Skip to main content

Tolkien's Legacy: The Platypus Reads Part LXXXI

My wife and I have been reading "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" edited by Christopher Tolkien.  If we had picked up the book when it came out, we would have payed a pretty penny.  As it is, we got it for less than three dollars at Amazon.  So far, my wife and I are enjoying the book, especially academic material.  However, the reason it's selling for such a low price has also become abundantly obvious: the book is esoteric, technical, and has no direct connection with Middle Earth.  So esoteric is the work, that you really need to have read "The Volsunga Saga," know a fair bit about the history of the Northern European Dark Age and both Eddas to enjoy it.  I have all those prerequisites, hence my enjoyment.  This leads to the question, however, of why Christopher brought out and published this work.  Surely he must have known that it would be a commercial failure; that it was bringing out his father's "scripta minora" in the strongest sense?

And yet.  And yet, even Tolkien's 30-something flailings are better than what most scholars or authors can bring out on their best day.  Maybe Christopher Tolkien has hit upon something that is needed in our modern, crassly democratic culture: we need to have things that are high and good thrust in our faces because they are high and good; not because we want them.  In a way, this is Tolkien's legacy.  In his preface to "The Lord of the Rings," Tolkien admits that he published the work without much hope for its popular success since it was "primarily linguistic in nature."  Even Rayner Unwin admits that he and his father published the work expecting to lose money on it.  They did it because they recognized "The Lord of the Rings" as a work of enduring genius.  Tolkien's work has always been produced and published on principle.  All this is not to say that Tolkien and Co. are elitist, like pent-housed culture snobs producing deliberately esoteric work so they can sneer at the unwashed masses.  Rather, they are people who believe that some things are worthy in and of themselves, regardless of what markets and masses think of them.

Tolkien pointed to that which is worthy, regardless of what others thought, and the world is a richer place for it.  In bringing out "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun," Christopher is following his father's footsteps.  In the end, it's not about what the fans demand or making a quick buck, it's about remaining faithful to the Tolkien legacy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....

Under the Moon: The Platypus Reads Part LXVI

My wife and I were discussing our favorite books from the Chronicles of Narnia on our way back from lunch.  My wife, true to her sunny personality, is a staunch fan of "The Voyage of the Dawntreader."  I can't argue with that choice but, when push comes to shove, "The Silver Chair" has always been my favorite. I have a bit of a theory.  I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend.  If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line. That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much.  When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me.  I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tin...