting to speculate on - because I can't do it any longer - what we would come up with if we only had LotR & Hobbit. If we had no letters, biography, HoME, just the books he published in his lifetime. Yet, did he really want that? If he did then why re-write the forword - the first places him as detached translator, the second is his admission, his claim to be its inventor. It becomes his work, the product of his mind, & brings an invitation to speculate on why he wrote what he did. In the first one he claims he has nothing to do with its content, in the second he claims he has everything to do with it - it takes on a biographical dimension - he even gives us some biography, telling us that he fought in the first world war, that he has a son who fought in the second, that he suffered from writers block, he gives us his opinion on literary critics, & by extension on modern literature. He tells us that he has been affected by his experiences - inviting us to specualte on those experiences, & the way in which they affected him. He tells us about the loss of his childhood friends, & the pain he suffered at he loss of the places he knew as a child. He even gives us information about his financial state - he couldn't afford to pay a typist (we know from the essay I quoted). He even tells us that he was not too organised - 'I have failed to keep my notes in order'.

He is making himself a part of the story - he is not 'playing the game'. He is stating clearly that this story is his invention, that it has come from his mind & out of his own experience. He tells us a great deal about himself. We get to know a lot about him. He must want us to. To say the story has no 'inner' meaning or message is almost to claim that he himself has none, or at least none to communicate - yet doesn't any author wish above all to communicate?

Could he really have written a story that didn't reflect himself, his beliefs & the things that moved him? Yet are those things that have no inner meaning? Or perhaps he is saying that the meaning is not concealed - it is out in the open, for those who can see it. Perhaps for him it is such a blatantly Catholic work that he thought it would be obvious to others, that he expected attentive readers to see Mary in Galadriel & Elbereth - that for them that would not constitute an 'inner' meaning. In that case Galadriel wouldn't be an 'allegory' of Mary, she would be Mary, by another name.

All speculation, yet genuine, & not intended to be 'provocative'. I accept Durelin's point:

This is a perfect example of taking applicability too far. You may see symbolisms that relate to you, as it is your own mind reading and comprehending.

Maybe I am. Yet my 'applicability' corresponds in part with Tolkien's own - Elbereth & Galadriel as Mary, Lembas as the Host - not that either of us has any claim to being right in it. If Tolkien tells us that Elbereth = Mary, or Lembas = the Host, or that they are the Middle Earth equivalent or 'echo' of them, no-one has to accept that, if Middle Earth is taken as a 'historical' place, with its own existence, not as the invention of JRR Tolkien, & as such a reflection of him. Tolkien would probably have said that the reader did not need to see Elbereth as Mary, but would he have denied any connection, would he have rejected the idea out of hand?

So we end up back at the original 'conflict' - do we approach Middle Earth as being an 'objective' historical place, which we can enter, analyse within its own terms, or do we see it as Tolkien's creation? Is there any room for Tolkien - or should there be? Does he want to be there - does he want us to include him?

That's another question I can't answer.

[Fingolfin II]

That's a very interesting post, davem. It's a pity I can't quote you as it would take up the whole page .

Tolkien didn't create Arda and it's inhabitants from nowhere- he based it on the real world and borrowed a lot from Beowulf and Christianity. I certainly agree with you when you say that as he got older, his work seemed more "personalised" and included his own thoughts and beliefs more than previously, where he was keen to wave aside any deeper meaning in his books. The Ultimate God (Eru) and the demi-gods (the Valar) are very similar to Greek mythology and Tolkien has gone to extreme lengths to make these works 'his own' as much as possible.

One possible solution is that after writing the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion - both momentous works - is that though there were parallels between Christian beliefs (i.e. Elbereth=Mary), these were not intended- subconscious ideas if you would like to label it that way. As he got older, maybe Tolkien became more attached to his works and gave it more of his own personal touch and liked us to be both 'carried along' by the books and create a universe that we can indentify with, though his works are fantasy.

Tar-ancalime said:

Both Tolkien and Bronte are quite right to step back and let their readers find what they will in their stories.

I think he/she has absolutely hit the nail on the head here, since Tolkien's world is very similar to ours and becomes more 'Christianised' in his later works, as you correctly said davem. So as for any 'inner meaning', I believe Tolkien intended to write his works, base it on the real world and leave the reader to search for watever they may be looking for in his books. Most authors have a certain moral or meaning that they wish to convey to the reader, but some (like Tolkien) prefer the reader to find that meaning themselves.

So we end up back at the original 'conflict' - do we approach Middle Earth as being an 'objective' historical place, which we can enter, analyse within its own terms, or do we see it as Tolkien's creation? Is there any room for Tolkien - or should there be? Does he want to be there - does he want us to include him?

As I said earlier, Tokien's stories - like most other myths - are always based on something else. In this case it is based on several stories and beliefs, Christianity prevalent amongst them. So, therefore I think the overall story should be seen as Tolkien's creation, though the concepts behind it are older and not his. I mean, all original fantasy stories are figments of the authors' imaginations, though their content can't be entirely original, as it all needs to be related in a world that we know, or can at least partially understand.

As for the last part of your question, I think you're right in saying it can't really be answered as only the Professor really knows.

[mark12_30]

"

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible..."

Many of those on this thread have read the book already.

Which parts did you find boring, absurd, or contemptible the *FIRST* time you read the book? If you've read the book more than once, what do you think of those parts now? Has your opinion changed? Why or why not? Be brief, succinct-- and be honest, now!

(I bring this up because I expect that we will all have a better, deeper appreciation of those "boring/absurd/contemptible" sections after this project! So this is a way of taking stock before we begin.)

'*************************

Since we haven't gotten there yet, we'd best keep these to a brief summary. I will start.

Tom Bombadil. I thought he was the wierdest thing going. In some ways I still do and in some ways I really enjoy him. Reading posts about him on this board did help me alter my opinion somewhat.

The Barrow Downs. Huh? It lost me completely. I just had to get past it. Same with Midgewater.

The songs. I blush to admit it but the first time I read the book I skimmed or skipped them. I love them now.

In short, I struggled terribly through book one and thought it all rather dull. It wasn't til they left Rivendell that it picked up for me. (No assassination attempts, please. I was twelve at the time! ) For two decades, I majored in the mannish parts of the book, and found the purely hobbitish parts less interesting.

Again, I love the hobbit-centric sections best now. How one does change.

Anyone else care to chime in?

ps.
boring: The bloomin' detailed descriptions of EVERY landscape feature and EVERY campsite. "Where's the dialog!!"
Thirty years later: "Oh, that description of dreary barren wasteland is so evocative and so heartbreaking..."

[tar-ancalime]

ps.
boring: The bloomin' detailed descriptions of EVERY landscape feature and EVERY campsite. "Where's the dialog!!"
Thirty years later: "Oh, that description of dreary barren wasteland is so evocative and so heartbreaking..."

Exactly what I was going to say! I used to scan the pages, looking for "something to happen!" I remember finding the descriptive writing during the first travels of the Fellowship ("The Ring Goes South") especially dull. Who cared what the country looked like? When were they going to meet some more interesting people?

But now as I read the book I find the descriptions to be some of the most precious passages. They're so evocative and so vital to the story--the landscape always furthers the story and is never irrelevant. For example, would the adventure in the Barrow-Downs seem so liminal without the long passages describing the crests of each hill in turn and the hotter and hotter weather? The very landscape builds the tension like the humid weather before a thunderstorm, and by the time the hobbits fall asleep under the standing stone it's clear that something very, very sinister is about to happen.

[The Barrow-Wight]

Please let's stick to the appropriate chapter/part. We're veering off into some tangents that would make better stand-alone topics than part of this discussion.

[Mister Underhill]

First, a quick Moderating Note:

Now that we're underway and things are taking shape, I'd like to make a few suggestions.

We usually let discussions in Books have their head, but I think it would enrich the Chapter-by-Chapter project for us to remain more tightly focused on the matter at hand -- namely, the section of the book that is under examination.

This doesn't mean we can't dig deep or consider outside sources, but I'd like to encourage members to make an effort to stay on topic. If you find your post is starting to draw in characters and events that don't happen until a few hundred pages down the line, or is simply rehashing arguments you've already had in other threads, try to rein it in. Characters and events should probably only be discussed in great detail as they arise in the text. Otherwise, we could find ourselves repeating the same pet arguments week after week, and soon only the very few people engaged in the wrestling will be interested in reading it, let alone participating.

Note that this advice is directed at myself as much as anyone else.

I don't want any hurt feelings to come out of these comments. The Foreword in fact provides an overview of the text to come, and I don't think we've wandered too, too far off-base here. But staying focused is something we should all bear in mind moving forward.

Here endeth the Moderating Note.

On a more personal note, upon reflection I think I prefer the original Foreword, and I wish I could cut-and-paste it into my hardback edition. I like the way it's part of the story, too. The second, as davem has observed, smacks of Tolkien trying to reassert control over his work -- to answer his critics and the analysts who had hijacked it over the years. I don't think the book needs anyone to defend it or to tell us how we should or shouldn't think about it. Including the author.

Did I find any parts boring or contemptible? The latter, certainly not. I admit that I was a poetry-skimmer in my youth (still am, to an extent), and I thought Bombadil was a pretty strange duck too.

EDIT: Er... What the Barrow-Wight said.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Although it's been a good eleven years since first I read the book, I think I can honestly say that I didn't find a single part of it either boring, absurd or contemptible. The only section that comes close to being the first of these is the index, which isn't intended to be read from beginning to end.

Tolkien's writing wasn't perfect, but the odd awkward phrase or minor inconsistency doesn't merit such condemnation. Tolkien, while recognising inconsistencies in the work, very tellingly says "Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it..." (italics mine). It may seem childishly unfair of Tolkien to suggest that someone might review a book that they have not, in fact, read, but I can think of two examples of people who had attempted a publicly broadcast review without taking this (one would think) elementary step. The first of these is mentioned by Tom Shippey in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, although not by name. Having concluded a radio debate on the subject, one of the panellists admitted privately to Shippey that they had never read The Lord of the Rings; and one of the reviwers on the B.B.C.'s literature popularity contest, The Big Read, also commented on the book after admitting that she had not finished it. While I do not intend to suggest that only those who have not read The Lord of the Rings will fail to find it enthralling, it is interesting to note that Tolkien couldn't resist getting in a dig at his critics, at least some of whom may well have based their opinions on just such lazy and slapdash research.

[Firefoot]

Contemptible parts? None. There is nothing that I can say I completely dislike about the book. Boring? Yes. The first time, I honestly can't remember if I found anything boring, though I think not due to the fact that I was completely enraptured by the whole story. But starting the second time through, there were two parts in particular that I began to skim (even skip!) because I find them boring. They are: Tom Bombadil (he drives me crazy, and the hey dol stuff doesn't help), and Treebeard and the Ents (for which I can find no reason other than it bores me).

As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving

I think it would be interesting to know which parts Tolkien originally meant to be the 'moving or appealing' parts. My guess is that quite frequently, it would be different than what people would think. Many of the deeply moving parts are for me in RotK. There are very few specific examples I can think of from FotR or TTT that are moving. Appealing, yes, very much so, but moving? not nearly so much.

[Aiwendil]

Mister Underhill wrote:

The second, as davem has observed, smacks of Tolkien trying to reassert control over his work -- to answer his critics and the analysts who had hijacked it over the years. I don't think the book needs anyone to defend it or to tell us how we should or shouldn't think about it. Including the author.

I certainly understand and sympathize with this sentiment. There is something very nice about the first foreword - both in its light-hearted fun and in its lack of the stern words found in the second. But when I think about it, I cannot agree that the book doesn't need anyone to defend it or tell us what to think about it. We must not lose sight of the fact that the book was generally (and still is) seriously misinterpreted as being a real allegory by many in the literary establishment (by those that deign to discuss it at all). Tolkien actually meant something when he said that the book is not an allegory, and I think it is good that he said it. It really has been read as being entirely about World War II. I do not think that it is intrusive or domineering of an author to announce what his intention was and was not.

As for finding any parts boring or contemptible on my first reading - alas, my first reading was so early in my childhood that I don't remember it very clearly at all. I do have a vague recollection of finding Book IV somewhat sluggish - though I would certainly not say "boring". To be honest, it remains my least favorite book out of the six, thought I think I have come to appreciate certain aspects of it more fully.

Firefoot wrote:

I think it would be interesting to know which parts Tolkien originally meant to be the 'moving or appealing' parts. My guess is that quite frequently, it would be different than what people would think. Many of the deeply moving parts are for me in RotK. There are very few specific examples I can think of from FotR or TTT that are moving. Appealing, yes, very much so, but moving? not nearly so much.

This doesn't directly answer your question, but there is a letter (and I'm afraid I don't have time to search for a citation at the moment) from after the book's publication wherein Tolkien says that the parts he found the most moving at that time (i.e. after finishing it) were Aragorn's departure from Cerin Amroth in Book II and the coming of the Rohirrim and dawn in Book V. The latter is one of my favorite moments in the book, if not my absolute favorite. The former, I must admit, doesn't affect me all that much. I've never been a huge fan of the Aragorn-Arwen romance; to me it's always felt like a much flatter and more lifeless replica of Beren and Luthien.

[Son of Númenor]

What I was most interested in when re-reading the Foreword was the passage that describes what The Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had written it as an allegory for World War II.

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves" (The Lord of the Rings, "Foreword to the Second Edition," xv).

The allegory described in this alternate tale is pretty straightforward and does not require explanation for the purpose of my post. What was interesting to me in this passage was not the content, but the bitterness with which he describes this bizarro-Lord of the Rings - the wholly negative outcome of the work if it had followed Tolkien's views on WWII. It made me wonder. Though Tolkien stated that any allegorical connection to WWII was out of the question, and that the First World War affected him far more than the Second, what effect did World War II really have on The Lord of the Rings?

Earlier in the Foreword, Tolkien says:

The delay was, of course, also increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale had not yet reached the end of Book One. In spite of the darkness of the next five years I found that the story could not be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to Lothlórien (xiii).

In this account of the writing of the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien fails to mention a crucial part of the novel: the fall of Gandalf in Moria. While he is quick to note in the Letters that Gandalf had to pass through death to become powerful enough to deal with Saruman, Théoden and Denethor, he also notes that

...the return of G. [Gandalf] is as presented in this book a 'defect', and one I was aware of, and probably did not work hard enough to mend" (Letters 203).

Why didn't he work to fix this 'defect' if indeed he was aware of it? Could Tolkien, in the 'darkness' of the time that he wrote the chapters concerning Moria and Lothlórien, have initially intended for Gandalf's death to be permanent? Could he have lost faith in the ideals that Gandalf represented, only to realize later that his reincarnation was vital to the work as a piece transcendent of contemporary comparison or accusation of allegory? Did Gandalf 'represent', to some extent, the values that Tolkien held? Was Gandalf's fall in Moria (unconsciously) a reflection of Tolkien's disillusionment with those values during the World War II years, and his rebirth a way for Tolkien to make the work transcendent of politics and conflict, and make it what he truly wanted it to be: an enjoyable story with a pleasant, unambiguous, traditional morality behind it?

I'm sorry to pose all of these questions without bothering to answer any of them. Of course gaps and antitheses abound, some of the latter posed by the Professor himself, but I would still like to know what you think of my little....erm...shall we call it a lengthy suggestion?

Edit: Sorry. I took such a long time trying to get out what I was trying to say, agonizing over how on earth I was going to say it, and writing it in a way that made some kind of sense to me (not sure if I succeeded; I'll have to read it again in the morning when I've forgotten what I wrote, and when I'm less delirious from cold medication), that I did not get a chance to read Aiwendil's post. Nor did I continue on the thought track that has been at the forefront of this thread.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Son of Númenor

What I was most interested in when re-reading the Foreword was the passage that describes what The Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had written it as an allegory for World War II. The allegory described in this alternate tale is pretty straightforward and does not require explanation for the purpose of my post. What was interesting to me in this passage was not the content, but the bitterness with which he describes this bizarro-Lord of the Rings - the wholly negative outcome of the work if it had followed Tolkien's views on WWII. It made me wonder. Though Tolkien stated that any allegorical connection to WWII was out of the question, and that the First World War affected him far more than the Second, what effect did World War II really have on The Lord of the Rings? .

I'm also struck by the words in the first foreword:

But not all are interested in such matters, & many who are not may still find the account of those great & valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating & selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later age, one almost as darkling & ominous as was the Thrid Age that ended with the great years 1418 & 1419 of the Shire long ago

This 'darkling & ominous age' was the post WW2 period, the Cold War. Does he mean that he considered the Cold War worse than WW2? Its strange that he should. Did he fear the possibility of Russian nuclear attack as a worse threat than that of the Nazis? Did he see a Third World War as imminent in the mid fifties? And if he did, then had those fears abated by the mid sixties when he came to re write it? Was his belief that the 50's were 'darkling & ominous' a reflection of his struggles at the time, before the book became successful, & he became 'rich' as a result? And was his success in the 60's reflected in the fact that in the second foreword he can claim it has no 'inner meaning"?

In other words, did he feel during the 50's that it did have some inner meaning - at least to the extent of being able to sustain readers during what he felt to be a world on the brink of destruction? Perhaps by the 60's, optimistic & wealthy, he could dismiss such fears, & felt able to present it as simple entertainment?

[Lhunardawen]

Thank you very much for quoting that part of the Foreword, Son of Numenor! Much as I would like to read all the posts in this thread, time constrains me, so I would just have to find someone who would quote that. I was beginning to give up, but I found your post. Thanks, indeed.

It was easy to see Tolkien's bitterness toward the Second World War when he said that. Forgive me, but I just couldn't help looking at it allegorically. If Tolkien intended LotR to be an allegory of WWII, then who would the poor hobbits be? The innocent "by-standers" that are inevitably affected by the war? If so, why would they be held in hatred and contempt? If not, would it be those who underneath the war are trying to restore peace?