The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (50 page)

8 April 1958

Since I had the remarkable, and in the event extremely enjoyable, experience in Holland by the generosity of ‘A. and U.', I think some kind of report would be proper. I have had time to simmer down a bit, and recover some sense of proportion. The incense was thick and very heady; and the kindness overwhelming. My journey was very comfortable, and the reservations magnificent: the outward boat was packed, and the train from L[iverpool] Street went in two parts. I arrived in cold mist and drizzle, but by the time I had found my way to Rotterdam the sun was shining, and it remained so for two days. Ouboter of V[oorhoeve] and D[ietrich] was waving a
Lord of the Rings
and so easy to pick out of the crowd, but I did not fit his expectations, as he confessed (after dinner); my ‘build-up' by letter had been too successful, and he was looking for something much smaller and more shy and hobbit-like.

(I thought he was charming and intelligent; but he was still a little upset about the hilarity caused by ‘maggot-soup' on the Menu. It was, of course, mushroom soup; but he said he would not have chosen the name if he had known ‘all the names of the English vermins'.) I met a representative of
Het Spectrum
,
¹
and saw a good deal of the depressing world of ruined and half-rebuilt Rotterdam. I think it is largely the breach between this comfortless world, with its gigantic and largely dehumanised reconstruction, and the natural and ancestral tastes of the Dutch, that has (as it seems) made them, in R[otterdam] especially, almost intoxicated with
hobbits
! It was almost entirely of hobbits that they spoke.

At 5.30 on Friday I faced quite a large concourse in an assembly hall. Apparently over 200 (largely ordinary people) had paid to be present, and many had been turned away. Professor Harting
²
was even more astonished than I was. The dinner was certainly ‘abundant and
prolonged': the latter, because the speeches were interleaved between the courses. In the event they were all in English; and all but one quite sensible (if one deducts the high pitch of the eulogy, which was rather embarrassing). The exception was a lunatic
phycholog
, but the able chairman held him to five minutes. My final reply was I hope adequate, and was I believe audible; but I need not dwell on it. It was partly a parody of Bilbo's speech in Chapter I.
³

In this home of ‘smoking',
pipe-weed
seems specially to have caught on. There were clay pipes on the table and large jars of tobacco – provided, I believe, by the firm of Van Rossem. The walls were decorated with Van Rossem posters over-printed Pipe-weed for Hobbits: In 3 qualities:
Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and Southern Star
. V. Rossem has since sent me pipes and tobacco! I carried off one of the posters. You might like to see it. . . . .

I cannot thank you enough for providing me with this short but memorable expedition – the only one I am likely to get after all out of my ‘leave' – and for gently pressing me to go.

8 April 1958

Zimmerman – ‘Story-Line'

Of course, I will get busy on this at once, now that Easter is over, and the Dutch incense is dissipated. Thank you for the copy of the
Story-line
, which I will go through again.

I am entirely ignorant of the process of producing an ‘animated picture' from a book, and of the jargon connected with it. Could you let me know exactly what is a ‘story-line', and its function in the process?

It is not necessary (or advisable) for me to waste time on mere expressions if these are simply directions to picture-producers. But this document, as it stands, is sufficient to give me grave anxiety about the actual
dialogue
that (I suppose) will be used. I should say Zimmerman, the constructor of this s-l, is quite incapable of excerpting or adapting the ‘spoken words' of the book. He is hasty, insensitive, and impertinent.

He does not
read
books. It seems to me evident that he has skimmed through the L.R. at a great pace, and then constructed his s.l. from partly confused memories, and with the minimum of references back to the original. Thus he gets most of the names wrong in form – not occasionally by casual error but fixedly (always
Borimor
for
Boromir
); or he misapplies them:
Radagast
becomes an Eagle. The introduction of
characters and the indications of what they are to say have little or no reference to the book. Bombadil comes in with ‘a gentle laugh'!. . . .

I feel very unhappy about the extreme silliness and incompetence of Z and his complete lack of respect for the original (it seems wilfully wrong without discernible technical reasons at nearly every point). But I need, and shall soon need very much indeed, money, and I am conscious of your rights and interests; so that I shall endeavour to restrain myself, and avoid all avoidable offence. I will send you my remarks, particular and general, as soon as I can; and of course nothing will go to Ackerman
¹
except through you and with at least your assent.

10 April 1958

As for ‘message': I have none really, if by that is meant the conscious purpose in writing
The Lord of the Rings,
of preaching, or of delivering myself of a vision of truth specially revealed to me! I was primarily writing an exciting story in an atmosphere and background such as I find personally attractive. But in such a process inevitably one's own taste, ideas, and beliefs get taken up. Though it is only in reading the work myself (with criticisms in mind) that I become aware of the dominance of the theme of Death. (Not that there is any original ‘message' in that: most of human art & thought is similarly preoccupied.) But certainly Death is not an Enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the ‘message' was the hideous peril of confusing true ‘immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The
confusion
is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with a Ringwraith. The Elves call ‘death' the Gift of God (to Men). Their temptation is different: towards a fainéant melancholy, burdened with Memory, leading to an attempt to halt Time.

4 May 1958

These problems concerning the ‘original' meanings of words (or families of formally connected words) are fascinating: strictly – that is: alluring, but not necessarily by a wholesome attraction! I often wonder what use (except
historical
: knowledge or glimpses of what words
have
meant
and how they have changed in fact so far as ascertainable) we gain by such investigations. It is practically impossible to avoid the vicious circle of discovering from word-histories, or supposed histories, ‘primitive' meanings and associations, and then using these for tracing histories of meaning. Is it not possible to discuss the ‘meaning'
now
of ‘sanctity' (for instance) without reference to the history of the meaning of the word-forms now employed in that meaning? The other way round seems rather like describing a place (or stage in a journey) in terms of the different routes by which people have arrived there, though the place has a location and existence quite independent of these routes, direct or more circuitous.

In any case in an historical enquiry we are obliged to deal simultaneously with two variables each in motions that are independent fundamentally, even when affecting one another ‘accidentally': the meanings and associations of meaning are one, and the word-forms another, and their changes are independent. The word-form can go through a whole cycle of change, until it is phonetically unrecognizable without measurable change of meaning; and at any moment without any change in phonetics ‘the meaning' of a ‘word' may change. Quite suddenly
^fn63
(as far as the evidence goes)
yelp
which meant ‘to speak proudly', and was especially used of proud vows (such as a knight vowing to do some dangerous deed) stopped meaning that and became used of the noise of foxes or dogs! Why? At any rate,
not
because of any change in ideas about vaunts or animals! It is a long way from
ỏδντ
- to
tooth
, but the changes of form have not much affected the meaning (nor has
tine
the equivalent of
dent-
moved very far).
^fn64

We do not know the ‘original' meaning of any word, still less the meaning of its basic element (sc. the part it shares with or seems to share with other related words: once called its ‘root'): there is always a lost past. Thus we do not know the original meaning of
or
deus
or
god
. We can, of course, make some guesses about the formation of these three quite distinct words, and then try to generalize a basic meaning from the senses shown by their relatives –
but
I do not think we shall necessarily by that way get any nearer to the idea ‘god' at any actual moment in any language using one of these words. It is an odd fact that English
dizzy
(olim
dysig
) and
giddy
(olim
gydig
) seem related to
and
god
respectively. In English they once meant ‘irrational', and now ‘vertiginous', but that does not help much (except to cause us to reflect that there was a long past before
or
god
reached their forms or
senses and equally queer changes may have gone on in unrecorded ages). We may, of course, guess that we have a remote effect of primitive ideas of ‘inspiration' (to the 18th C[entury] an
enthusiast
was much what an Anglo-Saxon would have called a
dysiga
!). But that is not of much theological use?
We are faced by endless minute parallels to the mystery of incarnation.
Is not the idea of
god
ultimately independent of the ways by which a word for it has come to be?
^fn65
whether through
√dh(e) wes
(which
seems
to refer basically to stirring and excitement); or
√d(e) jew
(which
seems
to refer basically to brightness (esp. of the sky)); or possibly (it is a mere guess)
√ghew
cry, –
god
is originally neuter and is supposed to ‘mean'
that which is invoked:
an old past participle. Possibly a taboo-word. The old
deiwos
word (which produced
dīvus, deus
) survives only in
Tuesday
.
^fn66