I have just started reading the Letters in the last week, and I'm thoroughly enjoying Tolkien's down-to-earth nature. It amazes me that he never thought his work to be good enough.
This gem is from Letter 17,To Stanley Unwin, 1937:
Quote:
I have received one postcard, alluding I suppose to the Times' review: containing just the words:
sic hobbitur ad astra
All the same I am a little perturbed. I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits. Mr Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature. But I have only too much to say, and much already written, about the world into which the hobbit intruded. You can, of course, see any of it, and say what you like about it, if and when you wish. I should rather like an opinion, other than that of Mrs C. S. Lewis and my children, whether it has any value in itself, or as a marketable commodity, apart from hobbits. But if it is true that The Hobbit has come to stay and more will be wanted, I will start the process of thought, and try to get some idea of a theme drawn from this material for treatment in a similar style and for a similar audience - possibly including actual hobbits. My daughter would like something on the Took family. One reader wants fuller details about Gandalf and the Necromancer. But that is too dark - much too much for Richard Hughes' snag. I am afraid that snag appears in everything; though actually the presence (even if only on the borders) of the terrible is, I believe, what gives this imagined world its verisimilitude. A safe fairy-land is untrue to all worlds. At the moment I am suffering like Mr Baggins from a touch of 'staggerment', and I hope I am not taking myself too seriously.
|
I will, of course, post more as I come across them.