XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message    
   Steuard Jensen  spoke these staves:   
   >   
      
   On the value of Tolkien's description of Tom's nature in the original   
   'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' poem as the 'spirit of the   
   (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside':   
      
   [I am snipping references to 'canon' as we agree that that is at most   
   a tangential issue]   
      
   > you're still left with the observation that Tolkien's "Bombadil-   
   > as-Berkshire" comment was almost certainly made with no thought   
   > of incorporating him into the Silmarillion world.   
      
   True.   
      
   > As I said, I still think the comment gives important hints about   
   > how Tolkien thought of the character, but there was a *lot* of   
   > time (and reason!) for his ideas to evolve between that point and   
   > the completion of LotR. I think that when trying to understand   
   > the world that Tolkien created in LotR, it's pretty natural to   
   > give less weight to this than to comments that Tolkien made about   
   > Bombadil after LotR was written.   
   >   
   > This isn't a point of argument, is it?   
      
   It might be . . .  ;-)   
      
   For me it would depend very much on the contents and context of the   
   post-LotR comments -- I wouldn't find it difficult to imagine   
   comments to which I would attach much less weight than this comment   
   when trying to figure out what Tolkien meant in /LotR/.  Tolkien was   
   certainly not above 'retconning' his own work, and while such might   
   be relevant for some applications, it may also tell us less about the   
   intentions with /LotR/ than does what preceded the book. At times I   
   also think that the later comments should be given /less/ weight   
   because Tolkien in many ways began to take his sub-created world in   
   new directions a few years after /LotR/ had been published, and so   
   comments from the mid-sixties may tell us less about what Tolkien   
   intended with what he wrote in /LotR/ than a comment from the mid-   
   thirties.   
      
   However, I certainly do attach greater weight to the comments that   
   Bombadil would eventually lose to Sauron since these are just more   
   explicit corroboration of what is actually in /LotR/, but to the best   
   of my knowledge, Tolkien never does address the nature of Tom   
   Bombadil post-LotR (except to call him a deliberate enigma), and so   
   the earlier comment is the only real fix-point we have.  Since that   
   comment is quite well in line with how Tom is presented in the book   
   (even the geography matches reasonably if the Shire is really 'in   
   fact more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of the   
   Diamond Jubilee' (/Letters/ #178)) suggesting that, despite all the   
   time, Tolkien's actually didn't evolve all that much, the comment, in   
   my view, becomes very important indeed.   
      
      
      
   John M. Bowers, "Tolkien's Goldberry and The Maid of the Moor" in   
   /Tolkien Studies/ 8   
      
   > No, I haven't. I probably ought to, but I fear that I haven't kept   
   > up with Tolkien scholarship well at all. There's lots of   
   > fascinating stuff there, but so little of what's published is   
   > really *my* sort of thing (though as you point out, much of it is   
   > relevant in one way or another). I generally occupy an   
   > all-too-narrow niche of "careful scholarship that is primarily   
   > story internal", which means that most "serious" scholars look   
   > down on my interests as childish games and most casual fans either   
   > roll their eyes at my pedantry or (in happier cases) gaze in awe   
   > at my expertise without really being interested in engaging at the   
   > same level. I don't think I've ever found a place other than these   
   > groups where my sort of scholarship is both appreciated and   
   > common.   
      
   My own interest in critical essays such as this, or (better yet) the   
   works of Shippey, Flieger, Garth, Rateliff and other top-notch   
   Tolkien scholars, is actually based in the same interest in the   
   story-internal question.  I often find that studying the story-   
   external context will also help me understand the story-internal   
   application of the thing (whatever the specific question may be), and   
   so I have become interested in that aspect as well.  You might say   
   that I believe that the various literature critical approaches   
   enables us to come up with better answers also to story-internal   
   problems -- if we have the same bump in the data from two experiments   
   using fundamentally different approaches, we can be more confident   
   about the answer (let's say that we had a bump in the data about the   
   same energy as the LHC Higgs-candidate from an experiment that   
   smashed electrons into very heavy ions or something [I have no idea   
   whether that would work at all, even if the electrons could be   
   accelerated to the appropriate energies] -- that would greatly   
   enhance our confidence in even the preliminary data we're now seeing   
   from CERN).   
      
   That I have also found that some of the critical studies have, for   
   me, a value in themselves that is independent of their relevance to   
   story-internal questions is another matter -- that doesn't invalidate   
   what I say about using it as an independent set of experiments.   
      
   > I don't know if I'm griping about "kids these days" or singing the   
   > praises of you folks or what. :)   
      
   :-)   
      
   I guess it's perfectly possible to do both at once . . .   
      
      
      
   > [Side question: Was Bombadil as happy roaming the land that became   
   > the Barrow Downs when it was inhabited? He went there enough to   
   > know who had worn that brooch, at least, but it's suggested that   
   > he still visits the Shire, too. Is the Shire still part of "Tom's   
   > country" during the story?]   
      
   Adressing the latter first . . ..  Tom has certainly been   
   communicating with Farmer Maggot even in the book, so I think it is   
   quite reasonable to presume that at least Buckland and parts of the   
   Marish are still part of his country, and of course in the poem   
   'Bombadil Goes Boating' in /The Adventures of Tom Bombadil/ (ATB) Tom   
   does indeed visit Maggot's farm (though of course this doesn't   
   necessarily mean that any of the Marish is included in Tom's country   
   in /LotR/ -- it may give a hint, but no more).   
      
   As for Tom roaming parts of Cardolan, I think that if he did, he was   
   probably rather more discreet about it than he is in /LotR/.  Since   
   Merry seems completely ignorant about Tom's existence at all, I think   
   that his relationship with Maggot is also kept discreet -- 'under the   
   radar' so to speak (the suggestion in ATB that Tom's existence was   
   common knowledge among Hobbits in that part of the Shire either   
   belong to a later period in the Fourth Age or are an example of a   
   badly executed 'retcon' by Tolkien) -- and though I have nothing   
   whatsoever to back it up, my impression of Tom's nature in /LotR/ is   
   such that I think he may have been similarly discreet when 'his'   
   lands were occupied by Men.   
      
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