Revised and Expanded Edition of the Letters

[Bêthberry]

Well, I'm back. And have the NuLetters in hand. (I like that spelling very much, thanks hS

In rereading the comments here, I find it striking that the initial and possibly major points made relate not to the topic of the blog post but to the tone of the author. She is allegedly some sort of shrew who has an axe to grind against cis men of another time, almost a feminazi. My initial response of "really?" still holds up. It's like attacking the messenger rather than the message, or, in the old rhetorical nomenclature, ad hominem attack, although in this case it isn't against the man.

Larsen is sharp, yes, but hardly antagonistic to Tolkien; her point is not to, as she says, pillory him for not being modern or progressive. In fact, as she makes clear in the first paragraph, she is interested in showing how some current views of him as "being ahead of his time" are misplaced; she is more interested in seeing how he relates to his own time, and what those values may or may not be. So she is putting her reading of the nuletter to Michael in the context of critical commentary on Tolkien. If you don't like the word Larsen uses, "cringeworthy", then think embarassing or awkward. Yes, he was a man of his time. Accept him for that.

The nuletter (number 38a) is clearly about family relations and should be read also in the context of the very long letter 43 where Tolkien offers fatherly advice about marriage as companions in a shipwreck. (As an aside, Michael's loves in question in the two letters are different women, A in the first and Joan Griffiths in the second, who he would go on to marry.)

The difficulty appears to have been that Edith wrote a letter to Michael after his girlfriend's parent informed the Tolkiens where Michael, then currently in training for the war, had been reposted. This apparently was an embarrassment, that others had been informed before the parents, and Tolkien is writing to Michael how to handle the situation. Of course we don't have Edith's letter to read, so we don't know what she wrote, and we don't have Michael's letter to Tolkien to see what prompted letter 38a. It is quite difficult, after decades, to try to decipher family relationships. However, it appears that Tolkien is trying to excuse Edith for what she wrote, or provide reasons for her comments. Did Tolkien speak with Edith about this situation? It does not appear so. In any case, what we have are Tolkien's thoughts about his wife in mid life. They are patronising and infantalising. Tolkien spends more time using Edith's lack of attendance to the Catholic faith (which he demanded she convert to despite the fact that the Church herself did not require partners to become Catholic (only to bring up children in the Catholic faith); here Tolkien gives no sign of introspection (I used that word in particular) about how the loss of her own personal faith in the Anglican church may have left Edith lonely and in a strange land--certainly she found confession to a strange man awkward), and then this bit about "women's economy" and menopause. He spends time surmising how women feel about other women who are attractive to their sons, despite saying later in the letter that Edith is quite "reconciled" to the relationship. His thoughts are entirely consistent with common cis men's patronising attitudes towards women at the time; they display very little introspection or sympathy for what Edith might have been feeling and instead offers social/cultural cliches. What Tolkien does not express is any idea how Edith might be very concerned about her son because he is in military service during wartime and whose very life could be at risk. (Michael was in fact injured during a training exercise.) And how it felt to have other people report about him concerning something he had not told his parents.

Larsen provides six--yes, six--references to studies on menopause, so she isn't talking hot air, or merely her opinion, or post modern revisionist complaints about men in earlier times. Larsen is a scientist, and evidence, true evidence and research, are both her bread and butter and her MO in her scientific research and in her articles on Tolkien.

To demonstrate her respect for Tolkien, here is her article on the aurora in the Father Christmas Letters, "Rayed Arcs and the ‘Rory Bory Aylis’: Primary World Aurorae and Tolkien’s 'Father Christmas Letters'": http://https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol18/iss1/5/

Suffice to say I think many of the claims made here about her blog are misguided attacks on her rather than on what she shows Tolkien thought about his wife at mid life. Like me, she is a big fan of Tolkien, but that does not mean that either of us engage in idealising a favourite author. Authors are human and have feet of clay.

EDIT: Haven't had time to do a thorough reading of the NuLetters. It is a very handsome hardcover, approximately 50,000 words more than what the original had been reduced to, with 150 new letters and 45 of the original letters newly expanded, a hefty book. When I have time I will do a quick search for letter numbers that have been appended a letter after the original number, as in 38a with the letter in question. Particularly welcome is the new and expanded Index by Wayne G Hammond and Christina Scull (best known for their JRR Tolkien companion and Guide as well as their Reader's Guide to LotR).

Mithadan had asked about reviews of the new edition: an extended one with particular details can be found at Tolkien Collectors' Guide: http://https://www.tolkienguide.com/...forumpost52679