A funny thing happened on the way to the canon
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- neosarge
- Michael_Martinez
- lindil
- Michael_Martinez
- themightywizard
- Michael_Martinez
- Pervertedhobbit
- Michael_Martinez
- lindil
- BandwagonNewbie
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» neosarge - Heh, well...
Who the hell cares about petty things like whether Balrogs had wings (which they did)? Shouldn't we be concerned with the larger picture? For example (if the rumours are to be believed) Peter Jackson may be on the right track in his idea that Tolkien really meant for Saruman to die in the second book. Well, that's how I interpreted the story...But I really can't believe that Tolkien, as much as he would like consistency, would care to find that Cirdan has a beard, or that Legolas was described as having gold hair as opposed to dark or something.
Tolkien was vague when it came to descriptions of many persons and creatures. What he seemed more concerned with was their actions, their thoughts, their strength, and their weakness. He (to me) gave a perfect atmosphere to Lothlorien. I could feel it, so to speak. But my guess as to what it, or any other setting in Middle Earth actually look like might differ from the thousands of other visions.
No one doubts the power of the Balrog. It is felt throuought the entire Fellowship. Gandalf is almost destroyed. Tolkien achieved what he wanted. He wouldn't care whether we thought it had wings.
I think he did care about whether Sam had doomed Gollum, or whether he was already lost beyond hope, or whether it was so fated. What did the elves think about orcs and their possible connections? Why was Melkor corrupt, and did Illuvatar plan that from the beginning?
I think these are the sort of debates that matter to Tolkien, and these sort of debates may have caused him to throw out many works (that if released would be taken as the Holy Bible by fanatics).
But not wings.
-- posted by neosarge
» Michael_Martinez - Re: Heh, well...
In response to message posted by neosarge:People are free to choose what is important to them, however. The point of the essay is not to rationalize or justify individual debates, but to gently remind people that the disagreements which arise over what should and should not be considered canonical are not matters of life and death.
Sometimes the canon discussions get extremely heavy-handed and serious, and I have been accused of flip-flopping on the canonical issues. I wouldn't say I flip-flop (that is, change my mind or my position) so much as I frame each discussion in its own context. I do that because I don't believe there is a One True Canon.
But that makes it tough for people to keep up with me. Heck, it makes it tough for me to keep up with other people.
-- posted by Michael_Martinez
» lindil - Re: Living In My Own Private Shire
In response to message posted by arizonan:I am largely in sympathy w/ arizonan.
I am interested in canon for a primary reason of wishing when my daughters are about 10 or so and I have already read them the LotR and Hobbit a dozen times or so, to be able to open the first of 3 green [red?] volumes entitled Translations from the Elvish and begin w/ the Ainulindale and go through all the stories in as much non-contradictory fullness as JRRT and CRT have left us, disjointed styles and depth of treatment and all [I will happily update names and omit contradictins w/ the LotR ].
I had hoped [and still do a little] working on the canon would bring alot of sharp loving minds together, well at the downs it has brought 3 folks who fit that description as well as I could hope and myself . We have made a little headway [1/2 of 1 chapter and alot of preliminary discussion before a shakeup in the ranks ].
I am pleased w/ my general outline of what sort of additions I would make, and upon what priniples they are based[although 2 attempts to post the 5th version have all crashed] and it may ultimately be most of what I publicly contribute. It is suprising to me [if no one else] that people really would rather debate balrogwings and Tom Bombadil's nature than work to gether on a canon of the Silm. But I have learned alot in the process of attempting it, both about the Legendarium and human nature. I am the crazy one for starters.
Ultimately I agree there can never be 1 canon most accept unless on of 2 very unlikely things happens :1] CRT goes at it again 2] a very large number of fans get together and within a formal council go at it, and then by virtue of it being done seriously it is taken seriously.
from the level of participation of the downs [280 members] and 4 regular contributors to the canon discussion and 2 editors of 1/2 a chapter in 6 mo. or so. pretty much proves to me all efforts are likely to be private efforts.
and that is prob just as well. This is after all not religion it is an exceedingly refined, beautiful and noble fruit of human culture intended to point to God and in JRRT's opinion to Christ and the Church, but the fact the stories exist and that they in some ways make the human situation a little more understandable and leave some clear trail-markers is a wonder in and of itself.
Good cases can be made for a Myth's Tranformed canon - but my heart is not in it.
A great story can be made of the Ariol /Aelfwine and england aspects.
CRT even though he doubts himself did a decent job on the Ruin of Doriath.
I think his father would have come up w/ something similar and wanted him to do something w/ it.
I myself despite expert advice otherwise have happily mixed Lost Tales details in w/ writing from the 50's and will happily do so again when I [God willing] turn my hand [ or I should say my mouse] to the Fall of Gondolin which will draw on Volumes 2,5,11, UT and the 1977 Silm, w/out remorse.
I have little doubt JRRT had a premonition of the future when he wrote of Bilbo handing his untidy mess of paperwork to Frodo to finish.
So CRT did a few things the easy way w/ the 1977 Silmarillion, he outdid what anyone but the most fanatic linguists could have expected and published not just a few Unfinished Tales containg the really good stuff, but put out 9 volumes [counting UT] of Silm material, and we are left w/ nearly all the available peices to put together our own. And a few of us shall.
lindil
posts at the barrow-downs and Osanwe-Kenta
a JRRT/Christian/esoterica discussion board.
-- posted by lindil
» Michael_Martinez - Re: Re: Living In My Own Private Shire
In response to message posted by lindil:In the programming community it has often been said that if you bring a huge committee together to produce a canon (or, standard), what you get is COBOL.
COBOL programmers are of two minds on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
But I think the greatest challenge to your bringing all the deep thinkers together is that it would require a tremendous amount of time and effort to pull this off, and no one is getting paid to do it.
But achieving your goal will, in the end, build the credibility for the project that will bring others into the fold. The first attempt will set the pace. If you complete the project, other people will try to improve upon it, eventually. If you don't complete the project, well, someone may try again some day.
Right now you're the only game in town. Enjoy the moment while it's yours. 
-- posted by Michael_Martinez
» themightywizard - A funny thing happened on the way to the canon
Judging from the use of words like canon, it is beginning to sound as though Tolkien readers are treating the Professor's work as though it has become a kind of substitute religion.-- posted by themightywizard
» Michael_Martinez - Re: A funny thing happened on the way to the canon
In response to message posted by themightywizard:No. "Canon" is hardly limited to religious texts.
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=canon shows that "canon" also refers to "the works of a writer that have been accepted as authentic: the entire Sherlock Holmes canon".
-- posted by Michael_Martinez
» Pervertedhobbit - Canons do not add anything
What is really important about the canons? I mean, take the Balrog debate. Do they have wings, or don't they? Isn't it enough to know that one of them wiped out a thriving community of dwarves, and are thus rather scary? Elves having pointy ears? Is this in the least bit important? Does it add any enjoyment to the universe? Ditto the beards, and anyway thier is more then one race of elves in the book. We overanilyse our reading matter to the point that we lose sight of wha actually matters in a book.-- posted by Pervertedhobbit
» Michael_Martinez - Re: Canons do not add anything
In response to message posted by Pervertedhobbit:What matters to one person is inconsequential to another. I try to help with the questions as best I can. I enjoy doing the research.
The arguing and what it tends to devolve into, I can easily do without. But literature which evokes such great passion in so many people is rare. The experience has been unique for me. Your mileage may vary.
-- posted by Michael_Martinez
» lindil - Update on the New Silmarillion aka Translations from the Elvish
In response to message posted by Michael_Martinez:Greetings Michael!
I thought I would give you a bit of an upddate on our Silm project if you haven't been by the Downs in a while.
The project is crawling along at the speed of pre-Global warming glaciers, but nonetheless, we have made some serious headway on the Fall of Gondolin and are realtively close to having a draft text [composed of UT's 'of Tuor and his coming', BoLT 2's 'FoG', HoME 4's 'Q', CJRT's Gondolin chapter from the Silmarillion, and a few other snippets] from which we can then attempt 'stylistic harmonization'.
Most importanatly though we have established about a dozen serious members who are actually willing to work!
The spirit is really quite a warm-hearted one with things settled democratically if no informal consensus can be reached.
We have also started on the Ainulindale, as we had a wave of newer members who were understandably daunted by the rather ferocious complexity of FoG.
Of course all are welcome to stop in our 'public forum' http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ult...
and comment in the general comments thread or more specifically on any topic. We do acept new members to the project also.
The FAQ at the top of the forum is reasonably helpful to most and gives something of an overview of the goals of the project.
We also managed to hash out our working principles, which was a real trial, as we had some deep-rooted differences to deal with regarding Rog, but anyone wanting the details can find them aplenty in the **principles of editing...** thread.
Great Articles MM, thanks !
oh and thanks for the E book too!
-- posted by lindil
» BandwagonNewbie - Re: Update on the New Silmarillion aka Translations from the Elv
In response to message posted by lindil:Daunting work, but great.
-- posted by BandwagonNewbie
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