J. R. R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  Yet it was difficult to decide exactly where to start. In one sense there was very little to be done. The story of The Silmarillion itself was complete, if the term ‘story’ could be used of a work beginning with an account of the creation of the world and dealing in the main with the struggle between the elves and the prime power of evil. To produce a continuous narrative Tolkien merely had to decide which version of each chapter he should use, for there were by now many versions, dating from his earliest work in 1917 to some passages written in the last few years. But this involved so many decisions that he did not know where to start. And even if he managed to complete this part of the work, he would then have to ensure that the whole book was consistent with itself. Over the years he had by his various alterations and rewritings produced a massive confusion of detail. Characters’ names had been changed in one place and not in another. Topographical descriptions were disorganised and contradictory. Worst of all, the manuscripts themselves had proliferated, so that he was no longer certain which of them represented his latest thoughts on any particular passage. For security reasons he had in recent years made two copies of each typescript and had then kept each copy in a separate place. But he had never decided which was to be the working copy, and often he had amended each of them independently and in contradictory fashion. To produce a consistent and satisfactory text he would have to make a detailed collation of every manuscript, and the prospect of attempting this filled him with dismay.

  Besides this, he was still uncertain how the whole work should be presented. He was inclined to abandon the original framework, the introductory device of the seafarer to whom the stories were told. But did it perhaps need some other device of this kind? Or was it enough simply to present it as the mythology that appeared in a shadowy form in The Lord of the Rings? And on the subject of that other book, he had made his task even more complicated by introducing into it several important characters, such as the elven-queen Galadriel and the treeish Ents, who had not appeared in the original Silmarillion, but who now required some mention in it. By this time he had managed to find satisfactory solutions to these problems, but he knew that he would have to ensure that The Silmarillion harmonised in every single detail with The Lord of the Rings, or else he would be bombarded with letters pointing out the inconsistencies. And even given these daunting technical challenges, he was still not beyond reconsidering some fundamental aspect of the whole story, the alteration of which would have meant a complete rewriting from the beginning.

  By the summer of 1971, after three years at Bournemouth, he had begun to make progress, although as usual he was drawn aside to the consideration of detail rather than the planning of the whole. What form, he would wonder, should a particular name take? And then he would begin to contemplate a revision of some aspect of the elvish languages. Even when he did do some actual writing, it was not usually concerned with the revision of the narrative but with the huge mass of ancillary material that had now accumulated. Much of this material was in the form of essays on what might be called ‘technical’ aspects of the mythology, such as the relation between the ageing processes of elves and men, or the death of animals and plants in Middle-earth. He felt that every detail of his cosmos needed attention, whether or not the essays themselves would ever be published. Sub-creation had become a sufficiently rewarding pastime in itself, quite apart from the desire to see the work in print.

  Sometimes he would put in long hours at his desk, but on other days he would soon turn to a game of Patience and abandon any pretence of working. Then there might be a good lunch at the Miramar with plenty of wine, and if he did not feel like doing any work after it, why should he? They could wait for the book. He would take his time!

  Yet on other days he was distressed that time was leaking away so fast with the book still unfinished. And at the end of 1971 the Bournemouth episode came abruptly to a close. Edith, aged eighty-two, was taken ill in the middle of November with an inflamed gallbladder. She was removed to hospital, and after a few days of severe illness she died, early on Monday 29 November.

  CHAPTER III

  MERTON STREET

  After Tolkien had begun to recover from the first shock of Edith’s death, there was no question of his remaining in Bournemouth. Clearly he would come back to live in Oxford, but at first there was uncertainty about what arrangements could be made. Then Merton College invited him to become a resident honorary Fellow, and offered him a set of rooms in a college house in Merton Street, where a scout and his wife could look after him. This was a most unusual honour and the perfect solution. Tolkien accepted with the greatest enthusiasm, and after spending the intervening weeks with members of his family he moved into 21 Merton Street at the beginning of March 1972, typically making friends with the three removal men and riding with them in their pantechnicon from Bournemouth to Oxford.

  His flat in Merton Street consisted of a large sitting-room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Charlie Carr, the college scout who acted as caretaker, lived in the basement with his wife. The Carrs showed much kindness to Tolkien, not only providing him with breakfast in his rooms (which was part of the official arrangement) but also cooking lunch or supper for him if he did not feel well or did not wish to dine in college. Another alternative to eating in Merton was to have a meal at the Eastgate Hotel next door, which had changed greatly since he had first dined there with Lewis in the thirties, and was no longer cheap; but he was now a rich man, and he could afford to eat there whenever he liked. Nevertheless a good many of his meals were taken in college, for he was entitled to free lunches and dinners, and was always made most welcome in the Senior Common Room.

  Thus his way of life in 1972 and 1973 was on the whole entirely to his liking. He had suffered much distress at the loss of Edith, and he was essentially a lonely man now; yet he was free, as he had not been within memory, and he could live his life as he pleased. Just as Bournemouth had in some ways been a reward for Edith for all that she had faced in the early days of their marriage, so his almost bachelor existence in Merton Street seemed to be a reward for his patience at Bournemouth.

  There was no question of his becoming inactive. He paid frequent visits to the village near Oxford where Christopher and his second wife Baillie lived; and, in the company of their small children Adam and Rachel, he would forget his lumbago and run about the lawn in some game, or would throw a matchbox into a high tree and then try to dislodge it with stones to amuse them. He went with Priscilla and his grandson Simon to Sidmouth for a holiday. He revisited his old T.C.B.S. friend Christopher Wiseman. He spent several weeks with John in his parish at Stoke-on-Trent, and with John he motored to visit his brother Hilary, still living on his fruit farm at Evesham.

  Ronald and Hilary now resembled each other far more than they had ever done in their youth. Outside the window the plum-trees whose crop Hilary had picked patiently for more than four decades had grown old and bore little fruit. They should be cut down, and fresh saplings planted in their place. But Hilary was past tackling such work, and the trees had been left standing. The two old brothers watched cricket and tennis on the television, and drank whisky.

  These two years of Tolkien’s life were made happy by the honours that were conferred upon him. He received a number of invitations to visit American universities and receive doctorates, but he did not feel that he could face the journey. There were also many honours within his homeland. In June 1973 he visited Edinburgh to receive an honorary degree; and he was profoundly moved when, in the spring of the previous year, he went to Buckingham Palace to be presented with a C.B.E. by the Queen. But perhaps most gratifying of all was the award in June 1972 of an honorary Doctorate of Letters from his own University of Oxford; not, as was made clear, for The Lord of the Rings, but for his contribution to philology. Nevertheless at the degree ceremony the speech in his honour by the Public Orator (his old friend Colin Hardie) contained more than one reference to the chronicles of Middle-earth, and it concluded with the hope ‘that in such g
reen leaf, as the Road goes ever on, he will produce from his store Silmarillion and scholarship’.

  As to The Silmarillion, the months were again passing with little to show for them. There had been an inevitable delay while Tolkien reorganised his books and papers after the move from Bournemouth; and when at last he resumed work he found himself once more enmeshed in technical problems. Some years previously, he had decided that in the event of his dying before the book was finished, Christopher (who was of course well versed in the work) should complete it for publication. He and Christopher often discussed the book, contemplating the numerous problems that remained to be solved; but they made little progress.

  Almost certainly he did not expect to die so soon. He told his former pupil Mary Salu that there was a tradition of longevity among his ancestors, and that he believed he would live for many years more. But late in 1972 there were warning signs. He began to suffer from severe indigestion, and, though an X-ray failed to reveal any cause more specific than ‘dyspepsia’ he was put on a diet and warned not to drink wine. And despite his unfinished work, it seemed that he did not relish the prospect of many more years living at Merton Street.

  ‘I often feel very lonely,’ he wrote to his old cousin Marjorie Incledon. ‘After term (when the undergraduates depart) I am all alone in a large house with only the caretaker and his wife far below in the basement.’

  True, there was a ceaseless stream of callers: his family, old friends, Joy Hill from Allen & Unwin to attend to fan-mail. There was constant business to be attended to with Rayner Unwin, and with Dick Williamson, his solicitor and adviser in many matters. There was also the regular Sunday morning drive by taxi to church in Headington, and then to Edith’s grave in Wolvercote cemetery. But the loneliness did not cease.

  As the summer of 1973 advanced, some of those close to him thought that he was more sad than usual, and seemed to be ageing faster. Yet the diet had apparently been successful, and in July he went to Cambridge for a dinner of the Ad Eundem, an inter-varsity dining club. On 25 August he wrote a belated note of thanks to his host, Professor Glyn Daniel:

  Dear Daniel,

  It is a long time since July 20th; but better (I hope) late than never to do what I should have done before being immersed in other matters: to thank you for your delightful dinner in St John’s, and especially for your forbearance and great kindness to me personally. It proved a turning point! I suffered no ill effects whatever, and have since been able to dispense with most of the diet taboos I had to observe for some six months.

  I look forward to the next A.E. dinner, and hope that you will be present.

  Yours ever,

  Ronald Tolkien.

  Three days after writing this letter, on Tuesday 28 August, he travelled down to Bournemouth to stay with Denis and Jocelyn Tolhurst, the doctor and his wife who had looked after him and Edith when they had lived there.

  The end was swift. On the Thursday he joined in celebrations to mark Mrs Tolhurst’s birthday, but he did not feel well and would not eat much, though he drank a little champagne. During the night he was in pain, and next morning he was taken to a private hospital where an acute bleeding gastric ulcer was diagnosed. It so happened that Michael was on holiday in Switzerland and Christopher in France, and neither could have reached his bedside in time, but John and Priscilla were able to come down to Bournemouth to be with him. At first the reports on his condition were optimistic, but by Saturday a chest infection had developed, and early on the Sunday morning, 2 September 1973, he died, aged eighty-one.

  POSTSCRIPT

  THE TREE

  Nowadays it is fashionable to regard the Inklings, the handful of men who met at Magdalen on Thursday nights in the nineteen-thirties and forties, as a homogeneous group of writers who exercised an influence over each other. Whether or not you subscribe to this view you may, if you are passing through Oxford, decide to visit the graves of the three best known Inklings, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

  You will find Lewis’s tomb in the churchyard of his own parish, Headington Quarry. A plain slab marks the grave, which is shared with his brother Major W. H. Lewis. It is adorned with a simple cross, and with the words Men must endure their going hence.

  Williams lies beneath the shadow of St Cross Church in the centre of Oxford. His fellow Inkling Hugo Dyson is buried not far away, and the graveyard contains the tombs of many other University men of that generation.

  Lewis and Williams were members of the Church of England, but there is now no Catholic burial-place in Oxford other than the corporation cemetery at Wolvercote, where a small area of ground is reserved for members of the Church of Rome. So if you are searching for the remaining grave you will have to travel far out from the centre of the city, beyond the shops and the ring-road, until you come to tall iron gates. Go through them and past the chapel, crossing the acres of other graves, until you come to a section where many of the tombstones are Polish; for this is the Catholic area, and the graves of emigrés predominate over English adherents to that faith. Several of the tombs bear glazed photographs of the deceased, and the inscriptions are florid. In consequence a grey slab of Cornish granite rather to the left of the group stands out clearly, as does its slightly curious wording: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889–1971. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973.

  The grave stands in suburban surroundings, very different from the English countryside that Tolkien loved, but not dissimilar to the man-made places in which he spent most of his days. So, even at the end, at this plain grave in a public cemetery, we are reminded of the antithesis between the ordinary life he led and the extraordinary imagination that created his mythology.

  Where did it come from, this imagination that peopled Middle-earth with elves, orcs, and hobbits? What was the source of the literary vision that changed the life of this obscure scholar? And why did that vision so strike the minds and harmonise with the aspirations of numberless readers around the world?

  Tolkien would have thought that these were unanswerable questions, certainly unanswerable in a book of this sort. He disapproved of biography as an aid to literary appreciation; and perhaps he was right. His real biography is The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion; for the truth about him lies within their pages.

  But at least he might allow an epitaph.

  His requiem mass was held in Oxford four days after his death, in the plain modern church in Headington which he had attended so often. The prayers and readings were specially chosen by his son John, who said the mass with the assistance of Tolkien’s old friend Fr Robert Murray and his parish priest Mgr Doran. There was no sermon or quotation from his writings. However, when a few weeks later a memorial service was held in California by some of his American admirers, his short story Leaf by Niggle was read to the congregation. He would perhaps have considered it not inappropriate:

  Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt and guessed, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the Tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide.

  ‘It’s a gift!’ he said.

  THE END

  APPENDIX A

  Simplified genealogical table of the ancestry of J.R.R Tolkin

  APPENDIX B

  Chronology of events in the life of J. R. R. Tolkien

  1892 3 January: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien born at Bloemfontein.

  1894 Birth of younger brother, Hilary.

  1895 Spring: Mabel Tolkien takes the two boys back to England, Arthur Tolkien remaining in South Africa.

  1896 February: Arthur Tolkien dies. Summer: Mabel Tolkien rents a cottage at Sarehole Mill, Birmingham. She and the boys remain there for four years.

  1900 Mabel Tolkien is received into the Catholic Church. She and the boys move from Sarehole to a house in the Birmingham suburb of Moseley. Ronald begins to attend King Edward’s
School.

  1901 Mabel and the boys move from Moseley to King’s Heath.

  1902 Mabel and the boys leave King’s Heath and move to Oliver Road, Edgbaston. Ronald and Hilary are enrolled at St Philip’s Grammar School.

  1903 The boys are removed from St Philip’s. Ronald obtains a scholarship to King Edward’s and returns there in the autumn.

  1904 Early in the year Mabel Tolkien is discovered to have diabetes. She spends some weeks in hospital. In the summer she and the boys stay at Rednal. In November she dies, aged thirty-four.

  1905 The boys move into their Aunt Beatrice’s house in Stirling Road.

  1908 The boys move to Mrs Faulkner’s house in Duchess Road. Ronald meets Edith Bratt.

  1909 Autumn: Ronald’s romance with Edith Bratt is discovered by Father Francis Morgan. Ronald fails to obtain a scholarship at Oxford.