*
Consider the following excerpt from near the end of Charles Williams novel The Place of the Lion.
**
That strange impulse however, to which in the serious and gay humour
that possessed him he had given the name of the necessity, allowed [Anthony]
to wander slowly down the station road, till he saw Richardson walking
swiftly along to meet him; then he quickened his own steps. They looked
at each other curiously.
"And so," Richardson said at last, "you think that the common things
will return?"
"I'm quite certain of it," Anthony said. "Won't He have mercy on all
that He's made?"
The other shook his head, and then suddenly smiled. "Well, if you and
they like it that way, there's no more to be said," he answered.
"Myself, I think you're only wasting time on the images."
"Well, who made the images?" Anthony asked. "You sound like a medieval
monk commenting on marriage. Don't be so stuck-up over your old way,
whatever it is. What actually is it?"
Richardson pointed to the sky. "Do you see the light of that fire?" he
asked. "Yes, there. Berringer's house has been burning all day."
"I know, I saw it."
"I'm going out there," Richardson said and stopped.
"But--I'm not saying you're wrong--but why?" Anthony asked: "Isn't fire
an image too?"
"That perhaps," the other answered. "But all this--" he touched his
clothes and himself, and his eyes grew dark with a sudden passion of
desire--"has to go somehow; and if the fire that will destroy the world
is here already, it isn't I that will keep from it."
Anthony looked at him a little ruefully. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'd
hoped we might have talked more. And--you know best--but you're quite
sure you're right? I can't see but what the images have their place. Ex
umbris perhaps, but the noon has to drive the shadows away naturally,
hasn't it?"
The other shrugged. "O I know," he said. "It's all been argued a hundred
times, Jensenist and Jesuit, the monk and the married man, mystic and
sacramentalist. But all I know is that I must make for the End when and
as soon as I see it. Perhaps that's why I am alone. But since that's
so--I'd like you, if you will, and if restoration comes, to give this
book back to Berringer if he's alive, and to keep it if he isn't. What,"
he added, "what you call alive."
Anthony took the little parcel. "I will do it," he said. "But I only
call it alive because the images must communicate, and communication is
such a jolly thing. However, I'm keeping you and I mustn't do that...as
we sacramentalists say."
They shook hands. Then Anthony broke out again. "I do wish you
weren't--No; no, I don't. Go with God."
"Go with God," the other's more sombre voice answered. They stood for a
moment, then they stepped apart, their hands went up in mutual courteous
farewell, and they went their separate ways.
No-one saw the young bookseller's assistant again; no-one thought of
him, except his employer and his landlady, and each of them, grumbling
first, afterwards filled his place and forgot him. Alone and unnoticed
he went along the country road to his secret end. Only Anthony, as he
went swiftly to Damaris, commended the other's soul to the Maker and
Destroyer of images.
**
In PotL the Platonic archetypes invade earth. These archetypes are that eternal reality of which earthly things, including people, are merely 'images'.
What happened in the above scene is that Richardson chose to yield to these archetypes, to end his mortal life, to die (by walking into the flames of a burning house - burning with archetypal fire) and thereby enter the eternal world of real-reality. But Anthony affirmed his intention to saty in this world, resist the invasion of the archetypes, and thereby save the life of his fiancee.
This seems a very sensible thing to do! If the next world, the world after death, is indeed the real world, and this world is only a matter of images, shadows, inklings and glimpses of that real world, then why not die as soon as possible and enter reality?
Why not indeed - IF the Platonic metaphysics is regarded as true.
So, what reason does Anthony give for NOT doing exactly this - what is the best rationale Anthony can come up with for staying in this mortal life?
This is the key passage, upon which the whole plot of the book hinges. This is Anthony's credo:
...but you're quite sure you're right? I can't see but what the images have their place. Ex
umbris perhaps, but the noon has to drive the shadows away naturally,
hasn't it?"...
"... I only call it alive because the images must communicate, and communication is
such a jolly thing.
[Note: Ex umbris means Out of the shadows, and probably refers to a longer saying along the lines of Ex umbris ad lucem meaning Out of the shadows and into the light - in other words, from this mortal world of shadows and into the eternal world of clearly perceived reality.]
So this is Charles Williams bottom-line, ultimate reason for human mortal life - the images must communicate, and communication is such a jolly thing.
In other words, no reason at all.
*
And this is the intractable problem with Platonism - whether pagan or Christian - and if Christian Platonism whether that of Eastern Orthodoxy, or of Charles Williams, or indeed of CS Lewis in his Narnia books and elsewhere.
If this world is merely an image, shadow or at best foretaste of the reality which comes after death - then what is the point of it? What is the point of mortal human life? On this view there is none. It is at best an unfortunate trail, and the sooner it ends the better.
Platonism cannot answer the question of why stay alive if we get an opportunity to die - so long as we can be confident of entering this post-mortem world of truth and light.
*
The current two rival dominant world views are: 1. some variant of the Platonic view which sees no necessity for mortal life, and 2. the secular idealism which sees no reality except mortal life - and a choice between Heaven-on-Earth here-and-now or else no Heaven at all.
**
[To my knowledge, the only metaphysical system which both demonstrates the value, and indeed necessity, of mortal life, yet also acknowledges the primacy of the next world, is Mormonism. ]
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Friday, 7 June 2013
Review of The Fall of Arthur by JRR Tolkien
*
I think this is probably the most important work of Tolkien's to be published since The History of Middle Earth was finished.
It's not that this is anything like a 'must read' - because it isn't. I do not suppose many people would actually enjoy, or even get much out of, reading this 1000 line alliterative poem The Fall of Arthur; nor would they have the patience and interest to read the marvellous notes and commentaries by Christopher Tolkien.
This kind of book is a minority taste.
*
But for people like myself, who are deeply concerned with Tolkien as a creative thinker, this book is of outstanding importance; since it reveals new aspects of, and perspectives on, what Tolkien was doing.
But the book will take me a while to assimilate.
*
At present I will just make two comments.
1. Tolkien clearly intended to join-up his Arthur legend with his Middle Earth (Arda) legends. At the point this poem had reached, this occured at the deaths of Arthur and Lancelot - but it is plausible that having established this edge-to-edge join, Tolkien would have made further revisions to his Arthurian legend to integrate the two mythologies.
*
2. This version of the Arthur legend is focused around the character of Guinevere - who is beautiful, cold-hearted, selfish and evil: she instigates the plots, and the main male characters - Arthur, Lancelot and Mordred - are in thrall to her fey glamour (only Gawain perceives her true nature).
This would make a terrific basis for dramatization whether on stage, TV, or movies - and could potenitally create a great and original female protagonist of Shakespearian stature (think Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra combined).
*
I think this is probably the most important work of Tolkien's to be published since The History of Middle Earth was finished.
It's not that this is anything like a 'must read' - because it isn't. I do not suppose many people would actually enjoy, or even get much out of, reading this 1000 line alliterative poem The Fall of Arthur; nor would they have the patience and interest to read the marvellous notes and commentaries by Christopher Tolkien.
This kind of book is a minority taste.
*
But for people like myself, who are deeply concerned with Tolkien as a creative thinker, this book is of outstanding importance; since it reveals new aspects of, and perspectives on, what Tolkien was doing.
But the book will take me a while to assimilate.
*
At present I will just make two comments.
1. Tolkien clearly intended to join-up his Arthur legend with his Middle Earth (Arda) legends. At the point this poem had reached, this occured at the deaths of Arthur and Lancelot - but it is plausible that having established this edge-to-edge join, Tolkien would have made further revisions to his Arthurian legend to integrate the two mythologies.
*
2. This version of the Arthur legend is focused around the character of Guinevere - who is beautiful, cold-hearted, selfish and evil: she instigates the plots, and the main male characters - Arthur, Lancelot and Mordred - are in thrall to her fey glamour (only Gawain perceives her true nature).
This would make a terrific basis for dramatization whether on stage, TV, or movies - and could potenitally create a great and original female protagonist of Shakespearian stature (think Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra combined).
*
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Why have the Inklings become so popular? Four possible reasons
*
1. As a by-product of the continual increase in popularity of JRR Tolkien and C.S Lewis.
Probably some truth in this - because the increased attention payed to the Inklings has had virtually no spin-off benefits on the other members: e.g. Charles Williams and Owen Barfield remain the preserve of enthusiasts and cults, Warnie Lewis's books are only obtainable from secondhand stores, and the same applies to Coghill - and so on...
2. An idyllic Oxford fantasy of a group of friends in beautiful surroundings (well, not Lewis's spartan and filthy rooms, but their setting at least!) - making an ideal focus for pilgrimages either by foot or virtually - through the medium of film and photographs.
3. The Inklings as a group of anti-modern, fantasy-oriented, counter-cultural authors seeking to establish a mythic view of life. True again, so far as it goes.
4. The Inklings as the last group of first rate traditional Christian English intellectuals. This is to perceive the Inklings as they did not perceive themselves but were perceived by others, specifically by those who disagreed with them: as a socio-political grouping.
In the wake of the obvious failure of the linked phenomena of secularism and Leftism - our understanding of the characterization of John Wain's memoir has been transformed:
"The group had a corporate mind" that was both powerful and clearly defined. They were "politically conservative, not to say reactionary; in religion, Anglo- or Roman-Catholic; in art, frankly hostile to an manifestation of the 'modern' spirit", "a circle of instigators, almost incendiaries, meeting to urge one another on in the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life."
John Wain's critical evaluation of the Inklings as being 'now' (i.e. in the early 1960s) ideologically obsolete; has been transformed by the passage of fifty years into a recognition of the group's vital significance.
*
1. As a by-product of the continual increase in popularity of JRR Tolkien and C.S Lewis.
Probably some truth in this - because the increased attention payed to the Inklings has had virtually no spin-off benefits on the other members: e.g. Charles Williams and Owen Barfield remain the preserve of enthusiasts and cults, Warnie Lewis's books are only obtainable from secondhand stores, and the same applies to Coghill - and so on...
2. An idyllic Oxford fantasy of a group of friends in beautiful surroundings (well, not Lewis's spartan and filthy rooms, but their setting at least!) - making an ideal focus for pilgrimages either by foot or virtually - through the medium of film and photographs.
3. The Inklings as a group of anti-modern, fantasy-oriented, counter-cultural authors seeking to establish a mythic view of life. True again, so far as it goes.
4. The Inklings as the last group of first rate traditional Christian English intellectuals. This is to perceive the Inklings as they did not perceive themselves but were perceived by others, specifically by those who disagreed with them: as a socio-political grouping.
In the wake of the obvious failure of the linked phenomena of secularism and Leftism - our understanding of the characterization of John Wain's memoir has been transformed:
"The group had a corporate mind" that was both powerful and clearly defined. They were "politically conservative, not to say reactionary; in religion, Anglo- or Roman-Catholic; in art, frankly hostile to an manifestation of the 'modern' spirit", "a circle of instigators, almost incendiaries, meeting to urge one another on in the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life."
John Wain's critical evaluation of the Inklings as being 'now' (i.e. in the early 1960s) ideologically obsolete; has been transformed by the passage of fifty years into a recognition of the group's vital significance.
*
Saturday, 1 June 2013
Numenorean religion imagined
*
*
From Magweth Pengolodh: The Question of Pengolod by Tyellas
http://www.ansereg.com/mpqp4.html
**
*
The King, though their host, was in silent seclusion that night,
praying before the Erulaitalë. (...) [The next morning] they joined the vast progress of the
Erulaitalë.
*
As soon as they had – with the crowd of several thousand – begun to ascend the mountain, Pengolod tapped Soup’s shoulder. “These caves we pass?”
As soon as they had – with the crowd of several thousand – begun to ascend the mountain, Pengolod tapped Soup’s shoulder. “These caves we pass?”
Soup bowed his head and whispered, “The tombs of the Kings.”
Pengolod understood, instantly. The tombs were on the West side of
the mountain road, facing Aman. Each one had a carved archway. The
first one must have been the tomb of Elros, and its entry-way was
heaped with fresh flowers, laid down by the people as they passed. As
the road turned upwards, other tombs were present, each one with a
carved archway. Some had graven names and faces, but as each ruler had a
cave, it was easy to link the refuge to the ruler.
As they went
forwards up the trail, the tombs’ carvings increased in both size and
ornateness. Apart from Elros, only two of the past Kings merited
offerings from the people: the monarch Telperien, who had preceded
Tar-Minastir, received fruit and blooms from those who remembered her
reign, and, curiously, Aldarion. The entry to his tomb was heaped with
scrolls or graven stones, and twigs of green oiolairë. Pengolod picked
up one of the stones; a common man’s name had been scratched upon it.
He set it down, and moved along.
The marchers in their thousands were all silent, and all in white.
White hoods were drawn up over reddening faces, and children and
graybeards were helped along. Yet at the steepest part, the marchers
put on a burst of eager speed, and their silence thrummed with a sense
of imminent pleasure. Pengolod understood when they reached the plateau
where the people gathered.
*
When they reached the top, a gentle wind struck instantly, cool and refreshing, drawn down from some higher air. Fresh grass brushed around their knees, and each blade, if stepped on, quietly righted itself, so that the multitude stood amidst a sea of living green.
When they reached the top, a gentle wind struck instantly, cool and refreshing, drawn down from some higher air. Fresh grass brushed around their knees, and each blade, if stepped on, quietly righted itself, so that the multitude stood amidst a sea of living green.
Seeing some people looking at the sky, Pengolod turned his face
upwards. There, circling surely too far for the mortals to see, were
three eagles. Above them, he would have vowed that, though it was day,
the dome of the heavens was deeper in its blue than it had been at the
mountain’s foot. The plain purity of the space, wind and grass, stone
and sky, was only fitting. For standing in the hallow of the
Meneltarma, the sacred came in with each clean breath and thrummed in
the turf beneath their feet.
Pengolod was struck to the heart. He had only felt such hallows,
echoes of what Arda might be had it not been marred by evil, once or
twice in Middle-Earth. But they had never been hallows of his people.
The Elves really had transgressed against the Valar, he thought, and
really were earthly, if they had no places as divine as this.
*
The plateau of the hallow was nearly full with its silent multitude. Pengolod’s host had drawn him and Soup to the western edge. They had waited there some time when the silent multitude parted for the King.
The plateau of the hallow was nearly full with its silent multitude. Pengolod’s host had drawn him and Soup to the western edge. They had waited there some time when the silent multitude parted for the King.
Pengolod was touched yet again by unexpected awe. Of all that mortal
multitude, Tar-Minastir alone bore ornaments to the hallow, a
gem-topped scepter in one hand, a sword in a ruel-bone sheath by his
side, and a green branch that bore fringed red blossom, oiolairë
in bloom.
He was leaner than Ciryatan in his white robes; in his youth,
Minastir must indeed have been like to the Eldar. His strong face was
indeed clean-shaven. Age had just begun to touch him. His dark hair,
bound by a fillet of silver and a white gem, blew about his face, but
his grey eyes stayed remote in their exaltation. He had the face of a
man carrying a great and somber joy within him, anticipating this hour
of communion with the One.
The crowd swayed in obeisance like the grasses as the King went
by, progressing to the western brink of the plateau. Soup went to his
knees, and stayed there; by a tug at his sleeve, Pengolod realized that
he should do the same. The multitude were all kneeling by the time the
King came to his place. Then he, the vessel for their prayers, began
to speak.
*
The King’s words were simple, and half of them were lost in the endless wind. Tar-Minastir addressed Eru by many names; Illúvatar, the One, the Creator, the Endless, the Song and the Light. He offered up his thanks for the One’s many gifts to humans, naming the gift of life in Arda itself, the presence of the guarding Valar, the continuing richness of the summer and the sea, and the gift of victory in their recent battles.
The King’s words were simple, and half of them were lost in the endless wind. Tar-Minastir addressed Eru by many names; Illúvatar, the One, the Creator, the Endless, the Song and the Light. He offered up his thanks for the One’s many gifts to humans, naming the gift of life in Arda itself, the presence of the guarding Valar, the continuing richness of the summer and the sea, and the gift of victory in their recent battles.
Tar-Minastir held up the flowering branch. Then he laid it down on
an undistinguished grey stone, one of a few boulders tumbled about. As
he did this, the three eagles swooped down from their height, circling
above Tar-Minastir in view of even the weakest mortal eyes. Nobody
said anything, or even gasped, but a pulse of joy at the divine sign
coursed through them all. Following this, all of them prostrated their
kneeling selves in the direction of the stone, guided by the King, who
did so first. Pengolod mirrored the crowd. There was no shame in the
sign of honor and surrender. He felt himself given fully over to the
place and moment.
The King was also the first to right himself. Now lifting the
scepter, he addressed the throng. His words were simple. “We live in
the Land of Gift, and all that comes to us here are the gifts of the
One and the Many, Illúvatar and the Valar. Be blessed. Go forth, and be
merry and fruitful. Peace has come again.” With this, he lowered the
scepter, and began to move through the crowd once more. Once he passed,
the folk began to stand. None of them left their places until he had
begun the descent from the plateau.
*
Pengolod watched the crowd. Some looked happily dazed; a few were weeping, and others were thoughtful. Many folk went to where Tar-Minastir had been standing and looked westward for a few moments before leaving. Pengolod, curious as ever, joined the patient throng waiting to see what might be seen. Soup stayed by his side. Though the ritual was over, he was, Pengolod sensed, still eager; by the law of the hallow, he could not speak to explain what everyone was looking at. When they reached the edge, Soup pointed out to indicate where to look.
Pengolod watched the crowd. Some looked happily dazed; a few were weeping, and others were thoughtful. Many folk went to where Tar-Minastir had been standing and looked westward for a few moments before leaving. Pengolod, curious as ever, joined the patient throng waiting to see what might be seen. Soup stayed by his side. Though the ritual was over, he was, Pengolod sensed, still eager; by the law of the hallow, he could not speak to explain what everyone was looking at. When they reached the edge, Soup pointed out to indicate where to look.
Pengolod’s eyes raked all that was before them. He saw the central
plains of Númenor. Like the Meneltarma as a mountain, the isle of
Númenor was smaller than everyone spoke of it, the land below them
largely in tillage and grazing, with vales here and there of clearly
bounded woods. No wonder its mariners were restless. Beyond were the
tree-fringed shores, and, past two great spurs of land embracing a bay,
the great sweep of the sea. On the horizon, Pengolod saw at first a
white glimmer. He fixed his eyes on it and saw there another land,
beyond the great gulf of water, the shores of Avallonë.
Avallonë the fair, Tol Eressëa, Elven-home. One of the eagles
swooped down, cutting his line of sight like a curved saber, before
soaring to its two mates again. Joined in flight, the trio chevroned
towards Avallonë. Pengolod felt the reproach in their unerring path
westward; that he, too, should journey without tarrying to what was
his. The sight clenched him with the Elves’ Sea-longing, even as the
idea of departing the hallow wrenched him.
He knew now how forsaken the
Elves had been all their time in Middle-Earth. Was there this
sacredness there, where Elves might know it, or was it never for his
folk to feel? Grief and fear touched him as the light turned gilded
about them.
*
Pengolod felt a gentle pull on his sleeve turn into a hard tug. Turning to look at Soup, he realized that he had yet again sunk into one of those elvish reveries that seemed peculiarly long to mortals. He must ask later how long Soup had needed to pull at his sleeve. The sun was lowering, and only a few folk remained on the mountaintop. Two of them were their host and one of the King’s messengers, hovering in assumption that he had accepted Minastir’s invitation.
Pengolod felt a gentle pull on his sleeve turn into a hard tug. Turning to look at Soup, he realized that he had yet again sunk into one of those elvish reveries that seemed peculiarly long to mortals. He must ask later how long Soup had needed to pull at his sleeve. The sun was lowering, and only a few folk remained on the mountaintop. Two of them were their host and one of the King’s messengers, hovering in assumption that he had accepted Minastir’s invitation.
With all this, it still took a hard internal pull for Pengolod to
make himself depart that place of doubled exaltation. He looked back.
One other person stayed by the viewpoint, sitting cross-legged, smiling
and serene. He looked back and nodded as Pengolod left, then closed
his eyes to rest before taking the long path down. Even when, looking
back, Pengolod could no longer see Avallonë on the horizon, he glimpsed
his fellow pilgrim’s silver halo of hair, catching the lowering sun.
(...)
Once on the path, it went downwards swiftly, and they passed the
mouths of the tomb-caves once more. Pengolod looked into the open mouth
of one. There was only darkness within. The entire mountain was a
riddle, he thought, and when you understood it, you were ready for the
mountain’s heart.
Númenoreans knew well when they were ready, he
recalled. They lay down to die of their own will, embracing their
mortal fates. Pengolod, like all Elves, was convinced that they were
going on to know in full what he had tasted, briefly, today.
Pengolod stopped rigid. Thinking of this, he remembered the man at
the top, who had sat and smiled and stayed…Gripped by a chill of
intuition, he turned around and looked up the path.
He was rewarded, after a fashion. Some people carrying a white
stretcher were the last ones to come down, looking calm and a bit sad.
The figure on the stretcher had a white cloak over its face. The
carriers did not have smooth elvish steps. They rattled the stretcher,
and the cloak fell away. It was indeed the man who had stayed on the
mountain, serene still after his chosen death.
*
From Magweth Pengolodh: The Question of Pengolod by Tyellas
http://www.ansereg.com/mpqp4.html
**
I regard this as a first rate piece of writing; furthermore, this passage was very important in the process of my becoming a Christian - so it has a special place in my heart.
*
Monday, 27 May 2013
Sunday, 26 May 2013
What was the social dynamic of The Inklings?
*
Letter from C.S Lewis to Dom Bede Griffiths of Dec 21 1940
[Charles] Williams, [Hugo] Dyson of Reading, and my brother (Anglicans), and Tolkien and my doctor, Havard (your [Roman Catholic] church) are the 'Inklings'...
*
If we take this as the core Inklings grouping, it an be observed that there are three writers who would read out their work (Jack Lewis, Tolkien and Williams); and three (mostly) non-writers, who were listeners and commenters (Warnie Lewis, Dyson and Havard).
(In fact, Warnie Lewis later became a published author - and began writing his French histories in the second half of the Inklings period, from 1942.)
*
The non-writing listeners and commenters were probably important: a key to the success of the group.
I have (briefly, I didn't like them) been in a couple of writers groups in my early adulthood - and the problem was that everybody wanted to read their work and nobody really wanted to listen - didn't much enjoy listening. One effect of this was that comments from unwilling, unappreciative listeners were not much use to the writers.
*
Warnie and Havard were good listeners, and so was Jack - it being a much remarked-upon trait of his that he liked being read-to. Dyson did not like the Lord of the Rings, but I surmise he must have liked listening to most of the other things being read-out, or else someone so easily bored (as it seems) would not have commuted from Reading University nor continued attending when he got a fellowship in Oxford.
I suspect that the writers greatly prized the opportunity to read to the non-writers, and to hear their responses, as being a more representative audience than other writers; perhaps especially Warnie fulfilled that role of a 'plain reader' for Tolkien and Lewis, being a straightforward and typically military chap, who was nonetheless highly intelligent and well read.
*
The social dynamic was that the pattern of the evening was set by the writers and readers, but the success of that conversation which sustained the group was dependent on the response of the listeners, each of whom brought something distinctive to the ensuing discussions.
*
Letter from C.S Lewis to Dom Bede Griffiths of Dec 21 1940
[Charles] Williams, [Hugo] Dyson of Reading, and my brother (Anglicans), and Tolkien and my doctor, Havard (your [Roman Catholic] church) are the 'Inklings'...
*
If we take this as the core Inklings grouping, it an be observed that there are three writers who would read out their work (Jack Lewis, Tolkien and Williams); and three (mostly) non-writers, who were listeners and commenters (Warnie Lewis, Dyson and Havard).
(In fact, Warnie Lewis later became a published author - and began writing his French histories in the second half of the Inklings period, from 1942.)
*
The non-writing listeners and commenters were probably important: a key to the success of the group.
I have (briefly, I didn't like them) been in a couple of writers groups in my early adulthood - and the problem was that everybody wanted to read their work and nobody really wanted to listen - didn't much enjoy listening. One effect of this was that comments from unwilling, unappreciative listeners were not much use to the writers.
*
Warnie and Havard were good listeners, and so was Jack - it being a much remarked-upon trait of his that he liked being read-to. Dyson did not like the Lord of the Rings, but I surmise he must have liked listening to most of the other things being read-out, or else someone so easily bored (as it seems) would not have commuted from Reading University nor continued attending when he got a fellowship in Oxford.
I suspect that the writers greatly prized the opportunity to read to the non-writers, and to hear their responses, as being a more representative audience than other writers; perhaps especially Warnie fulfilled that role of a 'plain reader' for Tolkien and Lewis, being a straightforward and typically military chap, who was nonetheless highly intelligent and well read.
*
The social dynamic was that the pattern of the evening was set by the writers and readers, but the success of that conversation which sustained the group was dependent on the response of the listeners, each of whom brought something distinctive to the ensuing discussions.
*
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Is this CS Lewis's most famous sputter-and-point 'misogyny' passage?
*
What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid.
*
In context, this comes from the section of Mere Christianity which is about the sin of Pride:
Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with £10,000 a year anxious to get £20,000 a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. £10,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride—the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers. What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid. It is Pride. What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on, demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy.
*
In the first place, in context we can see that this is in the middle of a list of examples of pride - following an example of pride in a man (somebody like a Boss or a General) and followed by an example of pride in a political leader (such as Hitler?) or nation (such as Germany?).
So, Lewis is not going out of his way to, errr, insult women - just providing a female-related example of the sin of pride, to go with the male example/s.
*
In the second place, why is this statement supposed to be evidence of misogyny?
Is the statement false?
Does anyone suppose that 'pretty girls' of this sort don't actually exist, and don't indeed 'spread misery' - and that this misery-spreading activity is 'quite often' not about sex; but instead about the desire for attention, adoration, money and privileges... about power?
If anyone supposes such women do not exist, or are so rare as to be statistically ignorable, or are typically motivated by powerful sexual appetites rather than 'pride and power'; well, I can only say that such people must either be blind to the workings of human society, or else have led exceptionally sheltered lives - or be dishonest.
*
What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid.
*
In context, this comes from the section of Mere Christianity which is about the sin of Pride:
Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with £10,000 a year anxious to get £20,000 a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. £10,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride—the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers. What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid. It is Pride. What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on, demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy.
*
In the first place, in context we can see that this is in the middle of a list of examples of pride - following an example of pride in a man (somebody like a Boss or a General) and followed by an example of pride in a political leader (such as Hitler?) or nation (such as Germany?).
So, Lewis is not going out of his way to, errr, insult women - just providing a female-related example of the sin of pride, to go with the male example/s.
*
In the second place, why is this statement supposed to be evidence of misogyny?
Is the statement false?
Does anyone suppose that 'pretty girls' of this sort don't actually exist, and don't indeed 'spread misery' - and that this misery-spreading activity is 'quite often' not about sex; but instead about the desire for attention, adoration, money and privileges... about power?
If anyone supposes such women do not exist, or are so rare as to be statistically ignorable, or are typically motivated by powerful sexual appetites rather than 'pride and power'; well, I can only say that such people must either be blind to the workings of human society, or else have led exceptionally sheltered lives - or be dishonest.
*
Friday, 24 May 2013
Review of Alister McGrath's biography: CS Lewis: a Life
*
Rating: Five stars from a possible Five.
I slightly dragged my feet in reading Alister McGrath's new biography of C.S Lewis (but only by a month!) because I have a suspicion of 'late' biographies from large commercial publishing houses (as tending towards unsympathetic, formulaic muck-raking) and also because I supposed that since McGrath is a famous and busy theologian, he would be unlikely to put enough time into the job.
I am pleased to report I was wrong on both counts; and that this is an extremely enjoyable and worthwhile biography of CS Lewis - to put alongside the Lancelyn Green/ Hooper pioneer, and the definitive George Sayer volume - and ideally to be read after these two.
The biography, indeed, reads as if it was specifically designed to be read after Sayer; since McGrath's biography is complemetary: providing many new details and amplifications in just those areas where Sayer says least - and relatively cutting back in coverage of those areas where Sayer says most.
Aside from a mild but recurrent dash of chronological snobbery resulting from McGrath's centre-Right social liberalism (such that he sometimes simply assumes without argument that Lewis was wrong on those points where he clashes with modern shibboleths in relation to sex, politics, education, scholarship etc.), I have nothing negative to say about this book!
It was gripping, insightful, informative and thoroughly worthwhile.
*
Rating: Five stars from a possible Five.
I slightly dragged my feet in reading Alister McGrath's new biography of C.S Lewis (but only by a month!) because I have a suspicion of 'late' biographies from large commercial publishing houses (as tending towards unsympathetic, formulaic muck-raking) and also because I supposed that since McGrath is a famous and busy theologian, he would be unlikely to put enough time into the job.
I am pleased to report I was wrong on both counts; and that this is an extremely enjoyable and worthwhile biography of CS Lewis - to put alongside the Lancelyn Green/ Hooper pioneer, and the definitive George Sayer volume - and ideally to be read after these two.
The biography, indeed, reads as if it was specifically designed to be read after Sayer; since McGrath's biography is complemetary: providing many new details and amplifications in just those areas where Sayer says least - and relatively cutting back in coverage of those areas where Sayer says most.
Aside from a mild but recurrent dash of chronological snobbery resulting from McGrath's centre-Right social liberalism (such that he sometimes simply assumes without argument that Lewis was wrong on those points where he clashes with modern shibboleths in relation to sex, politics, education, scholarship etc.), I have nothing negative to say about this book!
It was gripping, insightful, informative and thoroughly worthwhile.
*
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Was Charles Williams the grey eminence behind the Inklings - an hypothesis sketched
*
I think it is possible to construct a scenario by which Charles Williams is seen as the moving force behind the Inklings.
I am not at all sure whether this is true - but it is perhaps possible, and there is some evidence in its support.
*
If it is agreed that 1936 was the key year in which Lewis and Tolkien became serious and ambitious about their writings, and began to work together on some kind of 'project' (to reconnect modern man with mythology)
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/lord-of-rings-mostly-equals-hobbit-plus.html
then it is possible that this increase in seriousness and ambition was triggered by Williams' novel The Place of the Lion
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/tolkien-and-lewiss-annus-divertium-of.html
*
Indeed, another route for Williams influence may have existed via Fr Gervase Matthew - who met Charles Williams in London in early 1936 (according to AM Hadfield's biography of 1959), and may by this time have been attending Thursday evening Inklings meetings - as he certainly did later - although precise chronological evidence seems to be lacking.
*
Having, as I think likely, provided a crucial stimulus to Lewis and Tolkien's writing by the example of Place of the Lion - Williams then reinforced this during the wartime period of late 1939 to early 1945 (when CW died) as a lynch-pin of the Inklings meetings - and also meeting with Lewis and Tolkien as a trio and individually.
What must be remembered is that, although Williams was socially of lower status than Lewis and Tolkien; he was older, and as an author was of much greater status and experience and volume of production; also, both professionally and by personal friendship, Williams was a part of the mainstream prestigious Metropolitan literary world of England.
*
Add to this Williams' extraordinary charisma and fascination, and it seems probable that (as implied by Diana Pavlac Glyer, in The company they kept) Williams was the dominant figure in those Inklings meeting he attended; not in terms of organizing and controlling the meetings and dictating the subject matter of the conversation (that was surely Jack Lewis), but as the person who was most deferred-to, whose words carried greatest authority.
*
The fact that Lewis and Tolkien were preparing a Festschrift for Williams, even before he died, seems evidence of this kind of role. Inklings activities in the period after Williams death were at least partly focused on preparing this posthumous volume of Essays presented to Charles Williams.
After 1945, when the young scholar and author John Wain attended Inklings meetings, he said (in the memoir Sprightly Running) that the group had been permanently wounded by the death of Williams - which is indirect evidence for Williams' key role.
*
Although the Thursday evening Inklings meetings continued another four years (until late 1949) this period was marked by a larger and more variable number of personnel at the meetings, and what seems a less close and intense atmosphere than the war years when the inklings was built around the solid core of the Lewis brothers, Tolkien and Havard - with Williams perhaps providing a crucial binding and inspiring focus.
*
As I said, I am not sure about this. Certainly, (according to comments in his letters, and the understanding of those who knew him from London) the Inklings seems to have been less important to Williams than it was to Lewis and Tolkien - which could be interpreted as evidence against him having any kind of 'leadership' role.
But on the other hand, Williams need not have been consciously adopting any leadership role, nor need he have subscribed to the Lewis-Tolkien 'project', in order for him to have been a kind of father figure and originator of the Inklings most serious and ambitious aspect.
*
I think it is possible to construct a scenario by which Charles Williams is seen as the moving force behind the Inklings.
I am not at all sure whether this is true - but it is perhaps possible, and there is some evidence in its support.
*
If it is agreed that 1936 was the key year in which Lewis and Tolkien became serious and ambitious about their writings, and began to work together on some kind of 'project' (to reconnect modern man with mythology)
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/lord-of-rings-mostly-equals-hobbit-plus.html
then it is possible that this increase in seriousness and ambition was triggered by Williams' novel The Place of the Lion
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/tolkien-and-lewiss-annus-divertium-of.html
*
Indeed, another route for Williams influence may have existed via Fr Gervase Matthew - who met Charles Williams in London in early 1936 (according to AM Hadfield's biography of 1959), and may by this time have been attending Thursday evening Inklings meetings - as he certainly did later - although precise chronological evidence seems to be lacking.
*
Having, as I think likely, provided a crucial stimulus to Lewis and Tolkien's writing by the example of Place of the Lion - Williams then reinforced this during the wartime period of late 1939 to early 1945 (when CW died) as a lynch-pin of the Inklings meetings - and also meeting with Lewis and Tolkien as a trio and individually.
What must be remembered is that, although Williams was socially of lower status than Lewis and Tolkien; he was older, and as an author was of much greater status and experience and volume of production; also, both professionally and by personal friendship, Williams was a part of the mainstream prestigious Metropolitan literary world of England.
*
Add to this Williams' extraordinary charisma and fascination, and it seems probable that (as implied by Diana Pavlac Glyer, in The company they kept) Williams was the dominant figure in those Inklings meeting he attended; not in terms of organizing and controlling the meetings and dictating the subject matter of the conversation (that was surely Jack Lewis), but as the person who was most deferred-to, whose words carried greatest authority.
*
The fact that Lewis and Tolkien were preparing a Festschrift for Williams, even before he died, seems evidence of this kind of role. Inklings activities in the period after Williams death were at least partly focused on preparing this posthumous volume of Essays presented to Charles Williams.
After 1945, when the young scholar and author John Wain attended Inklings meetings, he said (in the memoir Sprightly Running) that the group had been permanently wounded by the death of Williams - which is indirect evidence for Williams' key role.
*
Although the Thursday evening Inklings meetings continued another four years (until late 1949) this period was marked by a larger and more variable number of personnel at the meetings, and what seems a less close and intense atmosphere than the war years when the inklings was built around the solid core of the Lewis brothers, Tolkien and Havard - with Williams perhaps providing a crucial binding and inspiring focus.
*
As I said, I am not sure about this. Certainly, (according to comments in his letters, and the understanding of those who knew him from London) the Inklings seems to have been less important to Williams than it was to Lewis and Tolkien - which could be interpreted as evidence against him having any kind of 'leadership' role.
But on the other hand, Williams need not have been consciously adopting any leadership role, nor need he have subscribed to the Lewis-Tolkien 'project', in order for him to have been a kind of father figure and originator of the Inklings most serious and ambitious aspect.
*
Friday, 17 May 2013
Two ways of being a Tolkien fanatic: pre- and post-Christian
*
Presumably there are numerous other ways - but I underwent a transition between the way in which I was a Tolkien fan in my youth and pre-Christian adulthood, and what came afterwards - what is now.
The transition was gradual, over several years; and indeed fairly closely related to becoming a Christian - especially to reading and writing about the story The debate of Finrod and Andreth (‘Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’) - or the writing which I have dubbed "The marring of men":
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/tolkiens-marring-of-men.html
*
In my youth, Tolkien's world provided an alternative reality. It was a reality, of some kind, and it was something into which I projected myself.
Of course, at the same time as volitionally-projecting I was also passively absorbed-into this world.
The world of Tolkien in fact provided a thread running through my life - which was realler than most of my life - at least in memory and retrospect.
*
This gave rise to the question of the status of this reality of Tolkien's world.
On the one hand the reality was not objective, not factual, because the world was imagined; on the other hand the world was solidly-subjective (therefore not just a matter of wishful thinking) and it seemed an error simply to reject the factual objectivity.
More needed to be said than that it was all imagination and fantasy.
But I could not see quite how to say it, short of considering the whole of human experience to be a matter of imagination (which brought other problems: not least relativism and solipsism - then nihilism).
Somehow - to be true to experience - Tolkien's fantasy world had to be real despite being imagined.
*
When I became a Christian (the processes being gradual rather than instant), all this remained; but the nature of the reality of Tolkien's world was different - because my understanding of the nature of imagination changed.
I began to regard imagination of the kind displayed by Tolkien (that is, subcreation) to have properties akin to the divine revelation of prophets. So, the Lord of the Rings was in fact true and real because it was divinely inspired: its truths were revelations.
Naturally, this does not make sense if the truths are seen as detachable facts (e.g. as providing information on the history of elves, hobbits, orcs etc.).
*
So, the situation seems to be that Tolkien's world is in fact true, but not factually true: the truth is not in the facts, which are explicitly imagined but in something else behind the facts, linking the facts, or the form of the imagined world.
I cannot explain - even to myself, leave aside explain to other people - how this works; but I do know that it does work.
Reality - and I mean real-reality, objective - is communicated from God, via Tolkien, by means of imagination and fantasy; therefore, this world is not a delusion, nor wishful thinking, nor an assertion of subjectivity, not (ultimately) invented but instead something given; this is solid: something to build life on.
*
Presumably there are numerous other ways - but I underwent a transition between the way in which I was a Tolkien fan in my youth and pre-Christian adulthood, and what came afterwards - what is now.
The transition was gradual, over several years; and indeed fairly closely related to becoming a Christian - especially to reading and writing about the story The debate of Finrod and Andreth (‘Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’) - or the writing which I have dubbed "The marring of men":
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/tolkiens-marring-of-men.html
*
In my youth, Tolkien's world provided an alternative reality. It was a reality, of some kind, and it was something into which I projected myself.
Of course, at the same time as volitionally-projecting I was also passively absorbed-into this world.
The world of Tolkien in fact provided a thread running through my life - which was realler than most of my life - at least in memory and retrospect.
*
This gave rise to the question of the status of this reality of Tolkien's world.
On the one hand the reality was not objective, not factual, because the world was imagined; on the other hand the world was solidly-subjective (therefore not just a matter of wishful thinking) and it seemed an error simply to reject the factual objectivity.
More needed to be said than that it was all imagination and fantasy.
But I could not see quite how to say it, short of considering the whole of human experience to be a matter of imagination (which brought other problems: not least relativism and solipsism - then nihilism).
Somehow - to be true to experience - Tolkien's fantasy world had to be real despite being imagined.
*
When I became a Christian (the processes being gradual rather than instant), all this remained; but the nature of the reality of Tolkien's world was different - because my understanding of the nature of imagination changed.
I began to regard imagination of the kind displayed by Tolkien (that is, subcreation) to have properties akin to the divine revelation of prophets. So, the Lord of the Rings was in fact true and real because it was divinely inspired: its truths were revelations.
Naturally, this does not make sense if the truths are seen as detachable facts (e.g. as providing information on the history of elves, hobbits, orcs etc.).
*
So, the situation seems to be that Tolkien's world is in fact true, but not factually true: the truth is not in the facts, which are explicitly imagined but in something else behind the facts, linking the facts, or the form of the imagined world.
I cannot explain - even to myself, leave aside explain to other people - how this works; but I do know that it does work.
Reality - and I mean real-reality, objective - is communicated from God, via Tolkien, by means of imagination and fantasy; therefore, this world is not a delusion, nor wishful thinking, nor an assertion of subjectivity, not (ultimately) invented but instead something given; this is solid: something to build life on.
*
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Three possible but not-existing Inklings collections I would love
*
1. A complete edition of the diaries of Warren Hamilton ('Warnie') Lewis - or if not complete then a selection at least treble the length of the current (absolutely wonderful, but far too brief) Brothers and Friends - edited by CS Kilby and ML Mead (1982).
2. A book named something like 'Walking tours of CS Lewis' - derived from his diaries and letters and lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps.
3. A single volume, separate cover edition of The Notion Club Papers by JRR Tolkien.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/my-hopes-for-notion-club-papers.html
*
1. A complete edition of the diaries of Warren Hamilton ('Warnie') Lewis - or if not complete then a selection at least treble the length of the current (absolutely wonderful, but far too brief) Brothers and Friends - edited by CS Kilby and ML Mead (1982).
2. A book named something like 'Walking tours of CS Lewis' - derived from his diaries and letters and lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps.
3. A single volume, separate cover edition of The Notion Club Papers by JRR Tolkien.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/my-hopes-for-notion-club-papers.html
*
Friday, 10 May 2013
Tolkien and the new moon, rising - a surprising recurrent error
I tend to think of Tolkien as someone who was knowledgeable about the natural world, and the kind of person who (like myself) makes a point of looking at the moon when possible and following its phases.
Certainly, it is known that the Lord of the Rings was interrupted for a prolonged spell in 1944-6 (when the Notion Club Papers were drafted) because of difficulty synchronizing the phases of the moon between different parts of the narrative. In fact he never quite managed to solve this problem - but it is a rather obscure matter, and doesn't mean much.
Yet Tolkien made the elementary mistake of recurrently describing his protagonists observing the New Moon Rising at night - when in fact the New Moon rises only during the day - after dawn, following the rising sun - indeed when it is newest the moon is invisible due to being lost in the light from the nearby sun.
(The time to see the New Moon is just after sunset, in the evening - when the New Moon is setting, not rising.)
Three examples:
The first comes from The Hobbit where Bard shoots Smaug the Dragon at the rising of the moon when the moon rose above the eastern shore and silvered [Smaug's] great wings... the waxing moon rose higher and higher.
Then we see something similar in the drafts of The Lord of the Rings published in the History of Middle Earth as The Return of the Shadow when Christopher Tolkien notes:
My father no doubt made this change on account of what he said about the Moon; for there was a waxing moon as the hobbits approached Weathertop, and it was 'nearly half-full' on the night of the attack: the attack was on 5 October...and there could not be a full or nearly full Moon on 24 September, the night passed with the Elves in the Woody End... On that night it must have been almost New Moon. … But it is an odd and uncharacteristic aberration that my father envisaged a New Moon rising late at night in the East.
Nonetheless, this mistake persisted into the published Lord of the Rings - so I conclude that the mistake was not uncharacteristic; but happened because JRR Tolkien believed that the moon could rise at night, after the sun had set; even when the moon was new or 'young' as he describes the rising moon after sunset at Weathertop in the published LotR.
That new moon rising, yet again! But why?
Perhaps it is related to the very origins of Tolkien's Legendarium, when he envisaged (as many people vaguely do) that the sun was created to illuminate the day, and the moon to illuminate the night - albeit going through phases or waxing and waning; so that there is always a light in the sky.
From The Book of Lost Tales Volume 1 - Chapter: The Tale of the Sun and Moon:
...for twelve hours shall the Sunship sail the heavens and leave Valinor, and for twelve shall Silpion's pale bark [i.e. the moon] mount the skies, and there shall be rest for tired eyes and weary hearts.
It is strange, but perhaps not surprising, that such a belief (sun by day, moon by night) is so common given the contrary evidence avaiable to all - and that the crescent moon is mostly a daylight object if visible at all against the bright sky...
But there, perhaps, is the answer. The moon is only noticed by most people when it is near the full, and such a moon is mostly a night sky object - so perhaps they assume (when they bother to think about it) that the moon is only visible at night, rising at dusk and setting at dawn...
Certainly, it is known that the Lord of the Rings was interrupted for a prolonged spell in 1944-6 (when the Notion Club Papers were drafted) because of difficulty synchronizing the phases of the moon between different parts of the narrative. In fact he never quite managed to solve this problem - but it is a rather obscure matter, and doesn't mean much.
Yet Tolkien made the elementary mistake of recurrently describing his protagonists observing the New Moon Rising at night - when in fact the New Moon rises only during the day - after dawn, following the rising sun - indeed when it is newest the moon is invisible due to being lost in the light from the nearby sun.
(The time to see the New Moon is just after sunset, in the evening - when the New Moon is setting, not rising.)
Three examples:
The first comes from The Hobbit where Bard shoots Smaug the Dragon at the rising of the moon when the moon rose above the eastern shore and silvered [Smaug's] great wings... the waxing moon rose higher and higher.
Then we see something similar in the drafts of The Lord of the Rings published in the History of Middle Earth as The Return of the Shadow when Christopher Tolkien notes:
My father no doubt made this change on account of what he said about the Moon; for there was a waxing moon as the hobbits approached Weathertop, and it was 'nearly half-full' on the night of the attack: the attack was on 5 October...and there could not be a full or nearly full Moon on 24 September, the night passed with the Elves in the Woody End... On that night it must have been almost New Moon. … But it is an odd and uncharacteristic aberration that my father envisaged a New Moon rising late at night in the East.
Nonetheless, this mistake persisted into the published Lord of the Rings - so I conclude that the mistake was not uncharacteristic; but happened because JRR Tolkien believed that the moon could rise at night, after the sun had set; even when the moon was new or 'young' as he describes the rising moon after sunset at Weathertop in the published LotR.
There is a further example when, in the house of Tom Bombadil, Frodo dreams about Gandalf, imprisoned on the tower of Orthanc:
In the dead night, Frodo lay in a dream without light. Then he saw the young moon rising; under its thin light there loomed before him a black wall of rock, pierced by a dark arch like a great gate.
Perhaps it is related to the very origins of Tolkien's Legendarium, when he envisaged (as many people vaguely do) that the sun was created to illuminate the day, and the moon to illuminate the night - albeit going through phases or waxing and waning; so that there is always a light in the sky.
From The Book of Lost Tales Volume 1 - Chapter: The Tale of the Sun and Moon:
...for twelve hours shall the Sunship sail the heavens and leave Valinor, and for twelve shall Silpion's pale bark [i.e. the moon] mount the skies, and there shall be rest for tired eyes and weary hearts.
It is strange, but perhaps not surprising, that such a belief (sun by day, moon by night) is so common given the contrary evidence avaiable to all - and that the crescent moon is mostly a daylight object if visible at all against the bright sky...
But there, perhaps, is the answer. The moon is only noticed by most people when it is near the full, and such a moon is mostly a night sky object - so perhaps they assume (when they bother to think about it) that the moon is only visible at night, rising at dusk and setting at dawn...
Monday, 6 May 2013
Was Tolkien envious? - a bleg
*
I keep coming across people ascribing envy to Tolkien, as if it were a sin to which he were particularly prone.
Especially people say Tolkien felt envy of C.S Lewis (e.g. Lewis's fluency as a writer, or his fame, or his friendship with Charles Williams) - but I cannot myself recall a single instance of Tolkien expressing envy about anything; and particularly not about his friend Jack Lewis. The emotion seems alien to him.
But please correct me if I am wrong - does anybody know of any instance in which Tolkien really was envious?
*
I keep coming across people ascribing envy to Tolkien, as if it were a sin to which he were particularly prone.
Especially people say Tolkien felt envy of C.S Lewis (e.g. Lewis's fluency as a writer, or his fame, or his friendship with Charles Williams) - but I cannot myself recall a single instance of Tolkien expressing envy about anything; and particularly not about his friend Jack Lewis. The emotion seems alien to him.
But please correct me if I am wrong - does anybody know of any instance in which Tolkien really was envious?
*
Saturday, 4 May 2013
A plausible non-explanation for why Tolkien and Lewis's friendship cooled...
*
It is plausible that the cooling of the once-close friendship between Tolkien and Lewis, while real, may have been over-played and over-explained.
After all, how many male friendships last longer than Tolkien and Lewis's? (Leaving aside those which begin in childhood and youth.)
Male friendship is usually based in an
alliance, a collaboration, working on something together.
Hence men friends tend to grow apart when circumstances change and the no longer have a shared project.
Quite likely The Lord of the Rings was that shared project which held Lewis and Tolkien together - and the end of writing LotR simply reduced the strength of
the main factor holding them close - rather than there being some other factor
which drove them apart.
Perhaps their friendship weakened (it never disappeared) mostly due to the loss of a powerfully-attracting magnetic field (i.e. LotR) rather than the addition of a repellant force/s (such as Charles Williams, Narnia books or Joy Davidman).
Perhaps their friendship weakened (it never disappeared) mostly due to the loss of a powerfully-attracting magnetic field (i.e. LotR) rather than the addition of a repellant force/s (such as Charles Williams, Narnia books or Joy Davidman).
*
H/T - This interpretation arose from an e-mail exchange with Dr Christopher Mitchell of Wheaton College, Illinois.
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
A random thought about NCPs
*
There is, as it stands - as it comes to us, a gratuitous quality to the Notion Club Papers. Where is it coming from? Where is it going? It hasn't found its place. Yet it isn't a story. It is about things - almost like an essay.
*
There is, as it stands - as it comes to us, a gratuitous quality to the Notion Club Papers. Where is it coming from? Where is it going? It hasn't found its place. Yet it isn't a story. It is about things - almost like an essay.
*
Tolkien travelling on a dream-meteor
This remarkable and strange passage from The Notion Club Papers is an instance where I infer that Tolkien is being - in essence - autobiographical.
Of course I cannot be sure, but Note 32 indicates one of several instances in the NCPs in which a very strange dream reported by Ramer is confirmed as autobiographical by Christopher Tolkien - and it seems reasonable to suppose there are others which Christopher either did not reference or which were not known to him (see references at the end).
For me, the extreme strangeness of these dreams (given that several are confirmed) is evidence towards their autobiographical nature - given the context of how and why the Notion Club Papers was written, and the intended audience of Inklings.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-companion-to-jrr-tolkiens-notion-club.html
**
'But all the time, of course, I wanted to get off the Earth. That's how I got the notion of studying a meteorite, instead of mooning about with houses, ruins, trees, boulders, and all sorts of other things.
'There is a very large meteorite in a park, Gunthorpe Park in Matfield, where I lived as a boy, after we came back from abroad; even then it had a strange fascination for me. I wondered if it could have come from Malacandra. I took to hobnobbing with it again, in the vacs.
'Indeed, I made myself ridiculous and an object of suspicion. I wanted to visit the stone alone at night - to lessen the distractions; but I was not allowed to: closing hours were closing hours. So I gave that up. It seemed to be quite without results.'
'So the poor old stone was left all alone?' said Lowdham.
'Yes,' said Ramer. 'It was. It is a very long way indeed from home, and it is very lonely. That is, there is a great loneliness in it, for a perceiver to perceive.
'And I got a very heavy dose of it. In fact I can't bear to look at such things now. For I found, about the end of the long vac. two years ago, after my final visit, that there had been results. It had evidently taken some time to digest them, and even partially translate them. But that is how I first got away, out beyond the sphere of the Moon, and very much further.'
'Travelling on a dream-meteor!' said Frankley. 'Hm! So that's your method, is it?'
'No,' said Ramer. 'Not if you mean how I got the news of Emberu that I put into my tale. But I did work back into the meteorite's history, I think; though that sort of vehicle does not readily give any place or time references that can be related to our waking point.
'I did get, all the rest of that term, and I still do get occasionally, some very odd dreams or sleep-experiences: painful often, and alarming. Some were quite unpictorial, and those were the worst.
'Weight, for instance. Just Weight with a capital W: very horrible. But it was not a weight that was pressing on me, you understand; it was a perception of, or sympathy in, an experience of almost illimitable weight.(Note 34)
'And Speed too. Heavens! waking up from that one was like hitting a wall, though only a wall of light and air in my bedroom, at a hundred miles a second - or rather, like knowing about it.
'And Fire! I can't describe that. Elemental Fire: fire that is, and does not consume, but is a mode or condition of physical being. But I caught sight of blazing fire, too: some real pictures. One, I think, must have been a glimpse of the meteorite hitting our air. A mountain corroded into a boulder in a few seconds of agonizing flame.
'But above, or between, or perhaps through all the rest, I knew endlessness. That's perhaps emotional and inaccurate. I mean Length with a capital L, applied to Time; unendurable length to mortal flesh. In that kind of dream you can know about the feeling of aeons of constricted waiting.
'Being part of the foundations of a continent, and upholding immeasurable tons of rock for countless ages, waiting for an explosion or a world-shattering shock, is quite a common situation in parts of this universe. In many regions there is little or no "free will" as we conceive it. Also, though they are large and terrific, events may be relatively simple in plan, so that catastrophes (as we might call them), sudden changes as the end of long repeated series of small motions, are "inevitable": the present holds the future more completely. A perceiving but passive mind could see a collapse coming from an immense distance of time.
'I found it all very disturbing. Not what I wanted, or at least not what I had hoped for. I saw, anyway, that it would take far too much of a mortal human life to get so accustomed to this kind of vehicle that one could use it properly, or selectively, at will. I gave it up.
'No doubt, when any degree of control was achieved, my mind would no longer have been limited to that particular vehicle or chunk of matter. The waking mind is not confined to the memories, heredity, or senses, of its own normal vehicle, its body: it can use that as a platform to survey the surroundings from.
'So, probably, it could, if it ever mastered another vehicle: it could survey, in some fashion, other things where the meteorite (say) came from, or things it had passed in its historical journey. But that second transference of observation would certainly be much more difficult than the first, and much more uncertain and inefficient.
*
Note 34 (by Christopher Tolkien): My father once described to me his dream of 'pure Weight', but I do not remember when that was: probably before this time.
**
See also
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/ramer-as-tolkien-1_19.html
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/another-ramer-tolkien-parallel.html
*
Of course I cannot be sure, but Note 32 indicates one of several instances in the NCPs in which a very strange dream reported by Ramer is confirmed as autobiographical by Christopher Tolkien - and it seems reasonable to suppose there are others which Christopher either did not reference or which were not known to him (see references at the end).
For me, the extreme strangeness of these dreams (given that several are confirmed) is evidence towards their autobiographical nature - given the context of how and why the Notion Club Papers was written, and the intended audience of Inklings.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-companion-to-jrr-tolkiens-notion-club.html
**
'But all the time, of course, I wanted to get off the Earth. That's how I got the notion of studying a meteorite, instead of mooning about with houses, ruins, trees, boulders, and all sorts of other things.
'There is a very large meteorite in a park, Gunthorpe Park in Matfield, where I lived as a boy, after we came back from abroad; even then it had a strange fascination for me. I wondered if it could have come from Malacandra. I took to hobnobbing with it again, in the vacs.
'Indeed, I made myself ridiculous and an object of suspicion. I wanted to visit the stone alone at night - to lessen the distractions; but I was not allowed to: closing hours were closing hours. So I gave that up. It seemed to be quite without results.'
'So the poor old stone was left all alone?' said Lowdham.
'Yes,' said Ramer. 'It was. It is a very long way indeed from home, and it is very lonely. That is, there is a great loneliness in it, for a perceiver to perceive.
'And I got a very heavy dose of it. In fact I can't bear to look at such things now. For I found, about the end of the long vac. two years ago, after my final visit, that there had been results. It had evidently taken some time to digest them, and even partially translate them. But that is how I first got away, out beyond the sphere of the Moon, and very much further.'
'Travelling on a dream-meteor!' said Frankley. 'Hm! So that's your method, is it?'
'No,' said Ramer. 'Not if you mean how I got the news of Emberu that I put into my tale. But I did work back into the meteorite's history, I think; though that sort of vehicle does not readily give any place or time references that can be related to our waking point.
'I did get, all the rest of that term, and I still do get occasionally, some very odd dreams or sleep-experiences: painful often, and alarming. Some were quite unpictorial, and those were the worst.
'Weight, for instance. Just Weight with a capital W: very horrible. But it was not a weight that was pressing on me, you understand; it was a perception of, or sympathy in, an experience of almost illimitable weight.(Note 34)
'And Speed too. Heavens! waking up from that one was like hitting a wall, though only a wall of light and air in my bedroom, at a hundred miles a second - or rather, like knowing about it.
'And Fire! I can't describe that. Elemental Fire: fire that is, and does not consume, but is a mode or condition of physical being. But I caught sight of blazing fire, too: some real pictures. One, I think, must have been a glimpse of the meteorite hitting our air. A mountain corroded into a boulder in a few seconds of agonizing flame.
'But above, or between, or perhaps through all the rest, I knew endlessness. That's perhaps emotional and inaccurate. I mean Length with a capital L, applied to Time; unendurable length to mortal flesh. In that kind of dream you can know about the feeling of aeons of constricted waiting.
'Being part of the foundations of a continent, and upholding immeasurable tons of rock for countless ages, waiting for an explosion or a world-shattering shock, is quite a common situation in parts of this universe. In many regions there is little or no "free will" as we conceive it. Also, though they are large and terrific, events may be relatively simple in plan, so that catastrophes (as we might call them), sudden changes as the end of long repeated series of small motions, are "inevitable": the present holds the future more completely. A perceiving but passive mind could see a collapse coming from an immense distance of time.
'I found it all very disturbing. Not what I wanted, or at least not what I had hoped for. I saw, anyway, that it would take far too much of a mortal human life to get so accustomed to this kind of vehicle that one could use it properly, or selectively, at will. I gave it up.
'No doubt, when any degree of control was achieved, my mind would no longer have been limited to that particular vehicle or chunk of matter. The waking mind is not confined to the memories, heredity, or senses, of its own normal vehicle, its body: it can use that as a platform to survey the surroundings from.
'So, probably, it could, if it ever mastered another vehicle: it could survey, in some fashion, other things where the meteorite (say) came from, or things it had passed in its historical journey. But that second transference of observation would certainly be much more difficult than the first, and much more uncertain and inefficient.
*
Note 34 (by Christopher Tolkien): My father once described to me his dream of 'pure Weight', but I do not remember when that was: probably before this time.
**
See also
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/ramer-as-tolkien-1_19.html
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/another-ramer-tolkien-parallel.html
*
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
What is communicating in dreams? Self, divine, demonic?
*
It is striking how pervasive is the idea of dreams as a potential source of enlightenment, of information, and especially of divine revelations.
This is found among 'shamans' in animistic religions; and other mystics in many religions. And also within the Bible, for example in the New Testament, Joseph (earthly father of Jesus) was one whose dreams repeatedly brought divine revelations:
*
Matthew
1: 20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
2: 13-14 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
19-20 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.
*
It seems that altered states of consciousness are conducive to divine revelations - but why would this be?
And are these revelations most likely to benign, divine and true; or may dream revelations also be the be evil, demonic and false?
*
My current understanding is that most dreams, most of the time, for most people have no deep meaning - nor are they divine in origin.
What seems to happen during dreaming sleep is that the mind is cut-off from the environment - the senses are, more or less, ignored - and the material generated during sleep - parts of which may be remembered as dreams - comes from our memory.
In sum - during dreaming sleep the content of consciousness comes from inside (memories) rather than outside (senses).
*
But, most cultures, and most Christians in particular, would acknowledge that the material of dreams could, in principle, also come from divine, from spiritual sources.
And I think there is a kind-of-consensus that spiritual influences in dreams are mostly benign, divine and true; and that it is exceptional, unusual and extreme for spiritual influences during sleep to be evil, demonic and false.
*
This seems to have been the view held by JRR Tolkien, as expressed in the mouth of his alter ego Ramer in the The Notion Club Papers
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/evil-minds-attacking-during-sleep.html:
'Aren't some of the [dream] visitors malicious?' said Jeremy. 'Don't evil minds attack you ever in sleep?'
'I expect so,' said Ramer. 'They're always on the watch, asleep or awake. But they work more by deceit than attack. I don't think they are specially active in sleep. Less so, probably. I fancy they find it easier to get at us awake, distracted and not so aware. The body's a wonderful lever for an indirect influence on the mind, and deep dreams can be very remote from its disturbance...
'But there does come sometimes a frightening... a sort of knocking at the door: it doesn't describe it, but that'll have to do. I think that is one of the ways in which that horrible sense of fear arises: a fear that doesn't seem to reside in the remembered dream-situation at all, or wildly exceeds it...
'That situation may have various explanations here. But out (or down) there sometimes the mind is suddenly aware that there is a night outside, and enemies walk in it: one is trying to get in. But there are no walls,' said Ramer sombrely. 'The soul is dreadfully naked when it notices it, when that is pointed out to it by something alien. It has no armour on it, it has only its being.
'But there is a guardian. He seems to command precipitate retreat. You could, if you were a fool, disobey, I suppose. You could push him away. You could have got into a state in which you were attracted by the fear. But I can't imagine it.'
*
The implication seems to be that 'secular dreams' are to do with the self, its experiences and memories; but in some people in some situations there may be revelatory dreams of divine origin.
While a revelation may be misinterpreted, perhaps only people of exceptional and deliberate depravity would be expected to experience revelatory dreams from malicious sources (demonic, evil-intending); and such people would usually bring the evil into the dream from their re-experienced memories.
*
But why during sleep? Why should divine communications not happen more when people are awake and alert?
The answer is, I think, merely that sleep is the time when our mind is most closed off from its environment, this where other sources of 'noise' are at a minimum.
Spiritual communications are therefore clearer and stand-out better against the background in altered states of consciousness such as sleep - and relevant and significant divine revelation is usually remembered even during during sleep, despite that normal dream contents may rapidly be forgotten.
*
It is striking how pervasive is the idea of dreams as a potential source of enlightenment, of information, and especially of divine revelations.
This is found among 'shamans' in animistic religions; and other mystics in many religions. And also within the Bible, for example in the New Testament, Joseph (earthly father of Jesus) was one whose dreams repeatedly brought divine revelations:
*
Matthew
1: 20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
2: 13-14 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
19-20 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.
*
It seems that altered states of consciousness are conducive to divine revelations - but why would this be?
And are these revelations most likely to benign, divine and true; or may dream revelations also be the be evil, demonic and false?
*
My current understanding is that most dreams, most of the time, for most people have no deep meaning - nor are they divine in origin.
What seems to happen during dreaming sleep is that the mind is cut-off from the environment - the senses are, more or less, ignored - and the material generated during sleep - parts of which may be remembered as dreams - comes from our memory.
In sum - during dreaming sleep the content of consciousness comes from inside (memories) rather than outside (senses).
*
But, most cultures, and most Christians in particular, would acknowledge that the material of dreams could, in principle, also come from divine, from spiritual sources.
And I think there is a kind-of-consensus that spiritual influences in dreams are mostly benign, divine and true; and that it is exceptional, unusual and extreme for spiritual influences during sleep to be evil, demonic and false.
*
This seems to have been the view held by JRR Tolkien, as expressed in the mouth of his alter ego Ramer in the The Notion Club Papers
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/evil-minds-attacking-during-sleep.html:
'Aren't some of the [dream] visitors malicious?' said Jeremy. 'Don't evil minds attack you ever in sleep?'
'I expect so,' said Ramer. 'They're always on the watch, asleep or awake. But they work more by deceit than attack. I don't think they are specially active in sleep. Less so, probably. I fancy they find it easier to get at us awake, distracted and not so aware. The body's a wonderful lever for an indirect influence on the mind, and deep dreams can be very remote from its disturbance...
'But there does come sometimes a frightening... a sort of knocking at the door: it doesn't describe it, but that'll have to do. I think that is one of the ways in which that horrible sense of fear arises: a fear that doesn't seem to reside in the remembered dream-situation at all, or wildly exceeds it...
'That situation may have various explanations here. But out (or down) there sometimes the mind is suddenly aware that there is a night outside, and enemies walk in it: one is trying to get in. But there are no walls,' said Ramer sombrely. 'The soul is dreadfully naked when it notices it, when that is pointed out to it by something alien. It has no armour on it, it has only its being.
'But there is a guardian. He seems to command precipitate retreat. You could, if you were a fool, disobey, I suppose. You could push him away. You could have got into a state in which you were attracted by the fear. But I can't imagine it.'
*
The implication seems to be that 'secular dreams' are to do with the self, its experiences and memories; but in some people in some situations there may be revelatory dreams of divine origin.
While a revelation may be misinterpreted, perhaps only people of exceptional and deliberate depravity would be expected to experience revelatory dreams from malicious sources (demonic, evil-intending); and such people would usually bring the evil into the dream from their re-experienced memories.
*
But why during sleep? Why should divine communications not happen more when people are awake and alert?
The answer is, I think, merely that sleep is the time when our mind is most closed off from its environment, this where other sources of 'noise' are at a minimum.
Spiritual communications are therefore clearer and stand-out better against the background in altered states of consciousness such as sleep - and relevant and significant divine revelation is usually remembered even during during sleep, despite that normal dream contents may rapidly be forgotten.
*
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Words versus pictures - Tolkien versus Lewis
*
JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were both dreamers, who used dream material in their stories - but the way in which they did this was very different, just as the atmosphere and feel of their books is very different.
Tolkien was a philologist through-and-through, whose writings came from his reflections on words and their history and derivations (see TA Shippey, The Road to Middle Earth).
In other words, Tolkien's stories were generated by the narratives of the words and the relationship between words in different languages - his stories often originated in inferences about how a word came to means what it did in a particular time and place.
Some of these words and languages apparently came to Tolkien during sleep- at least, if we believe that the experiences of Tolkien's alter-egos Ramer and Lowdham of The Notion Club Papers were based on Tolkien's own personal experiences.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/native-language.html
That is to say, Tolkien's writing was an elaboration of mini-narratives - and the basic unit of his stories was, if not words and their history, little sequences of events
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/creative-method-fo-jrr-tolkien.html
*
By contrast, Lewis seems to have worked from single, snapshot-like pictures, which he often saw in nightmares and dreams, and remembered (even though he often wished he did not have to remember them)
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/cs-lewis-as-dreamer.html
Other examples I recall having been attributed to Lewis's dreams are the Faun and lamp post in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Floating Islands in Perelandra and (I think) the 'stinging man' in the unfinished Dark Tower.
Lewis then consciously 'manufactured' stories to link between the pictures.
*
I think his may explain why Tolkien was the better and purer storyteller of the two.
Tolkien's stories were dynamic narratives in their essence and origin, while the story element of Lewis serves to link the primary entities which were either static pictures, or else arguments and philosophical ideas.
So, Lewis's novels tend to break up into collages of set pieces and mini-essays (particularly apparent in That Hideous Strength)
...while Tolkien's are true and multi-stranded narratives - as would be expected frm a philologist.
*
JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were both dreamers, who used dream material in their stories - but the way in which they did this was very different, just as the atmosphere and feel of their books is very different.
Tolkien was a philologist through-and-through, whose writings came from his reflections on words and their history and derivations (see TA Shippey, The Road to Middle Earth).
In other words, Tolkien's stories were generated by the narratives of the words and the relationship between words in different languages - his stories often originated in inferences about how a word came to means what it did in a particular time and place.
Some of these words and languages apparently came to Tolkien during sleep- at least, if we believe that the experiences of Tolkien's alter-egos Ramer and Lowdham of The Notion Club Papers were based on Tolkien's own personal experiences.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/native-language.html
That is to say, Tolkien's writing was an elaboration of mini-narratives - and the basic unit of his stories was, if not words and their history, little sequences of events
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/creative-method-fo-jrr-tolkien.html
*
By contrast, Lewis seems to have worked from single, snapshot-like pictures, which he often saw in nightmares and dreams, and remembered (even though he often wished he did not have to remember them)
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/cs-lewis-as-dreamer.html
Other examples I recall having been attributed to Lewis's dreams are the Faun and lamp post in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Floating Islands in Perelandra and (I think) the 'stinging man' in the unfinished Dark Tower.
Lewis then consciously 'manufactured' stories to link between the pictures.
*
I think his may explain why Tolkien was the better and purer storyteller of the two.
Tolkien's stories were dynamic narratives in their essence and origin, while the story element of Lewis serves to link the primary entities which were either static pictures, or else arguments and philosophical ideas.
So, Lewis's novels tend to break up into collages of set pieces and mini-essays (particularly apparent in That Hideous Strength)
...while Tolkien's are true and multi-stranded narratives - as would be expected frm a philologist.
*
Monday, 25 March 2013
Wildly inaccurate fantasy cover art
*
I do not have a high opinion of publishers - and one of their worst attributes is to use cover art on fiction which is wildly inaccurate, and has either nothing to do with the text, or includes outright falsehoods - people, things and events that never happen in the story.
One of the most notorious was that Ballantine paperback cover of The Hobbit - which deployed a talented artist, but one who had never read the book and was given such a ludicrously short time to produce the artwork that it was a miracle she completed the picture: there was zero possibility of painting the cover and also reading the book, as is very obvious:
Aside from the picture having nothing to do with anything in The Hobbit it is the pair of emus quietly grazing by the lake and reflected in its placid waters that really get me!
*
But what gross, savage disrespect for a publisher to saddle an author with such irrelevant and misleading cover art.
(It should be pointed-out that Tolkien's British publishers were of a completely different mindset - and went to enormous lengths in trying to accommodate Tolkien's exacting requests.)
*
Another example is the back cover of my copy of the the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:
Who the heck is that supposed to be?
Don't say Dumbledore, who is described as: "tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice."
*
No, the fact is that the Philosopher's Stone illustration, which apparently survived for about a score of impressions of the first edition, is of some person who certainly does not appear anywhere in the novel - it is inaccurate simply because there has been no attempt whatsoever to be accurate.
*
Usually, the worst excesses are practiced on novice authors; suggesting bullying as a motivation.
But another example is Josh Kirby's illustrations for Terry Pratchett's discworld novels (look them up for yourself, if you dare), which are just plain grotesque as well as inaccurate to the test - but which (since they appeared long after he became a huge seller) I presume were approved by the author; for hard-to-fathom reasons.
With people like this working for publishers, indeed the norm for publishers, it is a miracle of sorts that anything god ever comes from publishing books at all.
*
But let's end with a counter-example from the Armada Lion's edition of Lloyd Alexander's Book of Three commencing the Prydain chronicles:
Which is a delightful and accurate illustration by the young and as-yet-unknown Brian Froud; who not long afterwards went-on to co-publish (with Alan Lee) the superb and influential Fairies, and became one of the most famous ever fantasy illustrators.
*
I do not have a high opinion of publishers - and one of their worst attributes is to use cover art on fiction which is wildly inaccurate, and has either nothing to do with the text, or includes outright falsehoods - people, things and events that never happen in the story.
One of the most notorious was that Ballantine paperback cover of The Hobbit - which deployed a talented artist, but one who had never read the book and was given such a ludicrously short time to produce the artwork that it was a miracle she completed the picture: there was zero possibility of painting the cover and also reading the book, as is very obvious:
Aside from the picture having nothing to do with anything in The Hobbit it is the pair of emus quietly grazing by the lake and reflected in its placid waters that really get me!
*
But what gross, savage disrespect for a publisher to saddle an author with such irrelevant and misleading cover art.
(It should be pointed-out that Tolkien's British publishers were of a completely different mindset - and went to enormous lengths in trying to accommodate Tolkien's exacting requests.)
*
Another example is the back cover of my copy of the the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:
Who the heck is that supposed to be?
Don't say Dumbledore, who is described as: "tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice."
*
No, the fact is that the Philosopher's Stone illustration, which apparently survived for about a score of impressions of the first edition, is of some person who certainly does not appear anywhere in the novel - it is inaccurate simply because there has been no attempt whatsoever to be accurate.
*
Usually, the worst excesses are practiced on novice authors; suggesting bullying as a motivation.
But another example is Josh Kirby's illustrations for Terry Pratchett's discworld novels (look them up for yourself, if you dare), which are just plain grotesque as well as inaccurate to the test - but which (since they appeared long after he became a huge seller) I presume were approved by the author; for hard-to-fathom reasons.
With people like this working for publishers, indeed the norm for publishers, it is a miracle of sorts that anything god ever comes from publishing books at all.
*
But let's end with a counter-example from the Armada Lion's edition of Lloyd Alexander's Book of Three commencing the Prydain chronicles:
Which is a delightful and accurate illustration by the young and as-yet-unknown Brian Froud; who not long afterwards went-on to co-publish (with Alan Lee) the superb and influential Fairies, and became one of the most famous ever fantasy illustrators.
*
Monday, 18 March 2013
Mapping the Notion Club onto the Inklings – a parodic melange featuring in-jokes and running jokes
*
While some members are more-or-less
based upon real life Inklings (such as Ramer on Tolkien and Dolbear
on Havard), each member of the Notion Club in his origin contains
playful elements of parodic melange, as appropriate for the status of
the NCPs being designed to be read aloud to, and provoke discussion
from, the Inklings.
As they progressed, as is usual for
Tolkien, the NCPs became more serious, and pulled in (or were
pulled-into) Tolkiens deepest concerns.
Yet the playful origins of the NCPs are
clear in the earliest draft versions of the Foreword, and the first
entry recording the club meetings.
*
Preface to the Inklings
While listening to this fantasia (if
you do), I beg of the present company not to look for their own faces
in the mirror. For the mirror is cracked, and at the best you will
only see your countenances distorted, and adorned maybe with noses
(and other features) that are not your own, but belong to other
members of the company – if to anybody.
*
The Inklings were being told to look-out for characteristic features of group members, and parodic inversions of such features, but transposed between
members.
In other words, the early drafts of
the NCPs would have been stuffed with 'in jokes' – only some of
which can now be decoded; yet the presence of an in joke is often
implied by context, even when we cannot decode it.
*
Just to recap the six main Inklings
members in the period leading up to 1945-6 when the NCPs was written; and therefore those members whose identities were most
probably the models to be listed, inverted and mashed-up; in no
particular order they were:
Inklings
Jack Lewis
Warnie Lewis
Tolkien
Havard
Dyson
and Charles Williams
(who died about 6 months before NCPs were
drafted)
Notion Club
Ramer
Lowdham
Frankley
Dolbear
Guildford
Jeremy
*
There is apparently no character that
is 'based upon' Charles Williams, at least not obviously; quite
likely because his absence was too recent and too keenly felt to permit of jesting parody –
but it is not hard to suppose that a few scattered references in
relation to Jeremy and elsewhere may have raised a rueful reminiscent smile from
the surviving Inklings.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/who-is-wilfrid-jeremy-cw-crt.html
As an example of parodic inversion, early notes indicate that the character Frankley was originally
'based on' Jack Lewis, yet he is described as suffering from 'horror
borealis', that is the supposed medical condition of being 'intolerant
of all things Northern or Germanic' – which is the opposite
preference from Lewis's own well-known Nordic preferences.
*
The first entry in
the NCPs, part one, is Night 54:
A wet night. Only Frankley and
Dolbear arrived (Dolbear's house).
Dolbear reports that Philip never
said a word worth recording, but read him an unintelligable poem
about a Mechanical Nightingale (or he thought that was the subject).
Frankley reports that Rufus was
drowsy and kept on chuckling to himself. The only clearly audible
remark that he made was 'going off the deep end I think'. This was in
reply to an enquiry about Michael Ramer, and whether D had seen him
lately.
After F had read a poem (later read
again) called The Canticle of Artegall they parted.
*
Aside from the
single 'plot point' regarding Ramer possibly going off the deep end
(i.e. going crazy); night 54 reads very much like an in-joke, as if
it was based on an actual incident – presumably a meeting between
Jack Lewis and Havard, and perhaps based on the fact that afterwards
each gave a very different account of the proceedings.
The entry is
written in a droll style, yet it is not clear what the actual jokes
are. Possibly these include a mishearing of a poem title (maybe even
Keats 'ode to a' nightingale being misheard as 'mechanical', and the drowsiness of Dolbear/ Havard.
As noted elsewhere
on this blog, I have asked the real-life Havard's eldest son John
whether it was characteristic of his father to be drowsy or nod off
to sleep in company, and John says he has no recollection that this
was the case.
Yet, of course, it
would only need a single such incident of doziness (plausibly, since
Havard was a doctor, after being kept awake all the previous night by
on-call medical work), an incident quite likely unknown to his son,
for the doziness of Havard to become an established stereotype and a
'running joke' among the Inklings – that is exactly the way things
often work in groups of men (or boys).
*
As for the Canticle
of Artegall, Christopher Tolkien has drawn a blank in unravelling the
meaning of Artegall beyond noting that the Irish for article is
arteagal.
My guess at the
in-joke here is that Jack Lewis, at some point in an Inklings
meeting, slipped into his Ulster accent and pronounced
article as phonetically transcribed by 'artegall' – provoking first
incomprehension then jocularity – and that this also became a
running joke such that the 'song of artegall' was an amusing title
for a poem by the parody Lewis.
*
Whether I have
guessed right about these NCP in-jokes is probably unknowable, and
not as important as the internal evidence that they are indeed in-jokes; and
can be understood as intended to refer to some kind of running-joke of
the Inklings.
(If the NCPs had ever reached the stage of being prepared for publication, these bits of private humour would most likely have been deleted.)
Such in-jokes and running jokes were
entirely characteristic of the Inklings, as we know from other
sources such as the Lewis brothers' letters and journals - although
by no means restricted to the Inklings, but indeed to be found
wherever men (or boys) gather for extended periods.
*
Saturday, 16 March 2013
The best book which, otherwise than my recommending it, you would be unlikely to buy
*
Is the collection of essays Roots and Branches: selected papers on Tolkien by Tom Shippey (Walking Tree Publishers, 2007).
Assuming you are a Tolkien fan, so that you can appreciate the medium of discussion, this is just one of the best books I have ever read that is not a classic; it is, indeed, virtually unknown.
Replete with gems, such as:
**
Extracts from Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien's images of evil:
...it becomes clear that though the Ringwraiths do have physical capacities, their real weapon is psychological: they disarm their victims by striking them with fear and despair.
This at least is a suggestive concept. Many people during the course of the twentieth century, and authors as different from Tolkien and from each other as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and William Golding, have been surprised, even baffled, by the strange passivity of the Western world (a phrase Tolkien would have accepted) in the face of deadly dangers coming out of the East.
Whole communities seem again and again to have gone to their deaths in a sleepwalking state, abandoning thoughts of resistance when it would have been entirely feasible. In contests between the strong and the weak, the weak (wraiths) have often won.
...The obvious wraith in [That Hideous Strength] is Wither, the Deputy Director of NICE. On one level he is an obvious example of the bureaucrat, that characteristic twentieth century figure. His language is elaborate, polished, utterly evasive. He is master of getting his own way... without committing himself to any statement at all. It is impossible to argue with him since he never says anything which contains any substance; nor does he appear to remember anything he has said before.
All this is familiar enough to those who work in large organizations.
...[Lewis and Tolkien] demonstrate between them that one of the major advantages of fantasy in the modern world is that it effectively addresses the major threats of the modern world, like work, tedium, despair and bureaucracy, so often a closed book to modern mainstream authors without real-life work experience.
**
Roots and Branches by Tom Shippey.
If you a) like Tolkien and b) trust my judgment (...?): then buy it!
*
Is the collection of essays Roots and Branches: selected papers on Tolkien by Tom Shippey (Walking Tree Publishers, 2007).
Assuming you are a Tolkien fan, so that you can appreciate the medium of discussion, this is just one of the best books I have ever read that is not a classic; it is, indeed, virtually unknown.
Replete with gems, such as:
**
Extracts from Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien's images of evil:
...it becomes clear that though the Ringwraiths do have physical capacities, their real weapon is psychological: they disarm their victims by striking them with fear and despair.
This at least is a suggestive concept. Many people during the course of the twentieth century, and authors as different from Tolkien and from each other as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and William Golding, have been surprised, even baffled, by the strange passivity of the Western world (a phrase Tolkien would have accepted) in the face of deadly dangers coming out of the East.
Whole communities seem again and again to have gone to their deaths in a sleepwalking state, abandoning thoughts of resistance when it would have been entirely feasible. In contests between the strong and the weak, the weak (wraiths) have often won.
...The obvious wraith in [That Hideous Strength] is Wither, the Deputy Director of NICE. On one level he is an obvious example of the bureaucrat, that characteristic twentieth century figure. His language is elaborate, polished, utterly evasive. He is master of getting his own way... without committing himself to any statement at all. It is impossible to argue with him since he never says anything which contains any substance; nor does he appear to remember anything he has said before.
All this is familiar enough to those who work in large organizations.
...[Lewis and Tolkien] demonstrate between them that one of the major advantages of fantasy in the modern world is that it effectively addresses the major threats of the modern world, like work, tedium, despair and bureaucracy, so often a closed book to modern mainstream authors without real-life work experience.
**
Roots and Branches by Tom Shippey.
If you a) like Tolkien and b) trust my judgment (...?): then buy it!
*
Monday, 11 March 2013
What would happen, exactly, if the goodies tried to wield the One Ring
*
The following useful and interesting explanation is found in The History of Middle Earth volume 8 The War of the Ring (page 401), in the context of an early draft of 'The Last Debate' chapter .
**
'But if we should find the Ring and wield it, how would it give us victory?' asked Imrahil.
'It would not do so all in a day,' answered Gandalf. 'But were it to come to the hand of some one of power [?or] royalty, as say the Lord Aragorn, or the Steward of this City, or Elrond of Imladrist, or even to me, then he being the Ringlord would wax ever in power and the desire of power; and all minds he would cow or dominate so that they would blindly do his will.
'And he could not be slain.
'More: the deepest secrets of the mind and heart of Sauron would become plain to him, so that the Dark Lord could do nothing unforseen. The Ringlord would suck the very power and thought from him, so that all would forsake his allegiance and follow the Ringlord, and they would serve him and worship him as a God.
'And so Sauron would be overthrown utterly and fade into oblivion; but behold, there would be Sauron still...
'but upon the other side, [a tyrant brooking no freedom, shrinking from no deed of evil to hold his sway and to widen it].'
**
A striking phrase is that the Ringlord would suck the very power and thought from Sauron, so that all would forsake his allegiance and follow the Ringlord.
*
The following useful and interesting explanation is found in The History of Middle Earth volume 8 The War of the Ring (page 401), in the context of an early draft of 'The Last Debate' chapter .
**
'But if we should find the Ring and wield it, how would it give us victory?' asked Imrahil.
'It would not do so all in a day,' answered Gandalf. 'But were it to come to the hand of some one of power [?or] royalty, as say the Lord Aragorn, or the Steward of this City, or Elrond of Imladrist, or even to me, then he being the Ringlord would wax ever in power and the desire of power; and all minds he would cow or dominate so that they would blindly do his will.
'And he could not be slain.
'More: the deepest secrets of the mind and heart of Sauron would become plain to him, so that the Dark Lord could do nothing unforseen. The Ringlord would suck the very power and thought from him, so that all would forsake his allegiance and follow the Ringlord, and they would serve him and worship him as a God.
'And so Sauron would be overthrown utterly and fade into oblivion; but behold, there would be Sauron still...
'but upon the other side, [a tyrant brooking no freedom, shrinking from no deed of evil to hold his sway and to widen it].'
**
A striking phrase is that the Ringlord would suck the very power and thought from Sauron, so that all would forsake his allegiance and follow the Ringlord.
*
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Tolkien fandom then and now: Tolkien-based or meta-Tolkien - the Litmus Test of re-reading
*
As a young teen in the early 1970s and a Tolkien fan, the essence of fandom was re-reading.
There was very little published material by Tolkien, even less about him - all of it was expensive and most of it was inaccessible on a pocket-money budget.
Therefore, I read and re-read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
*
Nowadays, a fan need never re-read because there is so much secondary and tertiary material - there are the movies and their fandom - so many web sites, so much chat-about Tolkien-related matters.
There is no need to re-read - and anyway re-reading is quantitatively swamped by all the other stuff.
For the modern Tolkien fan, therefore, Tolkien is mostly a mass media phenomenon: the modern Tolkien fan is actually a meta-Tolkien fan: a fan of Tolkienish stuff of which Tolkien is a part, but by no means the dominant part.
*
I doubt whether the modern Tolkien fan experiences those years upon Years of aching desire for more of the same; only satiated (and only partly) by returning again and again to the books: to Tolkien's own words.
*
As a young teen in the early 1970s and a Tolkien fan, the essence of fandom was re-reading.
There was very little published material by Tolkien, even less about him - all of it was expensive and most of it was inaccessible on a pocket-money budget.
Therefore, I read and re-read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
*
Nowadays, a fan need never re-read because there is so much secondary and tertiary material - there are the movies and their fandom - so many web sites, so much chat-about Tolkien-related matters.
There is no need to re-read - and anyway re-reading is quantitatively swamped by all the other stuff.
For the modern Tolkien fan, therefore, Tolkien is mostly a mass media phenomenon: the modern Tolkien fan is actually a meta-Tolkien fan: a fan of Tolkienish stuff of which Tolkien is a part, but by no means the dominant part.
*
I doubt whether the modern Tolkien fan experiences those years upon Years of aching desire for more of the same; only satiated (and only partly) by returning again and again to the books: to Tolkien's own words.
*
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Why is it important to recognize that Tolkien was not exactly a niggler?
*
In the previous post I argued that Tolkien was not fundamentally a niggler - against which Troels produced some robust arguments.
Now he has been joined in his pro-niggling onslaught by Tom Shippey, no less, who wrote me in an e-mail:
So, why don't I just throw in the towel and admit defeat?
*
The reason is that we importantly need to recognize that Tolkien was not a niggler pure and simple, in order properly to understand his character and achievement.
Most nigglers - by which I mean those with an over-scrupulous attention to 'minor' details which other people regard as trivial - are highly conscientious characters, dutiful, able to grind away at any job until it is done.
If we have known nigglers in our own lives, the chances are that they were of this highly conscientious type.
*
Yet Tolkien was not of this type. His over-scrupulous attention to microscopic detail was (from his youth, and throughout adult and professional life) combined with an inability to stick to what he was 'supposed to do' but did not actually want to do.
This was what led to his failure to get a Scholarship to Oxford (and having to settle for a lower Exhibition award at the second attempt) and to his nearly disastrous performance in the first part of his Classics degree (only just avoiding a third class rank - which would probably have finished any realistic chance of an academic job).
Lack of conscientiousness also accounts for other aspects of his later professional performance - as one example that he apparently 'always' failed to complete the subject matter of his lecture courses, because of spending too much time on the early parts, until he ran out of time.
*
What we see with Tolkien is in fact is a much stranger mixture of extreme attention to detail and perfectionism with an ability to work hard and with close attention for long hours - yet combined with an almost endless ability to put off working on things he was not fundamentally interested by; leading to an apparent selfishness and willfulness of behaviour whereby he could not make himself complete, but would not abandon, projects.
*
Like most creative geniuses (according to H.J Eysenck), Tolkien was relatively high in the personality trait called Psychoticism.
(Word search this term in this blog for further information, and see http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-companion-to-jrr-tolkiens-notion-club.html).
Psychoticism is associated with high creativity - especially 'schizotypal' creativity of the dream-like type: widely-associative and insightful (in novel ways).
But Psychoticism is also associated with low conscientiousness, and a certain independence from the opinion/ approval of others that borders on selfishness (in other words low Agreeableness, in one of the modern terminologies of personality traits).
So the typical creative genius, who is high in Psychoticism, is someone whose hard work is channelled into their avocation - their self chosen hobby - rather than their vocation (appointed job): to use the words of Robert Frost from Two Tramps in Mud Time:
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
*
Tolkien certainly succeeded in uniting his avocation and his vocation - but ruthlessly, at the expense of his vocation.
With respect to his vocation Tolkien was a prevaricator, a putter-offer and a delayer - yet would not cancel because, in a sense, he needed the 'cover' of having these projects which he was 'working on'. The way he put-off working-on or completing these tasks was the most natural to him - that is niggling; but niggling without urgency or purpose.
Therefore I would regard Tolkien's 1961 comment to Rayner Unwin, that he was a 'natural niggler' to be essentially an excuse; a self-justifying but not complete and accurate explanation of frequent endless delays.
Meanwhile, no effort was too great for his avocation - yet the niggling was disciplined, kept in bounds by the need to complete and publish his beloved hobbies - as soon as he saw the way ahead, by which he could fulfil his distinctive purposes through writing, the work flowed swift and sure to completion.
*
So Tolkien was either at most a partial-niggler; or else the word 'niggler' needs to be redefined to exclude merely conscientious, dutiful attention to detail.
*
In the previous post I argued that Tolkien was not fundamentally a niggler - against which Troels produced some robust arguments.
Now he has been joined in his pro-niggling onslaught by Tom Shippey, no less, who wrote me in an e-mail:
Well, I have to agree with Troels. I've recently written the chapter on T as editor for Stuart Lee's forthcoming Companion, and honestly, how did he get away with it? Oxford professor, of course, which helps when it comes to dealing with OUP, but of the 11 projects he took up, only one was completed satisfactorily and more or less on time, which was the SGGK edition - and Gordon was the motor who drove that. Tolkien didn't really have a lot to do.
The Sisam Glossary is full of niggling, in the sense of quite unnecessary detail - I bet the majority of his entries have never been looked at once in all the years since 1921, nor did they need to be - and that was what sank the Clarendon Chaucer (which, by the way, has been recently rediscovered under the urging of John M. Bowers from Las Vegas).
Another failure was the Ancrene Wisse edition, which took 33 years to come out, and was not only delayed by totally unnecessary fussing over presentation, but appeared, quite against normal procedure, without the usual introduction and notes, which Tolkien was ideally suited to produce. If I had been the OUP editor responsible I would have handed the job over to G T Shepherd, who did many of the things Tolkien should have done, with far less backing.
I admit that I have known several academics who were EVEN WORSE, and that it is a professional deformation. And Tolkien was good about helping other people, like Simone d'Ardenne.
Also that he had an all-purpose excuse, which is that his mind was on other and more important things. He could indeed write quickly and directly once he saw his way clear.
Alas that he was not relieved of academic duties and put on permanent sabbatical, say about 1940. And maybe he would have been better-off to stay in Leeds and continue working with Gordon. But then he would not have had the stimulus of Lewis, without whom LotR would not have been finished, by all accounts.
So, why don't I just throw in the towel and admit defeat?
*
The reason is that we importantly need to recognize that Tolkien was not a niggler pure and simple, in order properly to understand his character and achievement.
Most nigglers - by which I mean those with an over-scrupulous attention to 'minor' details which other people regard as trivial - are highly conscientious characters, dutiful, able to grind away at any job until it is done.
If we have known nigglers in our own lives, the chances are that they were of this highly conscientious type.
*
Yet Tolkien was not of this type. His over-scrupulous attention to microscopic detail was (from his youth, and throughout adult and professional life) combined with an inability to stick to what he was 'supposed to do' but did not actually want to do.
This was what led to his failure to get a Scholarship to Oxford (and having to settle for a lower Exhibition award at the second attempt) and to his nearly disastrous performance in the first part of his Classics degree (only just avoiding a third class rank - which would probably have finished any realistic chance of an academic job).
Lack of conscientiousness also accounts for other aspects of his later professional performance - as one example that he apparently 'always' failed to complete the subject matter of his lecture courses, because of spending too much time on the early parts, until he ran out of time.
*
What we see with Tolkien is in fact is a much stranger mixture of extreme attention to detail and perfectionism with an ability to work hard and with close attention for long hours - yet combined with an almost endless ability to put off working on things he was not fundamentally interested by; leading to an apparent selfishness and willfulness of behaviour whereby he could not make himself complete, but would not abandon, projects.
*
Like most creative geniuses (according to H.J Eysenck), Tolkien was relatively high in the personality trait called Psychoticism.
(Word search this term in this blog for further information, and see http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-companion-to-jrr-tolkiens-notion-club.html).
Psychoticism is associated with high creativity - especially 'schizotypal' creativity of the dream-like type: widely-associative and insightful (in novel ways).
But Psychoticism is also associated with low conscientiousness, and a certain independence from the opinion/ approval of others that borders on selfishness (in other words low Agreeableness, in one of the modern terminologies of personality traits).
So the typical creative genius, who is high in Psychoticism, is someone whose hard work is channelled into their avocation - their self chosen hobby - rather than their vocation (appointed job): to use the words of Robert Frost from Two Tramps in Mud Time:
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
*
Tolkien certainly succeeded in uniting his avocation and his vocation - but ruthlessly, at the expense of his vocation.
With respect to his vocation Tolkien was a prevaricator, a putter-offer and a delayer - yet would not cancel because, in a sense, he needed the 'cover' of having these projects which he was 'working on'. The way he put-off working-on or completing these tasks was the most natural to him - that is niggling; but niggling without urgency or purpose.
Therefore I would regard Tolkien's 1961 comment to Rayner Unwin, that he was a 'natural niggler' to be essentially an excuse; a self-justifying but not complete and accurate explanation of frequent endless delays.
Meanwhile, no effort was too great for his avocation - yet the niggling was disciplined, kept in bounds by the need to complete and publish his beloved hobbies - as soon as he saw the way ahead, by which he could fulfil his distinctive purposes through writing, the work flowed swift and sure to completion.
*
So Tolkien was either at most a partial-niggler; or else the word 'niggler' needs to be redefined to exclude merely conscientious, dutiful attention to detail.
*
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