Coffee! - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

doug*platypus · 01-25-2003, 06:06 PM

Ah, there's the rub. Eruantalon, you are slowly learning that there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in the Barrow-Downs forum. And fair enough, too.

The Lord of the Rings, and also post-publication alterations to The Hobbit, served to tie The Hobbit (which I only grudgingly refer to as a 'children's book') in with The Silmarillion, and at the same time providing the Hobbit sequel that the public (at large, not just kids) was clamouring for. If Tolkien had desired to remove coffee and make the story more realistic, he could have easily done so. He changed an entire chapter ("Riddles in the Dark", see Letters of Tolkien) after all, and a single word would hardly have been of consequence.

I can only surmise that coffee was intended to be left as it was. And that therefore, since JRRT was such an immaculate perfectionist, there is a plausible explanation out there somewhere for how hobbits (or at least the well-off Bilbo) came by coffee.

01-25-2003, 06:06 PM	#34
doug*platypus Delver in the Deep Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Aotearoa Posts: 960	Ah, there's the rub. Eruantalon, you are slowly learning that there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in the Barrow-Downs forum. And fair enough, too. The Lord of the Rings, and also post-publication alterations to The Hobbit, served to tie The Hobbit (which I only grudgingly refer to as a 'children's book') in with The Silmarillion, and at the same time providing the Hobbit sequel that the public (at large, not just kids) was clamouring for. If Tolkien had desired to remove coffee and make the story more realistic, he could have easily done so. He changed an entire chapter ("Riddles in the Dark", see Letters of Tolkien) after all, and a single word would hardly have been of consequence. I can only surmise that coffee was intended to be left as it was. And that therefore, since JRRT was such an immaculate perfectionist, there is a plausible explanation out there somewhere for how hobbits (or at least the well-off Bilbo) came by coffee. __________________ But Gwindor answered: 'The doom lies in yourself, not in your name'.