The History of LotR - Chapter-by-Chapter Companion

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

I've read this essay and it's a good one. It's easy to see from his analysis that the change in the narrator voice is gradual. With each draft there is a subtle shift in emphasis.

I will need to think about your more general query on the narrator. Meanwhile, I wanted to share some ideas. There were several things that struck me as I read through the earliest drafts:

• Tolkien used notes and outlines to brainstorm: these are often the earliest statement of the ideas and themes that were to assume such importance in his story (and which we love to talk about).
• Not surprisingly, the ideas put forward in the notes and outlines sometimes weren't integrated into the characters and narrative till weeks or even months later.
• Also not surprising, later and earlier ideas continue to co-exist in a single draft of a chapter so sometimes you have a very strange mix.

Here's one instance. There was a set of notes produced in the first six weeks of Tolkien's writing, certainly certainly prior to February 1, 1938. In this, Tolkien made several points about the nature of the Ring and Bilbo's inability to resist it:

Not very dangerous when used for good purpose. But it exacts its penalty. You must either lose it, or yourself. Bilbo could not bring himself to lose it.

(The italics are Tolkien's.....)

In another brief scheme dating from the same period...

Ring must eventually go back to Maker, or draw you towards it. Rather a dirty trick handing it on?

In the first quote, JRRT still maintained the Ring could be used for a good purpose: this idea would change later. But he already saw the Ring as an irresistable lure, pulling whoever uses it towards its Maker. The interesting thing is that the actual writing of the chapter didn't directly reflect Bilbo's dilemma until draft 6. Indeed, in draft 5, Bilbo is shown freely giving the Ring to Gandalf: it is Bilbo's idea and not Gandalf's to give the Ring to Bingo. It's only in draft #6 that Bilbo admits he can't throw it away and even has trouble leaving it behind. From the way CT structures his book, it seems that drafts #5 and 6 were compiled many months later than the first four or the notes I cited.

One example of strange things being mixed together is a draft called "Of Gollum and the Ring". This was apparently written in those first six weeks: at one point it was intended as the foreward for the entire book. It was a discussion between Bingo and Gandalf that supposedly took place before the party. Parts of it eventually became Shadows of the Past.

Some of this draft reads like a continuation of The Hobbit. For example, Gandalf advises Bingo that the only way to be protected against the evil of the Ring is to treat it as a joke. Gandalf also says one of the main reasons Bilbo liked Bingo was that the younger Hobbit was very good at jokes! Gandalf advised constructing a comic plan, a jest, so that he could slip out of Hobbiton, fooling the Hobbits and apparently the Ring. The last sentence reads: "Bingo was rocking with laughter." This does not exactly sound like any book I know!

Yet there are other parts of these same notes that eerily foreshadow what will happen in the story. The draft contains references to so many themes and incidents that were important in the book. Among these were the idea of destroying the Ring in Mount Doom, the importance of 'pity' in saving Bilbo, the stretching of life under the Ring, the relative invulnerability of the Hobbits to the Dark Lord, the phrase "Lord of the Rings", etc.. There is even a paragraph that sounds something like "providence" explaining how Bilbo got the Ring:

There was, of course, something much more mysterious behind the whole thing -- something quite beyond the Lord of the Rings himself, peculiar to Bilbo and his great Adventure. There was a queer fate over these rings, and especially [?this] one. They got lost occasionally, and turned up in strange places. This one had already slipped away from its owner treacherously once before. It had slipped away from Gollum too. That is why I let Bilbo keep the ring so long.

Sound familiar? However did he come up with so many of these themes and ideas in the first six weeks of writing?

[davem]

Child

As the main body of your post requires some thought (& careful re-reading of HoME, I'll come back on that later. One thing I can respond to now is:

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

I will need to think about your more general query on the narrator

I'm not sure it deserves it!

I suppose what I was getting at was the way Tolkien not only begins the story six times, the storyline each time being subtly different, but he creates a different narrator each time - as if the choice of story determined the narrative style. Or is it that he's struggling to find a narrative voice/approach he's comfortable with, & as he tries out different voices he comes up with different storylines? So was the story determined by the way he chose to tell it, or was the style determined by the content?

Its just a throwaway question, but it interests me - Tolkien wrote different kinds of stories, & he seems to have a range of narrative voices, & each 'voice' will tell a different kind of story. So, he begins writing the Hobbit sequel with a particular narrative 'voice' - similar to, but not exactly the same as the narrator of the Hobbit - which implies that even from the first he knew (if only subconsciously) that he would be telling a different kind of story. By the final draft he's moved closer to the 'high' style of the end of the Hobbit, but he's not quite there. Eventually, by the time he's decided that what he's really writing is the culmination of the Legendarium, the style has changed dramatically from the first draft, because that story could not be told by the first narrator. But the first narrator is entertaining, interesting, ironic - in fact, he's a very well realised character in his own right, & could have told a very entertaining story. Same with all the others.

So, its not a case of Tolkien starting out with a vaguely sketched story/narrative voice which he gradually 'improves' & deepens - any of the stories/narrators in the different drafts would have worked, but they would have gone in different directions. But is his final choice of which story to tell based on storyline or narrator?

I don't have the HoME,and I just want to ask a question :what differences are they between the list of the Bilbo's gifts in the first version and the same in the final book?
It's because a silly bet I made,so I'm sorry to trouble your very serious debate with a so trivial question...

Thanks

(I'm french so if you think that my english is horrible,don't worry,I think so)

[Bêthberry]

davem, and also Child and Esty,

I have only volumes II and XII, so I won't be able to follow along here--except teasingly as I have with Heren, who graciously accepted my humour--but I am very intrigued by the "six narrative voices" in the drafts.

davem has kindly at length copied excerpts from Paul Edmund Thomas' essay, but I would find it easier to consider his question about storyline or narrator if I could see some examples, not of Thomas' explication, but of Tolkien's own writing.

Is is possible to copy here a similar passage in the different narrative voices? Or if not, is is possible to take a passage which represents the tone of each narrative voice and present it here?

Child,

However did he come up with so many of these themes and ideas in the first six weeks of writing?

The variations you point out are fascinating. If I have read your excerpts correctly, Tolkien started out with some first idea of a character for this Dark Lord, who then became excised from subsequent drafts as an explicit character. If this suppostion is correct, it makes the final depiction of Sauron very interesting: a focus upon an opposing character who ultimately became absent, if I am making myself clear here! (I'm sure this point, too, should be followed through all revisions and drafts and not merely this six drafts of the first part.)

It would seem to me that Tolkien had many, many ideas and directions rambling around in that restless imagination of his and that in the process of writing something decided him upon the best way to proceed.

Here's hoping I don't have my foot on my keyboard, so to speak, since I don't have the relevant HoME.

[davem]

Bethberry

First version:

When Bilbo, son of Bungo of the family of Baggins ... prepared to celebrate his seventieth birthday there was for a day or two some talk in the neighbourhood. He had once had a little fleeting fame among the people of Hobbiton & Bywater - he had disappeared after breakfast one April 30th & not reappeared until lunchtime on June 22nd in the following year. A very odd proceeding for which he had never given any good reason, & of which he wrote a nonsensical account. After that he returned to normal ways; & the shaken confidence of the district was gradually restored.

Second version:

When Bilbo, son of Bungo, of the respectable family of Baggins prepared to celebrate his seventy first birthday there waas some little talk in the neighbourhood, & people polished up their memories. Bilbo had once had some brief notoriety among the hobbits of Hobbiton & Bywater - he had disappeared after breakfast one April 30th & had not reappeared until lunch time on June 22nd in the following year. A very odd proceeding, & one for which he had never accounted satisfactorily. He wrote a book about it, of course: but even those who had read it never took it that seriously. It is no good talking to hobbits about dragons: they either disbelieve you, or feel uncomfortable; & in either case tend to avoid you afterwards.

(CRT states the third & fourth versions are virtually the same - except for the names - but that Tolkien continues to intensify the irony in the narrators voice.)

Fifth version:

(doesn't give full text, but adds

He told many tales of his adventures, of course, to those who would listen. But most of the hobbits soon got tired of them, & only one or two of his friends ever took them seriously. It is no good telling ordinary hobbits about dragons: they either disbelieve you or want to disbelieve you, & in either case stop listening. As he grew older Bilbo wrote his adventures in a private book of memoirs, in which he recounted some things that he had never spoken about (such as the magic ring); but that book was never published in the Shire, & he never showed it to anyone except his favourite nephew Bingo.

Sixth version:

When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag-end, Under-hill, announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk & excitement in Hobbiton. Before long rumour of the event travelled all over the Shire, & the history & character of Mr Baggins became once again the most popular topic of conversation. the older folk who remembered something of the strange happenings sixty years before found their reminicences suddenly in demand, & rose to the gratifying occasion with entertaining invention when mere facts failed them.

No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer. He held forth at the Ivy Bush.

Tindome

First version of Bilbo's gifts:

'For Semolina Baggins, with love from her nephew', on a waste paper basket - she had wrotten him a deal of letters (mostly of good advice). 'For Caramella Took, with kind remembrances from her uncle', on a clock in the hall. Though unpunctual she had been a niece he rather liked, until coming late one day she had declared his clock was fast. Bilbo's clocks were never either slow or fast, & he did not forget it. 'For Obo Took-Took, from his great-nephew', on a feather bed; Obo was seldom awake before 12 noon or after tea, & snored. 'For Gorboduc Grubb with best wishes from B Baggins' - on a gold fountain pen; he never answered letters. 'For Angelica's use' on a mirror - she was a young Baggins & thought herself very comely. 'For Inigo Grubb- Took', on a complete dinner service - he was the greediest hobbit known to history. 'For Amalda Sackville-Baggins as a present', on a case of silver spoons. She was Bilbo's cousin, the one he had discovered years ago on his return measuring his dining-room (you may remember his suspicions about disappearing spoons: anyway neither he nor Amalda had forgotten)

Thank you very very very very very much !

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