Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Canon

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Canon

© Michael Martinez

I checked in on the Barrow-downs' canon discussions recently and was glad to see that they haven't died down completely. Not that I think they should die down, but this was a project I felt from the start would have trouble keeping up a head of steam. Let's face it, not too many people are going to care what one small group of readers decides should comprise the "correct Silmarillion". Whatever proposal finally emerges from the discussions, I am sure to disagree with it. So are many other people. But the canon discussions represent a legitimate effort by some of Tolkien's readers to identify his intentions. This may or may not be the first such attempt, but it will undoubtedly draw some fire when something is produced. Nonetheless, every first endeavor of this sort serves an important function in the ongoing study of literature and the past. And the canon discussions are relevant to our knowledge of the literary past. Literature doesn't make the world go round. It doesn't save lives. It doesn't put food on the table. It's just there. We read it. But it moves us, provokes us to discuss it, and to understand it. In fact, we attempt to understand things about literature which the authors never intended us to understand. A friend recently asked me, after finishing The Lord of the Rings, what the book is really about. I told her that not everyone agrees with Tolkien, but he said it was about death and the search for deathlessness. No, that's not what my friend thought the book was about. In fact, until I saw a video of Tolkien explaining the story, I had never conceived of Tolkien's interpretation, either. Up until that time I had always thought it was about how heroic Hobbits can be. Some people see it as a brush stroke on the canvas of the battle between Good and Evil (I always have trouble sorting the Good guys from the Bad guys myself). Some people seem to feel The Lord of the Rings is a subtle allegory about expanding personal horizons through chemical processes. I suppose the 1960s weren't too good to those folks. Inevitably, any serious discussion about Tolkien leads to the question of what is acceptable. That is, what is the "canon" we must rely upon to form a common reference? There is no answer to that question. There never has been, and I don't believe there ever will be. We have a plenitude of canons to choose from. We can fire a battery of canonical postulations at each other in debate after debate and keep our heads spinning. I often jump from one canon to another when discussing Balrogs, Elven history, geography, Tolkien's intentions, and "the mythology". If ever I tried to stick to any one canon, those days are long gone, and unlike Elrond, I don't remember them well at all.

The copyright of the article A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Canon in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Douglas Charles Rapier. Permission to republish A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Canon in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.