[Durelin]

These 'first American edition with the funky covers' (a very nice description, btw, Child!) – which funky covers do you speak of? I myself have several copies of each book of what I believe to be the ‘first American editions with the funky covers’, but I found that the foreword contained within was the same as the one found in my single movie cover copy… Now I feel that I have failed in being official!

But on to my ramblings…

I think some of what spurned Tolkien's 'lecturing' of the reader was all that thought in the ten years since he had first published the novels. He obviously had received a great number of comments, and most that reached him were probably bad ones, if at least attempts at constructive criticism. It is my thought that Tolkien, with all of this, and most likely because he did doubt that the book would be at all popular, he became a grumpy old man! This, in my mind, was not the wish of such a man as Tolkien: fame. Though, truly, he still seemed able to find amusement in much of the questions, popularity, and assumptions.

As has been pointed out here, this foreword was written about 10 years after the appearance of LotR: what in that time has Tolkien decided his book is 'about'??

Right, lets see about this...

I desired to do this for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues.

Interesting... He wrote for his own fulfillment, and did not believe that much of it would be wished to be read. Could this be applied to The Lord of the Rings itself? Or is this specifically speaking of the works later published, that he did not seem to think were worth publishing?

[quote]I went back to the sequel (the sequel = LotR), encouraged by requests from readers for more information concerning hobbits and their adventures.[/b]

Wow! This was the simple beginning? Obviously this 'sequel' became much more.

But the story was drawn irresistibly towards the older world, and became an account, as it were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been told.

The older world: He is referring to the 'older world' of his world. It seemed that the histories he had written for the Elvish languages were becoming a part of this sequel, and this told of an end to those histories. And when he speaks of it ending before it began, was he speaking of the entirety of The Lord of the Rings as an end to his history/mythology, or did he actually, physically write (or at least devise) the ending to LotR first? It really was an end, if not the end. Since he was writing a history/mythology of this world, there really wasn't any final end, except the end of time. This sequel to the Hobbit brought to an end the evils in Middle-Earth, and ended the old world. It brought the time of elven domain in Middle-Earth to a close, and left it as a world of Men. The old word had come to an end by the beginning of the Fourth Age (to the extent that the Roman Empire fell on a certain date).

In spite of the darkness of the next five years, I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria.

I can just imagine him plodding along with the Fellowship on their journey! Odd that a dark time in his life paralleled with the darkness of the Fellowship's travels in Moria.

Continuing that idea...

It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to Lothlorien and the Great River...

Tolkien started writing again, and The Fellowship's spirits are lightened and overcome the loss of Gandalf. I wonder just how much his daily life affected his writing, since it was done in such great intervals...

The prime motive was the desire of the tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.

This has been described several times in the discussion, but it is smply a motive, and he has yet to speak of 'concerning...the meaning of the tale.'

As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset of the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit

This 'main theme' he describes, though, is, of course, no enough for the reader. First of all, he does not even directly say what the main meaning is, only what it is outset from is described. These unexpected branches were inevitable, and made it inevitably impossible for any main theme that a reader might desire to be displayed to actually be present in the author's mind or purpose. What is in the mind of the reader, though, is up to the reader.

And so Tolkien points out...

I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

And so do I think, as well. Could Tolkien perhaps think of The Lord of the Rings as 'feigned history'? Or is he merely trying to include history in its many forms?

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex...

Well Tolkien just summed up my whole spiel in my former posts in the two above quotes...

...but as the years go by it seems now often forgot that to be caught in youth by 1914 was not less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939...the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender...and much further back.

Now he tells of what did influence him, to get rid of all assumptions that all these similes and metaphors must be referring to the large crisis in which it was published. But, going back to what Tolkien said concerning applicability, the readers were taking their experiences and interpreting and applying. What Tolkien did not want them to think was that their experiences necessarily paralleled with his own, and so were the only way to 'apply' his, or any authors, works. That borders on the most loathéd idea of allegory.

I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman.

Ever in his witty way, Tolkien expresses the fact that he did not go that deeply and try and express his experiences in his writing. They merely influenced him, as inevitably they would, and so influence his writing.

Well, I went through it all, and probably overdid it on the quotes, but I still covered so very little. But now I am out of time, as Tolkien came to be.

But still, I shall return to continue at another time. It is very wise to take this in intervals, as well.

-Durelin