Faery by John T Kruse - 2020; the elves of folklore compared with those of Tolkien

I have been reading some of the work of John T Kruse on the subject of fairies; especially  - especially his Faery: a guide to the lore, magic and world of the Good Folk (2020) - which is, by far, the single most informative and readable work on the subject I have encountered. 

Elf is the usual name for such people among Anglo-Saxons and ancient Scandinavians, and this survived into the Middle Ages and beyond in the Scottish Borders - where they form the subject of numerous ballads. 

The word "Fairy" is a more recent, French-derived import - spreading from the metropolis. 

I also read his annotated collection Fairy Ballads and Rhymes (2020) - which features and discusses the fairy-referencing Ballads (mostly originating from the Marches of Northumberland and Cumberland and the southernmost counties of Scotland). 

Some of my particular favourite examples of these include Thomas the Rhymer, and Tam Lin - to which I would add (although it is not included here) Willy O' Winsbury. 

Another perhaps fairy is the protagonist of Long Lankin (or, in Northumbrian Lang Lonkin) - the site of whose exploits we recently encountered during a walk. In his novel about the return of the elves, Lords and Ladies; Terry Pratchett names the Fairy Queen's (especially cruel) lieutenant Lankin - and this certainly fits some versions of the ballad (although this is not the usual explanation).  

Once you have tuned-into fairy references in literature and song, which are often implied rather than explicit; then you can see they may be present at a pretty high frequency. For example in the Arthurian stories - where Wendy Berg and Gareth Knight have both argued that nearly-all of the women, including Guinevere, are probably fairies. 

What has this to do with the elves of JRR Tolkien? Not very much! 

Tolkien's elves - as depicted in The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - have little relationship to folklore and are mostly his own creation. 

Indeed the high elves of Middle Earth (who are the focus of the stories) were at first called fairies; (in poems then the Lost Tales) then called Gnomes until a pretty advanced stage of publication. Although the Gnome name was chosen for its etymological link to knowledge (as in "gnosis"), rather than from its previous usage in folklore, magic etc. 

(Only after garden gnomes - which are more like mini-caricature-dwarves - became popular between the wars, did Tolkien drop the name.)  

If you want Ballad or folklore elves, you can find them (more or less) in Alan Garner's first two novels, Terry Pratchett, and Susanna Clarke's stories - and many other places, including the more authentic fairy stories, such as those of the Grimm brothers.  

Within Tolkien's oeuvre the closest are the Mirkwood elves, in The Hobbit

The feasting people were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West... In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run over the open lands by moonlight or starlight; and after the coming of Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People. 

Tolkien's emphasis on elves as Good People is un-ironic, and is a symptom of the fact that his understanding of faery folk originally derived from literary sources; rather than folklore - where the appellation "good" is apparently fear-motivated and propitiatory.  

However, in the writings of Morgoth's Ring (volume ten of The History of Middle Earth) Tolkien made provision for the transformation of his genuinely good elves, into the much more ambiguous elves of folklore; when he described the fate and nature of the "lingerers" - those elves who refused to migrate to the undying lands when their time was ended: 

It would seem that in these after-days more and more of the Elves, be they of the Eldalie in origin or be they of other kinds, who linger in Middle-earth now refuse the summons of Mandos, and wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unable to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that once they knew. 

Not all of these are kindly or unstained by the Shadow. Indeed the refusal of the summons is in itself a sign of taint....

The Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. 

To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one own's will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.

This is all much closer to the folklore and ballad descriptions detailed by John T Kruse in his Faery compilations. 

The passage indicates that Tolkien saw value in explaining how the nature and reputation of elves had undergone such a transformation from the era of his Legendarium down into recorded history. 

We can also note how thoroughly Tolkien had left-behind his early "Victorian" attitude to fairies* as tiny, pretty creatures who were harmless when not benign - but never scary or wicked. 

  

*Most notoriously evident in his very early, and quite popular anthology, poem Goblin Feet; which Tolkien later detested - but which, at the time of its composition in 1915, was typical of his fairy writings.  

Many bullets dodged, but he gets it right - in the end! Tolkien's character names

Reading The History of Middle Earth (edited by Christopher Tolkien) and The History of the Hobbit (edited by John D Rateliff); it becomes clear that Tolkien greatly improved his books during the course of revision; which also implies that the early drafts sometimes contained some rather, um, bad stuff. 

And this even applies to the area for which Tolkien is justly greatly renowned, indeed unsurpassed: the matter of names. 

The excellence of Tolkien's names (of places, as well as people, and other beings) is that they are derived from coherent etymology, which is rooted in particular languages (some historical, others invented) by Tolkien's philological expertise. 

But this could lead him astray - sometimes - when a character's "correct" name, according to the rules of the languages ascribed to his imaginary worlds, sounded in some way wrong for the modern reader. 

This began with The Hobbit, when the wizard's name was at first Bladorthin (instead of Gandalf).

Bladorthin probably derived from an early form of Tolkien's Elvish language Sindarin - and therefore satisfied Tolkien's demand for internal linguistic coherence of names. 

But it just doesn't sound right to the modern ear! - with its hard-not-to-think-about implications of "a thin bladder". 

The wizard was eventually given the name of Gandalf, which was originally given to the "Thorin" character - and was (like all the other dwarf names, except Balin) taken from a Norse name-list of dwarves from the Elder Edda.  

Then again - instead of what became the mellifluous "Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror" - we might have had "Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Fimbulfambi"! 

Fimbulfambi is another dwarf name from Old Norse - and so has impeccable philological credentials within The Hobbit's linguistic context; but it just sounds silly, indeed laughably so, to modern English speakers. 

It is a measure of Tolkien's excellence as a creative writer, rather than an applied philologist; that he was prepared to take this into account and allow it priority; then go back and provide a different and more sensible alternative name. 

Another "wrong" name from the earliest mythologies in Lost Tales; was calling the High Elves who became the Noldor by the name of Gnomes. 

Gnome was etymologically-related (in the "real world") to knowledge and wisdom (e.g. gnostic and gnosis) - but during the time Tolkien was working on the Silmarillion material and LotR; deliberately vulgar and kitsch "garden gnomes" became very popular. 

So, again reluctantly, Tolkien made the change.    

Even in The Lord of the Rings, there were problems with some of the names of major characters. 

Frodo was, for a long time, called Bingo - which certainly had the wrong connotations for a mid-twentieth century English reader. 

In this case, Bingo was probably less about philology, and perhaps more a matter of having the character named after a favourite teddy bear and family, belonging to his daughter ("the Bingos"). 

But, in the end - and despite having got used to Bingo - Tolkien bit the bullet and made the revision. 

Another too-silly name was Trotter as the name for the character who became Strider or Aragorn. 

I have already told the story behind this name, and how it led Tolkien towards what would have been his most cringe-inducing decision! 

But, as usual, eventually and before it was too-late, Tolkien dodged the bullet. 

As a final and notorious example; Galadriel's husband Celeborn, the Lord of Lothlorien - was to be called Teleporno.

Indeed, in some possibly canonical backstory versions, that may have remained one of his linguistically-valid names, when the Fellowship met with him in Lothlorien, and after. 

Fortunately, Teleporno did not get into The Lord of the Rings - or else goodness knows what the "Bored of the Rings" parodists would have made of it. 

Whether Tolkien recognized the danger of Teleporno is not recorded, so far as I know; certainly its suggestive qualities would not have been so apparent in the 1950s. But at any rate, his admirers were spared such embarrassment until after the History of Middle Earth appeared a couple of decades after the author's demise. 

My semi-serious point is that - as so often when dealing with a genius - Tolkien's great strengths were also a source of weakness; strengths and weakness usually being (as Nietzsche, coincidentally another eminent philologist, pointed-out) two sides of the same coin. 

(Because they are derived from strong inner motivations.) 

In other words; the same reason that Tolkien's names are unsurpassed - their deep and coherent derivation; also contained a tendency to ignore the superficial and obvious ways in which such names would strike the non-philologist who was ignorant of relevant history. 

Yet, because Tolkien was an even greater writer than he was philologist; he always seems to have reached the right decision - in the end. 

   

Where does the evil of Melkor come from, in The Silmarillion?

At the beginning of The Silmarillion (1977) there is the creation story Ainulindale - which describes, in musical terms, how the universe is created; starting from Eru, The One, prime creator God. 

JRR Tolkien regarded this myth as broadly compatible with his orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity - such that Eru has the attributes traditionally ascribed to the God of Catholic theology - being wholly-perfect in goodness; and one who creates everything from nothing; is omnipotent, omniscient etc. 

The first thing Eru does is to create the Ainur; the senior angels or "gods" who later become the Valar (the senior angels) and the Maia (the subordinate angels). 

It seems that the creation of the Ainur  involves Eru dividing his "elemental" attributes and distributing them among the angelic beings; so that Vala suuch as Melkor has a link to fire (including spiritual fire), Manwe the airs, Ulmo all the waters etc. 

More junior Maia have more specific powers and responsibilities - so that Osse represents just the coastal waters of Middle Earth.  

Thus far, we can envisage the Ainur as being subdivisions of some of Eru's all-including characteristics, and with made-into a divine being that each has "agency": autonomy and freedom. 

It is from the interactions of these separated Ainur that the actual universe is made; the process being described as a great music, a developing harmony; with each of the Ainur as-if an instrument/ composer with a distinctive tone and disposition. 

These combine to make a great "improvised" symphony - which is creation. 

The problem is Melkor - who later becomes called Morgoth; who is represented as the source of dissonance in the harmony of the great music; and thereby - when that music is revealed to be creation - the source of evil and the confusion and corruption of other beings: including Ainur, and the lower orders of beings such as dwarves, elves and Men. 

More exactly, the problem is: 

Considering that Eru is perfectly good, and all-that-is comes-from Eru - where does the evil in Melkor's nature originate? 

If Eru is perfectly good, then there can apparently be no evil from-which Melkor could derive it. 

The question of Melkor's agency is secondary, in that Melkor would neither have evil motivations (such as pride) nor would he make make evil choices (such as introducing discords) unless his nature was already evil.  

For Melkor to become evil; Melkor would have to contain evil in the first place...

And yet we are told that Melkor comes only and entirely from Eru. 

The only way I can make a sort-of sense from this is to assume that when Eru's perfectly-good nature is sub-divided to make the Ainur, then this process creates an imbalance or lop-sidenness due to the incompletion of each of the Ainur.

It is this incompletions and imbalance of nature which results in the evil of Melkor. 

If this is true; it would mean that evil is a matter of imbalance - and that anything less complete that the everything-fullness of Eru is therefore evil - to some extent. 

However, I don't think that this does much more than kick the can, if Eru's nature is said to be omnipotent and omniscient; because that would imply that the evil nature due to the particular incomplete imbalance of Melkor was foreknown to Eru. 

Yet Eru chose to make Melkor the most powerful of the Ainur...

So that all the evil of the world, past present and future, was implicit from the start, in the way that Eru chose to create. 

The consequence is that the perfect goodness of Eru somehow contains all the actual evil of creation - past, present and future. Yet Eru (if compatible with the Roman Catholic understanding of God) must be one and indivisible - Eru must have no internal structure. 

(...Except in the mystical word spell of Trinitarianism, whereby the indivisible unity of God simultaneously and without contradiction is stated to contain the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But that paradoxical mystery is not an explanation.) 

An "imbalance" theory of evil is quite common, indeed it is almost mainstream. 

One ancient manifestation of this theory was the Ancient Greek proverb of "moderation in all things" - a more recent manifestation is Jung's idea that individual's need to know and embrace their shadow self and its impulses, in order to attain the highest individuation. 

Another version of the idea is that the ideal situation is a balance between Law and Chaos: too much of either is evil, and the best is some kind of middle path that includes a bit of both. 

However, such ideas are not Christian; which faith is based on conceptualization of positive goodness - the more the better; and that (while God can make the best of the inevitable evils of this mortal life) - the ideal situation (Heaven) is one where there is only good, and no evil. 

Indeed, while there is always some good in any overall-evil being, even Melkor; since to exist as a being is to be part of divine creation. 

Good is therefore mixed-into evil in all actual beings - even when a being is eternally committed to opposing God and divine creation...

But Christianity insists that there can and should be pure good, not some balanced mixture of good with evil; and good is what Christians aspire to. 

Therefore, I do not think the imbalance theory of evil can be used to explain the nature of Melkor; nor would it (I suspect) have been acceptable to JRRT. 

Given Tolkien's assumptions; the situation regarding the creation of Melkor is incoherent: it does not make sense.  

"Something has to give" among the assumptions that lead to this incoherence. 

Given that Christians cannot (or perhaps should not) give-up on the pure-goodness of God; what must therefore give way is the idea that God created everything (including Melkor) from nothing - which means from-Himself-only.

If instead we assumed that Melkor was eternally existent as a being; that existence preceding Eru's creation; then the evil of Melkor's nature need not have been created by Eru.

We can assume that the roots of Melkor's evil nature and choices were always there - they were not aspects of Eru. 

Then the perfect goodness of Eru can be asserted and explained simply and coherently. 

Charles Williams Did influence JRR Tolkien's writing - The Place of the Lion and The Notion Club Papers

For the past fifty years it has been normal to assume that JRR Tolkien disliked (probably because he was jealous of) Charles Williams; and that Williams did not influence Tolkien's writing.

Despite that Tolkien personally claimed such things in writing; none of these are strictly correct. 

Tolkien was good friends with Williams, during Williams's life - it was only some years after Williams died, when Tolkien became aware of some aspects of CW's biography, that Tolkien turned against Williams and began to make misleading statements to play-down their friendship. 

The denial of Williams's influence on Tolkien is more complex. As a generalization, it is true to say that the two men had different minds, aims, and literary styles - and there is no striking influence of Williams noticeable in the works Tolkien published during his lifetime - especially not The Lord of the Rings. 

But more can be said. 

One major influence of Williams is not in The Lord of the Rings, but in the fact that it was attempted at all, and soon became a more ambitious book than The Hobbit, and directed at adults. 

This was - I believe - a consequence of the powerful effect - on CS Lewis as well as JRR Tolkien - of encountering Williams's novel The Place of the Lion in 1936. This led Lewis and Tolkien making a "deal" to embark on attempting to write "adult" fantasy or science fiction novels of a kind they especially liked reading. 

Lewis produced the Space Trilogy, and Tolkien produced two unpublished (in his lifetime) attempts at a time travel story: The Lost Road (attempted immediately), and The Notion Club Papers (attempted about a decade after Tolkien and Lewis's deal). 

And it is in an un-published  (and un-finished) work by Tolkien, The Notion Club Papers, that the influence of Charles Williams can be seen. 

Therefore, Williams did influence Tolkien's writing - and in a direct fashion - but the piece of writing Williams influenced was neither completed nor published by Tolkien.

Indeed, edited drafts of the Notion Club Papers did not appear in print until 1992, embedded in the Middle of the Sauron Defeated volume of Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle Earth - nearly fifty years after Williams's death, and nearly twenty years since JRR Tolkien's death.   

In the event; Williams's influence was invisibly absorbed-into The Lord of the Rings, but only via the secondary effects of the NCPs, which were mainly on Numenor and its use as a "backstory" for the Dunedain; and the Numenorean language of Adunaic (which evolved into the Common Speech of Middle Earth). 

It seems to me very likely that Tolkien's writing of The Notion Club Papers was a direct consequence of the death of Charles Williams. 

The Williams derivation is seen firstly in the origins of the NCPs as a playful "alter-ego" discussion group, explicitly referencing The Inklings, read to The Inklings as work-in-progress in instalments, and with characters loosely-based on the post-Williams membership. 

In this respect I regard it as significant that there is no Notion Club member who is described as based-on the just-deceased Charles. It is as if the NCPs was a tribute to Charles's memory, and as such to include CW among the somewhat facetious caricatures the NCP membership would have been disrespectful and altogether inappropriate. 

Yet, if I am right, The Notion Club Papers were developed as a creative celebration of Tolkien's friend and fellow Inkling Charles Williams, conceived in remembrance of the catalytic and transformative effects of The Place of the Lion, back in 1936. 

According to Christopher Tolkien's dating; The Notion Club Papers was written during a period from late 1944, a few months before the death of Charles Williams up to the summer of 1946 after which work on The Lord of the Rings was re-commenced, and the NCPs were set aside finally and irrevocably. 

These dates set a bound to work on the Notion Club Papers - they were written between late 1944 and mid 1946; but there is (I think) no reference to the NCPs until August 1946 (in Warren Lewis's diary), and my prediction would be that the Notion Club Papers was begun in mid 1945, some time after Charles Williams's death on 15th May.   

During this period when work of LotR was suspended; it is likely that the Notion Club Papers was Tolkien's major writing project - alongside preparing his essay On Fairy Stories for publication in a memorial Festschrift volume for Charles Williams. It seems that Tolkien's thoughts, and those of the Inklings as a group, were almost certain to be much occupied with Williams.  

Among Charles William's novels, The Place of the Lion is the only one that we know for sure was highly-rated and valued by Tolkien. 

And, among CW's novels, The Place of the Lion is distinctive in its structure. A group of modern people have formed a kind of spiritual research society, and these inadvertently open-up a "channel" to the ancient and primal world of Platonic Ideas or Archetypes. This channel to another world operates through the minds of group members.

The various Platonic Archetypes then flood-through the minds of particular people; enter into the modern world, and begin to wreak havoc. 

In broad terms; this is an exact analogy to the basic plot of the Notion Club Papers. A group of writers become deeply interested in viewing other times and places, making various attempts to attune their minds with the past and remote parts of the universe; and thereby the NC inadvertently establish a channel of contact with the persons and era of the downfall and drowning of Numenor.  

Once this channel has been opened among NC members, then the winds and tidal waves that had destroyed Numenor flood-through into the modern world, and wreak havoc. 

Therefore, in a general sense, The Place of the Lion offered Tolkien a model for building a relationship between the modern everyday world, and some other world with more profound and transcendent aspects; a model that involved the deliberate attunement of minds happening among members of a particular group. 

Or, to put it differently (and as explicitly stated within the NCP), The Place of the Lion provided for Tolkien a way of linking mundane history to mythic reality, on the assumption that the remote past was actually mythic in its reality. 

On such a basis; at one point, Tolkien considered using The Notion Club Papers as the framing for the Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings/ Silmarillion; as a way of explaining how knowledge of Numenor/ Middle Earth/ Arda, came to be transmitted to modern times.

In the end, Tolkien framed his stories with the fiction that ancient manuscripts (such as The Red Book of Westmarch) had survived through the millennia, and somehow come into his hands as their "editor"; but while writing the NCPs, he was exploring the idea that there was a direct, mind-to-mind, transmission of such knowledge via the Notion Club.   

In sum; a specific focus on The Place of the Lion among all of Charles William's work, and a consideration of the chronology and form of Tolkien's writing, and the inclusion of Tolkien's unpublished and unfinished works; leads to a recognition of a strong, and indeed decisive, influence of Charles Williams on JRR Tolkien.  

**

Note: As can be seen in the links above, I (as well as others) have fairly often commented that The Notion Club Papers was Tolkien's "Charles Williams novel" - in a general sense, and in an "atmospheric" way. 

I am now saying more than this, and in a much more specific sense: that the NCPs was not just "a" Charles Williams novel, but related to one particular novel: The Place of the Lion. 

And furthermore that this was purposively so: that Tolkien wrote The Notion Club Papers with Charles Williams and The Place of the Lion in-mind.  

JRR Tolkien Letters on audiobook, performed by Samuel West

I reviewed the new edition of JRR Tolkien's selected letters earlier this year; and I saw at the time that the whole thing was also available as an audiobook - which was a mammoth twenty-nine hours yet cost me just one "Audible" credit to buy (less than five pounds). 

So, strangely, the audiobook of Letters is much cheaper than the paper copy! (So long as you are an Audible member.)  

Listening to these letters was a tremendously enjoyable experience - probably more so than reading them. Also I felt that I was taking in more of the meaning aurally, than when reading to myself - perhaps due its being easier to concentrate. 

...For which much of the credit must go to Samuel West; who is "the voice of Tolkien" in this production. 

Samuel West is a very experienced Tolkien audiobook reader of the Silmarillion and broadly Legendarium material, typically reading Tolkien's text - and has often made a team with his father Timothy - who plays the "editorial role" of Christopher's voice. 

But these letters represent SW's greatest challenge yet; since there are so many of them and they lack an over-arching dramatic structure, and because they are letters rather than fictions, and were not intended for publication. 

Yet West does a simply superb job! What greatly impressed me was his sustained focus on the reading; on the precise meanings of the sentences. He also made the letters dramatic - full of light and shade; with a wide range of emotions - happiness, anger, tragedy, irritation, the sublime... So that each letter becomes a structured exposition of some aspect of Tolkien the man. 

I think this convincing interpretation of Tolkien as a character is made possible by Samuel West's unusually high intelligence for an actor - so that he pronounces extremely wide vocabulary of the words correctly, phrases the complex sentences grammatically, accurately inflects their meanings.  

An unreserved recommendation from me  - I anticipate relistening many times. 

JRR Tolkien did not finish and publish The Silmarillion because the motivational aspect of his genius had dwindled

It is an interesting question why JRR Tolkien did not finish and publish The Silmarillion; despite that The Lord of the Rings was published in late 1955 and Tolkien did not die until mid-1973; and despite that all through these seventeen-plus years he was insistent that making The Silmarillion publishable was his number one priority. 

Much has been written, and truly enough, about the many technical difficulties facing Tolkien in this work, and about his habits of making matters harder for himself by writing new material (and radically changing old material) rather than focusing on the core task of making The Silmarillion both internally consist, and consistent with the published Lord of the Rings.  

I would like to take a different approach altogether. This recognizes that JRR Tolkien was a genius, The Lord of the Rings was a work of genius, and Tolkien wanted The Silmarillion also to be a work of genius.

By my understanding of the nature of genius; to do work of genius requires both exceptionally high ability, and also exceptionally strong motivation. 

This exceptional motivation comes from within (i.e. is "endogenous" - inner-generated) - and can only come from within. The motivation is focused to accomplish the particular task a genius feel inwardly compelled to accomplish. 

Such a powerful and sustained inner motivation is something present... or not. 

Because of the difficulty of accomplishing a work of genius, only a genuine and inner motivation will suffice to provide the sustained and directed energies and concentration that is necessary. 

Self-exhortation, external pressures, the sense of duty, potential financial or other benefits... these things can be no substitute for a genius's special capacity for inner motivation, directed to do what he "must". 

The Letters of JRR Tolkien document the power and resilience of his motivation to write the Lord of the Rings (LotR), extending over more than a decade - and persisting despite many obstacles such as multiple urgent and competing duties at home and in work, World War Two, physical and psychological illness; and his innate reluctance to finish any piece of work, but instead to "niggle" at it.  

Tolkien wrote and published Lord of the Rings; despite several longish hiatuses and interruptions - some self-inflicted; but always he would return to the job, again and again, pushing forward over-and-over with the massive task - even as its difficulties continued to expand.

We need to recognize the colossal expenditure of directed and sustained effort that this required - Tolkien often emphasized this himself in later writings, including the Foreword to Lord of the Rings.  

My point is that genius-level writing is not only a product of genius-level ability; but also genius-level motivation.

It was primarily a decline of motivation that failed Tolkien in his intention to complete and publish The Silmarillion - at a level of attainment commensurate with the earlier published book. 

Such a decline in motivation was, of course, not Tolkien's "fault". Indeed, it is more accurate to put things the other way around...

More accurate to say that Tolkien was temporarily blessed with a tremendous power of self-motivation during the years of his late middle-age; carrying him through from the beginnings of LotR in 1937, at least to submission of its final volume in 1955 - by which time Tolkien was sixty-three years old.

The (apparent) fact that this extraordinary motivation was not sustained over the entire remainder of his life and through into extreme old-age; is simply that such things depend on our mortal and vulnerable bodies and minds; therefore they don't usually last very long.  

I think his ability as a writer remained largely intact; in that some of his very best pieces of writing came after the publication of Lord of the Rings and up to the late 1960s. these including Silmarillion themed pieces; posthumously published in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle earth.   

So I believe it was diminished motivation rather diminished ability that was the problem with The Silmarillion. 

Tolkien was to some extent unable, and also to some extent unwilling, to focus his motivation on The Silmarillion. This is evident in the memoir from Clyde Kilby, about assisting Tolkien in the middle 1960s - ostensibly to help him complete The Silmarillion. 

Kilby reports that (on a day by day basis) Tolkien went to considerable lengths to do almost-anything-else, other than work on The Silmarillion!

But a particularly telling example is documented in the published Letters.

Immediately after the publication of LotR; Tolkien claimed, in many letters, to be unable to focus upon The Silmarillion because he needed to complete several philological publishing commitments, as well as continue the duties related to his position as a Professor of English at Oxford. 

However he was due to retire in just a couple of years...

But in 1957 Tolkien arranged to stay on as Professor for an extra two years. This he stated to be due to money worries, related to a modest pension. In the event (as Tolkien realized by 1958) there was no reason to be concerned about his income, because income from royalties on LotR soon proved to be very substantial indeed. 

In correspondence; Tolkien said he wished he had known this before taking on the extra two years as Professor - which was not, after all, proving to be financially helpful (due to the effect on taxation of his royalty income). Tolkien said that if he had known about the extra LotR income, he would have retired earlier, at the statutory age. 

Tolkien finally retired in 1959, aged 67 - this was now four years post-LotR. 

However, in a letter dated 21st July 1962; Tolkien announced that from October 10th "I have to stand in for the outgoing Professor of Anglo Saxon" until the new Professor took up his post in Easter 1963. 

Of course; Tolkien did not "have to" do anything of the sort! It was Tolkien's choice - a matter of his priorities, not his duties; and there was no financial necessity. 

Tolkien was by 1962 now seventy one years old, and had been fully retired for three years; and was five years post his official retirement - and it was now fully seven years since the Lord of the Rings had been published. Seven years since he was supposed to be concentrating his best energies on completing and publishing The Silmarillion...

Yet, here was Tolkien voluntarily returning to university duties that had stood in the way of his writing for decades, the onerous nature of which he had very frequently complained in his earlier letters!

What I infer from this is that, in his later life - approximately the final eighteen years, Tolkien lacked the colossal drive necessary to making The Silmarillion his priority, setting aside other claims on his time and energies, and pushing through to its completion. 

It was this inner lack of motivation, presumably due to increasing age and diminishing vitality - rather than anything else; that was critical in Tolkien's failure to finish The Silmarillion.  

My Treatment for how The Notion Club Papers might have been completed

Tolkien's Notion Club Papers completed by Bruce G Charlton

(a speculative, summary 'treatment' - as if for a movie) 

Having brooded (some would say obsessively - and they would be right!) over Tolkien's Notion Club Papers for a couple of years, I am now going to speculate about where the NCPs were tending; what the NCPs would have been about and what they would have been like - if ever Tolkien had finished the novel.

In a nutshell, I believe that the Notion Club Papers were intended to serve an extremely important purpose: to rescue modern England from its spiritual malaise. At least - that was what the Notion Club themselves would be depicted as doing fictionally - and the finished book would be intended to make this possible in the mundane world. Tolkien's ouvre (his Legendarium) was intended to make a mythology for England; the Notion Club Papers were intended to link his mythical Legendarium to modern England. (I got this from the work of Verlyn Flieger - especially her book Interrupted Music.)

I suggest that the NCPs would - ultimately (if finished) - have provided a feigned history of the processes that brought Tolkien's historical myth/s into action in the modern world.

What was Tolkien 'rescuing' England from? This is made explicit in the NCPs: [Jeremy] ..."Sometimes I have a queer feeling that, if one could go back, one would find not myth dissolving into history, but rather the reverse: real history becoming more mythical - more shapely, simple, discernibly significant, even seen at close quarters. More poetical and less prosaic, if you like.(...) "They're not wholly inventions. And even what is invented is different from mere fiction; it has more roots." (...) "[The roots are] In Being, I think I should say," Jeremy answered; "and in human Being; and coming down the scale, in the springs of History and the designs of Geography - I mean, well, in the pattern of our world as it uniquely is, and of the events in it as seen from a distance. (...) "Of course, the pictures presented by the legends may be partly symbolical, they may be arranged in designs that compress, expand, foreshorten, combine, and are not at all realistic or photographic, yet they may tell you something true about the Past."

With the NCPs Tolkien was intending to tell us something true about the past, something that we need to know because at present England's past is merely history, when it should be myth. The Notion Club Papers were intended to make England's history into myth - i.e. to reverse the process of myth dissolving into history described by Jeremy in the quote above. Tolkien wanted, that is, contemporary history to dissolve into myth; and the NCPs were (as they evolved) aimed at achieving this.

Arguably, Tolkien achieved his goal, although by other and less direct means - in the sense that many people (like myself) nowadays 'use' Tolkien's Legendarium as a myth by-which (and through-which) they understand and interpret the current world. We do this despite the lack of an explicit and comprehensive mythical link between the Legendarium (saturated, as it is, with purpose and meaning) and the nihilistic modern world of objective irrelevant 'facts' and purely-individual subjectivities. However, in order for this to have happened via the NCPs, they would need to have needed to end-up very differently from how they set out: in literary terms, the NCPs would have required very substantial re-writing, in ways which we can only extrapolate from hints and glimmerings.

The basic situation which the Notion Club inhabit is an Oxford (England, Western Civilization) that is out-of-contact with Faery: in more general terms, a society out-of-contact with myth. Hence vulgar, coarsened, materialistic; without depth, meaning or purpose. The action of the Notion Club throughout the novel, I speculate, would have been aimed at restoring this contact between Faery and England; and indeed I speculate that the climax of the novel would have been precisely this re-establishment of contact.

As scholars and writers, the Notion Club would have been aware of the necessity for human contact with Faery (i.e. with myth) in order that their work (as well as their lives) may be profound, imaginative and ennobled - and rise above mere 'utility'. The means by which the club would restore contact with myth would, I assume, be the usual ones employed by Tolkien and of which hints exist in the incomplete and surviving NCP text: by a quest, by a hero who is an 'elf friend', and by a 'messenger' between Faery and the mundane world.

As they stand, the NCPs are - to me - an endlessly fascinating fragment, full of evidence about Tolkien and his deepest concerns; but it seems to be a work of extremely limited appeal (at least, I only know of two or three other people than myself who find it at all interesting or enjoyable!) - and therefore I assume that the story in its present form would either be unpublishable, or else destined only for a microscopically small cult audience.

If the NCPs had been completed they would therefore, I believe, have ended-up very differently from the way they exist at present. The overall purpose of the NCPs (within Tolkien's books) would have been to provide a frame for Tolkien's legendarium - in other words, a pseudo-historical 'explanation' for how the legends of the elves, Numenor and ancient Middle Earth were transmitted to our times (transmitted specifically to England, and even more specifically to Oxford). In other words, approximately to link The Silmarillion, Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to the modern reader by a feigned history.

The Notion Club Papers novel would, then, describe how a link between Middle Earth (this modern world) and Faery was re-established.

The shape of the novel would presumably have been the same as Tolkien's other works - some kind of heroic quest in which the hero or heroes come into contact with 'Faery' and an ennobled by contact with 'higher things' and made wiser by their experience. Clearly, the Notion Club Papers would therefore require need a protagonist with whom the reader would identify. That is a character whose thoughts and feelings the reader would get to know in the course of the story. But such characters are lacking (or indirect and inexplicit) in the current NCP drafts.

The existing form of the NCPs, i.e. the literary conceit of their being the formal minutes of club meetings, would therefore need to be dropped or relaxed; to bring in much more direct forms of narrative or reportage. This was already beginning to happen in the later parts of the NCPs, with the introduction of letters from Lowdham (plus some footnotes), and an extended 'dream sequence' which reports Lowdham's inner state during an Anglo Saxon episode. So, in the NCP novel there would be a great expansion of such letters, and also probably diaries and journal entries - so as to bring the reader into more direct contact with the action.

In terms of character, the ANC would therefore need to get inside at least one of Guildford, Ramer, Lowdham and Jeremy. My guess is that the protagonist would have been Guildford - the recorder, who would become the narrator, and would speak directly to the reader (to posterity) about the collection of minutes, letters, poems, fragments and journal entries which he has gathered and collated with the aim of preservation and propagation. Probably, Guildford would have remained a rather background character in terms of the action and excitement, and it would have been the extrovert Lowdham in particular would emerged as the most obvious hero - supported by Jeremy who would, I guess, end-up being the main person responsible for achieving the quest to re-connect with Faery.

I suspect the Ramer character might therefore have receded in importance. His role might be in learning the languages necessary to interpret the documentary material eventually recovered from Faery by Lowdham and Jeremy. Ramer's role at the end of the ANC would perhaps be as scholarly interpreter of the texts brought back to Oxford by Jeremy (who seems not to be skilled as a philologist or historical linguist).

I would imagine that Lowdham - accompanied by Jeremy - would make the breakthrough to physical contact with faery: set sail for the West with Jeremy, be responsible for navigating the boat, and eventually actually land in Faery where he would meet his father - and the High elves. But then Lowdham would stay-behind in faery (with his father) and Jeremy would be the one who returned to England bringing the legendarium - especially the Red Book of Westmarch and Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish.

In sum, the Notion Club Papers would be presented as a collection of minutes, letters, journal entries etc. collected by Guildford concerning the Notion Club in general and Lowdham and Jeremy in particular - telling the story of how a link between faery and England was re-established by the efforts of the Club - firstly in dreams then ultimately by a voyage to Faery.

However, the link between Faery would be firstly psychic, and only secondly physical - the early parts of the NCPs are concerned with the initial glimpses of myth and faery via dreams, then a break-through of visionary material from the past - so powerful that it had an actual physical effect on Oxford and nearby areas of England (the storm replicating the downfall of Numenor). This stage would also provide sufficient linguistic information for the Notion Club (with its linguistic, historical and philological expertise) to be able to interpret the extensive documentary material which would eventually be brought back by Jeremy.

This requires an intermediary: Dolbear - who turns-out to be a wizard/ angel/ messenger from Faery.

The character of Dolbear jumps-out of the Notion Club Papers as somebody about whom there is more than meets the eye. Almost everything he says is wise and cuts-deep. He seems to understand more of what is going-on than anyone else. We know Dolbear has certainly been working, independently, with Ramer even before the meetings were reported and also later with Lowdham - on their dreams and interpretations. Dolbear is also hinted to be a kind of grey eminence at the least; someone greatly respected by the other members (underneath their chummy chaffing) and probably somebody who is - in fact - actually stage-managing the whole process by which the Notion Club re-establishes contact with Faery.

In this sense Dolbear resembles Gandalf - who is a wizard or an 'angel' in disguise; in the sense of being a higher being from the undying lands who is a messenger and catalyst. Probably the reader would not have access to Dolbear's inner life - he would (like Gandalf) be observed rather than experienced. Dolbear would make things happen, by hints and directions and providing key pieces of information - never by force. And at the end of the story Dolbear would return (like Gandalf) whence he came - to Faery.

This is (I speculate) the meaning of Dolbear seeming to sleep though the meetings, yet remain apparently aware of everything which is happening in them - indeed more aware of the implications of the meetings than are the active participants. I suspect that during sleep Dolbear is in contact with Faery and with the Notion Club at the same time. He is therefore a conduit or passageway linking Oxford and the undying lands - he transmits the proceedings of the Notion Club to Faery, and receives instructions of what to do. Dolbear's trance-like states of sleep are therefore (I believe) the specific means by which the inhabitants of Faery are encouraging the renewed contact between England and Faery which the Notion Club themselves seek.

The Oxford setting is highly significant, as is the general similarity between the Notion Club and The Inklings.

Tolkien saw himself as the inheritor of an English racial memory of Faery. In his earliest legends (now published as Lost Tales) England had indeed been a part of Faery - with a place to place mapping between mythic and modern places, and England was especially favoured for this reason. Tolkien regarded this inherited memory as coming down his mother's side of the family, and therefore centred in Warwickshire (Mercia).

And Tolkien had less strong but similarly mystical feelings about Oxford as he did about the nearby West Midlands of England, and of course he spent most of his working life at the University, and this was where most of his friends lived. But mostly, for Tolkien, Oxford had a special role in scholarship related to Faery. And from a practical point of view, Oxford in the early and mid-twentieth century was the perfect place from which knowledge of Faery might have been disseminated throughout the rest of England.

So, my guess is that the NCP novel would have described the Inkling's-like Notion Club in Oxford as having first established a psychic link with Faery - with visionary material glimpsed during dreams, then having recovered extensive documentary evidence from Faery, and brought it back to Oxford for secret safe-keeping, translation and dissemination. The benefits of this mythic, faery knowledge would then enhance first the Notion Club members, then the rest of the University, with elven craft, depth, wisdom and mystery. A special quality in the work of the Notion Club, and Oxford, would have been recognized by the English (who were genetically predisposed to appreciate it) and the effects and benefits would have been spread throughout England by means of Oxford's role in educating the administrators and teachers of the rest of England.

So, in order to re-establish contact between Middle Earth and Faery there would need to be efforts form both sides: both a push and a pull. On the one hand there was a push from the members of the Notion Club, who sensed the shallowness and literalness of their world, the damage of materialism, and the ugliness of industrialization (e.g. Ramer's horrible dream of Oxford through the ages) - and sought to enrich life by contact with Faery. And on the other hand there was a pull from the inhabitants of Faery. The elves were assumed to have benign intentions towards humans and seek to help them.

Especially the inhabitants of Faery wish to help Men to adopt an attitude of love towards nature; to become 'elvishly' capable of disinterested craft, art, science and scholarship as things to be loved for their own sakes, rather than as a means to another end.

In sum - the The Notion Club Papers would (I imagine) describe how the post-medieval process of 'myth turning into history' would be reversed; and first the Notion Club, then Oxford, then England, then maybe eventually the World - might again connected with Faery, and re-enchanted by elvish wisdom and suffused with an elvish perspective.

The three ages of Tolkien in my life

Looking back over the past fifty years I have been reading Tolkien; I can perceive that my attitude to the books (especially The Lord of the Rings) falls into three broad phases. 

Socio-Political

When I began reading, in my middle teens, I regarded LotR as, pretty much, a blueprint for how we ought to live in a socio-political sense. My attitude was that the lesson of the book was that we ought to deindustrialize substantially, and return to an agrarian society, divided into mostly self-sufficient units (i.e. a kind of feudalism), based upon a much simpler level of technology. 

Thus, my interest in Tolkien led to an interest in pre-modern history - Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval. And also an interest in the 'self-sufficiency' and 'intermediate technology' movements, 'ecology', and the politics of William Cobbett, HD Thoreau, William Morris, RH Tawney, the 'distributism' of Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton, and EF Schumacher of 'Small is Beautiful' fame.  

In essence; I saw the spirit of Tolkien located in a type of society; and I hoped to live by this spirit via living in what I understood to be a Tolkienian society. I therefore read the books almost as if they were a manual or blueprint for how we ought to live. 

Jungian

In younger adult life, I lost faith in both the power and goodness of politics - and realized that its direction was against the agrarian. I realized that Men were not passive products of social systems - and I developed the broadly-Jungian idea that 'the psyche' was the primary reality. 

I saw the psyche as a third realm in-between the subjectivity of the everyday and mundane mind on the one hand, and the objectivity of the material world (including society and politics) on the other hand. 

My broad conclusion was that the 'lessons' of Tolkien ought to be developed in terms of living in accordance with the collective unconscious - which I saw as an objective realm of archetypal and mythic realities that was shared by all Men. 

In sum; I saw Tolkien as the greatest modern exemplification of this mythic world; and reading him as a way of discovering and strengthening the mythic in my own life; with the goal of living an integrated life - feeling part of society and guided by the wisdom of myth. 

Romantic Christian

In middle age I became a Christian, and then more and more of a 'Romantic' Christian - under the influence of Mormon theology; and writers such as Blake, Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle. 

Thus, from about 2009, I began increasingly to read and experience Tolkien in a different way. This new era began with my immersion in JRRT's posthumously-published and unfinished novel: The Notion Club Papers. The NCPs contains a good deal of Tolkien autobiography, and was intended as a framework and bridge between the modern world and the world of the 'legendarium' (ie. the Silmarillion annals, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings). 

The Notion Club Papers blog then began to record a new practice of reading Tolkien, and some of the other Inklings, as what used to be termed 'devotional literature' - in the same spirit that past generations might have read Milton's Paradise Lost or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

So, this is where I am now: in my third era of Tolkien. 

Review of The Great Tales Never End: Essays in memory of Christopher Tolkien (2022)

The great tales never end: Essays in memory of Christopher Tolkien. Edited by Richard Ovenden & Catherine McIlwaine. Bodleian Library Publishing: Oxford, UK, 2022. pp. 231. 

I feel enormous gratitude to Christopher Tolkien (1924-2020) for the extraordinary work he did in editing and making available his father's unpublished works, and the drafts of his published works. These have vastly enhanced by enjoyment, and depth of appreciation, of JRR Tolkien over the past several decades. As Tom Shippey puts it in this volume:

It may be said without any qualification at all that no author has ever enjoyed a better or better-qualified literary executor than Tolkien found in his son Christopher.

Yet, although I 'know' and like his literary persona as well as almost anybody; I have until now been able to discover very little about Christopher's life. The Great Tales Never End at long last provides some of the key information I sought. 

My main criticism of this volume is, indeed, that there is not more focus on Christopher's life, and I would have liked more detail about the work he did in the decades before he began to edit his father's unpublished papers. 

I would also have appreciated extra in the way of memoirs of Christopher from friends and relations. TGTNE gives us a poem and a short memoir from sister Priscilla; but I would have enjoyed a lot more of this type of material (which could have been supplied by several of the contributors to later chapters). As things stand, Christopher's real-life personality is still rather obscure to me.  

The book takes the loose 'form' of a Festschrift - with work by eleven authors. It opens with a biographical introduction, timeline and bibliography of Christopher's life by Catherine McIlwaine. This was excellent, and included exciting quotes from thus-far unpublished correspondence; although I would have wished it several-fold longer!  

The information here confirms what I had previously heard but in confidence, and was implied by some remarks in a memoir; that Christopher's academic career was hampered and delayed by his third class bachelor's degree, when a first class was usually expected and required (and might lead swiftly to a permanent academic position). The unexpected failure to attain 'a first' is here explained by depression and ill-health following a failed love affair. 

Christopher then took the longer route to academic security of obtaining a BLitt degree, the research for which led to his only solo book - an edition of Heidrek's Saga. After which he published very little, according to the bibliography (although Google Scholar mentions a paper omitted here, called The Battle of the Goths and the Huns, in Saga-Book of 1953-7). 

As long ago as 1973 I myself studied The Nun's Priest's Tale in the excellent edition that Christopher produced with fellow ex-Inkling Nevill Coghill. It was an inspiring volume, which I have kept all these years - covered, as it now is, by my micrographic schoolboy pencil annotations.

Indeed; Christopher's academic reputation seems to have been based on a reputation for excellence as a teacher. He was a 'lecturer' (presumably on fixed-term contracts) for several years before being elected a Fellow of New College, Oxford in 1963 (at the rather late age of about thirty-nine). He remained in this secure and prestigious post until 1975 (aged about fifty one) when he resigned to work on editing his late father's works. 

From that point onwards, starting with his father's translation of 'Sir Gawain', and for the next 45 years - Christopher certainly 'made up for lost time' as a prolifically publishing scholar! 

In the end, Christopher Tolkien lived to complete his self-imposed task with The Fall of Gondolin in 2018 having been responsible for twenty-five books (according to the bibliography here); all of interest and importance to lovers of Tolkien; many of them containing the fruits of intense study and deep thought.

I shall now focus on particular aspects of a few of the chapters of TGTNE which made a particular impact on me. 

Vincent Ferre presents a detailed analysis of Christopher Tolkien as 'a writer' - whose role (especially in The Silmarillion of 1977) was sometimes required to go beyond 'normal' editing; to include selection from very different versions, rearrangement of passages, and composition of linking passages of prose (although presumably Guy Gavriel Kay - his helper for The Silmarillion - should also be credited with some of this). This gave me a new insight into what Christopher actually did, his process; in relation to the materials he had to work from. 

I took from Verlyn Flieger's chapter a fresh realization that the poetic description of the beginning of the world - as described in Ainulindale or Singing of the Ainur - comes to be reflected in what was originally the final words of The Lord of the Rings outside of Bag End (later moved to the Grey Havens) - where  "Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle Earth". 

The significance is that, slightly to paraphrase what the Silmarillion tells us: in water there yet lives the echo of the Music of the Ainur; so that later Men still hearken to the voices of the sea, but know not for what they listen. In a nutshell: The Silmarillion legends and LotR constitute "one long saga" - an arc from creation itself, to the eternal echoes of creation. 

John Garth's chapter reinforces the importance of this concept to Tolkien by describing the process of his meticulous earlier re-dating of this section of Lost Tales - which locates the Music of the Ainur as among the very earliest examples of Tolkien's creative flowering. 

Another example of the process of literary scholarship is in the chapter by Carl F Hostetter, who illustrates four examples of just how Christopher Tolkien - and himself - work on JRRT's primary manuscripts to provide vital information on dating; and therefore the compositional sequence, of drafts. This sequencing has been especially important in the case of Tolkien's draft material; since it often changed radically; spanning years, or sometimes decades, of composition. 

I was fascinated by Stuart D Lee's chapter on the 1955-6 BBC Radio dramatization of The Lord of the Rings; which used the letters between Tolkien and the BBC, drafts, and annotated scripts to provide a background to these - long lost - audio-broadcasts.  I was particularly struck by Tolkien's comment on the accents that he believed should be used to distinguish the characters. 

It was pleasing to see my own inferences confirmed that Merry and Pippin should not have 'rustical' accents, because they were "two young hobbits of the highest birth in the land". Tolkien suggested that the genuine rustic accents (e.g. for Sam or Butterbur) ought to be characterized mainly by the 'burred' pronunciation of 'r'. 

And further that elves (and other high folk) should 'trill' their 'r's in all positions of the letter (but not as much as do the Scots); whereas the dwarves should use a guttural 'r' from the soft palate (more like the Northumbrian dialect). 

Aside; I noticed that in 1956 the part of Ioreth (the wise woman of Gondor) was played by the young actress Prunella Scales, who later married actor Timothy West - who (some sixty years later) was the editorial voice of Christopher Tolkien himself in the recent audiobooks of Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin! (Their son Samuel West reads the actual texts.) 

Tom Shippey's chapter is titled King Sheave and the Lost Road; and discusses the especially powerful linked-concerns of Tolkien of a divine/ faery land in the west across the ocean; the once-existing sea-path to that land which is now lost but might be found again; and the idea of a 'higher/ nobler' Man (or Men) who came from the West by boat; bringing (for a while) gifts of good government, peace and prosperity in harmony with the gods' will. 

Shippey argues that the King Sheave character of (?) legend was seen by Tolkien as related to Jesus Christ in some spiritual fashion - perhaps as a partial vision of Jesus for the then-pagan North? 

Yet, as Shippey says, although this group of ideas haunted Tolkien through his life, and although he several times tried to incorporate it into his imaginative fictions (for example in Lost Tales, The Lost Road, The Notion Club Papers, references to Earendil and the Great Wave in The Lord of the Rings, and the published poems of Imram and Looney/ The Sea Bell) - in the end Tolkien never succeeded in finding a satisfactory narrative form that would capture this deep emotion. 

I hope have said enough to indicate that there is a lot of 'good stuff' in this enjoyable, albeit heterogeneous, volume. 

At its recommended retail price of forty pounds Sterling; TGTNE is perhaps too costly for the general reader; but this is presumably due to its specialized nature and probably modest audience; as well as to its superb quality as a hardback volume - with good paper, stitched binding, and very impressive maps and colour plates. 

But if you are sufficiently wealthy, Tolkien-obsessed, or can get hold of a library (or secondhand, or review) copy of The Great Tales Never End; you will find a great deal of inspiration, valuable information, and plenty of fruitful novel perspectives; concerning both Christopher Tolkien and his father.

The reality of the imagined: Why did Tolkien frame the Lord of the Rings as if it was real history?

Something missed by casual readers of The Lord of the Rings is the 'editorial' apparatus that presents the book as based-upon an ancient manuscript; in other words, the claim that the book is real history. Why did Tolkien do this - especially considering that he had not done so in The Hobbit? 

Well, in the first place, it was not unusual for the early novelists to claim explicitly and non-ironically that their books were either real records of actual events, or based upon such accounts (e.g. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - if considered as a novel). Indeed, this was so common as to be almost normal up to the twentieth century. 

However, the practice had stopped before Tolkien began work on his Silmarillion legendarium with the unpublished (in his lifetime) Lost Tales commenced late in the 1914-18 War. These stories included a very elaborate feigned-historical framing and explanation of their provenance - that is, the links of how it was that these stories came into our world, into the hands of the modern reader. 

The practice had become very rare by the time Tolkien published Lord of the Rings - except in a self-conscious manner that was intended to be taken ironically or satirically (as with the tongue-in-cheek 'editorial' apparatus of Farmer Giles of Ham). 

Tolkien, by contrast, was not-at-all ironic, but indeed very serious and 'literal' in his within-text claim that LotR came from 'The Red Book of Westmarch', a strategy repeatedly pursued in the Prologue and Appendices that bracket the story; and this was later buttressed by the editorial introduction he included with The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. 

Furthermore, it is a significant part of the failure of The Silmarillion of 1977, that any attempt at framing was abandoned by Christopher Tolkien - a decision CRT soon regretted, and endeavored to 'undo' indirectly, by his History of Middle Earth.  

Note: Verlyn Flieger has written an excellent account of Tolkien's lifelong wrestling with the matter of framing his stories - Interrupted Music, 2005.)

So why was it so important for Tolkien to frame his stories by serious attempts to explain how they came down to modern readers - against the trend of 20th century fiction? 

I think the answer is simply that he wanted to create an imaginative bridge that explained why these stories were not-just-entertainment, not just 'escapism; but were intended to be 'relevant': of serious concern to modern readers. 

This was especially important to Tolkien because he eschewed the usual means of making imagined world relevant - which is allegory. 

Tolkien's world was not meant to be allegorical, and he reacted quite aggressively against those who said it was; but real in-it-own-terms. Yet without any framing and linking between the stories and ourselves this detailed, autonomous, not-allegorical world-building might make the stories feel simply irrelevant... 

By providing a feigned history to bridge between the stories and ourselves, Tolkien created a single imaginative conception of the stories as forming part of our living world - hence obviously of relevance and serious concern to modern readers.

It seems pretty clear to me that Tolkien did not want to admit that he was doing this! - and indeed (e.g. in the preface to the second edition of LotR) he sometimes denied that his stories had any 'purpose' except to entertain people who happened to share his taste for such things. 

But this is to ignore the great efforts he made to frame and link LotR. These went far beyond parody, satire or the merely fictively-sophisticated. 

Indeed, setting aside defensiveness; the truth of the matter was apparent in Tolkien's own - passionate, and non-ironic - practice of referencing his own work in commenting on everyday life; e.g. labelling the attacks on trees (e.g. by chain-saws) as orcish, or modern bureaucracy as the work of Saruman. 

And even developing (post LotR) Galadriel as more and more an echo of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom he was religiously devoted. This linkage would be merely blasphemous unless it were underpinned by a very serious and real imaginative link between his sub-created world and God's creation as known by modern people. 

In other words, Tolkien wrote and lived-by a belief in the potential reality of the imagined: and the actual reality of his own imagined world. 

Tolkien did not, however, theorize the reality of imagination.  

So we can see that for Tolkien it was vitally important the seriously imagined worlds were regarded as really-real - despite that, at another and theological level, he denied this very assertion. 

According to available biographical data, and confirmed by the brilliant analysis by RJ Reilly in his Romantic Religion; Tolkien was apparently unaware of his friend Owen Barfield's extensive and rigorous philosophical work that coherently theorized the reality and truth of imagination. 

Of course; Barfield was working from a metaphysical basis that Tolkien's orthodox, traditional Catholicism did not share. 

But we, looking back, can now perceive that Barfield explained the reality of Tolkien's profound intuitions regarding his own world; and why it is that an imagined provenance for The Lord of the Rings was so important to Tolkien - and so effective for some of those most serious of his readers who regard the Prologue and Appendices as a vital part of the effect made by the whole book.  

What was the effect of the War of the Ring on The Shire? - from Note on the Shire Records (from the Lord of the Rings: Prologue, concerning Hobbits)

I have often wondered how many people read the Prologue: concerning Hobbits, which comes before Chapter 1 of The Lord of the Rings. 

This gives-away a good deal of the coming story, by implication at least - and it is surely a very strange way to approach a fiction via some 20 pages of descriptive context; before the reader has read a word of narrative! 

Yet, apparently it 'works' - for millions of people - as do so many of the strange and counter-intuitive aspects of Tolkien's narrative method.  

Anyway; there are many treasures in the Prologue, which continues to surprise me. For instance, its last section - entitled Note on the Shire Records - primarily has the function of providing a feigned historical 'frame' for the narrative. 

It states that The Lord of the Rings was edited (implicitly by Tolkien himself) from an ancient manuscript copy of the Red Book of Westmarch; which began with Bilbo's account of his adventures (The Hobbit), and was then added to by Frodo and Sam's accounts of their adventures (The Lord of the Rings). 

The Red Book proper is also stated to have contained some of the information included in the Appendices - such as the family trees; and it is said that it was boxed with Bilbo's translations from the Elvish - which we are meant to infer is the basis of what was later published (in excerpted form) as The Silmarillion. 

Indeed, Merry is also implied to have been the part-author of some parts of The Lord of the Rings as we know it - for example Appendix B, The Tale of Years, and Appendix D, which is about calendars.

But another aspect of Notes on the Shire Records, which I hadn't properly noticed, concerns the effect of the War of the Ring on subsequent life in the Shire. 

I think many people have the idea that - after the Scouring of the Shire - everything returned to normal; and life in the Shire was re-set to how it had been before the arrival of the Black Riders. But this is not the case. 

Tolkien tells us that there was an awakened interest among Shire Hobbits in their own history and traditions; and these were collected from oral sources and written for the first time. In the first century of the Fourth Age, several libraries were established in The Shire; by the Took family, the Brandybucks; and at Undertowers in the new Westmarch, where Sam's eldest child Elanor lived with her husband Fastred. 

The Buckleberry library was begun by Merry, who himself wrote books on several subjects; including Shire Herblore, Calendars, and the philology of Shire words and names compared with Rohan. So, the Brandybuck library specialized in Shire matters specifically; with a further concern with matters of Rohan. 

The library in Tuckborough was of more general scope. Pippin did not write anything himself; but collected works from Gondor concerned with Numenor, Sauron and the history of Middle Earth in general. 

This library was thus the (probable!) basis for Appendix B - The Tale of Years - with Merry's assistance. We are told that Merry returned more than once to Rivendell, to consult with the remaining High Elves, including the sons of Elrond; and (probably) Celeborn - who dwelt there for some time after the departure of Galadriel, and was a living link with the Elder Days.  

In other words; the result of the War of the Rings was to make The Shire less parochial, more outward-looking. It is implied that the hobbits were somewhat 'ennobled' and raised by their (indirect) contact with 'higher things'. 

When Pippin says to Merry (in the Houses of Healing) "We Tooks and Brandybucks, we can't live long on the heights.' Merry responds: "Not yet, at any rate. But at least, Pippin, we can now see them, and honour them... There are things deeper and higher... I am glad that I know about them, a little." 

It seems that the two hobbits took this insight back to The Shire, and put it into action. There was a raising of the intellectual level, and an increase in literacy; stemming directly from the links established by Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin with elves and men in Rivendell, Gondor and Rohan.

When Frodo conversed with Gildor in the Woody End at the start of the adventure; the elf said about the Shire Hobbits: 

"It is not your own Shire... The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out."

The Notes on the Shire Records inform us, that following the War of the Ring, and the invasion by Saruman and his ruffians; the Shire hobbits increased in wisdom, ceased to fence themselves in, and began to take notice of the wide world all about them. 

Review: John Garth, The Worlds of JRR Tolkien (2020)

John Garth. The Worlds of JRR Tolkien: the places that inspired Middle-Earth. Frances Lincoln, London: UK, 2020. pp 208

John Garth is one of the best and most important writers on JRR Tolkien. This is his first full-length book since the landmark volume Tolkien and the Great War of 2003; so I knew I would enjoy it.

From the title, and the fact that it is a large format, really beautifully-produced, hardback volume; I supposed The Worlds of JRR Tolkien might be dominated by the pictures, maybe even be something like a superior 'coffee table' book? I supposed that I might be able to read it in an hour or two... I could not have been more wrong!

This book is absolutely packed with information, a considerable amount completely new to me; analyses, comparisons, discussions, perspectives...

For example, the chapter on 'Craft and Industry' is a fresh examination of the Birmingham links; clarifying that the city was originally composed of thousands of small workshops, making 'toys' of a very hobbit-like kind: buckles and buttons and the like. Tolkien's Grammar School bulidings (now demolished) were one of the great examples of Victorian Gothic revival. And, in general, it would seem that Birmingham and its environs had many positive aspects to contribute to the assimilated childhood and youth experiences of Tolkien, upon which he mainly drew in his writing.

Another stunning chapter was entitled 'The Land of Luthien', and this focused upon maps. There is enough inspired analysis in this chapter to make a whole book. I was particularly gripped by the multiple diagrams where Garth superimposes Tolkien's Lost Tales, Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings maps onto the modern geography of the British Isles (sometimes altering scales). He does this several times, demonstrating what we get from various possible identifications of specific Middle Earth places with specific British cities (e.g. Hobbiton and Oxford) or rivers (e.g. Lhun with Severn).

Other chapters focus on the sea and coastline, mountains, rivers and lakes, towers, warscapes, and - of course! - trees, woodland and forests!

So in broad terms; this book is about the influences of Place on Tolkien's work. It can immediately be seen that this is an entirely appropriate subject matter; because Tolkien is, perhaps above all others, a creator of places. Influences are traced in both directions: from the Tolkien's important places to their possible usage in his works; and from the striking places in Tolkien's works, looking back to possible real locations and experiences that may have contributed to them.

Throughout, Garth manages to maintain the 'right' tone. On the one hand he acknowledges that this is a serious study, about a writer who for many people (including myself) - is The most important of modern fiction authors. On the other hand he maintains a lightness of touch about the activity - allowing himself to speculate (and report the speculations of others) even when these are somewhat wild and loose.

In the event, the book took me several days of intense reading - the process interrupted frequently by setting it aside to think; and by reading out passages, showing pictures, and expounding 'fascinating facts' to my family. 

The Worlds of JRR Tolkien is clearly a labour of love; a considered product of thought; fuelled by a deep appreciation of Tolkien and his works. You could buy it as a handsome gift, because it is an exceptionally fine volume: built to last. But anyone who engages with the text and illustrations will discover greater depths and deeper fascinations; and find this to be a major resource for the serious Tolkien reader. 

Review of Tolkien and the Silmarillion by Clyde Kilby

Tolkien and The Silmarillion by Clyde Kilby. Lion Publishing, Berkhamsted, Kent, UK. 1977 pp 89. (US edition, 1976.)

This is a hardly-known, slim, minor, but fascinating contribution to the writings about Tolkien. Its centre is an account of the summer of 1966 which the author spent meeting with the seventy-four year old Tolkien a few times per week, ostensibly to provide him with informed and enthusiastic secretarial assistance to get The Silmarillion ready for publication.

Clive Kilby was extremely well suited to the job - being a scholar of English literature, and the man who ultimately established the Marion Wade centre at Wheaton College, Illinois (a mecca for Inklings scholars).

As he candidly admits, Kilby's mission failed completely and he was unable to move Tolkien even an inch towards completing his task; indeed it soon became apparent that Tolkien was not really even trying to make the Silmarillion ready for publication; devoting his attention and spending his time on almost anything else rather than this. The Silmarillion was finally prepared for publication by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay in 1977; the same year as this book was published. 

Kilby's secondary task (given him by Rayner Unwin, Tolkien's publisher) was to get him to finish the introduction to the modern translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; which needed only a few more days work to be ready but had been stuck at this point for many years. Kirby also failed at this - and Tolkien announced ("almost triumphantly") at the end of the summer "Well, I didn't write it!" (The book was finally published posthumously by Christopher, in 1975.)

Kilby's book made no kind of impact - probably because it was from such a small publisher; and partly because its speculations about the Silmarillion seemed to be rendered obsolete by the long trailed publication of The Silmarillion itself, in 1977. Similarly, the memoir snippets about Tolkien which Kilby provides, were also swept away by Humphrey Carpenter's official biography, also in 1977.

The special value of Kilby's book, and why it still remains well worth reading (if you can get hold of a modestly priced copy) is the 28 page chapter Summer with Tolkien. This I would rate as the best concentrated account I have ever read of what Tolkien was like as a person - in his old age. Kilby had (and Warnie Lewis confirms this, in his diaries) a very sweet and direct nature, with that nice kind of (as it seems to English people) boyish naivete characteristic of some grown-up American men.

So, there are some really good descriptions of Tolkien's appearance, behaviour, manners, mode of speech - and the conversational topics that interested him. Kilby provides a specimen day where he lists, in order, the subjects into-which Tolkien led the conversation:

1. Fan letters, and how T replies to them; 2. Annoyance at an article on T in the Saturday Evening Post; 3. Declaring the birch outside to be his totem tree; 4. How he and Mrs T were annoyed with WH Auden for reportedly making the remark that T's home was 'hideous' in a meeting of the T Society in the US; 5. His dislike of the covers on the Ballantyne paperbacks - and (on publishers more generally) that he was both annoyed and gratified by the Ace paperbacks pirate edition of Lord of the Rings; 6. That he was pleased with the Japanese edition of The Hobbit; 7. Discussing Mrs T's chronic illness; 8. K asks if anyone has asked to write a biography, T says yes and discusses his worries at inner motives being misrepresented; 9. His intention to write a book on the Second Age of Middle Earth, especially Numenor; 10. T showed K some old manuscripts of his work, with evidence of much re-working.

In general; Kilby commented (what the above list confirms) that Tolkien did not seem much interested in working on The Silmarillion, had lost track of much written material among a chaos of manuscripts, and seemed to have forgotten some things he had written (often some decades earlier).

In sum, this little book contains plenty to enjoy, and contributes an unique perspective to understanding the delightful, frustrating, complex and contradictory character of JRR Tolkien.

Back to the Notion Club Papers; connections with the current spiritual war

 By Afalstein

I am currently on an all-round diet of Tolkien - Reading The Notion Club Papers for the nth time (and dipping-into other things); and listening to the audiobook of Christopher Tolkien's thematic edition of the Beren and Luthien texts (2017).

Coming at the Notion Club Papers this time, I am much aware that Tolkien was writing this as a spiritual exploration, he was trying to solve some pressing personal problems by writing them. Instead of working these out in real-life conversations with the Inklings; he chose to do so through the the Notion Club - which were fictional-fantasy Inklings.

And then he would read what he had written to the actual Inklings, presumably to gather reactions; and return to do more Notion Club - all through the first half of 1946 until he again took-up The Lord of the Rings, never to return again to the NCPs.


What Tolkien was concerned by, was something that 'obsessed' him all through his writing life - which was the 'frame' of his fantasy.

The NCPs open with Tolkien's alter ego Ramer (one of his two alter egos in this work - the other being Lowdham) having just read a science fiction story about another planet to the Club; and being criticised for the clumsiness and perfunctory, unconvincing nature of the 'framing device' for travel to and from this planet - apparently in a spaceship of some kind.

Tolkien himself needed a way of relating, of explaining, the link between his stories and the modern world. 

After considering various possibilities, the consensus is that some kind of mental travel is the best possibility - either telepathy or in a trance or dream state. A psychic link needs to be established between a human body here-and-now, and other times and places. This was actively being considered by Tolkien as the basis for linking his 'Middle Earth' (Arda) writings with modern Oxford - in which case the NCPs would have been, in effect, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings and/or The Silmarillion.


But in a larger sense, which soon becomes apparent; Tolkien is writing more generally about the relation between his imaginative fantasy and the modern mundane world. The Club's discussions branch off into considering how - as imagination goes back - history turns into myth. And it is clear that the mythic way of thinking is regarded as being of great value. Indeed, the projected NCPs seem to be about re-establishing the link between myth and modern life.

Following the telepathy/ trance/ dream line of thinking; this link is established by members of the Notion Club themselves, as a consequence of their conscious and purposive brooding on this theme. In effect, because they regard it as important and as possible - the Notion Club are able to bridge time and space in their own minds, thereby opening a 'channel' through which myth can re-enter modernity.

This at first happens by the storms that led to the drowning of Numenor, breaking-through to sweep the British Isles from West to East (Ireland bearing the brunt of it, but Oxford also severely affected).


What impresses me with the NCPs this-time-round, is that Tolkien was saying that thinking is real - and that purposive, conscious, sincere thinking has an effect on the world - primarily a spiritual effect, but also a physical effect (albeit something of a minor disaster in terms of wind and floods).

Also, I am appreciating the way that the Notion Club are engaged in a kind of intuitive searching. They don't know exactly what they are looking-for, nor do they know where or how to find-it. So they try this, and that - and follow hunches to see whether they lead to anything.

Ramer and Dolbear being by means of trances and dreams; and in the second part Lowdham and Jeremy extend this to a physical search for... clues and connections; travelling by boat and on foot in Ireland and the West coast of the mainland of Britain.


I am finding all this is encouraging me in my current efforts, as described recently. Because The Notion Club Papers is - in one sense - 'about' the need to combat the deathly, dead-ly materialism and reductionism of modern society; to combat it consciously and purposively (and effectively) by our minds, our imaginations.

 

Why I will miss Christopher Tolkien

JRR the father with his arm around Christopher, with whom he had a specially empathic relationship - that lasted until this week

Christopher Tolkien died a couple of days ago, which marks the end of an era - the last person who participated in the core Inklings meetings; the writing and discussion group that met in the evenings to read works in progress and have discussions stimulated.

CT was probably the person I would (in a theoretical way) most have liked to get to know, as a friend, for long and detailed discussions - because there was so much that only he could have told. But I do feel as if I knew him; because I have read so many of his words, in so many different situations relating to his Father's work.

I always enjoy and appreciate (and re-read) those parts of the History of Middle Earth which Christopher contributed; starting with Unfinished Tales of 1980 (which I happen to be re-reading currently) and continuing up to The Fall of Gondolin (which was published in 2018, in which he said his goodbye).

(I leave aside the 1977 Silmarillion as somewhat of a failure, in which he had not hit his straps as an editor; and which lacks his authorial voice.)

Christopher brought a remarkable (and unexpected) extra dimension to his Father's work, which is probably unique in the history of literature; since it is exceedingly rare to combine such knowledge, talent and dedication with deep sympathy and an apparently complete absence of ego.

Christopher's vast output of his father's posthumous primary writings, and of commentary and scholarship, seems to be motivated entirely by filial love; and this is what makes his achievement so beautiful.  

Why is Paul Kocher's Master of Middle Earth (from 1972) 'still' one of the best books about Tolkien's work?

Paul Kocher's Master of Middle Earth is one of the handful of very best works of Tolkien scholarship - 'yet' it is by far the earliest; published in 1972 during Tolkien's life, and before The Silmarillion (1977), before the biography, letters, chronology and the many posthumous volumes edited by Christopher Tolkien.

This is an interesting fact; because it demonstrates something of the nature of genuinely great literary criticism. It clearly shows that the limiting factor on the quality of literary criticism is the person writing it - his ability and motivations. This turns out to be more important than the person's access to 'material'; and it explains why the 'age of the internet' and a massive increase in the accessibility of information has done Nothing Whatsoever to expand the quantity of high-quality literary scholarship.

From the evidence of this book (I have not yet read any of his other writings) Kocher was clearly an exceptional man - intelligent, thoughtful, and deep. Furthermore, he writes from a shared Christian perspective, he shares Tolkien's assumptions more fully - I think - than any other of the major Tolkien scholars and critics. 

Master of Middle Earth has a density of insights that is outstanding, yet unobtrusive, elegant. He seems never to be merely summarising, there is nothing perfunctory - nothing for the sake of appearances. Everything said seems to have a reason and importance. Thus a slim paperback of 200 pages manages to cover a great deal of ground.

And like all the best critical writing, it is worth reading for its own sake. The chapter on Cosmic Order is one of the best discussions of providence and free will that I have seen anywhere; and indirectly a clarification of the deep and fatal flaw of our modern materialist society that rejects creation and tries (but fails) to live coherently in an accidental and purposeless universe. The chapter on Aragorn has all kinds of wisdom about the nature of goodness, heroism and authority - as well as being a wonderful account of the character and his development.

This book was written immediately after Kocher retired from a distinguished academic career, mostly at Stanford; and seems to have been written for pure love, and from a very personal engagement.

Freed from working responsibilities; he is unselfconscious about ignoring literary convention and consensus. So that Kocher greatly admires Tolkien the poet; and attends closely to his three longer, free-standing works - Imran, the Homecoming of Boerhtnoth..., and the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (still hardly known). And on the other hand, he doesn't much like The Hobbit; and is mostly critical of its faults - deploring the way that it gets linked with the Lord of the Rings.

The permanent value of Kocher's book reminded me why the very best of old scholarship, biography and criticism - Samuel Johnson or ST Coleridge on Shakespeare, for instance - is never superseded by the most recent and comprehensive work.

The older writers are, nearly always, wiser, more intelligent, and better motivated - and write for the amateur enthusiast with general interests. Whereas the moderns are nearly-all lesser individuals; writing for professional advancement; seeking to impress appointment and promotions committees; and wanting approval from the peer review cartels that award prizes and honours.