‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

Just a minor point, for I believe the status of being published is less definitive to the canonicity issue then it may seem.

My point in taking the works published by Tolkien during his lifetime as "pure canon" is that these are the texts that he actively placed in the hands of his readers (whatever he may have intended had the circumstances been different). Once published, they could not be altered, save in minor, primarily typographical and philological, respects which did not actually change the facts presented. With one very important exception, namely the change that Tolkien made to the Riddles in the Dark chapter in The Hobbit to reconcile it with the story that he was writing in LotR. This incident seems to me to be highly significant in two respects. First, it indicates that it was important to Tolkien that his published works were complimentary rather than contradictory. And secondly, it is apparent that he felt it necessary to come up with a reason as to why Bilbo would have related the first (inaccurate) account of how the Ring came into his possession, so as to explain away that account having been given in the original editions of The Hobbit. These two factors suggest to me that Tolkien attached great importance to the publishing of his works, ie the process by which they were placed in the hands of his readers.

So, while the "published" works are, in effect, cast in stone, it is quite possible (and indeed quite likely) that the "facts" which were published following his death (in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, the HoME series and the Letters) would have taken on a different shape had he published them himself. They therefore potentially, but by no means certainly, incorporate the facts about Middle-earth that he would actively have placed in his readers hands, had he had the opportunity and/or inclination to do so. That is why I do not class these materials as "pure canon" along with the texts published in his lifetime.

But it is not a definition that I would go to the wall for. I am quite content to class the "unpublished" materials as part of the "canon" of Middle-earth. Doing so, however, only makes the answer to the question that I posed clearer. We accept the materials in these "unpublished" texts, to the extent that they are unambiguous and do not conflict with, or can be reconciled with, the "published" texts because they do in fact form part of the fictional account of Middle-earth. It makes it more difficult to reject them if they do not "feel right" to us, but I think that we can still do so where they are the product of speculation on Tolkien's part (such as my Gollum example) or where it is apparent that Tolkien had not reached any final conclusion on them (as I suspect is the case with the cosmology of Middle-earth, although I have not read the relevant texts myself).

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

Furthermore, if there were such a 'standard of reality', some built-in ability of recognition of it, than the fact that LoTR 'rings true' for such a great number of people may be an indicator of:

A. The world Tolkien described is the real place (I certainly knew it was real up to my middle teens. Than I grew up, but sometimes I still wonder - which of me - the one dozen years back or the current one, - is right?)
B. His skill of an artist was so great, and subcreation so perfect, that the likeness to real world achieved is astounding

I would, of course, unhesitatingly go for B (with the caveat that I do not see it as astoundingly alike to the real world, but rather astoundingly internally consistent and credible as an alternative world). That, no doubt, is where I was going with my "fictional reality" idea. He was not, of course, such a skilful artist as to be able to produce a world which does not jar in some (and different) respects with some people. Then again, what artist, having produced such a wealth of material, would be? (Don't answer that, Helen .)

We know that (infinate parallel universe theories aside) Middle-earth does not exist because we know that it is a work of fiction. And if we get into questioning whether Middle-earth might exist because we cannot definitively prove that it does not exist, then we start questioning the very basis of reality itself. Who is to say that the world around me is not simply a figment of my imagination, or a dream from which I shall shortly wake up? Well, who indeed. But where does that kind of analysis get us on a practical level? We have to have a basis for determining reality, and the starting point is the evidence provided to us by our senses and by those that we trust. And that evidence tells me in no uncertain terms that LotR et al are works of fiction.

Originally Posted by davem

I think Tolkien was 'in touch' with something, but what its exact form & nature is, I can't say - its too abstract - Truth, Reality, Meaning. Tolkien gave it a particular form, in order to make it accessible & understandable.

This is, of course an entirely different proposition to saying either, on the one hand, that Tolkien's world rings true to us solely because it is incredibly well crafted or, on the other, that it does so because it actually physically exists. I don't doubt that there is something within Tolkien's works that can put some of those who read them in touch with some very basic and fundamental aspects of human nature, but I have probably already made my thoughts on this issue quite clear at various stages during this discussion. So I will take it no further, save to reiterate that, like Aiwendil, I do not believe that a spiritual or metaphysical explanation is necessarily required.

Finally, massive kudos to Lalwendë, who manged to say in one single post precisely what I have been trying to say throughout much of this thread.