But through his role as historian of Middle-earth, he discovered a later version of Bilbo's account, which he hadn't previously known existed. I think doing something like that would have been unthinkable for Tolkien, because of what it would do to the carefully constructed history of Middle-earth. I once read a book and its sequel in which a character was introduced in the last chapter of the first book with one name, and then reappeared as a main character in the sequel with a different name, as if the reader's not supposed to notice (and this is an author I generally admire). Some authors wouldn't worry about this too much. (There's so much to be said about the influence of the three authors-Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam-on The Red Book, that it would take a complete essay just to get started, so I won't… in this one.) It's that kind of 'little touch' that causes me to stand in awe of JRRT as a subcreator-and makes sure that I keep happily suspending disbelief as long as I'm inside the story. He then refers us to one of the appendices for a more thorough explanation of the language involved. Tolkien as historian-narrator doesn't 'correct' the original account, but comments via the footnote that this wasn't really the cause of the mistranslation, although it was how Frodo understood the situation. The story itself (at this point being taken from the section of The Red Book written by Frodo), says he misunderstood because the Elves of Lorien spoke a dialect different from that of the Elves west of the Misty Mountains, so he was unfamiliar with it. One of my favorites of these references is the footnote during the Fellowship's time in Lothlorien in LotR, which takes us through three levels of explanation regarding Frodo's misunderstanding of something the Elves said. There isn't just a statement at the beginning of The Hobbit or LotR saying, 'Oh, by the way, these stories come from this book I found.' Instead, as any historian would, he refers back to them time and again. Since he has, you might say, one foot in each reality, it doesn't matter-to the reader-in which one he lights his pipe.Īnd I believe one thing that makes Tolkien's historical sources so real is how actively he uses them. The narrator becomes the link between creations, whether he 'really' exists in the secondary creation (Dr. Tolkien, as Middle-earth's historian, hadn't just read the books that had come down to him he'd studied them deeply, to the point of being able to clarify some things for those of us who are just reading the stories. No one knew Sherlock Holmes or understood his eccentricities better than did Dr. Both narrators could do this for us because they knew their subjects so well. And having Tolkien there to explain certain aspects of life in Middle-earth makes the hobbits' stories more intelligible to us than if he had simply translated Bilbo's, Frodo's, and Sam's first-person accounts from Westron into English. There's a lot we wouldn't know about Sherlock Holmes if he had told his own stories. The narrators are both somewhat removed from the center of the story, which gives them the advantage of being able to comment on it. Tolkien himself does it for Middle-earth. And the less a reader has to look outside a subcreation-for any reason-the more he or she can become immersed in it, and the more real it can become (' can become' because it doesn't happen without the reader's willingness).įor both subcreations, there's a narrator who carries the story from the secondary creation into our primary one so we can experience it.

If someone asks, 'Where did that story come from?' there's an answer that exists within the suspension of disbelief the reader doesn't have to leave that reality in order to find a source.

One thing that makes them both real to the point of having adherents who firmly believe in their secondary-at least-reality is the presence of a 'literary conceit' that connects them to primary creation. I know I use the Middle-earth/Baker Street parallel ad nauseum, but I think they shed light on each other as subcreations. Just as we couldn't have The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Hound of the Baskervilles without Dr. But are they essential? Couldn't we have The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, without them? From within that subcreation, no, we couldn't.

Frodo baggins books