“All great stories come from within”. I remember hearing that quote somewhere; that all good stories are told from the heart, without planning or premeditation. And it must be true, because Shippey points out that even though he uses an extensive knowledge of ancient languages and history, J.R.R. Tolkien had absolutely no idea what he was writing when he first put pen to paper. He wrote everything from his head, with no plan and no ending in sight. It’s truly remarkable to think about that when you’ve just finished reading such a magnificent final product.
Then Shippey piqued my interest be discussing the previous drafts (now published) or Lord of the Rings. I think it backs up the previous statement when I say that the sniffing black rider in the Fellowship of the Ring could have been Gandalf – Tolkien really had no idea where he was going with this story.
The last thing that really interested me in this chapter was how Tolkien managed to keep the chapter “The Council of Elrond” interesting by using different speech patterns and dialects. Surely, Tolkien is one of a few authors who could have possibly done this on such a scale. By tapping his vast knowledge of languages (whether he knew it or not), he was able to distinguish characters that would other side be impossible to do. And Shippey has a great point when he says this, because I remember reading books with similar dialogue-only scenes in them. Sometimes these scenes are necessary to advance the plot. But as I read them, the 4 or 5 characters that were speaking managed to become skewed and mixed together until I couldn’t keep track with the “he said”s and “she replied”s…Tolkien, on the other hand, wonderfully separated over 20 characters to the point where the council became one of my favorite parts of the book. Joseph Bella? November 02, 2008, at 08:08 PM
