The argument re canonicity you have just had with yourself has of course already been rehearsed by JRRT fandom, and your position is the 'orthodox' one. A rival faction says that 'Letters' is MORE canonical than HoME because letters, ipso facto, are meant to read by another, whereas the material in HoME was never approved by JRRT for publication. (This view ignores the several unsent letters in the book, and it is also debatable whether the letters sent to CJRT can be counted as 'meant for other eyes').

I hold the heretical opinion that there is no canon; the world of JRRT's 'legendarium' is a fluid one, and choosing any fixed points therein is a pointless exercise. All statements are equally valid, and also equally invalid, and trying to say such a thing 'is' this that or the other is a snare and a delusion; the 'things' themselves have no material existence, there is no external frame of reference to compare things against. Seek not to know 'the truth', but lie back and enjoy the bits you enjoy, and feel entirely free to ignore the bits you don't. Striving to know whether Balrogs have wings or not will not enhance your life by one whit. (My GSD, I've gone all Zen).

It is only by reading Letters that the full (or anyway a more complete) flavour of JRRT's faith can be divined (pardon the pun); reading his mythopoeic works alone may well (as you say) reveal his Christianity but not (perhaps) his Catholicism. These are deep waters, and I'm sure to be out of my depth, but I think my view of his religion and its influence on his work will always be different from yours, a reflection perhaps of our different perspectives on the matter .... to get all Zen again, there is I think no definitive answer, and so long as we agree to disagree there is room for many interpretations. (Gosh I'm waxing lyrical tonight).

Amazon is silent on the topic of Prof. Shippey's revised book - it may be further off than I thought, or indeed I may have been talking complete cobblers. I shall try to find out.

I probably wouldn't be a transport geek any more if I didn't still work in the business, and I should like to make it clear that I am not now nor have I ever been any sort of spotter, and I wouldn't care greatly for the word anorak, either. Interested professional is the phrase I use.

Well, if the website is going to be a while, you can e-mail me the saga ... I can print it off at work.

Hmmm .... dunno where all that Zen stuff came from .. I'll get me koan.

Oh - PS - I have an (unfinished) essay on JRRT I did a while ago .... I will send you it if you like.



Post Edited (07-31-03 10:18)

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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Will send pronto.

I'd love to see the essay --- perhaps it remains unfinished as a tribute to the author's 'style' !!!!

I think I would agree about not getting into settling details as fixed; there is a need to have some kind of frame of reference, but there is also room for matters to be left 'unexplained' by the author, and see his various efforts as possibilities we are free to muse over. Life is full of things unexplained. Ball lightning is strictly 'impossible' and everyone knows it happens, but no one is pulling their hair out about Electromagnetic theory. Speaking as a Physics graduate this is intellectual cowardice for the scientific community (there's no money in researching it I suppose) but the matter is, in this 'real' world, still unexplained, and very likely to remain so for a long time.

I do think Balrogs are incapable of flying, or else they certainly would have; the question would then be whether they wanted wings, as they would have been an expression of their personality (assuming all agree they are Maiar). The idea of a saying such as 'Balrogs might fly' is an amusing one, unless you live near one.

Beginning on 'Myths transformed' the appearance of sections I - III is of a man who thinks his time has gone. 'You can't do that anymore'. I wonder if in the fifties and sixties, an era of terrible Science Fiction 'B' movies and open mouthed adoration of 'science', JRRT simply felt that a 'fairy story' would be laughed at. The replacement versions (as far as I have read them) are TRIPE. They have the appearance of being the result of a loss of confidence in the acceptability of what was previously written, rather than a rewrite because of an inspired or 'better' version. Perhaps being postponed uhtil the seventies did 'The Silmarillion' a favour, as the climate was by then more accepting of the material. Anyway, you hear an enraged first reaction. Orcs etc. follow shortly, and I'll bet JRRT wouldn't have used MY solution, which is rather Ffordian!

FWIW the 'possible' Catholic side I detected was that JRRT had left Elves and Men contacting their 'God' only through intermediaries (priests in a sense) i.e. the Valar, and men barely at all. If you count Tuor as 'numbered amongst the Elves' and disregard his contact with Ulmo, that pretty much leaves men abandoned. However JRRT did not think that appropriate, it seems rather that he did not want to handle 'overt' religion yet felt uncomfortable about exactly the same aspects as I did, hence the content of 'Arthropod' and the early voice of Eru. So the point does not even occur. Other than that, I really must ask a Catholic about that ONE sentence. Whoops, there's one downstairs.