Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

It seems that the readings & opinions of certain individuals (the Tolkien 'literati') have decided that the text we had was wrong & have taken it upon themselves to amend it.

But in many cases the text we had was, quite plainly, wrong. I have not seen the new edition, but I understand a great many of the changes were simple and demonstratable errors - such as "ten miles" vs. "twenty miles". And while some the changes may be questionable - as with "do" vs. "need" - they were made, as far as I know, only when there was some apparent error. The omission of "need" was a mere error.

CT mentions that Tolkien was reluctant to make certain changes in the storyline of some of the early draft versions because 'Chris liked' the events in them.

It's hardly a crime for an author to alter his work in response to a reader's criticism! I do not see how one could blame Christopher for giving his father honest appraisals of his work.

What we seem to have among a number of Tolkien 'experts' is a decision to accept CT's opinions on the texts published during Tolkien's lifetime & a willingness to amend those texts, even to the extent of (in my opinion, at least - & for whatever that's worth) changing the meaning of a character's statements.

With the express and well-documented goal of correcting errors in the meaning of those statements, yes. It is not as though Christopher simply thought that "need" is better; as I argued before, I think that it is most likely that Tolkien did not reject "need" and that the alteration was due only to Christopher's copying error.

One thing occurs - if it is permissible to make the change from 'do not' to 'need not' to 'improve' the meaning, what about other words - like 'queer' or 'gay' which have altered their meaning radically since Tolkien's death - 'queer' could be altered to 'strange', 'gay' to 'joyous' with less of an effect than 'do' to 'need'.

Surely you jest! That sort of change is altogether different from what Christopher has undertaken. To suggest that Christopher is merely trying to "improve" the meaning or that he would even contemplate such a change as "queer" to "strange" seems to me to be doing him a great disservice. On the contrary - his goal is clealy (whatever you may think of the particulars of his analysis) to present the text as it was intended by his father.