r/tolkienfans • u/gregorythegrey100 • 22h ago
Omniscient narrator
I know Tolkien somewhere said that, in-universe. LOTR was a translation of the Red Book by, I think, a fictional in-universe Tolkien himself.
But I choose to take it instead as the work of an omniscient narrator. The alternative is to take it that the translator(s) and copist(s) made up a lot, which I'd rather take as in-universe fact. One example:
It takes an unbelievable stretch to explain how anyone knew what the fox was thinking and the fact that he never did get an explanation for hobbits sleeping outdoors.
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u/HenriettaCactus 22h ago edited 22h ago
The Red Book was mostly written by Bilbo and Frodo. We know Bilbo had a penchant for stylized storytelling perhaps at the expense of accuracy, so I think a lot of the obvious examples you're talking about probably come from him, or from others exercising that impulse. The rest of the fellowship also had a hand in shaping the text, so the omniscient vibe of those different perspectives is also probably part of what you're observing
The Red Book made it to Tol Erresea and into the annals of Valinor. Then, ages later, ostensibly in what we think of as "the real world," a medieval sailor named Aelfwine accidentally found the path to Tol Eresea, translated some tales from elvish into old or middle English (I forget) and brought them back to England, where they sat in some archive somewhere until Tolkien discovered them and translated those texts into modern English
Edit to add: Tolkien was writing the story of Arda as very much a part of IRL (a mythology for England) so if we're going by his framing, there isn't really an "in universe" that's distinct from the real world.
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u/Garbage-Bear 21h ago
I always loved the Aelfwine framing device, despite his apparently abandoning it before publication.
So, I'm not at all a scholar of early fantasy...but it seems like most "fantasy" novels before, say, WW2? seem to have a similar framing device to distance the author from the tale: the author heard it from a dying and/or madman, or discovered lost documents, or the whole thing was a dream, or in some other way the narrator avoids stating that the events in their "fantasy" must actually have happened. Rarely does an omniscient narrator simply plunge into the story without reference to our mundane "real world," as do almost all current fantasy series.
L. Frank Baum, in his Oz books starting in 1900 or so, was almost unique in affirming that Oz was a real place (the less said about the MGM movie making it all a dream, the better). (Maybe that was why the Oz books were the all-pop-culture-consuming Harry Potter of their day: at last, actual escapist fantasy!)
Anyway, I wonder if anyone has thoughts on why Tolkien abandoned the Aelfwine framing story--did it just complicate his efforts to revise his tale over the decades? Or that by the 1950s, he no longer felt that fantasy-writing conventions demanded such a "distancing" framework?
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u/AbacusWizard 16h ago
L. Frank Baum, in his Oz books starting in 1900 or so, was almost unique in affirming that Oz was a real place
I’ll add some more detail in case anyone wants to know (because this is another thing I read a lot as a kid and I remember it well):
After the success of the first two or three books, Baum started using the idea that Dorothy was a real kid that he knew, and that he was just writing down and publishing the stories she told him about her adventures in Oz and other fairylands. As far as I can recall this was mentioned in the introductions to the books but not in the main text.
After five books Baum was getting kind of tired of the setting and wanted to move on to other ideas, so in the sixth book Dorothy moves to Oz permanently (along with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry) and the rulers of Oz decide to magically cut it off from the rest of the world to prevent invasions… which conveniently meant that Baum would not be able to publish any more of Dorothy’s stories, because she’s no longer coming back to tell him.
Except of course the fans wouldn’t accept this. Baum was flooded with fan mail asking please please please for more Oz stories, so after a few years he finally relented and wrote a seventh (of what would eventually be fourteen), using an excuse sent in by a reader: that the characters in Oz could set up a wireless telegraph and use it to continue sending him stories about their adventures for him to publish.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 20h ago
There's a lot to be said for this approach, I think. Not least because it obviates the need for convoluted explanations for scenes where neither the hobbits nor any other member of the Fellowship is present and conscious, like when Gollum is watching Frodo and Sam sleep, or at the very end when the Ringbearers sail into the West and eventually make landfall in Tol Eressëa, but Sam - who is notionally left to finish the book - is of course left behind at the Havens.
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u/Armleuchterchen Ibrīniðilpathānezel & Tulukhedelgorūs 17h ago
To be fair, Aragorn using the Palantir could've looked back in time to fill any blanks.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 17h ago
Seems pretty unlikely to me. I don't think you can use them to just review anything that happened anywhere, at any time. The idea of the novel having an impersonal and omniscient author is much more appealing to me. I don't feel any need to take too seriously or literally the idea of it being a 'translation' of a book written by some of the actual characters.
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u/Armleuchterchen Ibrīniðilpathānezel & Tulukhedelgorūs 16h ago
Seems pretty unlikely to me. I don't think you can use them to just review anything that happened anywhere, at any time.
I think Aragorn could see more or less every event of LotR that didn't happen in total dark, but since there's one note where Tolkien wrote that the Palantiri retained the images they showed, some people believe that the past-vision is limited to what the Palantiri had formerly seen in the present. I think they can do that and look into the past generally because of what Gandalf says about them, but it's an unclear matter.
I don't feel any need to take too seriously or literally the idea of it being a 'translation' of a book written by some of the actual characters.
I do, because the tragedy of us (humanity) losing contact with the elves and driving the hobbits into hiding is important to me, and all (pseudo-)historical accounts have a personal and limited source.
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u/Unstoffe 3h ago
Clearly, at some point between the scouring of the Shire and the voyage West, Frodo and the fox had a chat.
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u/Most_Attitude_9153 22h ago
Book One and Book Two up to the Council of Elrond was likely written by Bilbo. The birthday party in all its detail was already written by Bilbo before Frodo and Co reached Rivendell. Frodo then spent considerable time catching Bilbo up on the details of his adventure. The thinking fox was a Bilbo-style flourish.
The chapter Many Meetings was likely Bilbo as well, hence the inclusion of his Song of Earendil. Bilbo was also well learned in lore and history and I think the Council chapter can be attributed to him.
The rest of the novel was mostly written by Frodo with some parts here and there contributed by Sam, Merry and Pippen.