The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

What Hacker News says

1. JachJan 2026
   It's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so be judged.

   I didn't have a particular letter in mind but the topic comes up at various places in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, especially in his remarks about sub-creation. I decided to ctrl-f my digital copy and I'll point you to Letter 213 for a direct remark. It's 3 paragraphs, here's the first:

   > I do not like giving 'facts' about myself other than 'dry' ones (which anyway are quite as relevant to my books as any other more Juicy details). Not simply for personal reasons; but also because I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author's works (if the works are in fact worthy of attention), and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'.

   I'm in agreement with Tolkien here.

   I wonder if you've ever read A Modest Proposal? If not: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm But if so I still wonder if you can put yourself in the frame of mind of not having read it and not knowing anything about it, and thus recreating an approximation for how you would read such a piece for the first time. What do you make of it? What do you make of Dr. Jonathan Swift? Do you have enough historical knowledge to put yourself in 1729 and interpret it as a person from that era, instead of our modern cynical and irony-poisoned one?

   Show morethread
2. stevekempMay 2024
   From "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien" we see what he agreed with his publishers:

   "Stanley & I have agreed on our policy : Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author's veto on objectionable features or alterations."

   It might have been interesting to see how Tolkien might have vetoed things, or demanded changes. We see from his letters how strongly he viewed many things.

   We also see at least one critique of a film-proposal - though off-hand I cannot remember who's film-script it was..

   Show morethread
3. p3rlsDec 2023
   Tolkien himself was unsure if we were in the 6th or 7th age

   ---

   I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'

   I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years : that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

   Source - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 211

   Show morethread
4. mavhcAug 2023
   "Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power."

   The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #186

   thread
5. eric_ccJul 2022
   Tolkien on Tom in Letter 144:

   I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. but if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war.

   The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 144: To Naomi Mitchison. April 1954

   Show morethread
6. sumnuyungiApr 2021
   "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."

   The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #142

   thread