Will a "definitive" version of The Silmarillion ever be released?

[Legolas]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

If only Tolkien had been immortal...Imagine what could've come from his mind... [...] Although, it seems his mind was always changing, even on small issues, and perhaps he would've never reached any definitive conclusion even if given 100 years...He might have always been tinkering with it, never truly "satisfied" with it, always finding some new idea or twist on a story or new angle on a character.

You touch on something interesting there - the artist and his struggle to be wholly satisfied with the art. As above, there were many things in even The Hobbit that he wished to revise, and it took him twelve years to write The Lord of the Rings. Though stretched with many other jobs and tasks, he did, after all, have several decades to write and finish The Silmarillion. Imagine what he could've done with the luxury of being a writer by exclusive profession as some are afforded today.

Having just spent over 120 hours recording and producing a relatively simple album for my local church choir, I can identify with the concept. After you create a foundation - a draft, a demo, or a rough sketch - you could spend an endless amount of time editing and perfecting every little word, note, or line. If you want the art to be finalized in such a way that other people can enjoy your work, you eventually have to let it go.

Originally after completing The Lord of the Rings in 1949, he tried to convince George Allen & Unwin to publish The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings together. I wonder how close to completion it was in his own mind at the time. Even though they baulked, he must've had some short/midterm timeline in mind for completion and publication, don't you think? They waited 12 years for a completed sequel; I don't suspect he would've asked them to wait another 10 years for the Elvish history companion volume which he wanted available simultaneously.

And yet he lived 23 more years and didn't finish.

[blantyr]

I was once told that in order for a Middle Earth role playing game to be playable, one would have to extrapolate or add enough detail that the result could not be considered canon. I suspect the same would have to be true for any version of Silmarillion. If you told the story cleanly enough for a wide modern audience, if your objective were for it to entertain rather than to not contradict the Professor, you'd have to fill in, extrapolate or guess at enough stuff that the academic nitpickers would lump it in with the Steve Jackson movies.

What sort of author would one seek for such a project? What should the objective be? Do you want to make money selling books? Do you want to worship at the alter of The Original Author, striving for his style while minimizing conflict and contradictions?

I'm not entirely pleased with Christopher Tolkien's approach. His value added seemed more as a scholar than a story teller, and I'm looking for a good story. Still, there is no approach that would please everyone.

[Mithalwen]

Hardly suprising since Christopher Tolkien is a scholar, eminent in his own right. Itdoes give the Silmarillion and HoME an integrity that, for me makes up for any lack of readability. If the Silmarillion as it stands is harder work than LOTR to get into it reflects Tolkien's changing style rather than failings on Christopher's part. As far as I can make out he has put as little into the "composed writings" as possible. The Children of Hurin had minor corrections for syntax and that was about it. It may not have been exactly the version that JRRT would have chosen to publish but I think we can be sure it is just about 100% JRRT not CRT not some hired gun.

Of course other versions could be written..we are all free to have a go at it as long as we don't try to make money from it. Fan fic finds its own level. I am grateful beyond words that Christopher hasn't cashed in as he might with all sorts of ersatz spin offs. Would we really want him to carry on as Dick Francis' son has with his father's books? One thing for fromulaic thrillers but with ME? As for the future, Hammond and Scull (Calcifer here) seem to be the anointed scholars and Adam the family member likely to be most involved (he aided his father with the Children of Hurin and is the translator into French of the early volumes of HoME. He may me moremedia savvy and friendly than pere but I doubt it will be a free for all under his watch.

It is quite possible that the published Silmarillion is not what Christopher would have issued had the full archive been available to him at get go...as I recall a substantial amount of documents came to light later but I think he has more than corrected his "mistake" in the form of UT and HoME. Those of us who love those works being available to us are grateful that JRR's son was a natural scholar not a storyteller. It is a remarkable achievement even for one who was editing his father's work in the nursery, keeping tabs on the colours of dwarf hoods.

My main regret with Christopher being the good scholar is that he as far as I recall pretty much sticks to the texts. There must be so much anecdotal stuff he knows from being so close to his father but he hasn't included becasue he has no textual proof. My hope is that he has written a memoir for posthumous publication but given how persecuted he has been it is a very faint one.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

(...) It is quite possible that the published Silmarillion is not what Christopher would have issued had the full archive been available to him at get go...as I recall a substantial amount of documents came to light later but I think he has more than corrected his "mistake" in the form of UT and HoME.

Hmm, I'm not sure there was relatively that much unavailable or unknown to Christopher Tolkien in the 1970s -- and at least one example that I do recall at the moment is the updated long prose Beren and Luthien, but it is very close to the poetic version, and as far as it goes introduces no substantial changes to the tale.

And for example where Christopher Tolkien has criticized himself: The Fall of Doriath presents a somewhat unique scenario in any event, but given Christopher Tolkien's own regret here -- that he with Guy Kay could have done better in the way of sticking closer to the existing texts -- I'm pretty sure (although without checking) that he still had all the relevant material before him for consideration, at the time.


It seems to me that Christopher Tolkien has been criticized from both sides, so to speak -- for not taking up the mantle of writer in enough measure (I think Michael Drout, at least, expressed this desire in his review of The Children of Hurin) -- and for overstepping the bounds of the editorial function. Or some say the published Silmarillion is too long and 'boring' (!) while others think it should have included much more of what we now find in HME.


The History of Middle-Earth ('Silmarillion related' portion) may be very complete seeming, but Christopher Tolkien has noted that his private History of the Silmarillion is actually longer and more detailed -- although one assumes the most notable and interesting information (the most notable from Christopher Tolkien's point of view, granting that this too can be opinion-based when one really wants to take up a detailed study of the Silmarillion) has made its way into the version on public bookshelves.

[Mithalwen]

You may be right it is some time since I have more than dipped into HoMe. I just recalled mention of stuff which either went to Marquette by mistake or should have gone to Marquette and didn't... I suppose the thing is that the Silmarillion was thought to have been unpublishable in Tolkien's life time - didn't he envisage it as being comparable to the rings? If there had been a "more perfect" Silmarillion published in Tolkien's lifetime I wonder if we would have had UT and HoME. The "imperfect" published Silmarillion may have been a vital stepping stone in giving so many of access to the drafts. In which case I think I prefer it that way.. nice as it might have been to have had every story in the Sil able collated and expanded as CoH was....

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

You may be right it is some time since I have more than dipped into HoMe. I just recalled mention of stuff which either went to Marquette by mistake or should have gone to Marquette and didn't...

Insofar as the Marquette papers are LotR-specific, rather than the entire corpus of Middle-earth, I suspect your memory is muddling bits of the History of the LotR with History of the Silm.

That said, I think your basic point about Christopher Tolkien having a greater sense of the Silm corpus after the HoME, and as a result of the HoME, is still valid. Even if he had all the papers, which is a fair assumption, and even if he was familiar with all their contents, it does not follow that he had the perspective on them all necessary to make the most judicious decisions in all cases regarding a collated Silmarillion. You can see just from the notated changes to earlier volumes included at the beginning of most later volumes of the HoME what a huge task it was to keep all the different manuscripts and variants in mind, and it makes sense spending twenty-plus years on the entire corpus of Middle-earth (1973-the mid-1990s) would give Christopher Tolkien a fuller sense of the corpus than the 4 years (from his father's death, 1973, to the publication of the Silmarillion, 1977) he had to bring that entire corpus down to a single publishable text.

[lindil]

I think if the right person [douglas anderson or one of the other folks already close to CJRT] were to present him with an 'Expanded Silmarillion' that did not try and change the 77/99 Silmarillion but instead supplemented it with a 'best of Unfinished Tales/HoM-E' it could fly.


And unless CJRT has put some clause of non-tampering in with ANY Silmarilion ever published by the estate after his well-earned repose, it is more likely to come out after. He spent a big chunk of his life trying to do right by his father and undoubtedly feels rather attached to the treatment[s] he has given the Silmarillion[s].

I do think a gorgeous multi-volume set with the 'canonical' (note quotes ) Silm in the center, and the annals [old below and new above] and the most interesting additions and variants in boxes where appropriate would be gorgeous and frankly much needed. So many people never make it to HoM-E where imo in the post LotR volumes some of his best writing lays, read by a small % of M-E lovers.

If I had been more foresighted, I would have skewed the whole Translations from the Elvish Project in that direction, but frankly the idea did not occur to me until after we [ Aiwendil and I ] had the long, hard debate over Rog/principles of editing and I was nearing the end of my active involvement with the truly massive undertaking.

Nonetheless, the TftE as it stands is doing a brilliant thing by sticking to JRRT's words and themes far closer than CJRT did editorially, and someone someday will be able to get a Doctorate out of their work if they know of it that is.

So I do hope it gets done, and I see it would help the Silmarillion take it's rightful place alongside LotR as an equal work - not just in size but in depth of story, which the edited version simply does not allow for very easily if at all.

The Osanwe Kenta, the Laws and Customs of the Eldar and the Athrabeth, the wanderings of Hurin are some of JRRT's most moving to me writings, and them being buried in HoM-E is a minor tragedy, relieved only by the fact that they ARE available. Though some not even in HoM-E!