The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)

Dear Unwin,
the Hobbit will be ready tomorrow, honest.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear Unwin,
I've been swamped by illness, work, exams, more work, more exams, lectures, more work and more exams. I can't possibly get it ready this decade.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear Unwin,
did you like it?

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear Unwin,
glad you liked it. The illustrations will be ready tomorrow.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

...this decade, etc.

Dear Unwin,
I may have no taste but the American cover art is appalling and did they even read the book?

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

[Repeat all of the above w.r.t LoTR]

Dear [Inkling]
the other Inklings' work is mostly rubbish but I like it in parts and even though they are annoying I like them really.

Yours,

Tolkers.

[repeat with every other Inkling]

Dear [somebody acquainted with me]
that critic is impertinent and did he even read the book?

Yours, annoyed,

JRRT

Dear Christopher,
you are the only one who understands me! I love you! Sob!

Your
Father.
[Above written in Anglo-Saxon.]

Dear Nazi scum,
you, Apartheid supporters, Colonialists and other racist groups are all intellectually and morally defective. The Jews are a fine people and I would be proud to have Jewish ancestry but as far as I know I don't.

Yours with no respect at all.

Tolkien.

Dear [any translator of LoTR]
your translation is rubbish; why do you translate names that are not in English? Your translations are unnecessary and show a poor grasp of [your native language]. [Demonstrates a superior knowledge of the translator's language.] Here's a book I wrote about how to translate my book.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear {Member of public]
thank you for your interesting questions. Enclosed is a set of answers in obsessive detail that I worked out prior to my 5th birthday. It includes philological details unintelligible to any person lay in the subject.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear {Critic I like]
thank you for your encouraging, perceptive review.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear [prospective interviewer]
leave me alone.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear [Reader who said something stupid]
as any one with a modicum of understanding of [Old Ancient High Low North Western Indo-European Obscure Language], which is surely everybody, knows, you are completely wrong. Enclosed is a detailed explanation, incomprehensible to anyone lay in philology. And anyway it says you're wrong in the Appendices.

Yours faithfully,

Tolkien.

Dear Christopher,
the Roman Catholic Church is axiomatically right about everything even though most of its priests are idiotic, uneducated, corrupt, morally defective, politcally-minded perverts.

Your

Father.

----------------------------------------

That, if repeated many times over, is this book. It's interesting in parts and dull (because repetitive) in others. It shows a man jealously protective of his work, easily irritated (although by things that would probably wind up many an author) in search of an unmechanised rural idyll that never existed in the same way as [a:Thomas Hardy|15905|Thomas Hardy|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1189902685p2/15905.jpg]. Enormously erudite, he struggled to understand why other people might find Anglo-Saxon difficult - a common problem with people of enormous talent in any intellectual discipline being the inability to conceive of it being anything but simple to grasp.

Worthwhile for anybody who wants to know more of what Tolkien the person was like. ( )

Tolkien, non-fiction ( )

I felt it was a bit too invasive to be reading someone's letters that were never supposed to be for the eyes of anyone who wasn't the person it was addressed to, but this was an interesting read about the man who created the Lord of the Rings series. ( )

Well, an author like any other artist, is best experienced through the art they produce. Too close an acquaintance, as some of these letters reveal, may be disillusioning. One should not rely too heavily on one's mental picture of JRRT as the kind and loving father to anyone other than Christopher Tolkien. I was surprised to discover that he had other children, and his wife did not die sometime in the 1930's but was his lifelong companion. Perhaps the wife and other children didn't wish to expose any more of their lives to the gawping public, and that certainly is their right. But it does add a little depth to the figure presented by this selection of the letters. ( )

Fascinating, insightful, and often touching. Sometimes repetitive and sometimes over the head of any non-philologist, it can take a bit of patience, but the many gems are well worth it. ( )