Thursday 26 October 2017

The other side of Tolkein

JRR Tolkien was Sub-Warden of Merton College, Oxford. Indeed, he has a good claim to be the most famous person associated with the College in all its 753-year history. And yet one feels that he is not fondly remembered there. This extract from the obituary of a more fondly-remembered academic, Dr Roger Highfield, might help explain why.

"Tolkien mania both amused and baffled him. He liked Tolkien personally but couldn’t fathom the fuss that surrounded him. Approached by a television producer for reminiscences, he deftly recommended Bruce Mitchell at Teddy Hall as a Tolkien pupil – a rare bird indeed, Roger remarked confidentially, because Tolkien was very lazy and supervised few. This deflection spared him having to admit that, aside from having played squash together, all he could say of Tolkien was that he was incomparably the worst Sub-Warden ever. 

"The ultimate high or (depending on the vantage) low point of Roger’s and Merton’s experience of Tolkien came when Tolkien offered to bequeath to the College the priceless manuscript of The Hobbit (1937). Roger as Librarian was naturally beset by visions of queues, stretching along Merton Street and endlessly beyond, of miscellaneous devotees and doctoral students, taking it in turns to prostrate themselves before the sacred relic; but he and the Warden and Fellows manned up and duly assembled for a ceremony in the New Common Room at which Tolkien handed over the treasure to the sound of popping corks. Later, when Roger cut the string and opened the brown paper parcel, he discovered that the great man had wrapped up a different and still unfinished manuscript. Not only was he working on it, he wanted it back. It turned out to be The Silmarillion (1977) which, along with The Hobbit, Merton never did get. ‘Waste of good champagne’, was Roger’s withering verdict."

I don't think that's quite how a man of Gondor would have played it.

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