Chris’s comments on Online Oxonmoot, and editing issues

It was a very draining weekend as there were so many talks of interest. In addition I still want to catch up with some I missed as we were out on a Ramblers walk and got back too late for the opening speeches on Friday and did not have the energy to stay up to 1:30 in the morning on Saturday night to hear the talks after the masquarade.

Obviously Ian was the highlight for our Group especially as he had a backdrop of the Central Library. Talks I enjoyed included Maria Zielenbach’s one on the Semitic connection with Tolkien’s invented languages, Brigitte Bremerkamp’s one on swords, and Sara Brown’s one on The Ring of Power. Len Sanford’s art show was as entertaining as ever and I really enjoyed An Evening with Hammond and Scull – especially how they got together and their connections to Christopher Tolkien. It’s a shame they couldn’t do their zoom chat from their Tolkien Library room which had 40,000 books. The masquerade was excellent given the difficulty in putting it all together.

Sunday was another fruitful day with a very interesting talk on the Significance of the Edifice in the LotR, followed by Enrico Spadaro’s one on the role of advisors. Although Paul Godfrey had done a session at Birmingham I had unfortunately missed it so I was really overwhelmed listening to the way he composed his opera/music for the Silmarillion and listening to the excerpts . Nestorov’s Authoritative Poetry talk was equally fascinating as was Sultana Raza’s analysis of Alan Lee’s art. Julieta Elizaga’s talk on Archetypes in Tolkien’s works was also interesting especially as it had mention of Gollum.

Once again the majority of speakers were from abroad nearly all with excellent English. When you listened to the opening chat of each session where they described what they were doing it was clear that literary and linguistic studies seemed common in their countries. Is it, therefore, a surprise that a lot of significant research is taking place elsewhere?

My pet hate about the event was the number of childish comments that kept appearing in the chat box which distracted from the talk. Fair enough adding information or serious comments but many were remarks such as LOL.

I personally think it might have been a good idea to correct a few glaring errors in Eileen’s comments, such as stating that all the Fellowship are Elves, as the blog can be seen by other Tolkien enthusiasts who might then question the quality of our discussions. However her points are very interesting.

Lynn’s comments on Oxonmoot Online, and editing decisions

24.9.20

This is a two-part post. The first is about Oxonmoot, and Chris’s more detailed comments are about to be posted. They should appear above this on the ‘page’. More comments on the online experience will be welcome.

The second part explains why I chose not to refer Eileen’s recent comments back to her for revision in spite of the obvious problem. So if you have been concerned that we can’t tell our hobbits from our Elves, I have an explanation and will await further comments on whether you think I was also in error. And so to Oxonmoot Online.

I was late booking for the event because I was anxious about using Zoom, and even more anxious about my dodgy internet connection. However, the opportunity to be present this time when Ian gave his talk was too good to miss. His presentation on Tolkien and Trwyn Llanbedrog was fluent, engaging, well illustrated with relevant material, and from the Chat I saw, it was catching people’s interest. If all the papers I ‘attended’ had been as good and well presented my overall impression would be happier, given that all the speakers were labouring under the same difficulties. Patchy quality is not uncommon at conferences, but the quality of some research was clearly poor and the resulting presentations came across to me as somewhat indulgent. However, of the sessions I attended, the majority were good or very good.

The Zoom experience was new to me but I have to say I was impressed by how well it had been set up. All the technical and stewarding participants made it much less stressful than I expected, and I’d personally be hoping for some kind of similar access even after the current emergency. Of course, it’s not the same as being able to wander off for a coffee with someone you’ve just met who shares your passion for a particular topic, but oddly, I found in the days leading up to last weekend that I was getting the old conference excitement at the thought of being able to join in again. Having shared my enthusiasm with a friend in California, I think she would join any similar Oxonmoot in the future, so it’s a wonderful way of including people.

And that was Oxonmoot for me this year. There was much more going on but as you’ll see from Chris’s comments, it was easy to overdo the fun!

And now to the editorial bit:

If you have read Eileen’s remarks on LotR you’ll have seen that she constantly refers to all the characters as Elves. When I read this it posed a real editorial problem, should the piece be sent back for revision in the usual way, pointing out the error? Or should the work be left as it is because it illustrates Eileen’s perception of the characters? If the group had been meeting face-to-face this problem would not have occurred because we’d all just have corrected any misperception as it arose, but of course Eileen has been re-reading LotR on her own and the error made me wonder whether in fact it is all to easy to mistake some of the non-Elvish characters for Elves based on their interactions and their behaviour? Indeed, we know the ‘rumours’ about there being something ‘elvish’ about Frodo, and in an environment where characters are racially indistinct – like Bombadil, and Bill Ferny – and show cross-cultural influences, like Faramir and Gandalf, do we rely too much on narratorial assertions of race which might be qualified by more attention to the behaviour of characters?

Maybe I’m over-complicating the situation, but I thought leaving Eileen’s piece as it was offered us all a chance to consider this matter. Please comment as you see fit!

From Eileen, for the ‘last meeting’ in September

Comments in response to Lynn’s on Gaudy Night

Spurred on by your interesting, and times infuriating comments re Gaudy Night—I mean of course infuriating in the novel-I decided to comment on what I perceived to be Tolkien’s portrayal of a few women in his novel The Lord of the Rings – and to reveal a contrast between Sayer’s distasteful portrayal, and that of Tolkien.

Take for example the portrayal of Galadriel, Lady of Lothlorien, who welcomed the exhausted Elves into their magnificent halls,where they were able to spend time to themselves, but they were also given gifts, sensitive to each elf, but also directions, and advice that was to prove to be invaluable on their dangerous journey. Though they both helped the elves, Galadriel comes across as the driving forces, supported by Celeborn, her warrior-husband and the Lord of Lothlorien.

I was touched by the fact that these gifts given by Galadriel were so sensitive to the needs of the different elves, to Aragon, a sheath, hair to Gimlii, a bow and arrow to Legolas, belts to Merry and Pippin, and a box for Sam—these were to prove invaluable throughout their ardous journey. This seems to me to suggest a ‘feminine touch’. Though possibly supported by Celeborn, Galadriel is an Independent woman, powerful, generous and possessing powers which will help the elves through their quest.

The other character that I focused on was Goldberry, who guided the Elves by her enchanting singing, and together with Tom Bombadil, welcomed them into Tom’s house. He also sang, and his singing would help the Elves out of danger at times. They were enchanted by Goldberry, and by their dwelling, where they were made very welcome. Interestingly, Goldberry referred to Tom as the master, and again I noted that together they cleared the table, after the Meal. So this is another portrayal of mutual respect and affection, while each pursued their own interests.

The final character I wish to touch on is Arwen, and of course that of Aragon. Arwen the Lady of Rivendale, was seen by Aragon walking in the woods, and she appeared to him as Lúthien, ‘clad in a mantle of silver and blue’. He had been singing a part of the ’Lay of Lúthien’, which tells of the meeting of Lúthien and Beren. This meeting was of great significance to Tolkien. The two young people fell in love, and despite opposition, eventually married (she had to become a mortal by choosing him). Here, Tolkien has portrayed the power of love, and the mutual respect each had for the other.

So Tolkien has portrayed women who are independent, in thought and deed, and whose husbands, or partners, are part of who they are so there is mutual respect, love, and each has independence.

Sayer’s book portrays women as inferior (the scouts), and maids—while the ‘real’ academics appear to give them support needed in the new environment they found themselves in. Support, guidance, and respect are what is needed by these young women—academic support. I’m appalled by the treatment meted out to these young women at university probably for the first time. I’m not surprised that Tolkien took a dislike to Gaudy Night. It is ironic that women treat their own sex in this way, while the great Tolkien portrays them as having respect, love, and generosity. They also were very intelligent, but all these qualities made us esteem them.

Lynn’s comments for the first ‘meeting’ in September

Please comment as you feel inclined on the following. This picks up and expands upon Chris’s earlier comments, and I realise it may be controversial!

Tolkien and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

In keeping with our current theme of looking at books that relate to Tolkien in various ways, I chose to investigate why Tolkien expressed such a profound dislike of Sayers’s Gaudy Night while approving of her earlier Peter Wimsey books (Letter 71). The conclusion I came to is that his reaction has nothing to do with the story as a crime novel, but a good deal to do with its setting and its reflection of social and academic change, although this was not the context in which he expressed his objections. So I will deal with the possible objections relating to academia first before looking at the context in which Tolkien expressed his dislike.

Initially, it is worth noting that Peter Wimsey plays a very small role in most of Gaudy Night, which is devoted to the character Harriet Vane. This means that Wimsey’s PTSD (‘shell shock’ in the context of the books), is entirely absent, so there is no shared frame of reference of the kind found in the wholly Wimsey novels, and beginning with its revelation in Whose Body. In fact, Gaudy Night is focussed on female characters, with men playing minor, or supporting roles.

This is definitely NOT to suggest that Tolkien had a misogynistic objection to this focus. The story is set in Oxford, at a fictional all-female college of the kind that had recently been accepted as part of the University. Much of the early part of the story describes the structure and practice of this college, its struggles against the patriarchal nature of the established male colleges and university institutions, and it builds up a picture of determined women providing education for young female students wanting to develop their minds.

It is unlikely that Tolkien was put off by the concept of educated intelligent women. The academic society of which he was a founder member, known as The Cave, promoted the reform of the English School and its curriculum and numbered women among its members, including Dorothy Whitelock the Anglo-Saxonist (Scull and Hammond, Companion and Guide: Chronology, p. 211). Besides his own family, he had also long been close enough to the scholar Elizabeth Wright to write to her of his own difficulties in 1922 and to help her when her husband died in 1944. (Ian will know more about this). Tolkien’s objection, if he had one to this aspect of Gaudy Night, may well have been that it misrepresented the support given by younger male academics to the development of the all-female colleges, and to female education generally.

The novel is, however, particularly strident in places about the struggles of a college for women to be accredited and to flourish. The ‘women’s place is in the home’ attitude is reviewed several times and contrasts with the tensions, academic and personal, of the inhabitants of the fictional college where the usual institutional structure is maintained. This means that the menial and domestic tasks are carried on there by female ‘scouts’ – maids – in other words. This creates a sharp distinction between female academics and students, and their female domestic servants, but housemaids were still employed in many houses, the Tolkien’s had at least one to help out. Nevertheless, this division of labour is the root of the attacks that begin during ‘Gaudy Night’, the college celebration.

The thesis behind the story is that in a specific instance, female education produces conditions in which an educated man’s career has been wrecked, causing his suicide and leaving his less educated wife to take a job as one of the ‘scouts’. Her diatribe at the end of the story is reminiscent in length (though not language) of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy at the end of Ulysses, but the scout’s soliloquy is a political statement on the evils of educating women thereby putting men out of work and undermining their self-worth. Her view is that women should be satisfied to look after their husbands and rear their children. It has nothing to do with equality.

It would be easy to read this as uncomfortably provocative for Tolkien whose own wife was talented and intelligent, but undertook the domestic role while he sloped off to the pub and dinners in college. If this aspect piqued his conscience it may have been because marriage and children inevitably at that time closed off other opportunities for women. Or he may have been Victorian and Catholic enough to accept that ‘inequality’ was part of the Divine Plan to be piously accepted while Sayers was being blasphemously subversive by aligning poverty, loss, and violent revenge with changes in the educational circumstances of women.

So far, this is my perception of possible contexts within the book and the society of the time. The contexts in Tolkien’s letter are, to me, more difficult to grasp. The letter is to Christopher in 1944 and the reference to Gaudy Night begins with Tolkien’s hope that his son will get leave in South Africa ‘Away from the lesser servants of Mordor’. He goes on to allow that ‘in real life they are on both sides’. His next comment opens up the understanding that there is no simple division of good and bad in the real world. He goes on:

‘it does make some difference who your captains are and whether they are orc-like per se! And what it is all about (or ought to be). It is even in this world possible to be (more or less) in the wrong or in the right. I could not stand Gaudy Night.’

If Tolkien was not a poet, with poetic sensibilities to language, the embedded rhyme here – right/Night – would probably go unnoticed, but inadvertent though it may have been consciously, his objection flows from, and is linked all the more closely by that rhyme, to his moral perception of right and wrong. Even in the real world of pragmatic compromise and corruption, the individual can still choose which ‘side’ to be on, but it seems that Tolkien perceives Gaudy Night to blur the lines or disregard the options for moral choice. Maybe this is simply because Harriet Vane had been living in sin before the crisis that brought her to Wimsey’s attention, and their eventual marriage subverted any sense of Wimsey being on the side of the angels. However, Tolkien’s condemnation of ‘The honeymoon one … I was sick’ suggests a deeply psychological reaction when it is expressed in these physical terms. Is it going too far to see in this a reflection of his aversion to CS Lewis’s friendship with Charles Williams, and his sense of loss when CSL got married?

Julie’s thoughts on Saruman

I was just thinking re. Charles Williams, he was a charismatic speaker to the extent that otherwise sensible people in the audience practically wanted to throw their underwear at him when he was speaking, but afterwards found it hard to remember what it was he had actually said. Has there been any commentary on whether Tolkien’s portrayal of Saruman might reflect this? He seems to have resented it when Williams rocked up to Oxford and instantly became CSL’s New Best Friend!