A funny cartoon coming down the Mythopoeic Society's listserv:
Of course, this is a jab at the publication of "The Children of Húrin" (J.R.R. Tolkien) last year. People often ask how Tolkien's works can be published posthumously and still be considered authentic. Tolkien was an unusual writer, in that he really wasn't a novelist. He wrote primarily to provide a mythological background for his Elvish languages. When he wrote, he would start with a draft, then abandon it and start all over from scratch, filing each draft away. He was notorious for his perfectionism, requiring prodding from both his publisher and sometimes from C.S. Lewis to get his works ready for publication instead of endlessly revising them. As a result of this perfectionism, his most beloved work, the Silmarillion, was not published during his lifetime.
His son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, has dedicated his life to making sense to JRR Tolkien's badly-filed and sometimes confusing manuscripts. Most Tolkien scholars believe that when CT publishes something, it is genuine JRR, except for some editing and bridge material. Indeed, it may be that no other writer has left such an amazing legacy of manuscripts that show a writer's mind at work.
David+
Comments