Editing Christopher Tolkien (section)

== Opinions ==

=== Editor or author ===

{{further|Editorial framing of The Lord of the Rings}}

[[Vincent Ferré]] comments that early in the process of editing his father's unpublished writings, "the real nature of Christopher Tolkien's work was a matter of debate, before a more simplistic consensus began to prevail."<ref name="Ferré 2022"/> Christopher Tolkien explained in ''The Silmarillion''{{'s}} foreword in 1977 "I set myself therefore to work out a single text, selecting and arranging in such a way as seemed to me to produce the most coherent and internally self-consistent narrative."<ref name="Ferré 2022"/> In Ferré's opinion, "This choice remains one of his [most] distinctive marks on the book", noting that J. R. R. Tolkien had foreseen in a 1963 letter that the presentation of the stories "will need a lot of work ... the legends have to be worked over ... and made consistent ... and they have to be given some progressive shape."<ref name="Ferré 2022"/><ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#247 to Colonel Worksett, 20 September 1963}}</ref>

In 1981, the scholar of literature [[Randel Helms]], taking that statement as definitive of Christopher Tolkien's editorial, indeed authorial, intentions:<ref name="Ferré 2022"/> stated in terms that "''The Silmarillion'' in the shape that we have it [a single-volume narrative] is the invention of the son not the father".<ref name="Helms 1981">{{cite book |last=Helms |first=Randel |author-link=Randel Helms |title=Tolkien and the Silmarils |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |publication-place=Boston |date=1981 |isbn=978-0-395-29469-7 |page=93}}</ref> 

Christopher Tolkien disagreed, stating in the foreword to the 1983 ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', that the outcome of his work had been "to add a further dimension of obscurity to ''The Silmarillion'', ... about the age of the work ... and about the degree of editorial intrusion and manipulation (or even invention), is a stumbling-block and a source of much misapprehension."<ref name="BOLT1 Foreword">{{harvnb|Tolkien|1983|pp=5–7 "Foreword"}}</ref> In the same foreword, while rebuffing Helms but without explaining why Helms's opinion was wrong,<ref name="Ferré 2022"/> Christopher Tolkien admitted that the wisdom of publishing ''The Silmarillion'' with (unlike ''The Lord of the Rings'') no [[Tolkien's frame stories|frame story]], "no suggestion of what it is and how (within the imagined world) it came to be", was "certainly debatable". He added "This I now think to have been an error."<ref name="BOLT1 Foreword"/> He noted, too, that the [[philologist]] and Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]], in his book ''[[The Road to Middle-Earth|The Road to Middle-earth]]'', was "clearly reluctant to see [''The Silmarillion''] as other than a 'late' work, even the latest work of its author", i.e. that its text owes as much to Christopher Tolkien as to his father.<ref name="BOLT1 Foreword"/>{{efn|Shippey writes, for instance, that ''The Silmarillion'' was "[J. R. R. Tolkien's] last and boldest defiance of all the practitioners of 'lit.'."{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=307}} }}

Ferré records that, much later, in 2012, Christopher Tolkien admitted "I had had to invent some passages",<ref name="Le Monde 2012"/> that he had had a dream that his father was anxiously searching for something, and that he had "realized in horror that it was ''The Silmarillion''."<ref name="Le Monde 2012">{{cite news |last=Rérolle |first=Raphaëlle |title=My Father's 'Eviscerated' Work - Son Of Hobbit Scribe J.R.R. Tolkien Finally Speaks Out |url=https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/my-father39s-eviscerated-work-son-of-hobbit-scribe-jrr-tolkien-finally-speaks-out |work=[[Worldcrunch]] |date=7 July 2012 }}</ref> In Ferré's view, he should be thought of as "a writer in his own right, and not only as an 'editor' of his father's manuscripts". He gives two reasons for this: that ''The Silmarillion'' reveals his own writing style and "the choices he made in 'constructing'" the narrative; and that he had to devise parts of the story, both to fill gaps and when "threads were impossible to weave together".<ref name="Ferré 2022">[[Vincent Ferré|Ferré, Vincent]]. "The Son Behind the Father: Christopher Tolkien as a Writer", in {{harvnb|Ovenden|McIlwaine|2022|pp=53–69}}</ref>

Christopher Tolkien's editing of the 12 volumes of ''The History of Middle-earth'', using his skill as a philologist, created an editorial frame for his father's legendarium, and for the books derived from it. Ferré comments that this presented his father's writings as historical, a real set of legends from the past, in just the same way that his editing of ''[[The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays]]'' presented his father's essays as scholarly work.<ref name="Ferré 2022"/>

<gallery mode=packed widths=450 heights=300>
File:Editorial framing of The Monsters and The Critics.svg|Editorial framing of ''[[The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays]]'' by Christopher Tolkien presents it as a set of scholarly texts.<ref name="Ferré 2022"/>
File:Editorial framing of The History of Middle-earth.svg|Christopher Tolkien's editorial framing of the 12 volumes of ''The History of Middle-earth'' presents [[Tolkien's legendarium|his father's legendarium]], and the books derived from it, as a set of historic texts, analogous to the presentation of genuine scholarly works like ''The Monsters and The Critics''; and it creates a [[narrative voice]] throughout the series, a figure of Christopher Tolkien himself.<ref name="Ferré 2022"/>
</gallery>

=== Reaction to filmed versions ===

{{further|Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings}}

In 2001 Christopher Tolkien expressed doubts over [[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy]] directed by [[Peter Jackson]], questioning the [[Differences between The Lord of the Rings book and film series|viability of a film interpretation]] that retained the essence of the work, but stressed that this was just his opinion.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie/news_0000/472.html |title=Middle-earth & J.R.R. Tolkien Blog |website=Middle-earth & J.R.R. Tolkien Blog |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625231031/http://www.xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie/news_0000/472.html |archive-date=25 June 2010 |access-date=7 December 2014 }}</ref> In a 2012 interview with ''[[Le Monde]],'' he criticised the films, saying: "They gutted the book, making an [[action film]] for 15 to 25-year-olds."<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2012/07/05/tolkien-l-anneau-de-la-discorde_1729858_3246.html |title=Tolkien, l'anneau de la discorde |last=Raphaëlle Rérolle |newspaper=Le Monde.fr |access-date=7 December 2014 |date=5 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120709045110/http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2012/07/05/tolkien-l-anneau-de-la-discorde_1729858_3246.html |archive-date=9 July 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2008 he commenced legal proceedings against [[New Line Cinema]], which he claimed owed his family £80 million in unpaid royalties.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3999008.ece |title=Hobbit movies meet dire foe in son of Tolkien |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615224143/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3999008.ece |archive-date=15 June 2011 |work=[[The Sunday Times]] |date=25 May 2008}}</ref> In September 2009, he and New Line reached an undisclosed settlement, and he withdrew his legal objection to ''[[The Hobbit (film series)|The Hobbit]]'' films.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8245300.stm |title=Legal path clear for Hobbit movie |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090911095838/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8245300.stm |archive-date=11 September 2009 |work=[[BBC News]] |date=8 September 2009}}</ref>