How close is the published The Silmarillion to JRRT's Silmarillion?

[TheLostPilgrim]

I am just curious--

How close would you feel the published Silmarillion is to a version of it that JRRT would've published himself had he lived? Like, percentage wise I guess?

Would the father have approved of the son's work had he lived?

I remember reading that it was his express wish that Christopher publish The Silmarillion if he died before he could complete it--is this true, and if so, should we accept the 1977 Silmarillion as is, since the father wanted the son to work on it and put it out?

And finally, do you think JRRT would have even been ABLE to ever finish and publish The Simillarion or any version of it, even if he were immortal?

[Mithalwen]

Very hard to say. Yes JRRT wanted The Silmarillion published but I don't think at an emotional level he would he would have ever let it go..too much of a Niggle. I went to a readers' day last year and one of thecauthorsxwas asked about what happened to certain characters in her latest novel and would she wrire a sequel and she said that she thought x would happen, that she had hinted at and she had finished with the characters.

Now Christopher has admitted he made wrong choices...Gil-galad's parentage being notable and no doubt the process of producing home might have meant that a SilmArillion edited after that epic analysis and sifting might be closer to what Tolkien pere would have wanted but without the publication of the arguably flawed and incomplete Silmarillion we wouldn't have had the Unfinished Tales etc. I think I would rather have the vast wealth of maybes than a tiny number of certainties especially since with Tolkien the last version was not necessarily the definitive version. I often wonder if he had had a wordprocessor able to make changes without laborious retyping whether hecwould have got closer. I really doubt it..I think he would have just found more not to finish and we would have lost the audit trail of his creation.

[Alfirin]

I think we might have had even less than that if he had had that option. Since Tolkien always wanted to re-write the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings so that they would themselves be more like the Silmarillion I wonder if, had he had the option (as he might have had he released them under some of our current publication laws) he would have actually pulled further printing of the books until he could get around to writing the "correct" versions. And since, as you pointed out, he probably would NEVER have been content with the version he came up with we might have ended up with a world in which TH and LOTR were largely unknown with copies of the originals published before the "pull back" as rare books to be sought out by those with deep pockets and an interest in esoterica. This doesn't happen often but it does sometimes happen (one example I can think of from Chidren's literature was when Kay Thompson banned further publication of all her Eloise books except the first one and it wasn't until her rights expired and publication rights went to the illustrator a few years ago that they came out again.)

[Aganzir]

If Tolkien had lived to be 100, the Silmarillion would be vastly different. I believe the published Silmarillion is, despite some wrong choices, about as close to what the Professor himself would have published, had he been forced to do so. You have to make decisions, but Tolkien was too much of a perfectionist and too Niggle to give up his authorial power to change things.

I fully agree with Mith - I also prefer the vast amount of maybe to a few certainties. Besides it gives us more to discuss.

[Mithalwen]

Yes, as I meant to write after my ref to the other author that Tolkien had never finished with his characters, writing the quite complex and fascinating essaya on the battle of the Fords of Isen , woodwoses etc after the publication of LoTR while the only account of Tuor in Gondolin was ao earlythat it ccouldn't easily be integrated.

I suposw what we have is the reault of having a scholar as literary executor rather than a storyteller 'I don't mean that to sound perjorative - CRT haa taken an approach which has prioritised his father's original texts at the expense of simplistic storytelling. Someone else might have taken the bare bones of the tales and fleshed them out into what they thought was a good story and the films indicate what you can get when that approach happens.

So since I love the world over the stories I am glad we have what we have.

I didn't realise that about the publication laws and I can imagine that happening.

[Mornorngûr]

The published Sil may not be exactly how J.R.R would have done it himself, and yes there are flaws, but Christopher did the best that he could do to try and carry out his fathers wishes and designs.

I believe the biggest errors in regards to any of Tolkien's works, are the movies by Peter Jackson.

I wish the film rights were never sold.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

Tolkien always wanted to re-write the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings so that they would themselves be more like the Silmarillion

That's not entirely true. He was actually much more focused on re-writing the Silmarillion material to match The Lord of the Rings rather than the other way around. As far as I know, he had no plans to extensively revise The Lord of the Rings - he did make a few minor changes for the second edition, and if he had lived longer, it's possible that further small changes would have been made; but during his lifetime he did not contemplate major changes (or at least, left no record of such contemplation).

He did at one point intend to completely re-write The Hobbit, and he wrote a few chapters of the revision, which were published in Rateliff's The History of the Hobbit. But in the end he decided against such a major revision, and instead made only minor changes subsequently.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Mornorngûr

The published Sil may not be exactly how J.R.R would have done it himself, and yes there are flaws, but Christopher did the best that he could do to try and carry out his fathers wishes and designs.

I believe the biggest errors in regards to any of Tolkien's works, are the movies by Peter Jackson.

I wish the film rights were never sold.

Unfortunately the Tax regime at the time meant that Tolkien was liable for a tax rate of up to 136% on accruals basis..ie that he might have to pay over a third over what he had actually earnt before he received the cash due to a surcharge and supertax. Sadly at that point he probably really did need the cash.