Der Bau

Elias Canetti: Auto da Fé (1935)

Someone has stolen my copy of Auto da Fé, by Elias Canetti.

They did it in quite an ingenious way. I had it in a bookcase arranged with double rows of books on each shelf. The idea is that a quick scan of the books in front will enable you to guess what's concealed behind.

In this case, there were two Penguin paperbacks by Canetti - Crowds and Power and Auto da Fé - in the front row, and a group of his other books (including his four-volume autobiography) hidden behind.

What the thief did was to move one of the books from the back row to fill the gap in the front row, and thus conceal the fact that anything was missing from that shelf at all.

There's a certain irony in the fact that they chose that particular book to run off with. It's a novel about an obsessive scholar, Dr Peter Kien, who lives entirely in, and for, his library of rare books.

When I say he lives in his library, I mean just that. He moves his little portable bed and washstand from room to room, depending on what he happens to be working on at the time.

Elias Canetti: Die Blendung (1935)

The original German title of the book, Die Blendung, translates literally as 'the blinding.' His English translator, the well-known historian C. V. Wedgwood, chose to change this to Auto da Fé ['Act of Faith' - the name for the mass burnings of heretics conducted by the Spanish Inquisition], presumably because she thought that this might better convey the book's claustrophobic sense of entrapment and sacrifice.

Elias Canetti: Party in the Blitz: The English Years (2003)

The book my thief chose to move forward was a hardback edition of one of Canetti's last works: Party in the Blitz (2003). Once again, there's a certain irony in that, as the novel concludes with the protagonist's self-immolation on a heap of his own books (they've been stolen and sold on by his unscrupulous housekeeper-turned-wife and her louche accomplices, but then recovered and brought back to him by his rather saintly brother).

I imagine I'll succeed in finding another copy of Auto da Fé to fill the gap. That isn't really the point, though.

Any collector of anything has to face the paradox that the more things you have, the less control you have over each part of your collection. While you're gleefully filling gaps in your holdings of some particular author, the most precious volume of all may just have disappeared into somebody's pocket.

Nor do we all have similar ethical standards in such matters. I know plenty of people who regard it as quite unnecessary to return books they've borrowed, and in fact react most indignantly to anyone who tries to recover their own property - they seem to envisage some wondrous freemasonry of books, passing from hand to hand like lightning rods: albeit with the slight, disquieting, detail that it's generally someone else providing the raw material.

And certainly getting too obsessed with ownership can become a bit excessive. At one point, to combat my own tendencies in that direction, I formulated a theory that the only books which would available to one in the afterlife would be those which had been given away. I accordingly began a programme of donations which would guarantee my own future reading pleasure - on the offchance I don't end up in the burning place instead, that is.

The burning place. Elias Canetti's novel is certainly not meant as an endorsement of bibliomaniacs such as his Peter Kien - on the contrary, in fact - but his success in portraying one would certainly seem to show certain tendencies in that direction on his own part.

Perhaps the thief meant to do me a favour by running off with the book. Perhaps they thought it would be unhealthy for me to brood too much over the dark material included in it. And it's probably true that it will be a long time before I feel it necessary to read it again - though Canetti's autobiography, in particular, is a delight.

Franz Kafka: Der Bau (1924)

The other thing it made me think of, I'm afraid, was Kafka's great short story 'Der Bau' [The Burrow]. Written six months before his death, and published posthumously in 1931, it describes a large burrowing animal who has built a most marvellous underground structure which he is engaged in constantly improving.

Gradually he becomes aware of little piles of loose dirt, betokening the presence of some alien invader, which he tidies as best he can, but which continue to appear, threatening to undermine all the - illusory - grandeur of the dwelling he's built for himself. It's the rift within the lute, the maggot in his brain, the ideé fixe which will end up by destroying him.

Donald A. Mackenzie: Teutonic Myth and Legend (1912)

I remember once, in a university class on the Old English epic Beowulf, suggesting that the dragon whose horde is invaded by the hero Beowulf towards the end of the poem might feel similarly about his own treasure chamber - that he might feel a deep sense of repulsion at the mere fact that an intruder has succeeded in invading his sanctuary.

I remember one of my classmates laughing at this: "I don't think he feels like the creature in Kafka, Jack."

'Why not?' I asked at the time. Why shouldn't he feel like that? The poet gives few clues to his feelings.

At present (Der Bau-like), I'm engaged in a large-scale project to map every one of the books in our house, and - in the process - adding protective covers to all the vulnerable hardbacks. I've also decided to write my name in each and every one of them, rather than reserving that for the more interesting acquisitions.

From now on there will be a small sign on the shelves in our guest space:

Feel free to read the books, but please be careful of them if you do.

Don't take anything away without asking. That will be regarded as theft.

So if that bookthief was sending me a message about the perils of getting too attached to my collection, I'm afraid that I've chosen to ignore it.

Elias Canetti: Auto da Fé (English translation, 1946)

•

And, to show how thoroughly I've missed the point, here are my holdings of Elias Canetti, Franz Kafka, and - the Beowulf poet.

The Southwick Codex (c.1000)

Beowulf
(c.8th-early 11th century)

Editions:


1. Klaeber, Franz, ed. Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg. 1922. Third Edition with First and Second Supplements. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1950.


2. Swanton, Michael, ed. Beowulf: A Glossed Text. Manchester Medieval Classics. Ed. G. L. Brook. Manchester: Manchester University Press / New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1978.


3. Alexander, Michael, ed. Beowulf: A Glossed Text. 1995. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000.

Translations:


4. Wright, David, trans. Beowulf: A Prose Translation. 1957. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.


5. Alexander, Michael, trans. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


6. Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. 2000. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Daniel Donghue. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.


7. Tolkien, J. R. R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014.

Secondary:


8. Garmonsway, G. N., & Jacqueline Simpson, trans. Beowulf and Its Analogues. Including Archaeology and Beowulf, by Hilda Ellis Davidson. 1968. A Dutton Paperback. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1971.


9. Tolkien, J. R. R. Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode. Ed. Alan Bliss. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982.


10. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien . London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.


11. Wilson, R. M. The Lost Literature of Medieval England. 1952. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1970.

Elias Canetti (1981)

Elias Canetti
(1905-1994)

Fiction:


1. Auto da Fé. 1935. Trans. C. V. Wedgwood. 1946. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.

Essays:


2. Crowds and Power. 1960. Trans. Carol Stewart. 1962. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


3. Kafka’s Other Trial. 1969. Trans. Christopher Middleton. 1974. In Kafka, Franz. Letters to Felice. Ed. Erich Heller & Jürgen Born. Trans. James Stern & Elizabeth Duckworth. 1973. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.


4. The Human Province. 1973. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. 1978. London: Picador, 1986.


5. The Conscience of Words / Earwitness. 1976 & 1979. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. 1986 & 1979. London: Picador, 1987.

Memoirs:


6. The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood. 1977. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. 1979. London: Picador, 1989.


7. The Torch in My Ear. 1980. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. 1982. London: Picador, 1990.


8. The Play of the Eyes. 1985. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. 1986. London: Picador, 1991.


9. Party in the Blitz: The English Years. 2003. Trans. Michael Hofmann. Introduction by Jeremy Adler. London: Harvill Press, 2005.

Travel:


10. The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit. 1967. Trans. J. A. Underwood. 1978. London: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd., 1982.

Franz Kafka (1923)

Franz Kafka
(1883-1924)

Works:


1. The Trial / America / The Castle / Metamorphosis / In the Penal Settlement / The Great Wall of China / Investigations of a Dog / Letter to His Father / The Diaries 1910-1923. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir et al. London: Secker & Warburg / Octopus, 1976.

Novels:


2. The Trial: Definitive Edition. 1925. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1935. Rev. E. M. Butler. 1956. London: Secker & Warburg, 1963.


3. The Trial. 1925. Trans. Douglas Scott & Chris Waller. Introduction by J. P. Stern. 1977. London: Picador, 1980.


4. The Castle: Definitive Edition. 1926. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1930. Rev. Eithne Wilkins & Ernst Kaiser. 1953. London: Secker & Warburg, 1961.


5. Amerika: Roman. 1935. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985.


6. America: Definitive Edition. 1927. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1938. Rev. ed. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.


7. The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika). 1927. Trans. Michael Hofmann. Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.

Stories:


8. Sämtliche Erzählungen. Ed. Paul Raabe. 1970. Hamburg: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1983.


9. The Great Wall of China and Other Pieces. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1933. Rev. ed. London: Secker & Warburg, 1946.


10. The Metamorphosis / Die Verwandlung. 1935. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1968. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.


11. Der Heizer / In der Strafkolonie / Der Bau. 1935. Ed. J. M. S. Pasley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966.


12. Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. 1933 & 1958. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


13. In the Penal Settlement: Tales and Short Prose Works. Definitive Edition. 1935. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.


14. Wedding Preparations in the Country and Other Posthumous Prose Writings: Definitive Edition. 1953. Trans. Ernst Kaiser & Eithne Wilkins. London: Secker & Warburg, 1954.


15. Wedding Preparations in the Country and Other Stories. Trans. Ernst Kaiser & Eithne Wilkins. 1953. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.


16. Description of a Struggle and The Great Wall of China: Definitive Edition. 1933. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir and Tania & James Stern. 1958. London: Secker & Warburg, 1960.


17. Description of a Struggle and Other Stories. Trans. Willa & Edwin Muir, Malcolm Pasley, Tania & James Stern. 1973. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


18. The Complete Stories. Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. 1971. New York: Schocken Books, 1976.


19. Stories 1904-1924. Trans. J. A. Underwood. Foreword by Jorge Luis Borges. 1981. A Futura Book. London: Macdonald & Co, 1983.

Letters & Diaries:


20. The Diaries of Franz Kafka. Ed. Max Brod. Trans. Joseph Kresh and Martin Greenberg with Hannah Arendt. 1948 & 1949. Peregrine Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.


21. Letters to Milena. Ed. Willy Haas. Trans. Tania & James Stern. 1953. London: Corgi Books, 1967.


22. Letters to Felice. Ed. Erich Heller & Jürgen Born. Trans. James Stern & Elizabeth Duckworth. 1973. With Elias Canetti: Kafka’s Other Trial. 1969. Trans. Christopher Middleton. 1974. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.


23. Letters to Friends, Family and Editors. Trans. Richard & Clara Winston. 1977. Richmond, Surrey: Alma Classics Ltd., 2014.

Secondary:


24. Brod, Max. Franz Kafka: A Biography. 1937. Trans. G. Humphreys Roberts. 1947. Rev. Richard Winston. 1960. New York: Schocken Books, 1973.


25. Calasso, Roberto. K. 2002. Trans. Geoffrey Brock. Jonathan Cape. London: Random House, 2005.


26. Hayman, Ronald. K: A Biography Of Kafka. 1981. An Abacus Book. London: Sphere Books, 1983.


27. Janousch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka. 1953. Rev. ed. 1968. Trans. Goronwy Rees. New York: New Directions, 1971.


28. Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. 1984. London: Collins Harvill, 1988.

The Talented Mr. Carpenter

Humphrey Carpenter with Dame Antonia Fraser (1988)

Alan Bennett's 2009 play The Habit of Art, a curious work devoted almost wholly (it would seem) to denigrating the late great W. H. Auden (cf. the Guardian article on Bennett entitled "why Auden the bore almost turned me off writing") was broadcast as a "live theatre" performance to cinemas all over the world in 2010.

One of those locations was the Bridgeway theatre in Northcote, Auckland. As an Auden fanatic - unaware at the time of Bennett's views on the poet - I duly turned up to watch the strange farrago unfold.

Alan Bennett: The Habit of Art (2009)

Reading between the lines, it seems probable to me that Bennett set out to write a play about Auden's unhappy last days domiciled in Christ Church, Oxford. It must have got away from him somehow - perhaps it seemed too nakedly spiteful, even to him? - so he decided to turn it instead into a play-within-a-play. "The Habit of Art," then, actually consists of a dress rehearsal for another play called "Caliban's Day". As Bennett explained to the author of the article mentioned above:

in order to address the many queries and notes on the text ("do we need this?"; "too much information") from the play's director, Nicholas Hytner, he invented a framing device: the play would be set in a rehearsal room.

"Queries about the text could then be put in the mouths of the actors who (along with the audience) could have their questions answered in the course of the rehearsal."

In other words, any crappy writing in the Auden play could then be explained away by someone in the cast exclaiming: "what crappy writing!" - one of the many reasons (I speak as one who knows) why such metafictional structures tend to appeal so much to authors and so little to their audiences.

The device also allowed Bennett to introduce the character of the author – himself – who complains about real cuts that Hytner suggested to the play.

Alan Bennett: The Habit of Art (2009)
[l-to-r: Richard Griffiths as Auden; Adrian Scarborough as Carpenter; Alex Jennings as Britten]

The tone of the whole was set early on, when one of the other characters makes a remark about the latest book by Auden's old friend and teacher, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien. "More fucking elves," quips Richard Griffiths (standing in for Michael Gambon at this particular performance).

This may very well encapsulate Alan Bennett's views on Tolkien's Middle-earth, but it seems most unlikely to represent Auden's, given that the poet praised The Lord of the Rings so fulsomely, in so many places, over the years.

W. H. Auden

Who knows, though? Maybe the worm had turned by the early 70s, when the play is set. There was, after all, a famous controversy between the two over Auden's alleged "denigration" of the house Tolkien lived in (he was quoted in the New Yorker in 1966 as having called it as “a hideous house — I can’t tell you how awful it is — with hideous pictures on the wall.”)

Humphrey Carpenter

Another less forgivable dig in Bennett's ill-natured play is what seems a weirdly unmotivated assault on the memory and reputation of Tolkien's first biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. As the wikipedia summary puts it:

Auden has hired a rent boy, Stuart (Tim) and when Humphrey Carpenter (Donald) - who will write biographies of both Auden and Britten after their deaths - arrives to interview him, Auden mistakes him for Stuart.

It isn't quite so simply as that, in context, though. In the actual play as broadcast, the actor playing Carpenter comes on in drag, screeching like a lunatic, and generally embodying some of the "research" the former has been doing on him - as he explains to the director when the latter objects to this rather over-the-top impersonation.

And, yes, apparently Carpenter was a keen amateur musician, who occasionally performed in drag, and generally came across as somewhat larger than life. It's only after that exchange that the play limps on into the long, unfunny and unbelievable scene of Auden's mistaking Carpenter for the teenage rent boy he has "ordered."

To add insult to injury, Bennett tries to undo the rather spiteful impression given by this awful set of caricatures of Auden, Britten and Carpenter by giving his own alter-ego, the author, a long pompous monologue about the "value" he places on each of these lives - the rentboy as much as the poet, the bit-player as much as the star - towards the end of his melodrama.

I guess the reason this rings so false is that the actual nature of these walk-on parts is so stereotyped and perfunctory that one would never know from internal evidence that the writer placed the slightest importance on any of them. If Bennett had made them strong characters in the first place, he wouldn't have needed the face-saving soliloquy.

Why do I dwell so much on this rather forgettable play of Alan Bennett's? I guess because it should remind us all of how fickle is literary fame and reputation. No-one's really in much danger of forgetting the fact of Humphrey Carpenter's remarkable series of trail-blazing biographies, but at the same time their author seems to be receding more and more into oblivion. His wikipedia page doesn't even contain a partial bibliography, though there are a couple of paragraphs describing his books, some not even with their correct titles.

Here's my own attempt at a list (most - though not all of them - from my own collection):

Humphrey Carpenter: J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977)

Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter
(1946–2005)

[titles I own are marked in bold]:

1. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977.
2. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978.
3. Jesus. Past Masters Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
4. W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
5. O.U.D.S.: A Centenary History of the Oxford University Dramatic Society 1885–1985. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
6. Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
7. Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s. London: Unwin Hyman Limited, 1987.
8. A Serious Character: The Life of Ezra Pound. London: Faber, 1988.
9. The Brideshead Generation: Evelyn Waugh and His Friends. London: Faber, 1989.
10. Benjamin Britten: A Biography. London: Faber, 1992.
11. The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, 1946–1996. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.
12. Robert Runcie: The Reluctant Archbishop. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
13. Dennis Potter: A Biography. London: Faber, 1998.
14. That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom of the 1960s. London: Victor Gollancz, 2000.
15. The Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s. London: Allen Lane, 2002.
16. Spike Milligan: The Biography. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2003.
17. The Seven Lives of John Murray: The Story of a Publishing Dynasty. London: John Murray, 2008.




Humphrey Carpenter: The Angry Young Men (2002)


Edited:


18. [with Mari Prichard]. A Thames Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
19. [with Christopher Tolkien]. Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
20. [with Mari Prichard]. The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
21. Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits. London: Viking, 1994.

Humphrey Carpenter & Mari Prichard, ed.: The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature (1984)

Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Carpenter. His interest in children's literature manifested itself in a strong desire to make a lasting contribution to the field. After a few ranging shots with such works as The Joshers: Or London to Birmingham with Albert and Victoria (1977) and The Captain Hook Affair (1979), he eventually arrived at Mr Majeika. Long before Harry Potter made the whole idea of wizards as school-teachers a commonplace, the former gave rise to a dizzying variety of titles:

Humphrey Carpenter: Mr Majeika Collection (1984-98)

1. Mr Majeika
2. Mr Majeika and the School Trip
3. Mr Majeika and the Lost Spell Book
4. Mr Majeika and the Ghost Train
5. Mr Majeika and the Dinner Lady
6. Mr Majeika and the School Caretaker
7. Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher
8. Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel
9. Mr Majeika and the School Book Week
10. Mr Majeika and the Internet
11. Mr Majeika and the School Inspector
12. Mr Majeika joins the Circus
13. Mr Majeika and the School Play
14. Mr Majeika Vanishes

Mr Majeika was also successfully filmed as a children's TV series (1988-90), which resulted in the spin-off book The Television Adventures of Mr Majeika.

But who exactly was Humphrey Carpenter, and why has his star gone into (at least partial) eclipse? When you add to the works listed above a punishing schedule as a radio presenter and interviewer - not to mention his regular gigs as a jazz musician (the double-bass was his instrument) - the answer must surely include the words "a workaholic."

One of the last of the great English eccentrics, Humphrey Carpenter was brought up in the Warden's Lodgings at Keble College, Oxford, where his father worked until his appointment as Bishop of Oxford. He lived virtually all of his life in Oxford, though his work as a biographer took him all over the world. There's an interesting aside in the acknowledgements at the end of his monumental life of Ezra Pound (p. 973):

my American hosts in the spring of 1985 ... coped with me on my whirlwind research trip when I was at least as mad as Ezra Pound was ever supposed to have been.

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Ample evidence for eccentric behaviour on Pound's part has been given in the 900-odd pages preceding this disclaimer - for Carpenter to describe himself in similar terms is really saying something, therefore.

Perhaps, then, the grotesque caricature who comes flouncing out in Bennett's play is not so far from the reality of Carpenter's ebullient personality as might have been thought from the thorough-to-the-point-of-sober-sidedness nature of (at least) his scholarly books. Who knows? Certainly I don't.

There's room, I would have thought, for a life of Carpenter himself. He must have been a fascinating, many-sided man. Some at least of his biographies can never be superseded, given their priority in setting the terms of the discourse on such authors as Tolkien and Auden. Some of the others (the Pound, the Waugh, for instance) are already receding from view as a result of the ever-increasing outpouring of writing on certain mid-century literary figures.

The sheer range of his interests: not just literary but musical, not just theatrical but theological, too, may have perversely worked to his disadvantage. Only a reader interested in all of these things is likely to notice the solid work done by him in virtually all of the fields he touched.

Carpenter's life of Tolkien was read by all the Lord of the Rings obsessives in my family - which was most of us - the moment it appeared in 1977 (as a double-bill with the first edition of The Silmarillion). We hated it. The lack of empathy he seemed to show with his subject (whom he only actually met once) contrasted greatly with Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper's life of C. S. Lewis, which preceded it by three years.

Over time, though, I came to appreciate the distanced, nuanced nature of Carpenter's approach to biography. he didn't really major on scandal, but he never ignored it, either. His pioneering life of Benjamin Britten, for instance, examines in detail all the sexual innuendos alleged against the composer at various points in his life (and afterwards) with admirable balance and finesse. He isn't so much concerned to make you like his subjects, as to understand them better.

Having a Humphrey Carpenter biography about you guarantees a certain standard of scholarly documentation and research. Far from the grotesque figure of fun of Bennett's play, he shines as a man of protean talents who applied them cannily to create a major and lasting body of work.

Humphrey Carpenter: The Inklings (1978)

Closer examination of his otherwise prodigious rate of production reveals certain recurrent patterns. There is, for instance, his tendency to produce at least two books rather than one from the same approximate area of research. His work on J. R. R. Tolkien (1977) led to a 1978 book on his circle of friends, the Inklings (C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, et al.) - as well as an edition of Tolkien's Letters (1981), co-edited with Christopher Tolkien. His 1981 biography of w. H. Auden must have helped immensely with his later work on Auden's early friend and collaborator Benjamin Britten a decade later, in 1992. His 1988 biography of Ezra Pound is closely shadowed by Geniuses Together (1987), a book on American writers in Paris in the 1920s.

Need I go on? Work on Spike Milligan also informs his work on British satire in the 1960s (not to mention the OUDS). Secret Gardens (1985), his book on classic children's writing, comes hot on the heels of his magisterial Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1984).

I guess that everyone works like that to some extent: one project motivating and informing the next. In aggregate, though, it does have the effect of making Carpenter seem like a kind of octopus, with a finger in every cultural pie.

Efficient workers work efficiently. It would be different if Carpenter had produced a series of slipshod, perfunctory, ill-researched books. In fact the opposite is the case. There's nothing belletristic in his approach to his craft. If anything, at times one could wish him to be a bit less self-effacing.

Humphrey Carpenter: Quotes

Tad Williams and the Rise of Epic Fantasy

Tad Williams: The Dragonbone Chair (1988)

I suppose that one advantage of the TV series Game of Thrones is that you no longer have to bother to try to explain to people what epic fantasy is.

George R. R. Martin: Game of Thrones World Map

Before that, only J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy could be said to have really broken through into popular culture, and - certainly before Peter Jackson's films - he was more the prototype and progenitor of the form than simply an example of it.

William Morris: The Roots of the Mountains (1890)

Of course, Tolkien himself would probably have pointed out how varied his sources actually were. William Morris is the principal one. Such prose romances as The House of the Wolfings (1889) and its sequel, The Roots of the Mountains (1890), gave Tolkien a good deal of his method and tone.

E. R. Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros (1926)

Then there was E. R. Eddison - The Worm Ouroboros (1926), above all. And, in a more relaxed and satirical vein, Lord Dunsany and James Branch Cabell.

Lord Dunsany: The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924)

There was a time in the late 80s and 90s when I read a great many such books (and found some unexpected fellow-fans, too: Prof. D. I. B. Smith of Auckland University's English Department, my erstwhile MA supervisor among them - my PhD supervisor Colin Manlove, too).

Colin Manlove: The Fantasy Literature of England (1999)

I never read much of Terry Pratchett or Stephen Donaldson, who were both loudly proclaimed - rather unfairly, in retrospect - as Tolkien's heirs in the 1970s (the former has enjoyed a bit of a revival of late with the very entertaining TV miniseries The Shannara Chronicles).

The Shannara Chronicles (2016)

So who did I read back then? Here are a few of their names:

• Louise Cooper (The Time Master Trilogy, 1986-1987.)




Louise Cooper: The Initiate (1986)



• Cecilia Dart-Thornton (The Bitterbynde Trilogy, 2001-2002)




Cecilia Dart-Thornton: The Ill-Made Mute (2001)



• Raymond E. Feist (The Riftworld Saga)




Raymond E. Feist: Magician (1982)



• Robert Holdstock (The Mythago Cycle, 4 vols: 1984-1998)




Robert Holdstock: Mythago Wood (1984)



• Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry, 3 vols: 1986-1988. )




Guy Gavriel Kay: The Summer Tree (1986)



• Patricia A. McKillip (The Riddle-Master Trilogy, 1976-1979)




Patricia A. McKillip: The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976)



• George R. R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, 5 vols: 1996-2011)




George R. R. Martin: A Game of Thrones (1996)



• Graham Dunstan Martin (The Soul Master, Time-Slip & The Dream Wall, 1984, 1986 & 1987)




Graham Dunstan Martin: The Soul Master (1984)



• Michael Scott Rohan (The Winter of the World Trilogy: 1986-1988)




Michael Scott Rohan: The Forge in the Forest (1987)



• Tad Williams (The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy: 1988-1993)




Tad Williams: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (1988-93)

Some of the examples in the list below include all of the principal, Tolkien-inherited ingredients: division into a trilogy; the presence of elves, dragons, and/or otherworldly creatures; a threat from some source of 'darkness' - generally in the North; a lost heir or 'chosen one' who has to set all to rights, possibly with the help of some ring, sword, or other talisman.

So far so banal. But then there are the exceptions: the genuinely original takes on the fantasy genre. Take Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood, for example. His basic notion of a wood that resists visitors is an excellent one, but combined with the discovery that (like the Tardis) this wood is bigger on the inside than the outside, and - in fact - has no effective limit in time or space, since it constitutes a kind of repository for the collective mythological memory of mankind, as far back as the last Ice Age, the working out of his story has a peculiar resonance and even symbolic truth to it.

Michael Scott Rohan takes the idea of the Ice Age more literally, and tries to recreate the vanished kingdoms of an era before the Mediterranean flooded, and when vast areas of land were laid bare by the glaciers.

Cecilia Dart-Thornton relies more on traditional ballads and folklore to shape her own narrative, while Patricia McKillip contributes a beautiful, Ursula Le Guin-like clarity to her storytelling. So, while some of the authors may be a bit perfunctory in their prose-style, it's hard to fault them for richness of invention.

Of course, any fan of the genre will immediately point out how outmoded the above list is. So many new series have appeared since the late 1990s, when I stopped even trying to keep on top of them, that I couldn't begin to discuss them even if I had the knowledge. Rest assured that the presses of the world have been busy adding to the total through all the intervening years.

So why concentrate on Tad Williams in particular, then? Not because he's so much better than the others - though he's probably the most long-winded among them (the cover of The Dragonbone Chair describes it as "the fantasy equivalent of War and Peace", and I think it's as much its length as its narrative ambition the reviewer must have had in mind).

I guess I've chosen to feature him:

1. because (pragmatically) he's one of the few fantasy writers I've actually made an effort to keep up with since I first starting reading him in the early 90s.
2. because (theoretically) I believe him to be the author who's tried hardest and most consistently to experiment with different levels and concepts of reality: from the celestial cyberpunk of the "Bobby Dollar" books to the copyrighted virtual reality domains of the "Otherworld" tetralogy.

The fact that, after all that, he's come back round to his starting-place, and is beginning yet another trilogy set in his Tolkien-esque kingdom of 'Osten Ard' also says something telling about the epic fantasy genre, however. Its fans are loyal and supportive - but they also tend to be resistant to change.

Unlike SF fans, who've got used to having all their expectations upset within the first few lines of each new story, Fantasy afficionados like to have horses, staffs, goblins, and elves - or some reasonable variant on same - crowd in to greet them pretty early on, regardless of how each author has chosen to account for their presence (creatures of a remote, post-nuclear-apocalypse future in Terry Pratchett; remnants of the ancient Germanic world in J. R. R. Tolkien).

Anyway, here's a reasonably comprehensive list of his thirty years of publications to date. By Tolkien's standards (at least), his protagonists do have a tendency to whine and demand instant attention to their peevish demands at inopportune moments (whether or not this represents a divergent Old World / New World set of cultural expectations I leave others to ponder). For the most part, though, he does have the ability to immerse his readers fully in a strangely believeable set of very particular fantasy worlds, and I suppose that's all one can really expect of a writer in this rather inflexible genre.

For myself, I'm a little sorry that he hasn't persevered with his virtual reality world Otherland, or even his Edwardian themed fairyland in The War of the Flowers, but with such a rate of production, it's fair to say that there are probably plenty of such departures from type to be expected from him yet!

The Shadowmarch series was a bit of a disappointment, it must be said: adding little to his earlier work on Osten Ard. The fact that he's now resumed that series - with what success it's a little early to say, though one has to salute his determination to make his evil adversaries as full of complex motivations as his "goodies". There's clearly life in the old genre yet, though of course I fully expect to be deluged by a set of suggestions for new such works and authors who have emerged over the past twenty years or so, whom I really must read in order to claim any currency at all. Bring it on!

•


Tad Williams (2007)

Robert Paul Williams (1957- )

1. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn:
   1. The Dragonbone Chair. 1988. Legend Books. London: Arrow Books Limited, 1990.
   2. Stone of Farewell. 1990. Legend Books. London: Arrow Books Limited, 1991.
   3. To Green Angel Tower. Legend Books. London: Random House Group, 1993.


2. Tailchaser's Song. 1985. Legend Books. London: Random Century Group, 1991.


3. [with Nina Kiriki Hoffman]: Child of an Ancient City. Legend Books. London: Century, 1992.


4. Caliban's Hour (1994)


5. Otherland:
   1. City of Golden Shadow. Legend Books. London: Random House UK Limited, 1996.
   2. River of Blue Fire. An Orbit Book. London: Little, Brown & Company (UK), 1998.
   3. Mountain of Black Glass. 1999. An Orbit Book. London: Little, Brown & Company (UK), 2000.
   4. Sea of Silver Light. 2001. An Orbit Book. London: Time Warner Books UK, 2002.


6. The War of the Flowers. An Orbit Book. London: Time Warner Books UK, 2003.


7. Shadowmarch:
   1. Shadowmarch. An Orbit Book. London: Time Warner Book Group UK, 2004.
   2. Shadowplay. Orbit Book. London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2007.
   3. Shadowrise. DAW Book Collectors No. 1500. New York: DAW Books, Inc., 2010.
   4. Shadowheart. An Orbit Book. London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2010.


8. Bobby Dollar:
   1. The Dirty Streets of Heaven. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2012.
   2. Happy Hour in Hell. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2013.
   3. Sleeping Late on Judgement Day. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2014.


9. Rite: Short Work. 2006. Burton, MI: Far Territories, 2008.


10. A Stark and Wormy Knight: Tales of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Suspense. Ed. Deborah Beale. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2012.


11. The Very Best of Tad Williams (2014)


12. The Last King of Osten Ard:
    1. The Heart of What Was Lost: A Novel of Osten Ard. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2017.
    2. The Witchwood Crown. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2017.

The Tolkien Industry

[Tolkien's Grave]

For quite some time now I've been meditating an essay on the literary estate of J. R. R. Tolkien. I don't know if I'll ever actually get round to it, though, so I thought I might just put a few of the highlights into a blog post instead.

There's a story (told by C. S. Lewis's literary executor, the egregious Rev - now Fr. - Walter Hooper) that Tolkien once remarked scoffingly to him that his friend Lewis had published almost twice as many books since his death as he'd managed to put out before it! I'm afraid that story rings a little hollow now. The dozen or so books that appeared before Tolkien's own death in 1973 have long since been dwarfed by the ones that have appeared (and continue to appear) ever since.

You don't believe me? Take a look at these two lists, then tell me if there's anything substantial that I'm missing:

Major works published during Tolkien's lifetime:

1. Tolkien, J. R. R., & E. V. Gordon, ed. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 1925. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.


2. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Illustrated by the Author. 1937. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975.


3. Tolkien, J. R. R. Farmer Giles of Ham. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. 1949. London & Boston: George Allen and Unwin & Houghton and Mifflin, 1973.


4. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring, Being the First Part of the Lord of the Rings. 1954. London & Boston: George Allen and Unwin & Houghton Mifflin, 1961.


5. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Two Towers, Being the Second Part of the Lord of the Rings. 1954. London & Boston: George Allen and Unwin & Houghton Mifflin, 1961.


6. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Return of the King, Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings. 1955. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957.


7. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. 1954, 1954, 1955. Revised 2nd edition. 1966. London: HarperCollins, 2001.


8. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other verses from the Red Book. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. 1961. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974.


9. Tolkien, J. R. R. Tree and Leaf [incorporating the story "Leaf by Niggle" (1947) and the essay "On Fairy-stories" (1939)]. 1964. London: Unwin Books, 1973.


10. Tolkien, J. R. R. “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” In The Tolkien Reader. 1949, 1953, 1962, 1964. Cover illustration by Pauline Baynes. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966.


11. Tolkien, J. R. R. Smith of Wootton Major. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. 1967. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974.


12. Tolkien, J. R. R., & Donald Swann. The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle. Decorations by J. R. R. Tolkien. 1968. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1974.

[J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)]

I haven't included any of his prefaces to other people's editions & translations of Old English texts, or his separate periodical publications, but otherwise that should be a reasonably comprehensive list (I've put in details of my own copy of each book after the original date of publication).

Major works published posthumously:

1. Tolkien, J. R. R., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; Sir Orfeo. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. 1975. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1981.


2. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Father Christmas Letters. Ed Baillie Tolkien. 1976. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1978.


3. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977.


4. Tolkien, J. R. R. Pictures. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979.


5. Tolkien, J. R. R. Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. 1980. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.


6. Tolkien, J. R. R. Letters. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter & Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.


7. Tolkien, J. R. R. Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode. Ed. Alan Bliss. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982.


8. Tolkien, J. R. R. Mr. Bliss. London: George Allen & Unwin Paperbacks, 1982.


9. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.


10. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth. 12 vols. London & Boston, 1983-96:
    
    1. The Book of Lost Tales, Part One. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.
    2. The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.
    3. The Lays of Beleriand. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
    4. The Shaping of Middle-earth: The Quenta, the Ambarkanta and the Annals together with the earliest ‘Silmarillion’and the first Map. London: Guild Publishing, 1986.
    5. The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend before ‘The Lord of the Rings’. London: Unwin Hyman, 1987.
    6. The Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part One. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
    7. The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Two. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
    8. The War of the Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Three. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
    9. Sauron Defeated: The End of the Third Age (The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Four); The Notion Club Papers and The Drowning of Anadûnê. London: HarperCollins, 1992.
    10. Morgoth’s Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One, The Legends of Aman. London: HarperCollins, 1993.
    11. The War of the Jewels: The Later Silmarillion, Part One, The Legends of Beleriand. London: HarperCollins, 1994.
    12. The Peoples of Middle-earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.


11. Tolkien, J. R. R.. The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. 1937. Ed. Douglas A. Anderson. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.


12. Tolkien, J. R. R. Tree and Leaf. 1964. Second edition, including the poem ‘Mythopoeia’. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1988.


13. Tolkien, J. R. R. Bilbo’s Last Song. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.


14. Tolkien, J. R. R. Roverandom. Ed. Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond. London: HarperCollins, 1995.


15. Tolkien, J. R. R. Narn I Chîn Húrin: The Tale of the Children of Húrin. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated by Alan Lee. London: HarperCollins, 2007.


16. John D. Rateliff. The History of The Hobbit. 2 vols. London & Boston, 2007:
    
    1. Part One: Mr. Baggins. 2007. London: HarperCollins, 2008.
    2. Part Two: Return to Bag-End. 2007. London: HarperCollins, 2008.


17. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 2009.

[J. R. R. Tolkien: The Children of Hurin, ed. Christopher Tolkien (2007)]

Now don't get me wrong. The last thing I want is to be a wowser about what is, in essence, harmless fun. The very fact that I have first editions of most of these books should tell you that I bought them the moment they came out. What's more, I've read them all pretty attentively (with the exception of the last one listed above, which I'm working my way through right now). I am, in short, as big a Tolkienophile as you're likely to find.

That mention of "first editions" brings me to the first part of my gripe, though. By all means get Tolkien's unpublished work out into the public domain, but does it have to be done quite so slowly, and with quite such maniacal academic attention to manuscripts and warring textual traditions? He has been dead for 36 years , after all. Why don't we (yet) have accessible editions of long poems such as "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun" (1945) or "Imram" (1955), published in periodicals during his lifetime? Why is the (fascinating) “Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son” relegated to old paperbacks such as the Ballantine (US) Tolkien Reader (1966), or the combined Unwin (UK) reprint of Tree and Leaf & Smith of Wootton Major together with other miscellanea (1975)?

These things take time. I quite see that. And Christopher Tolkien, the main actor in the drama of Tolkien's "posthumous productivity," was himself a teacher of Old English and Old Norse at Oxford before he retired to take on the editing of his father's archives fulltime. It's a positively Victorian tale of filial devotion and of following in one's father's footsteps. Or is it? More on that subject later.

I guess it's the plethora of "second, expanded editions" which really bugs me most. There's now a second, expanded edition [s.e.e. for short] of The Silmarillion (1977 / 1992), an s.e.e. of the Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien (1979 / transformed into J.R.R.Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, ed. Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (1995)), an s.e.e. of the Letters (1981 / 2000), an s.e.e. of Tree and Leaf (1964 / 1988) [not to mention a special annotated reprint of all the variant versions of the essay "on Fairy-stories" edited by a couple of American academics (2008)], an s.e.e. of The Annotated Hobbit (ed. Douglas A. Anderson, 1988 / 2002), even - for the love of Mike - an s.e.e. of the infantile (but entertaining) Father Christmas Letters (1976 /2004) ! Not to mention a special facsimile edition of the children's picture book Mr. Bliss (1982 / 2007). What's a poor collector to do? A poor completist collector, that is.

But then maybe collectors don't deserve any special attention. Maybe they ought to be taunted with endless variant versions of the same basic cycle of works. That may very well be. But the trouble is that many of these s.e.e.'s contain vital extra information which greatly influences one's reading of the texts themselves.

Of course it's a traditional publisher's ploy to multiply "revised" and "definitive" editions in this way in order to renew the copyright on works which would otherwise gradually fall away from notice. And in the case of an author with as many die-hard fans as Tolkien, this is clearly a multi-million dollar undertaking. But I can't help feeling that it shows a certain lack of consideration for readers, which is part and parcel of the second section of my complaint.

I suppose I'm also a natural inhabitant of the fantasy world of absurdly complicated and circumstantial annotations and elucidations of essentially frivolous popular texts. Sherlock Holmes is , of course, the classic case. Ever since Fr. Ronald Knox invented what he referred to as the "higher criticism" - writing essays about the Holmes canon which assumed as a basic convention the actual existence of its central characters, and the subordinate role of Arthur Conan Doyle as Dr. Watson's literary agent - a great many people have found a good deal of entertainment in exploring such dilemmas as the "two (or three) Watsons" problem (originating from the fact that Watson's first name seems to shift from John H. to James Watson as the canon unfolds).

Perhaps (as someone else suggested) the latter name was Mrs Watson's pet-name version of "Hamish," one of the possible candidates for the good doctor's middle name ... But then there's the question of how many wives Dr. Watson actually had? Or the heraldry and antecedents of the name "Holmes"? Or exactly which continents are included in Watson's boast of "an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents" ...? You get the general idea. The Bible of these maniacal speculators is the monumental Annotated Sherlock Holmes (arranged in an eccentric "chronological order" of his own devising) of the late lamented William S. Baring Gould (1967).

[The Annotated Sherlock Holmes]

Now Holmesian (UK) - or "Sherlockian" (US) - "higher criticism" is an essentially tongue-in-cheek affair, conducted by learned, but frivolous-minded sages such as Christopher Morley, Dorothy L. Sayers and Vincent Starrett (for more, far more, see the wikipedia article on Holmesian speculation). The original impulse was, presumably, to parody the ponderous Germanic Biblical criticism of the nineteenth century, with its love of multiple authors, contaminated textual traditions, and teasing remnants of ancient solar myths behind the superficial trapperies of the Yahweh cult.

Tolkien criticism has, it seems to me, taken another, darker path. The fact that Tolkien was himself a professor of Anglo-Saxon, and loved to mix in elements (particularly linguistic ones) from his professional field, has led to a mass of learned (and pseudo-learned) commentary on the intricate relationships between the two.

So far so good. Old English scholars such as Tom Shippey, in his excellent The Road to Middle-Earth (1982) and subsequent related works, has illuminated Tolkien's practice in this respect with a certain restrained aplomb.

But when it comes to treating Tolkien's own works as a kind of holy writ, requiring endless revision and recasting to fit ever more recondite revelations about the topography and chronology of his imagined Dreamland, I fear that the same could not be claimed of compilations such as Christopher Tolkien's monumental (and monumentally frustrating) 12-volume History of Middle-earth (1983-96). Here all proportion has been lost. Speculations worthy of the fantasy-world of Sherlock Holmesian higher criticism are woven into the actual detail of the evolution of a group of revoltingly-cloying Edwardian fairy tales (The Book of Lost Tales) into the ever-vaster heroic canvas of the unfinished (and unfinishable?) Silmarillion, issued in a clipped and stilted version shortly after its author's death by Christopher himself.

Christopher's own saga, developing in his father's image from a downtrodden and disillusioned soldier in World War II (his father, a veteran of the trenches of the First World War, claimed in a letter that he might best regard himself as a "hobbit among the Uruk-hai"), to a professional scholar in his father's own discipline of Germanic philology, to an accomplished translator (the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise (1960): a work of deep erudition and poetic value in its own right), to a fierce guardian of his father's literary legacy (and an influential critic of Peter jackson's films), deserves retelling on a larger scale sometime. He is clearly a man of great talent, and considerable scholarly expertise. I would say that his work on editing the manuscript versions of The Lord of the Rings (in particular) might be thought to justify that immense 12-volume history by itself. It's certainly (by far) the most interesting section to read. But it does constitute only three and a bit volumes of the whole tottering edifice.

His most noticeable legacy, unfortunately, seems to be a ragtag and bobtail (to use a Tolkienian term) of mostly American scholars who specialise in ever more recondite and fatuous explorations of the implications of the papers and manuscripts which Tolkien himself sold them so long ago. Is a two-volume History of the Hobbit really necessary, for instance? Especially on top of Douglas A. Anderson's magnificently-illustrated (and basically light-hearted) Annotated Hobbit of 1988 [s.e.e. 2002]?

[John D. Rateliff: The History of the Hobbit (2007)]

The History of the Hobbit is fun to read, mind you. I enjoyed it greatly. But it's not as much fun as it should be. Because it's 900 pages long. Because it's immensely repetitive and overly detailed on points of no consequence. Because its author, John D. Rateliff, has no sense of proportion. Because its publishers know that anything with Tolkien's name on the spine will sell in gazillions (take the recent reprint of parts of Unfinished tales under the stand-alone title of The Tale of the Children of Húrin, for instance). Rateliff, alas, is no Christopher Tolkien.

In summary, then, I think the Tolkien industry began pretty well, with solid editions of his principal unpublished works, and handsome new reprints of the others. Right now, though, it threatens to be swallowed up by its own insane momentum, a victim of its own success. The Holmesian "higher criticism", too, had its rise and fall. There have been few worthy successors to such masterworks as Starrett's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933), or Baring Gould's Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective (1962) or even such jeux d'esprits as Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution (1974).

Why do we no longer see works of the calibre of Barbara Strachey's delightful Journeys of Frodo: An Atlas of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1981), or Karen Fonstadt's Atlas of Middle-earth (1981 / s.e.e. 2001), in the (potentially) far less circumscribed (one would have thought) field of Tolkienian "higher criticism"? There are certainly exceptions. John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (2003) was a valuable successor to Humphrey Carpenter's 1977 biography and its even more interesting sequel The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends (1978). For the most part, though, what we tend to see now are compendiums of essays by ghastly Academic second-raters, dictionaries and grammars of Tolkien's various made-up languages, and other ever more po-faced and dreary reponses to the simple delights of Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

I remember my PhD supervisor at Edinburgh, Mr. Colin Manlove, author of a number of critical books on Modern Fantasy, remarking of the appearance of yet another volume of posthumous gleanings in the (then) seemingly-interminable History of Middle-earth, that he was beginning to wonder if they were coming through from spirit messages. At the time I suspected he was just too lazy to read any of them, but as the years go by and the works keep on mounting up, I begin to wonder if he didn't have a point.

This is, I have to say, starting to resemble more and more a publisher's production-line (the shady kind who commission obscure hacks to produce works "in the manner of" V. C. Andrews or Alistair Maclean) rather than a bona-fide attempt to do justice to J. R. R. Tolkien's admittedly impressive literary productivity.

I'm reminded of some remarks made by the young Henry James, in an 1872 review of a volume of Nathaniel Hawthorne's French and Italian Note-Books, edited by his own son (and literary executor) Julian:

Mr. Hawthorne is having a posthumous productivity almost as active as that of his lifetime. Six volumes have been compounded from his private journals, an unfinished romance is doing duty as a “serial,” and a number of his letters, with other personal memorials, have been given to the world. These liberal excisions from the privacy of so reserved and shade-seeking a genius suggest forcibly the general question of the proper limits of curiosity as to that passive personality of an artist of which the elements are scattered in portfolios and table-drawers. It is becoming very plain, however, that whatever the proper limits may be, the actual limits will be fixed only by a total exhaustion of matter.

[Henry James, Literary Criticism: Essays on Literature, American Writers, English Writers, ed. Leon Edel and Mark Wilson (New York: The Library of America, 1984) 307.]

With a few minor variations, the same passage might serve equally well to characterise the even more impressive “posthumous productivity” of the almost-comparably "reserved and shade-seeking genius" J. R. R. Tolkien.

James, characteristically, saw the issue as centring on the proper limits of curiosity about the private life of an artist - a theme treated in more depth in stories such as “The Aspern Papers” (1888) or "The Private Life" (1891). As he went on to remark, the principal result of Hawthorne's executor's filial labours has been that “critics, psychologists, and gossip-mongers” have been left free to “glean amid the stubble.” Is that what Hawthorne (or Tolkien) would really have wanted? Almost certainly not.

Many of his contemporaries were deeply shocked to read what the comparatively short-lived Hawthorne had had to say about them in what he must have regarded as the safe repository of his private journal. The revelations in Tolkien's papers are not of so scandalous an order, but there can be little doubt that many reams of indifferent verse would have been consigned to the fire if he'd known they'd eventually be coming out in immense annotated editions, with their imperfections made glaringly and cringe-makingly apparent.

What's certain is that, "whatever the proper limits may be, the actual limits will be fixed only by a total exhaustion of matter." Not even the death of Christopher can halt it now. His father's legacy has long since fallen into the burning cancerous hands of the Adversary [the professional Anglo-American Academic establishment], and from that dark Mordor there is, I fear, no escape.

All we can do (I suppose) is welcome any light that has been cast on the works written in his lifetime, and try and draw a decent veil over any that should really never have seen the light of day.

[Christopher Tolkien (b.1924)]