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We Review The Letters of JRR Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:11
  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy. My name is Jude Golding, I'm
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  author but I also run the activities of our centre and I'm joined today by our friend
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  and frequent podcast collaborator Jacob Renica who is a story expert and sits over in
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  Seattle I believe so we got the transatlantic perspective here and this is an episode
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  that Jacob and I have been planning for some time so Jacob do you want to make the announcement
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  of what we're talking about?
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  Yes so we're going to be talking about and we're going to try to subdue our just over the
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  top excitement for this which is the letters J.R.R. Tolkien the revised and expanded edition
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  just so you can see why it's taken us a while to plan is that is how big it is so it's quite
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  a bit of reading though we should start out by saying that so I was reading making notes Jacob
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  but I think you took a different tack didn't you yeah yeah I listened to the to the audio book
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  version which is just shy of 30 hours of listening time but it was worth every minute of it yeah so
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  there's a completely different experience so I'll be interested to hear your experience mine
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  in the listening the narrators were phenomenal they have so you know in the book there's kind of
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  a preface to each of the letters to provide some historical context then the letters themselves
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  and then footnotes and the way that they handle this in the audio book is they have kind of a
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  you know your third person narrator one single narrator that's doing all of the introductory matter
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  and footnotes and then or after notes because Tolkien sometimes footnotes his own letters of course
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  because he's Tolkien but when Tolkien is writing they have a separate narrator who does this
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  and just the the warmth the the the voice that they chose to narrate Tolkien it just made me feel like
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  it made these letters feel so incredibly personal to have that kind of throughline here like I was
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  sitting down and listening to him like dictate these letters so it was it was a really great
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  experience so if you've read it I think there's something to be gained from listening to the letters
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  because there were several instances that he he mentioned as far as the end of his life where
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  sometimes he would would dictate some of the letters that he was doing so having some of that more
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  kind of like the oral feel being there in the room with him I was kind of a sense that I got like
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  I was kind of peeking over his shoulder as he was as he was writing these kind of listening in on his
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  kind of internal conversations he was having so it was really fun excellent so we'll put a link to
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  the audio version is it the Sam West team yeah so the narrators are a well-known sort of theatrical
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  family here in the UK and they have done some of the other less famous Tolkien books so the voices
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  might be familiar to those who have bought other Tolkien narrations other than the anti-circus
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  ones of course anyway so we're breaking this down because we've got a life in letters which is
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  clearly a big subject so we're going to first of all give our impression of the overall effect
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  of reading these letters is he a good letter writer what's it like um is it boring is it informative
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  those kind of big picture questions then we're going to talk about the following first of all
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  about Tolkien's views on his own creativity in his own world then we're going to move on to looking
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  how he looks at the world through his middle earth and that's particularly fascinating and we'll
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  then move into the sort of the life elements things like relationships with his children his views
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  on politics moving into relationship with nature and spirituality and then around up at the end
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  a rag bag of things like his adventures in publishing and the film industry and his frustrations
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  of academia sort of little bits and bobs which are recurring themes okay so let's start with
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  what you learn from the letters are they a good read or a good listen I would say yes
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  they are some of the best letters that I have come across to having read many many literary
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  collections of letters to when I was doing my doctorate somewhat like Jane Austen who I imagine
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  was a very entertaining letter writer the letters that were not destroyed by the family are
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  they're very thin in what they're allowed to remain because we think that probably a lot of the most
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  interesting stuff was burnt in an attempt to kind of hike tidy up a reputation which is such a shame
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  but that's maybe that's what I'd want for my own you know my own sort of stuff I might regret later
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  but so reading Jane Austen's letters are rewarding but they're not as fun as reading Tolkien's letters
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  I've also just been reading and we're in words worth letters and while they're good and interesting
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  they're also very full of himself there's a bit real sort of sense of words worth
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  ego which he's famous for so you don't I think that I like Tolkien an awful lot through
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  reading his letters and getting a sense of just how chatty he is even with people writing to him
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  out of the blue yeah agreed I think yeah that he's very self-deprecating like to sometimes
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  perhaps to a fault in some of these letters but not not across the board because when he's
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  passionate about something he gets very passionate and he's his writing really expands
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  in on that and so I think yeah it's really fun he's he's he clearly thinks these things through
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  thinks everything that he's doing through and so yeah so it's it's really interesting like you said
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  to kind of see his mind working you can see the gears turning and yeah this life in letters
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  this is essentially right though his biography the closest thing is one things that mentions
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  the introduction is this is kind of the closest thing that we have to an autobiography
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  of Tolkien is just the collection of letters that he wrote himself so yeah I don't absolutely
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  agree that it's that they're engaging I mean because even the ones that are the letters that
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  are just talking about apologizing for not getting his manuscripts in on time even those are
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  kind of demonstrating kind of the struggles because he's very apologetic and saying I'm having
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  this this and this kind of come up and so thank you for your patience you see we have getting
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  frustrated at at certain points which we'll talk about later when we talked about publishing
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  and and film but but really just kind of seeing the emotional range that is here this kind of like
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  thoughtful it's it's thoughtful across the board but then being able to see the emotional
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  range and emotional coloring that these letters kind of provide to him as a person was something
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  that was those really meaningful and I think fascinating for me I think they're very comparable
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  to CS Lewis's letters which are also wonderful letters and both of them often take
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  a moment to reflect on both of themselves and what they're writing so you get huge amount of
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  insights in an autobiographical way so if someone went to my emails they'd get a really random
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  you know it went about anything as elegant or as thoughtful as these the art of letter writing
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  where you're actually composing something which isn't as infemoral as an email which you you know
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  send off in two seconds it really shows I think they're both both of them are excellent letter writers
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  right so let's go to the phases so in terms of who is he writing to well obviously he doesn't
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  write to people very much who he's living with so there's only a couple of letters to his wife
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  because he's living with his wife so why would he be writing to her and some of his closer friends
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  who he is seeing all the time he rarely writes to as well because that is a one-on-one conversation
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  and you might be getting references to a conversation he has had with say Charles Williams or
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  CS Lewis but mostly the correspondence are outside of Oxford so that's the sort of the feel of it
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  and they go through the phases match his career so the first chunk is the the rising academic
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  who has started doing this this writing and the publication of the Hobbit and then the
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  beginnings to come up with a sequel during the war the majority of the letters or the best letters
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  really are the ones where he's writing to his son Christopher and there's a lot about
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  Lord of the Rings in those and then after that once the Lord of the Rings this is skipping ahead
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  quite quickly but then there is a sort of much broader category of people he's writing to
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  after that there are fans writing in there are publishers there are people who are
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  or about to sort of read and review his work there's a very interesting letter to W. H. Orden for
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  example so the latter half of the book when Lord of the Rings is published is it doesn't tail off
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  it even up to pretty much his dying day there are interesting letters being read reflecting on
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  what he's published and what he thinks of it and how it's being received so let's first of all
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  what did you learn most in it about the actual Middle-Earth project and or the Legendarium because
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  it's more than just Middle-Earth of course what did what were your most insightful moments when
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  you were reading the letters yeah well that's a great question I think one of the statements that
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  really struck me was that he said that in retrospect much of my own book puzzles me yeah I got
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  that I yeah and it's interesting because shortly I'm just going to go through to my notes
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  on that because one of the things is you see that he's thinking about themes and they go over
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  more than one letter so there will be that he'll say that then goes on to say even in a mythical
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  age there must be some enigmas as there always are Tom Bombadill is one intentionally so it's almost
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  as if he's really happy not to know everything about his own work and he also says that it's like
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  his discovering it rather than making it up yes yes that was and he mentioned the same that
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  something similar about the ants specifically right that he said that he was that the ants surprised
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  him that he had no intention of putting them in but as he was writing they kind of appeared and he
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  said he felt like he was just reporting at that point he wasn't constructing and then he tried
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  to go into at that point you know where he thought that ants came from but like something you know
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  somebody was asking it was a fan it was asking about the ant wives you know whether or not they
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  think that the ants found the ant wives and then he's very you know honest and saying I don't know I
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  would I would assume that perhaps they did I think maybe they didn't but he didn't he didn't have
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  that hurt contracted so that's sort of like humility about his own world that there were things
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  that are kind of like developing or collating that he hadn't fully realized he wasn't he was
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  circumspect about what he said but then there were some points there was something else I noticed
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  when he's talking about his own world when he goes on this excursus for I don't know how long it
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  was in page length but it felt like it went on for a good six hours not quite six hours but it's
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  very long on the birthday customs of hobbits and the development of birthday gift giving
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  somebody had a question about smegel and decal and the ring being considered a gift when
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  later it says that you know that the hobbits actually sort of instead of receiving gifts they gave
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  gifts on their birthdays and so he had this whole big detailed outline of historically
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  how those customs would have changed based on where they were and how it's happening so there
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  are some things that he really controlled down on that he had thought about and felt confident about
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  but there were other parts like the taunt like taunt bombadil like the ends where he was more
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  leaving those willingly those as more as mysteries a kind of open ended in his own mind which is
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  fascinating from a story time perspective yeah and also the other thing you get from the letters
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  particularly the ones written in the forties to Christopher is that you feel as though you're
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  sitting with him composing it it's wonderful it's my just some the best bits are where he's got this
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  moment where he says to his son a new character has come on the scene I am sure I did not invent him
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  I did not even want him though I like him but there he came walking into the woods of
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  Athelian pharameer the brother of Boramir and that I think that tone captures exactly how he's
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  writing for a majority of the time it's this sort of wonder at his own fertile imagination just
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  coming up with what characters like pharameer and later on he says all the characters are
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  most like pharameer so a character who turns out to be a real reflection of his own inner self is
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  something a serendipity it just happened to come and I know from my own writing that when I
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  I'm not comparing myself as to his level of craftsmanship but the things I enjoy most as a writer
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  are the moments where my story seems to be running itself and characters do surprise you they do
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  they do walk out the woods are like pharameer does in that bit so I would you know if you love
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  Lord of the Rings you will not be put off or disappointed by reading the letters it's not like
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  seeing behind the curtain you're going to have a with a divorce experience that it gets smaller
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  I think not I think it's almost the opposite it gets bigger you know I absolutely you definitely
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  get a sense that there's so much more that Tolkien didn't put in but he for editorial purposes
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  and trying to you know hone this down to a you know pure story he there's so much they had to
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  had to cut from just all of the other thought that he had put into each of these characters so yeah
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  there's definitely a lot more that you get it does as expansive as Lord of the Rings feels right
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  as one of the comments compared you know comparing Lord of the Rings to a lot of other more
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  contemporary fictions that the death of the world building it really feels like this is a world
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  and there's so much that's happening outside of the pages as much as that is the case for
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  the book itself it's also the case for what was not included in the book right so we're talking
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  that there's so much more this isn't just he's not just giving you the illusion of there being more
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  that exists for this story it actually exists in his head and so this is yeah this is this is
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  really truly an immersive world he has immersed himself in this story and it's it seems to kind
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  of like permeate him and his mind and his thoughts and we'll talk about that uh if the world
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  maybe that's that might be a good segue for talking about how he sees our world kind of
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  his his framework for dealing with Lord of the Rings he kind of sees that as a lens for viewing
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  our own world rather than vice versa yeah so what were your thoughts Julia on on uh on talking
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  kind of integrating middle earth thought uh and and and approaches to how he describes our own
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  contemporary world his own contemporary world well I think that I think that I really sort of maybe
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  hadn't focused on because when I've been reading about talking lately it tended to be in the
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  context of the inklings um so this is really reset my understanding of his creativity because I
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  think far more important was the family context and he does actually say um at one point to Christopher
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  that more and more he comes to see his writing it for Christopher Tolkien um and it means that within
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  the family is a shared family story so that when he's looking for ways to express his feelings
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  about the war he's using the the common story that he's been sharing so there are two big themes one
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  is describing war as orcs and the sort of the in fact you see this today being used by in in the
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  sort of Ukraine russia um conflict don't you but that he was already using it in the second world war
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  um and but not just about the enemy as being like the sort of the evil he's he's not very keen on
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  Hitler I can say that people should probably quote that because it's um he calls him a sort of
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  ruddy little horrible little man doesn't he he's really he's doesn't normally swear and
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  ruddy is obviously a mild swear word but he he lets for Tolkien that's like both barrels um so it's
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  not just that he also talks about the common room experience so of the officers mess and how Christopher
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  might be experiencing a sort of I don't know ladish culture maybe reading between the lines
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  that press people were not behaving in ways that is how keen thought was honorable or well behaved or
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  polite and so he would talk about that using the language of um the orcs and urukai behavior
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  for things that Christopher is experiencing and in and outside the enemy territory it's
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  and then it makes him think about his own experience during the first world war and he often links
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  back to that so from what Christopher's going through there's a sort of a combination of oh this
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  is when icebergs thought of all of this was when I was in a various army huts or even in the trenches
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  he says at one point coming up with this way of escape so he's definitely got this lens of
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  understanding war through the fiction he's sharing of his son but he also uses it to talk about
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  the way we're treating nature and that particularly comes up once the war context has gone it's
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  the sort of uglifying of the countryside and the rise of the machine so what else did you see about
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  the the way he used his own story to explain the world he was in yeah that's the that's really
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  interesting your your insight on uh lord of the rings or metal earth kind of being a family story
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  at least especially with with Christopher right so he he in one of the letters he he says when
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  when Christopher is at war out in the field he says I wish that it a camera was at what he was
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  talking about he says I wish that it might be written in ruins beyond the craft of Kela Brembor
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  of Holland uh shining like silver filled with visions and horizons that fill my mind so he's using
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  he's speaking poetically but he's bringing the the elements the symbols of middle or
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  into his own personal expression rights as a very personal expression to his son and he's drawing
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  on not you know not Shakespeare not existing you know pre-existing stories um at this point although
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  he does you know he does frequently throw in you know middle english your early you know old english
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  quotes uh just like just throws in there without translating them right of course um
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  that are meant to evoke certain ideas that that uh that are best expressed in that language
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  and so there are certain things that because talking is developing this that he can best express
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  his own feelings in the language of middle or so like that's that's one of them yeah the the war
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  when he's talking about uh you know world war two and the um the hydrogen bomb where he says you
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  know we're attempting to conquer sauron with the ring uh right it says kind of analogy and now
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  other people you'll see like what is is the ring an allegory for nuclear bombs uh and he says
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  no it's not and from this it shows it's the opposite direction right so this is just taking the
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  contemporary setting and he's telling the story and then he's using the language of that story
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  to then compare and contrast to the contemporary situation not this is kind of a one-to-one so
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  yeah using so like talking about war and even at one point this is really charming right we need
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  in the letter to Christopher uh he referred to his typewriter as a more door gadget yeah um that he
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  says that he will forgive it if it brings letters to Christopher so he didn't like so he's like this
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  you know machinery um he would prefer to handwrite but he could if he could type faster and get more
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  out to Christopher he was willing to do this so I think that was really charming that he's he's
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  seeing these these these big ideas and filtering his own experience through this he's taking
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  work that he's put into building this world so that was yeah I really like your insight about
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  that this being kind of shared a shared language with which he could describe and in your
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  right that he doesn't talk about that in letters outside to his family like so to letters to his
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  publisher is he wouldn't necessarily use that same language as heavily but he certainly does
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  invoke it more um uh in and say like at the very end of his life after Edith's death he compares his
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  grief uh in situation to the Baron and Lothian uh story in in one of his letters I can't remember
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  who that letter was to um but you know throughout his life this wasn't just while he was in the
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  thick of writing these stories that he's making these kind of connections but it's after he's
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  written it long after he's written it these are still stories and ideas that are still you know
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  part of his psyche and that he's using to illustrate and communicate his kind of innermost feelings
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  and just to show how rich it is because he's a brilliant prose writer as well you get uh this
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  basically the upshot of what we're saying is everybody go and read these letters you know
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  that is what we highly recommend you do um so I was talking about so he's writing to Christopher
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  he's not only using the his the the language of the heart with Christopher is the shared story
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  it's a way and then he goes on to think well why why does fantasy work in a situation where we're both
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  have faced death you know him in the first world war and um Christopher at risk in the second world war
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  and he says very interestingly that writing is a relief of feelings to rationalize it and prevent it
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  from just festering in my case it generated more goth than the history of the gnomes that's the very
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  early version of this lots of the early parts of which and the languages discarded or absorbed
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  were done in grimy canteens at lectures in cold fogs in huts full of blasphemy and smut or by candle
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  light in beltents even some down in dugouts under shell fire oh it's just so brilliant that last part
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  you just have a image of this young soldier you just disappearing into his world under the most
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  horrendous of of situations and he's sharing this with his son and this is where I think perhaps
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  it's worth talking about we we don't see some of the relationships with so like Priscilla who stays
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  in Oxford mainly we don't there's not many letters to her um at all I think there's perhaps two
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  or three um very sort of functional letters doesn't mean they don't have a close relationship it's
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  just not being mediated by letter and but then you also get um the letters to his other son Michael
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  which make an interesting contrast to the ones to Christopher so Michael I think has a more
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  difficult relationship with his father and he's having a more difficult experience of growing up
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  and you get to see talking feeling that he's been a failure as a father and as a heart-rending
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  letter where he does say that I says I don't I don't think I talked to you enough but he does send
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  his son quite long letters about religion and finding solace in faith in a way that
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  it seems like a very good father to me um but he is his so you do get the sense of the difference
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  between uh talking obviously Christopher was was the son who was very much on his wavelength
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  and shared in the project and Michael inevitably isn't Christopher and was having his own difficult
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  so you that's quite an interesting insight to the the pain of parenthood that talking um when you
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  can't quite solve your child's problems and you don't always approve of what they're doing
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  because he was trying to he'd fallen in love with someone and they thought it was all a bit fast
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  so you do get a little insight of what's going on in the family behind all of this
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  yeah that was great that was yeah good good seeing there I definitely saw that with you know
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  the letter to his children where he's saying you know pray for me or I attended mass
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  for you uh you definitely get that kind of personal touch that's woven into the different
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  letters to his children that fatherly concern kind of a um spiritual stewardship that he felt
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  for his for his children and so this you know he's saying you know if you're able to please
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  attend mass right so he's he's still after the children have left home because it's something that's
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  so deeply meaningful for him and he's and at some point like you said like it he says how
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  you know attending mass is something that's like helping him work through his disappointments
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  frustrations and pain um then he is encouraging that in in his children uh in in some of those letters
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  so that was really touching to see like kind of the fatherly uh concern for them in all of the
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  areas of life but including um the kind of their religious kind of spiritual life he definitely
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  brings that up in different letters the talking lecture and not the talking 50 lecture series has
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  just had a um a guest appearance by Michael's son um another was talking family and I think
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  you got the impression there that it was difficult being the grandson of someone famous and it
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  was even more difficult being the son of someone famous because I think the talking obviously
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  Tolkien's view is quite a traditional view of Catholicism so if you even old fashioned within
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  Catholicism so I think if you weren't quite following in those footsteps it was quite tricky and
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  that was some so once some of the choices being made there I think added to a sense of distance
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  but there is a lovely letter on face uh letter 54 written because the letters they've retained the
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  lettering numbering from the first edition of the letters and any new letters they've given sort of
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  54a and so on so that you can still read across if you come across a reference in critical
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  works about Tolkien but um you right it's a lovely letter to Christopher about angels
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  and I'm not sure if angels aren't some something I often think about but
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  clearly they're a big part of Tolkien's mental furniture because he talks about Gandalf being
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  like a guardian angel and he says angels are not a plump lady with swan wings good I'm about to hear
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  but the bright point of power where that lifeline that spiritual umbilical cord touches
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  there is our angel facing two ways to God behind us in the direction we cannot see and to us
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  I've never written anything as beautiful as that to my children sorry kids but I thought
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  wasn't that a beautiful thing to write to somebody and there's so those letters Christopher a real
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  high point I think he goes on pretty soon afterwards the next letter to have a joke about um
• 30:43
  C.S. Lewis being called an ascetic because apparently when he started doing his um
• 30:53
  C.S. Lewis started doing his theology people were calling him ascetic and he said oh as not
• 30:58
  those Lewis I know he put away three pints in a very short session we had this morning and said
• 31:03
  he was going short for Len so the opposite of ascetic so it's a the sense of humor and the
• 31:11
  twinkle in the eye keeps coming through as well as these moments of sort of spiritual reflection
• 31:18
  I also thought that he was very just this is a little bit more connected to where we started
• 31:23
  talking about what we learned about middle earth is he often thinks about the motives of his
• 31:27
  characters in a way here which I found really illuminating particularly on and it links to
• 31:34
  spirituality he hints the well what let me think of this is he really does consider
• 31:42
  golem to have almost repented and he said it's just a careless word from Sam that sets him
• 31:49
  back into his um unrepentant golem and he talks about the difference between
• 31:57
  Sam and Frodo he says Sam's were interesting Frodo because he has to be high-minded is less
• 32:03
  interesting so and Sam is actually one of the characters he really sort of separates out and
• 32:11
  talks about almost more than any other character in a way um thinking about where the name came
• 32:17
  from about who he was based on the servants during the first world war and so on so it seems as
• 32:22
  as though Sam in a way is the heart of middle earth or the hobbit part middle earth for him did you
• 32:29
  get that impression is that come through when you were listening to it I'm trying to think uh
• 32:33
  yeah I mean at least with certainly there are questions uh that I remember that you know
• 32:39
  fans had about you know or other people recognizing there was somebody else whose name was
• 32:45
  Sam Gamgee uh and and talking about uh about that um and how he developed that character and
• 32:53
  where the name came from the inspiration but yeah that's uh yeah the dead he definitely brought up
• 32:58
  of I just remember you know several on several different occasions where he he he does bring up
• 33:03
  that point that golem was was you know near repented if it weren't for a careless word and he
• 33:09
  he brought that up in in several different places so it's clearly something that wasn't just kind
• 33:14
  of a passing uh you know idea for Tolkien but that was clearly something that he kept thinking
• 33:22
  about and felt that he needed to keep sharing so definitely that idea of of really kind of
• 33:28
  inhabiting the emotional lives of the characters um you know so much so that he could give in uh
• 33:35
  one of the later letters where he's talking about um Frodo's uh failing you know so that's like
• 33:40
  why did Frodo fail is that was that a failure is that a moral of moral failure on Frodo's part
• 33:46
  he then uses that to talk about morality about uh grace um and then kind of the same in the same
• 33:54
  letter uh lengthy letter about whether or not Frodo was good or bad for having kind of fallen
• 34:02
  apart at the end and not being able to just throw the ring into mortar uh or into uh into
• 34:06
  into Mountain Doom um while he was in mortar uh he gives alternate like glimpses into what could
• 34:12
  have been so he said if if golem would have had the ring and possessed it here's what here's what
• 34:19
  probably would have probably would have happened if Frodo would have kept the ring and and and lived
• 34:25
  here's what probably would have happened and if Gandalf would have taken the ring here's what
• 34:30
  probably would have happened would have happened to Gandalf and how he would have developed
• 34:34
  developed so he's he's thought through that was just so impressed by that that he's given so much
• 34:39
  thought into the motivations um uh desires uh needs and wants of each of these characters that he
• 34:47
  could plug in in other ways characters is like okay you want to say what would have happened
• 34:51
  here's what would have happened because here's what golem uses to make decisions here's what
• 34:57
  Gandalf uses to make decisions so just he he knew so thoroughly each of these characters uh that
• 35:03
  was so impressive to me that he'd given that much thought but it was so I think easy I don't know
• 35:08
  how easy it was but it seemed at least it came across as a kind of effortless in uh in in in in
• 35:14
  this particular letter um it was a letter 246 where he kind of then outlines then what all of the
• 35:21
  different possible trajectories kind of alternate kind of these alternate endings that you could have had
• 35:27
  for for the ring that he could do that and he seemed fairly confident but yet he was still kind of
• 35:32
  circumspect and saying I can't say for sure this is what it would have happened but it seems likely
• 35:37
  that this would have happened to be able to talk in that way of that level of understanding just kind
• 35:42
  of demonstrated to me the care and respect he had for the characters that he was creating
• 35:49
  yeah and and just if you're talking about letter 246 I like letter 244 which does a deep dive into
• 35:57
  air wind and pharma so is it see what we're saying there's so much more we'll want more talking but
• 36:03
  there is so much more here so um moving on to what we don't like okay so as much as talking is
• 36:12
  clearly someone I adore his writings what have you there are moments in the letters where I don't
• 36:17
  like him very much and I have to remind myself he is a man of a certain age writing at a certain time
• 36:25
  and the area I struggle most with is his writing letters about women and if you wish to skip over
• 36:36
  this letter when you're reading it I perhaps that's one way if you're if you would have a problem
• 36:42
  about it like I did 38 a hmm it's put it's there is something good about it let me talk about what's
• 36:51
  good about this letter is basically this is where Michael's having his his one way he says he
• 36:58
  wants to marry someone who they think it's all too quick clearly in the background he just
• 37:02
  has sent him a molecular letter which has been a bit like that angry email you send a new regret
• 37:08
  it's not gone down well and Tolkien is coming in and trying to tidy it up and mend
• 37:15
  mend the family you know hurt about this but he does make some terrible sweeping comments about
• 37:22
  women being not able to understand their own feelings um but I was on the other hand he does
• 37:28
  mention that he did is going through the menopause the change of life and I thought oh actually
• 37:33
  that's quite advanced for a man in of that era to actually be able to be upfront with his son
• 37:41
  about female biology is quite advanced so I I kind of thought oh well okay I'll I'll let it pass
• 37:49
  um but that was the moment where I thought yeah there are there is a I feel the period in which
• 37:54
  you're writing Tolkien and I feel the the gap most of the time I fell on his side but there I was
• 38:00
  I was chucked out of my little fan fandom into thinking oh dear um that's not quite so in light
• 38:07
  and is it seriously it does similar things by the way so it is I think the era that in where they
• 38:13
  probably knew less about women outside their own family um and so judged most a lot of people
• 38:19
  on the basis of how they're feeling about their wife at the moment but is there anything else
• 38:25
  that you found that so we're not giving it just a flattering portrait was there things about this
• 38:32
  that revealed a more gritty or the walks and all aspect to a letter writer yeah um that's good
• 38:40
  yeah yeah good good good good explanation down that letter and that one he does and there's
• 38:44
  there's some interesting stuff where he's talking about marriage right they give him an opportunity
• 38:48
  to kind of outline his theology his philosophy and theology of marriage um which there there
• 38:54
  there's some yeah some bright spots in there and other spots that don't age well that letter
• 39:00
  letter 43 has a very good thing which is but the real soulmate is the one you were actually married to
• 39:09
  right yeah when he says yeah he says and he says that this is this was fascinating he says like
• 39:12
  nearly everyone makes a mistake in who they marry and it cannot be otherwise most don't know any
• 39:17
  better right uh so like it's like most of us he says like if we would have like been older and
• 39:22
  learn more and understood more about ourselves he he he he he supposedly that most of us would
• 39:27
  actually pick somebody different uh once we have a better sense of like self understanding but
• 39:32
  he says the point is to like make that work and that really reminded me of uh leaf by niggle um
• 39:38
  right it's kind of like quasi autobiographical work where at the at the very end you know our
• 39:43
  niggle has just been annoyed so much by all of the you know neighbors who are asking for things from
• 39:50
  him different responsibilities all he wants to do is to paint a tree he wants to paint not even
• 39:54
  trees just like leaves because that's the only thing that he's good at but then his neighbor keeps
• 39:58
  interrupting him uh they both die you know he's kind of resentful towards the neighbor uh they both
• 40:03
  die they kind of encounter each other in a sort of afterlife uh and uh the neighbor uh apologize
• 40:10
  is you know two M says I wish things you know uh would have been different and then you know niggle
• 40:15
  says um they could have been different but they couldn't have been better and so this idea of uh
• 40:22
  that token brings into the legendarium that even you know uh more you know melcores
• 40:29
  you know greatest attempts at a pain of like trying to wrench the plan of arrow eluvitar
• 40:38
  to try to do damage to that something greater is able to weave that into something more beautiful
• 40:44
  than it would have been if that kind of you know tragedy or violence hadn't happened in the first
• 40:48
  place so all of these things kind of I think I I see them kind of like you know crisscrossing
• 40:53
  coalescing is kind of this kind of uh you know constellation of ideas and Tolkien's mind uh that
• 40:59
  there's something they're that you can that there's something yeah larger that can unify and bring
• 41:05
  certain points together um and I think I mean that's not approached Tolkien's letters recognizing
• 41:10
  that there are some of these things that weren't like I said in the the niggle um look by niggle
• 41:14
  that niggle is so bothered by that you know the community that's asking him for help that he so he's
• 41:19
  clearly Tolkien gets grumpy about being interrupted for working on this and you know we we see it
• 41:27
  you know writing as in a sense in some instances as like a luxury right he just wanted to he's
• 41:33
  he's a man that just wanted to make up languages and develop them and just and just write stories
• 41:39
  but he couldn't uh and so he's constantly frustrated by uh by you know his job
• 41:45
  if it was paying the bills at the time it's all right really isn't it he's a noiseless
• 41:50
  ship he's so annoyed he just like wants all of this to go away um uh even though it's what's
• 41:57
  providing yeah the money for his family to survive um he is you can you can tell that the health
• 42:03
  you know edith's health is taking it to one then he doesn't you know he doesn't come out outright and
• 42:09
  say like this is really frustrating and I feel like it's holding me back from what I want to do
• 42:14
  but kind of like reading between the lines you get this tension that like he says like I want to
• 42:18
  write but you know I have to be I had to take care of edith I know I had this deadline but I had
• 42:24
  take care of edith and he's clearly sees that as responsibility but it wasn't a like a joyful
• 42:29
  you know joyful magical responsibility that he has it wasn't this kind of romantic idea
• 42:36
  in the classical sense of uh of of love and marriage uh it was this reality of
• 42:45
  age and the long defeat really I think that's if you can kind of see that illustrated in
• 42:52
  his constant frustration all the way through the end of his life that he wants to do more
• 42:57
  but like things keep going and slowing down and he recognizes that he can't do as much as he
• 43:01
  could and he's sad about that so you kind of see personally reflected this long defeat as he's
• 43:07
  wants to write this beautiful sweeping uh you know myth but he's constantly curtailed uh at every turn
• 43:15
  and he's just kind of a squeaking things out and trying to get trying trying trying knowing
• 43:20
  then fully embracing that like I'm never going to be able to do all of this um and there's this
• 43:25
  sense of kind of like sorrow that kind of pervades especially I think some of the later letters
• 43:29
  in that sense yes so I think just to sort of refine the comment about his job is not so much the
• 43:34
  academic research side of it and the language side it's the marking uh which he has to have.
• 43:41
  Yeah specifically yes the exams yeah that that although he did have I mean there were
• 43:45
  individuals you know if you would talk about uh school meetings and just like his you know
• 43:50
  disdain for some of these faculty meetings that he had to had to sit and be a part of and some
• 43:56
  you know snipes that he would make at different uh you know faculty members um begin for him that
• 44:03
  was in the context of for some people that was their entire world was academia and that's how they
• 44:08
  made their identity for him his identity I feel like was as storyteller and as kind of a chronicler
• 44:15
  middle or that's where he seemed to receive his sense of personal fulfillment and self-worth was
• 44:21
  through that and so to the point that those other things got in the way of that and affected that
• 44:26
  he was bothered by them and perhaps disproportionately um but but from within his context it was his
• 44:34
  sacred his kind of sacred responsibility was to develop to was to write and develop middle
• 44:39
  uh and then anything that got in the way with that was uh was evil in a sense he never he never
• 44:45
  said that evil but it bothers him and he reacts uh sometimes I think disproportionately
• 44:51
  yeah so you get a sense of this is where you have to just you're meeting a full person a grumpy
• 44:58
  frustrated you're meeting him um he can be a bit snappy a bit curt but that that's all the rich
• 45:07
  texture of human life um and obviously sometimes he'll be writing to get it off his chest as well so
• 45:14
  writing his therapy so I'm not passing judgment I'm just I'm just aware of the historical gap
• 45:22
  between our generation and his and we're not canceling him don't worry
• 45:27
  that's the right no no no no it's just the sort of awareness that um and also these were private
• 45:34
  letters of course that's not forget that he had this were not for me to sit and read it was
• 45:40
  saying trying to advise his son so you know let's move moving on from that um so we we're beginning
• 45:47
  to touch on his adventures in publishing and let laterally in film I think some really interesting
• 45:52
  letters uh there's this is that feeling of we know the end of the story and he doesn't and there
• 45:59
  are several moments when he says things like I'm afraid I've made a great mistake in making my
• 46:05
  sequel too long and too complicated and too slow in coming out it is a curse having the epic
• 46:14
  temperament in an overcrowded age devoted to snappy bits he'd definitely hit hey hey wouldn't he
• 46:23
  and you're saying no don't keep going don't give up you know it's almost if you could take away
• 46:29
  the knowledge that um it actually all does have a happy ending he does publish there is some
• 46:34
  nail biting moments where you think he's not going to finish you know he's he's losing the
• 46:39
  will to complete it and that's where you get um the idea that CS Lewis is saying come on
• 46:48
  come on uh tollers you gotta finish this and obviously uh having to write it for Christopher
• 46:54
  so Christopher gets to see what happens at the end um so it's quite exciting to see how it
• 47:00
  how the actual writing gets done yeah there's yeah you see I warned the interesting comments uh
• 47:07
  that he made early on kind of to kind of percentage all of that is that he felt that
• 47:13
  he was trying to come up with a sequel to the hobbit at the hobbits you see the hobbit
• 47:18
  like how it develops how it was received and his you know genuine it seems like genuine surprise
• 47:23
  that more than 20 people were actually interested in the hobbit so he's and then he's getting
• 47:30
  money from it as well which is really helping his family situation which he brings up over and over
• 47:35
  again is you know like we're struggling financially so clearly finances were something that
• 47:40
  I don't know exactly what his finances were but for him it seemed to be a weight kind of a fairly
• 47:44
  constant weight that he didn't feel like he had enough and he was struggling to make ends meet
• 47:50
  with his family um but kind of before that is he's and then as the hobbit is you know increasing
• 47:55
  in popularity and sales and his you know publishers are asking him can you write a sequel to this
• 48:01
  because it's being so well received and they could smell they could smell money um he said that he
• 48:07
  he was he was struggling to to conceive a sequel to the hobbit because he
• 48:11
  quote had squandered all of his favorite themes motifs characters on the hobbit and was a phrase
• 48:18
  that there wasn't enough left for a meaningful sequel to the hobbit right so seeing that you know
• 48:24
  now we're seeing loads of rings and everything that spawned right you know you're like that seems
• 48:29
  like like how ridiculous is that but that's something he really felt that he just like
• 48:33
  put so much into the hobbit of just you know like all the his his favorite ideas right kind of
• 48:39
  like motifs characters themes um which is I think really interesting as you know as an author uh
• 48:46
  you know for for writers for all the the creatives that are they're listening right that it's I
• 48:50
  think there's a tendency to like reserve your best ideas and be sparing with what you do
• 48:57
  talking had so but he wasn't you know planning in the long term for this that he just put everything
• 49:03
  into the hobbit and then when he's asked for a sequel said oh dear I put everything I put all
• 49:09
  of my ideas into the hobbit how can I possibly do this but then as he was thinking and sitting
• 49:14
  with it and having the ideas I had the intersection of the hobbit and how that could connect to the
• 49:19
  larger legendarium that's when things started firing and he started coming up with even greater
• 49:25
  ideas you know a grander scope and of characters of themes um so I think that's really telling you
• 49:32
  know you kind of see him as a uh in artistic crisis there um uh working through that personally
• 49:39
  is what can he commit to writing a sequel to the hobbit because at that point he thought that was
• 49:44
  the best you know he'd put everything in that he had to give personally for what he liked and
• 49:49
  actually wanted to write but then in sitting with it and exploring it more that gave rise to
• 49:56
  even larger ideas that he hadn't considered possible in the first place so that was that was
• 50:00
  really interesting seeing his doubt about his ability to write anything and then just kind of a
• 50:06
  lesson kind of a creative lesson that yes to put everything that you have into the project that
• 50:11
  you're doing right now spare nothing um make it the greatest thing ever and like trusting that
• 50:17
  something you can do something even better is good of the ideas that you have right now
• 50:21
  even better things can grow out of that if you're taking this work seriously
• 50:25
  yeah and and the other thing sort of in um sort of thinking back as what almost happened
• 50:31
  is that he kept sort of saying um oh he I've got this thing called the Silmarillion
• 50:35
  or we wasn't okay how about this and everyone gets like well not sure not sure it's commercial
• 50:43
  talking and it also I hadn't realised how close he'd come to not publishing with Rainer Unwin
• 50:51
  for the Lord of the Rings there was they were sitting on it for a long time and he started
• 50:54
  talking to another publisher who seemed to potentially be interested in doing the Silmarillion
• 51:00
  as well and that sort of the alternative history that he what he decided to go with that publisher
• 51:07
  and went first with the Silmarillion I can just what would the world have made of that
• 51:12
  would they have even got as far as reading Lord of the Rings it's it's quite fascinating that it
• 51:18
  how it almost happened um and he did use the interest from the other publisher to actually get
• 51:24
  unwind to finally commit to publishing so that was quite interesting watching him managing his
• 51:30
  publishers uh yeah yeah that was under a lot there are a lot of those letters and it looks like a lot
• 51:36
  of the uh expanding you know the additional letters are it seemed to me at least percentage
• 51:43
  wise as I was listening it seemed like they're an awful lot of them that are the newer letters are
• 51:47
  some of these shorter letters that were to the publisher so you get to see more of his kind of
• 51:55
  his editorial interaction uh then you would have seen in the original letters compilation um those
• 52:02
  are some of the ones that were trimmed out but yeah but you yeah you definitely see him struggling
• 52:09
  wrestling with he wants the Silmarillion published but that that that that that Julia that's a
• 52:14
  fantastic uh thought experiment right if if they would have if you would have gone with the other
• 52:21
  publisher and published Silmarillion first when people have gotten to the Lord of the Rings or
• 52:26
  would have would the sale of Lord of the Rings if that if people just would have given up on him
• 52:30
  after that it seems like now the easier entry point of entry popularly at least for you know for
• 52:36
  broader audience is Lord of the Rings because it's a you know an engaging story with care you know
• 52:42
  characters full characterization it's a full narrative as opposed to kind of snippets of history
• 52:47
  mythology um uh genealogies and and whatnot so to yeah it's thinking about what it would have been
• 52:55
  like would would there have been would the fantasy genre in publishing have developed in the same way
• 53:05
  if Tolkien had not published Lord of the Rings first that's one of the things that he's talking
• 53:09
  about he says like he mentions like it seems like with this he says I'm not doing anything new
• 53:16
  and like groundbreaking there are these different authors that he's reading it's interesting to see
• 53:19
  that he's reading other fantasy authors um who aren't well known right now that were at the time um
• 53:26
  but but now have kind of fallen off the popular yeah i have a popular imagination uh but
• 53:32
  he says you know that with this there there really seems to be uh a hunger for
• 53:38
  the sort of thing that he himself is doing the way that he's presenting the fantastic the fairy tale
• 53:44
  he calls it the fairy tale yeah so fairy tale right right right and so yeah and so he so he
• 53:51
  he says that he's noticing that this is there's there's there's kind of an an itch that he has
• 53:56
  been scratching that's that you're broadly speaking with and so Lord of the Rings really it seems
• 54:02
  like at least according to from his letters internally that this is really doing something kind
• 54:07
  of fan the flames of fairy tale as a genre that then kind of develops into fantasy literature and
• 54:14
  then that's what kind of makes it possible to open doors and let other publishers take more risks
• 54:21
  on other fantasy literature um because of the success of of Lord of the Rings he gets to do a lap
• 54:27
  of honor in a sense because he's successful in his own time and he he's able to say my instinct
• 54:36
  that there was you know the conversation he had with CS Lewis that they would write the things
• 54:40
  that no one else was writing because people weren't writing what they wanted to read which is a very
• 54:44
  good reason for writing a book and and he's finding his audience which is wonderful just to sort of
• 54:53
  move on to his discussion about film there's a very interesting long letter 210 which is a breakdown
• 55:02
  of the Zimmerman treatment of Lord of the Rings um that version doesn't get made obviously
• 55:10
  but it is interesting him seriously thinking through how would this story adapt how would it
• 55:18
  break down um and I think he felt that quite often his intention was misunderstood surprise surprise
• 55:26
  by the person who was trying to adapt it for a film treatment and the he's particularly
• 55:33
  interested in the misunderstanding of the power of the Black riders because he says their peril is
• 55:37
  most entirely due to the unreasoning fear that they inspire like ghosts so trying to make something
• 55:43
  too concrete to um Lord knows what would have happened in a 60th treatment of this but to sort of
• 55:52
  yeah to yeah not to miss out the emotional impact of what's going on there I think we were quite
• 55:59
  fortunate that the film wasn't made yeah I don't think that would have been the Beatles one wasn't made
• 56:06
  I mean it would have been fun but only a serious attempt I think would have been really quite um tricky
• 56:13
  to to like right right I think the Beatles the Beatles adaptation probably would have
• 56:18
  focused an awful lot on Tom Bommado Tom Bommado might have become the the main character of Lord of
• 56:24
  the Rings in that adaptation which that's the other parallel universe you know we're talking
• 56:29
  about all these things were different routes were taken that there was another thought experiment
• 56:34
  to think well what happens if the main so I think now a lot of people approach Lord of the Rings
• 56:40
  from the films rather than the books sadly do go and read the books if you haven't folks but um
• 56:46
  at least they've got a decent set of films to face it on but what happens if it had been the Beatles
• 56:51
  are taken over and it become totally subsumed underneath their fame and fortune it would have been
• 56:57
  a different universe I think so just to sort of wrap up where we've talked about his frustrations
• 57:03
  in academia and then we've got the um his retirement and he's still writing interesting letters in his
• 57:11
  retirement he doesn't really ever stop to be honest he's writing right up to the moment that he
• 57:17
  dies really very interesting letters so I would say one of the favorite things I've read this year
• 57:26
  possibly last few years highly recommended wonderful production it's a lovely hard back book if
• 57:33
  you want to treat yourself um beautifully set out um so put it on the wish list as a birthday present
• 57:42
  highly recommended so I'd give it ten out of ten it's delightful yeah and I think one of the
• 57:48
  he he he mentions there that assault in uh one of the letters a hundred nine so the solitary
• 57:53
  art is no art and so seeing these letters like you really kind of see him he wasn't just completely
• 58:00
  isolated in his like creative life he's willing to share these things and talk about it and discuss
• 58:05
  them with others and those these letters kind of show him in conversation right his work in
• 58:10
  conversation with with other people and so yeah absolutely it really it helps me appreciate
• 58:16
  talking better the world that he created uh the thought that he put into that and his relationality
• 58:22
  with with other people right so he's he's uh is part of an ongoing conversation about art
• 58:28
  about what what is meaningful um and his kind of contribution to that and how seriously he takes it
• 58:34
  um and responding to questions concerns of other people it's yeah it is it is it is a real delight
• 58:40
  the increase not only gives you all sorts of fun bits and pieces additional information about
• 58:46
  characters in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit um and the broader legendarium uh but also gives you
• 58:53
  this kind of double insight into the mind of Tolkien about this creator his creative process
• 58:57
  pulling him through that there and his family relationship you know as as a full like you said
• 59:01
  earlier Julia there's kind of like a uh uh the rich tapestry of this person you see him and
• 59:08
  and kind of all all different kinds of lights um really impressive really inspiring I think uh
• 59:15
  uh for me it's kind of the takeaway at the end that even at the very end of his life um he was still
• 59:21
  giving ideas for stories based on names from the Silmarillion he's thinking about just just the names
• 59:26
  he's like oh here's another story but he's he was if you wanted to put it into readable form and but he
• 59:32
  is realized that he was running out of time so he wanted to at least hurry up and sketch out um ideas
• 59:38
  of some of these for others to make use of and so I think this is demonstrated you know how many
• 59:43
  people have been inspired by Lord of the Rings to write fantasy to write sci-fi to write anything
• 59:47
  at all and so I think that that was you know a testament to uh his character and devotion to the
• 59:53
  craft of writing that he could inspire so many other people in the way that he wrote um and yeah
• 1:00:00
  that that that others have got their start with Lord of the Rings to then go on to live wildly
• 1:00:06
  fulfilling creative lives um many of you more probably listening to this right now
• 1:00:11
  so we're going to um finish with our usual wherein all the fantasy world is the best place for
• 1:00:16
  something and we've chosen letter writing but before we get there just uh is worth hanging on to
• 1:00:22
  the end of this podcast because I want to reveal one really shocking point that came up in the
• 1:00:27
  letters I've got one have you got one that you've prepared I've got I've got a couple yeah you've
• 1:00:33
  my most shocking fact that I learned in letter 27 is that Hobbit's where boots he says there
• 1:00:45
  is in the text no mention of him inquiring acquiring of boots there should be his dropped out somehow
• 1:00:53
  or other in the various revisions the bootings occurred at Rivendell and he was again bootless
• 1:00:59
  after leaving Rivendell Rivendell on the way home and I I'm just shocked I'm sincerely shocked
• 1:01:08
  I think perhaps maybe that was just a Tolkien doesn't have to be entirely consistent because he
• 1:01:13
  doesn't make any mention of the next round of people going through Rivendell putting on boots
• 1:01:18
  but I just thought oh my goodness I can't imagine Hobbit's wearing shoes bootings
• 1:01:23
  maybe it was with the snow because they they they got the the um the misty mountains don't they
• 1:01:31
  and um with the dwarves it is the Hobbit he's talking about not the lot of the rings so maybe it was
• 1:01:38
  special snow shoe boots or something I don't know what's your top shot yeah to pick to pick one was
• 1:01:46
  that just like made me smile was that Shadowfax went west to Valinor with Gandalf
• 1:01:54
  yes somebody asked somebody asked him how it about Shadowfax he's like he says I'm sure he went
• 1:02:00
  I'm sure Gandalf would have taken him when he left that he would have taken Shadowfax on this and
• 1:02:03
  Shadowfax got to go west that's so great like just imagining Shadowfax is such a great character
• 1:02:08
  and then just to think of Shadowfax on about sailing with the wind you know the the wind from
• 1:02:15
  Valinor just kind of like blowing through his mane uh just just delighted me so there's there's
• 1:02:21
  there's all sorts of little bits like this that are that are in there so yeah that that was just
• 1:02:24
  really fun surprising and delightful for me to come across yeah so um moving away from these
• 1:02:32
  wonderful letters Jacob where do you think in all the fantasy worlds is the best place to write
• 1:02:37
  the letter um I'm going to go with the wizarding world specifically because it has the best
• 1:02:44
  variety of delivery methods for letters yeah I agree uh different right so you have you know
• 1:02:51
  owl deliveries which are just fun howlers write as if you're really upset with somebody you need to
• 1:02:56
  get your point across uh that's it and an effective mode for getting across certain points um
• 1:03:03
  Professor Umbridge's flesh writing uh I don't know what that one's a little bit painful but it's
• 1:03:09
  it is variety and then in the fantastic beast what was really fun the film version um where you
• 1:03:14
  have these origami rats and memos that are you know folded into the shape of liberal rats and then
• 1:03:20
  kind of like crawl through tubes um so kind of animated letters so yeah just lots lots lots of fun
• 1:03:26
  different ways to to get your message to other people I think the delivery method that's kind of
• 1:03:31
  what I focused on I think that would be fun I that was going to be my pick as well but I've just
• 1:03:36
  posed that um whilst we've been talking about talking doesn't seem to be much repostal service
• 1:03:41
  going on in middle earth but there is in the shower and um so that's not a bad place to be a post
• 1:03:47
  you know write a letter and even be a postman in the or postperson in in in the shower because it
• 1:03:52
  seems to involve walking around dropping letters um agreeing to go to parties and thanking people for
• 1:03:59
  presence so it seems quite a nice not many tax demands amongst that as well as I can make out
• 1:04:05
  so yes I agree Harry Potter has really done a very good um job at making the letter
• 1:04:12
  fanciful and of course your letter from Hogwarts is the moment that is the great moment when
• 1:04:17
  your life changes so yeah I agree with your pick well thank you so much Jacob for talking um
• 1:04:23
  about the letters with me they are wonderful everybody so I hope that you all rush off and enjoy
• 1:04:30
  a summer of reading talking's letters it's a nice long read and could be taken in stages
• 1:04:36
  but they're highly recommended thank you very much
• 1:04:44
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