The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  187 From a letter to H. Cotton Minchin (draft)

  [Not dated; April 1956. Tolkien has written at the top: ‘More or less as sent 16 April (with some reduction).’]

  As ‘research students’ always discover, however long they are allowed, and careful their work and notes, there is always a rush at the end, when the last date suddenly approaches on which their thesis must be presented. So it was with this book, and the maps. I had to call in the help of my son – the C.T. or C.J.R.T. of the modest initials on the maps – an accredited student of hobbit-lore. And neither of us had an entirely free hand. I remember that when it became apparent that the ‘general map’ would not suffice for the final Book, or sufficiently reveal the courses of Frodo, the Rohirrim, and Aragorn, I had to devote many days, the last three virtually without food or bed, to drawing re-scaling and adjusting a large map, at which he then worked for 24 hours (6 a.m. to 6 a.m. without bed) in re-drawing just in time. Inconsistencies of spelling are due to me. It was only in the last stages that (in spite of my son’s protests: he still holds that no one will ever pronounce Cirith right, it appears as Kirith in his map, as formerly also in the text) I decided to be ‘consistent’ and spell Elvish names and words throughout without k. There are no doubt other variations. . . . .

  I am, however, primarily a philologist and to some extent a calligrapher (though this letter may make that difficult to believe). And my son after me. To us far and away the most absorbing interest is the Elvish tongues, and the nomenclature based on them; and the alphabets. My plans for the ‘specialist volume’ were largely linguistic. An index of names was to be produced, which by etymological interpretation would also provide quite a large Elvish vocabulary; this is of course a first requirement. I worked at it for months, and indexed the first two vols. (it was the chief cause of the delay of Vol iii) until it became clear that size and cost were ruinous. Reluctantly also I had to abandon, under pressure from the ‘production department’, the ‘facsimiles’ of the three pages of the Book of Mazarbul, burned tattered and blood-stained, which I had spent much time on producing or forging. Without them the opening of Book Two, ch. 5 (which was meant to have the facsimiles and a transcript alongside) is defective, and the Runes of the Appendices unnecessary.

  But the problems (delightful if I had time) which the extra volume will set, will seem clear if I tell you that while many like you demand maps, others wish for geologicalfn57 indications rather than places; many want Elvish grammars, phonologies, and specimens; some want metrics and prosodies – not only of the brief Elvish specimens, but of the ‘translated’ verses in less familiar modes, such as those written in the strictest form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse (e.g. the fragment at the end of the Battle of the Pelennor, V vi 124). Musicians want tunes, and musical notation; archaeologists want ceramics and metallurgy. Botanists want a more accurate description of the mallorn, of elanor, niphredil, alfirin, mallos, and symbelmynë; and historians want more details about the social and political structure of Gondor; general enquirers want information about the Wainriders, the Harad, Dwarvish origins, the Dead Men, the Beornings, and the missing two wizards (out of five). It will be a big volume, even if I attend only to the things revealed to my limited understanding!

  188 From a letter to Allen & Unwin

  3 April 1956

  [In March, Allen & Unwin told Tolkien that they had signed an agreement for a Dutch edition of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien replied that this was the first he had heard of such a proposal, and asked to be told more. The publishers answered that they were making ‘all possible efforts’ to sell foreign rights, and asked for confirmation that Tolkien wanted them to do so.]

  Of course, I wish you to pursue your efforts with regard to foreign editions. . . . . It is however surely intelligible that an author, while still alive, should feel a deep and immediate concern in translation. And this one is, unfortunately, also a professional linguist, a pedantic don, who has wide personal connexions and friendships with the chief English scholars of the continent. . . . . The translation of The Lord of the Rings will prove a formidable task, and I do not see how it can be performed satisfactorily without the assistance of the author.fn58 That assistance I am prepared to give, promptly, if I am consulted.

  I wish to avoid a repetition of my experience with the Swedish translation of The Hobbit.1 I discovered that this had taken unwarranted liberties with the text and other details, without consultation or approval; it was also unfavourably criticized in general by a Swedish expert, familiar with the original, to whom I submitted it. I regard the text (in all its details) of The Lord of the Rings far more jealously. No alterations, major or minor, re-arrangements, or abridgements of this text will be approved by me – unless they proceed from myself or from direct consultation. I earnestly hope that this concern of mine will be taken account of.

  189 From a letter to Mrs M. Wilson

  11 April 1956

  I find that many children become interested, even engrossed, in The Lord of the Rings, from about 10 onwards. I think it rather a pity, really. It was not written for them. But then I am a very ‘unvoracious’ reader, and since I can seldom bring myself to read a work twice I think of the many things that I read – too soon! Nothing, not even a (possible) deeper appreciation, for me replaces the bloom on a book, the freshness of the unread. Still what we read and when goes, like the people we meet, by ‘fate.’

  190 From a letter to Rayner Unwin

  3 July 1956

  [In June, the Foreign Rights Department of Allen & Unwin sent Tolkien a list of Dutch versions of place-names in The Lord of the Rings that had been made by the book’s Dutch translator, with the request: ‘Will you please send them back with, we trust, your approval?’]

  I hope you, & the Foreign Rights Dept., will forgive my now at length writing to you about the Dutch translation. The matter is (to me) important; it has disturbed and annoyed me greatly, and given me a good deal of unnecessary work at a most awkward season. . . . .

  In principle I object as strongly as is possible to the ‘translation’ of the nomenclature at all (even by a competent person). I wonder why a translator should think himself called on or entitled to do any such thing. That this is an ‘imaginary’ world does not give him any right to remodel it according to his fancy, even if he could in a few months create a new coherent structure which it took me years to work out.

  I presume that if I had presented the Hobbits as speaking Italian, Russian, Chinese, or what you will, he would have left the names alone. Or, if I had pretended that ‘the Shire’ was some fictitious Loamshire1 of actual England. Yet actually in an imaginary country and period, as this one, coherently made, the nomenclature is a more important element than in an ‘historical’ novel. But, of course, if we drop the ‘fiction’ of long ago, ‘The Shire’ is based on rural England and not any other country in the world – least perhaps of any in Europe on Holland, which is topographically wholly dissimilar. (In fact so different is it, that in spite of the affinity of its language, and in many respects of its idiom, which should ease some part of the translator’s labour, its toponymy is specially unsuitable for the purpose.) The toponymy of The Shire, to take the first list, is a ‘parody’ of that of rural England, in much the same sense as are its inhabitants: they go together and are meant to. After all the book is English, and by an Englishman, and presumably even those who wish its narrative and dialogue turned into an idiom that they understand, will not ask of a translator that he should deliberately attempt to destroy the local colour. I do not ask that of a translator, though I might be glad of a glossary where (seldom) the meaning of the place-name is essential. I would not wish, in a book starting from an imaginary mirror of Holland, to meet Hedge, Duke’sbush, Eaglehome, or Applethorn even if these were ‘translations’ of ’sGravenHage, Hertogenbosch, Arnhem, or Apeldoorn! These ‘translations’ are not English, they are just homeless.

  Actually the Shire Map plays a very small part in the narrative, and most o
f its purpose is a descriptive build-up. It is, of course, based on some acquaintance with English toponymical history, which the translator would appear not to possess (nor I guess does he know much of that of the Netherlands). But he need not, if he would leave it alone. The proper way to treat the first map is to change its title to Een Deel von ‘The Shire’ and no more; though I suppose naar for ‘to’ in such directions as ‘To Little Delving’ wd. do no harm.

  The Translator has (on internal evidence) glanced at but not used the Appendices. He seems incidentally quite unaware of difficulties he is creating for himself later. The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ of the Rohirrim is not much like Dutch. In fact he is pulling to bits with very clumsy fingers a web that he has made only a slight attempt to understand. . . . .

  The essential point missed, of course, is: even where a place-name is fully analysable by speakers of the language (usually not the case) this is not as a rule done. If in an imaginary land real place-names are used, or ones that are carefully constructed to fall into familiar patterns, these become integral names, ‘sound real’, and translating them by their analysed senses is quite insufficient. This Dutchman’s Dutch names should sound real Dutch. Well, actually I am no Dutch scholar at all, and know little of the peculiar history of Dutch toponymy, but I do not believe that as a rule they do. Anyway lots of them are nonsense anyway or wholly erroneous, which I can only equal by supposing that you met Blooming, Newtown, Lake How, Documents, Baconbury, Blushing and then discovered the author had written Florence, Naples, (Lake or Lago di) Como, Chartres, Hamburg, and Flushing=Vlissingen!

  I enclose in justification of my strictures a detailed commentary on the lists. . . . . I am sure the correct (as well as for publisher and translator the more economical?) way is to leave the maps and nomenclature alone as far as possible, but to substitute for some of the least-wanted Appendices a glossary of names (with meanings but no refs.). I could supply one for translation.

  May I say now at once that I will not tolerate any similar tinkering with the personal nomenclature. Nor with the name/word Hobbit. I will not have any more Hompen (in which I was not consulted), nor any Hobbel or what not. Elves, Dwarfs/ves, Trolls, yes: they are mere modern equivalents of the correct terms. But hobbit (and orc) are of that world, and they must stay, whether they sound Dutch or not. . . . .

  If you think I am being absurd, then I shall be greatly distressed; but I fear not altered in my opinions. The few people I have been able to consult, I must say, express themselves equally strongly. Anyway I’m not going to be treated à la Mrs Tiggywinkle = Poupette à l’épingle.fn59 Not that B[eatrix] P[otter] did not give translators hell. Though possibly from securer grounds than I have. I am no linguist, but I do know something about nomenclature, and have specially studied it, and I am actually very angry indeed.

  191 From a letter to Miss J. Burn (draft)

  26 July 1956

  If you re-read all the passages dealing with Frodo and the Ring, I think you will see that not only was it quite impossible for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power, but that this failure was adumbrated from far back. He was honoured because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and had then done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do. He (and the Cause) were saved – by Mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness of injury.

  Corinthians I x. 12–131 may not at first sight seem to fit – unless ‘bearing temptation’ is taken to mean resisting it while still a free agent in normal command of the will. I think rather of the mysterious last petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. A petition against something that cannot happen is unmeaning. There exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power. In which case (as I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected: the general sanctity (and humility and mercy) of the sacrificial person. I did not ‘arrange’ the deliverance in this case: it again follows the logic of the story. (Gollum had had his chance of repentance, and of returning generosity with love; and had fallen off the knife-edge.) In the case of those who now issue from prison ‘brainwashed’, broken, or insane, praising their torturers, no such immediate deliverance is as a rule to be seen. But we can at least judge them by the will and intentions with which they entered the Sammath Naur; and not demand impossible feats of will, which could only happen in stories unconcerned with real moral and mental probability.

  No, Frodo ‘failed’. It is possible that once the ring was destroyed he had little recollection of the last scene. But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however ‘good’; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.

  I am afraid I have the same feeling – I have been forced to publish up-side-down or backwards; and after the grand crash (and the end of visibly incarnate Evil) before the Dominion of Men (or simple History) to which it all led up the mythological and elvish legends of the Elder Days will not be quite the same. But perhaps read, eventually, from beginning to end in the right order, both parts may gain. I am not writing the Silmarillion, which was long ago written; but trying to find a way and order in which to make the legends and annals publishable. And I have a dreadful lot of other work to do as well.

  192 From a letter to Amy Ronald

  27 July 1956

  By chance, I have just had another letter regarding the failure of Frodo. Very few seem even to have observed it. But following the logic of the plot, it was clearly inevitable, as an event. And surely it is a more significant and real event than a mere ‘fairy-story’ ending in which the hero is indomitable? It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome – in themselves. In this case the cause (not the ‘hero’) was triumphant, because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed and disaster averted. Gandalf certainly foresaw this. See Vol. I p. 68–9.1 Of course, he did not mean to say that one must be merciful, for it may prove useful later – it would not then be mercy or pity, which are only truly present when contrary to prudence. Not ours to plan! But we are assured that we must be ourselves extravagantly generous, if we are to hope for the extravagant generosity which the slightest easing of, or escape from, the consequences of our own follies and errors represents. And that mercy does sometimes occur in this life.

  Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), ‘that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named’fn60 (as one critic has said). See Vol. I p. 65.2 A third (the only other) commentator on the point some months ago reviled Frodo as a scoundrel (who should have been hung and not honoured), and me too. It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, ‘brainwashed’, and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and selfrighteous.

  I do not think Walter de la Mare walked in my country, whether you mean: read my work before he died, or inhabited a similar world, or both. I only met him once, many years ago, and we had little to say; but as far as my feelings for and understanding of his work goes, I should guess that he inhabited a much darker and more hopeless world: one anyway that alarms me profoundly.

  193 From a letter to Terence Tiller

  2 November 1956

  [Tiller, the adapter and producer of the BBC Third Programme version of The Lord of the Rings (see no. 175), had asked for Tolkien’s advice on ‘accents’ for the second series of six episodes of the book, which were based on The Two Towers and The Return of the King.]

  Taking ‘accent’ to mean, as it usually does in non-technical language: ‘more or less consistent alterations of t
he vowels/consonants of “received” English’: I should say that, in the cases you query, no accent-differentiation is needed or desirable. For instance, it would probably be better to avoid certain, actual or conventional, features of modern ‘vulgar’ English in representing Orcs, such as the dropping of aitches (these are, I think, not dropped in the text, and that is deliberate).

  But, of course, for most people, ‘accent’ as defined above is confused with impressions of different intonation, articulation, and tempo. You will, I suppose, have to use such means to make Orcs sound nasty!

  I have no doubt that, if this ‘history’ were real, all users of the C[ommon] Speech would reveal themselves by their accent, differing in place, people, and rank, but that cannot be represented when C. S. is turned into English – and is not (I think) necessary. I paid great attention to such linguistic differentiation as was possible: in diction, idiom, and so on; and I doubt if much more can be imported, except in so far as the individual actor represents his feeling for the character in tone and style.

  As Minas Tirith is at the source of C. Speech it is to C.S. as London is to modern English, and the standard of comparison! None of its inhabitants should have an ‘accent’ in terms of vowels &c.

  The Rohirrim no doubt (as our ancient English ancestors in a similar state of culture and society) spoke, at least their own tongue, with a slower tempo and more sonorous articulation, than modern ‘urbans’. But I think it is safe to represent them when using C. S., as they practically always do (for obvious reasons) as speaking the best M[inas] T[irith]. Possibly a little too good, as it would be a learned language, somewhat slower and more careful than a native’s. But that is a nicety safely neglected, and not always true: Théoden was born in Gondor and C.S. was the domestic language of the Golden Hall in his father’s day (Return of the King p. 350).1