I come to bury Christopher Tolkien, not to praise him

[marta_bee]

Christopher Tolkien, son of JRR Tolkien, is dead. Wes thu hal, sir, and Good Journey.

It feels a bit odd, almost sacrilegious, to follow that sentence with these next ones. A lot of fandoms divide over ships or adaptation-versus-original issues. Tolkien fandom, at a deep level, seems to draw the line over purity: how important it is to stay true

Comments

[lindahoyland]

I agree with your thoughts. We may not always have liked him but we owe him a great deal.

[shirebound]

Christopher the young man who went off to war and begged his father for more chapters by mail. Who helped pore over the maps. Who seems to have been both a support and a burr in the boot to getting JRRT to actually finish the damned thing.

Those things, and more, are in my heart as well. Thank you for this thoughtful post.

[ericadawn16]

Thank you so much!
I had a bit of an argument with a friend over his passing. She argued his treatment of scholars mattered more than fans. Naturally, I immediately thought of you and your multiple essays showcasing your hard work and dedication to Tolkien's work. Thank you for your honesty and perspective. It made me feel better about having a mixed reaction to his death.

[periantari]

I think he genuinely cared about bringing those stories into the public in a way his father would be proud of, or at least comfortable with. And while I wasn't always head-over-heels for the final product, man, one has to recognize and appreciate the effort!
I actually think that the most. He most certainly helped put a lot of his father's unpublished work into the light in which i am grateful. I also agree that he did not milk his father's work unlike some director we know (in the form of the Hobbit movies *cough*)

getting JRRT to actually finish the damned thing. Exactly- if not for him prodding his father over the twelve years that JRRT wrote for, we may not have even see LotR be completed! We owe it to Christopher, definitely!

I may try your real person fanfic since i am interested.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this major death... it is all over social media.

[marta_bee]

I've been involved in academic publishing as a grad student so I know something about the labor involved in it, and the price-point you need to break even on the publishing process. Something like "The Fall of Arthur" or "Farmer Giles of Ham" is actually ridiculously affordable. I would have bought it at the twice the price and not felt like I was being gouged. And the level of precision and care evident in those books, let alone the Arda-verse stories where he had to weave different drafts together? Very impressive.

All of that is my way of saying, whatever I think of the end-result, it's pretty clear to me his goal was to get his father's works read by the most people possible in the best condition possible, and that goal is something I can only think kindly of.

[dawn_felagund]

Marta, I loved this. We are putting together an article about Christopher for the next SWG newsletter; do you mind if I link it?

[marta_bee]

Yes, by all means link away. I'm touched you thought it was worth including, as I don't feel like I said anything overly profound, but certainly I'd appreciate the wider audience.