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If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 24th, 2005, 3:19 pm
by A#minor
I was just thinking about how cool it must have been for him as a child listening to his dad reading Hobbit chapters, and sending Father Christmas letters to the kids. And then when he was older he went to Inkling meetings and read each new LOTR chapter as it was written to the guys. I mean, to sit in the same room with the Lewis brothers, Tolkien, Charles Williams, and all those guys and listen to them talk and even join in their conversations! What greater bliss could there be?
You know they liked Christopher too. They loved for him to read "the new Hobbit" , as they called LOTR before it had a title, b/c J.R.R.Tolkien mumbled so badly.[/i]

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 24th, 2005, 11:00 pm
by Adam Linton

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 24th, 2005, 11:16 pm
by CorShasta

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 25th, 2005, 12:33 pm
by Bill

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 25th, 2005, 2:29 pm
by A#minor

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 25th, 2005, 9:36 pm
by CorShasta

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 25th, 2005, 9:45 pm
by Bill

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 27th, 2005, 2:20 am
by A#minor

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 27th, 2005, 5:00 pm
by Leslie

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: July 27th, 2005, 11:37 pm
by A#minor

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: April 6th, 2009, 9:42 pm
by Lirenel

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: April 7th, 2009, 7:40 am
by galion
I have to say that Tolkien was a major and hard-working scholar, with by the standards of his day a fairly repectable publication record. And what he may have lacked in quantity he more than made up for in quality. His "Beowulf" lecture had a major effect on the study of Old English literature and language, and other publications over a wide range (such as his paper on the Celtic god-name name "Nodens" for the archaeological excavations at Lydney, or his paper on "English and Welsh") were also very important in their fields. He was indeed as Lewis put it, "that great but dilatory man" - getting material out of him within a year of copy-date was like pulling dinosaur's teeth - but note that as well as "dilatory" he was "great".

As for "boring": from the age of about 27 his life was no more boring than the life of anybody else with a full-time job and a family of four children. Before that age his life was more "interesting" than most people would like. For example, his experience in the war had a major effect on his life (and his fiction!).

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: April 9th, 2009, 2:30 am
by rusmeister

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: April 9th, 2009, 7:42 am
by galion
As regards Christopher, I have only met him in person very briefly, but I have corresponded with him over a number of years. My impression is that he does tend to shun publicity, but is far from an unfriendly man, albeit somewhat reserved. He lives what I suppose some people might call a boring life, in a very pleasant house in moderately big grounds (though far from an estate, as some journalists have it) in deepest Provence, spending his time, when not working on the latest batch of Tolkieniana, in such rural pursuits as picking olives. I could live with that sort of boredom! He is less mobile now than he was a few years ago - not entirely surprising, since he's pushing 85.

Re: If you were Christopher Tolkien...

PostPosted: June 19th, 2009, 4:52 pm
by A#minor
Wow, galion! You actually know him?! Love your descriptive post about him. Now I have to go out and buy the latest Tolkien book he's edited for us. :)