[ilds] Of course Tolkien was not being truthful

[Bruce Redwine]

For some reason I didn’t get Richard Pine’s recent message (below) to the ILDS Listserv.  Anyway, I agree with Ken’s implications, namely, an author’s intentions or motives bear looking into.  Seems to me it’s all fair game, that is, how one chooses to look at a piece of literature:  as an autonomous unit in the spirit of the New Criticism (the “Verbal Icon”) or as a creation deeply indebted to its creator and his/her motives (conscious or not).  “Sink or skim,” as Durrell himself says.  I prefer to sink, but that’s simply my preference.  I can now hear Bill Godshalk’s voice interrupting me about the utter impossibility of determining anyone’s “intentions.”

Bruce





> On May 15, 2015, at 9:21 AM, Kennedy Gammage <gammage.kennedy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> When he denied a connection to Wagner he was being defensive and disingenuous, lying in other words - just like you know who was wont to do!
> 
> I enjoyed re-reading this piece from the NYT about the Wagner-Tolkien connection: 
> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings>
> 
> Cheers - Ken
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: <mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org <mailto:mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org>>
> Date: Fri, May 15, 2015 at 1:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 97, Issue 13
> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
> 
> 
> Concerning the "origins" or "models" for various characters in fiction, there are, of course, many obvious sources for LD's characters and many more oblique. One has only to look at real-life names of the Quartet period such as Scobie and Maskelyne to realise this. But I tend to take Humphrey Carpenter's observation about searching for Tolkien's  sources, that "one learns little by raking through a compost heap to see what dead plants originally went into it.Far better to observe its effect on the new and growing plants that it is enriching". Or Tolkien's own remark when asked whether his "Lord of the Rings" and Wagner's Nibelungelied had anything in common: "both are round, and that's where the similarity ends".
> Richard Pine
> 

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