XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien
From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid
I have just finished reading _The Book of Lost Tales_ 1 and 2 (BoLT).
Nothing special about that, but this is, I think, the first time I have
sat down and really read it from end to end. I have read it before --
or most of it -- but haphazardly a chapter here and a half chapter
there without system (other than on a 'need to know' basis), and I must
have skipped parts, because some things have struck me forcefully that
I did not remember seeing before.
There are in particular two things that have struck me as most
significant:
1: How much of the later structure that is already in evidence at this
early stage of Tolkien's 'developing mythology' (to use Christopher
Tolkien's (CJRT) words in the last page). Related to this is CJRT's
assertions that many things were maintained in his father's mind in the
later stages of this development even if they are not mentioned; I
suspect that he is speaking from explicit knowledge -- that his father
spoke with him about the mythology and that these conversations
demonstrated to CJRT that many aspects were still an integral part of
JRRT's conception, though they had never been mentioned since he wrote
BoLT.
2: The strong influence of 'fate,' of the Music, on the events of Arda,
and in particular for the Elves. This is much more explicit in BoLT
than in the later, post-LotR, stages of the mythology, though I also
agree with Verlyn Flieger that 'all the implications remain in the
published version.' (_Splintered Light_ Ch.15, p.130). Thus, in the
draft for 'The Music of the Ainur' (BoLT1), Tolkien explicitly stated
that the gift to Men was 'free will and the power of fashioning and
designing beyond the original music of the Ainu.' (BoLT1 Ch.2, note 12,
p.59) But also in the later descriptions of Melko's [sic] corruption of
the Gnomes in Valinor, where it is asked 'Nay, who shall say but that
all these deeds, even the seeming needless evil of Melko, were but a
portion of the destiny of old?' (BoLT1 Ch.6, p.156) and later in the
same chapter (p.167) this is emphasized again:
In sooth it is a matter for great wonder, the subtle
cunning of Melko -- for in those wild words who shall say
that there lurked not a sting of the minutest truth, nor
fail to marvel seeing the very words of Melko pouring from
Fëanor his foe, who knew not nor remembered whence was the
fountain of these thoughts; yet perchance the [?outmost]
origin of these sad things was before Melko himself, and
such things must be -- and the mystery of the jealousy of
Elves and Men is an unsolved riddle, one of the sorrows at
the world's dim roots.
(_The Book of Lost Tales 1_ Ch. 6, p. 167)
The meaning is clearly that these events were 'fated' -- that they were
inevitable.
Other things are, of course, also noteworthy. In the first narrative
setting, what CJRT calls the 'Eriol story,' Tol Eressëa really _is_
England, and in the later narrative setting, the 'Ælfwine story,'
England is still a crucial element -- the old land of the Elves that is
explicitly and deliberately copied in Tol Eressëa. Thus these first
stages of Tolkien's mythology appear to me not only, as Carpenter put
it, a 'mythology _for_ England' (emphasis mine), but actually a
mythology _about_ England. This aspect gradually faded (it is still
detectable in the early Silmarillion texts).
And now for reading Rateliff's _The History of The Hobbit_ . . . :-)
(Cross-posted to the rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien and
alt.books.inklings at the behest of members of these erudite
communities)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they
are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not
refer to reality.
- Albert Einstein
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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