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From: Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Possible self-mockery in LotR?
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2024 09:43:03 -0700
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On 10/21/24 09:17, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 22:49:37 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
> <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 10/20/24 22:34, The Horny Goat wrote:
>>> On Thu, 17 Oct 2024 07:54:38 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
>>> <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In LotR, Book V, Chapter 8, Aragorn says (in part) the following to
>>>> Meriadoc:
>>>>
>>>>     [...] If your pack has not been found, then you must send for
>>>>     the herb-master of this House. And he will tell you that he
>>>>     did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but
>>>>     that it is called _westmansweed_ by the vulgar, and _galenas_
>>>>     by the noble, and other names in other tongues more learned,
>>>>     and after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not
>>>>     understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none
>>>>     in the House, and he will leave you to reflect on the history
>>>>     of tongues. [...]
>>>>
>>>> Whew! That's quite a sentence.
>>>>
>>>> Is it possible that JRRT was indulging in a bit of self-mockery here,
>>>> given his main area of study, as well as one of his reasons for writing
>>>> LotR in the first place, was "the history of tongues"?
>>>>
>>> An alternate explanation is that JRRT was being paid by the word....
>>
>> 	That would be a losing deal for a publisher hiring a
>> Philogist. There is always a longer and more confusing way
>> to say so.
>> 	I think the self-deprecatory jib at the learned is
>> is just that for the sake of humor.
> 
> For /LOTR/, he wasn't paid much up front, if anything. The publisher
> wanted a successor to /The Hobbit/ but WWII's restrictions were still
> affecting the publisher, so they gave him a percentage of the profits
> instead of a large advance. They expected the book to sink like a
> stone.
> 
> Boy, were /they/ wrong. Part 1 sold out so fast they had to get a
> second, much larger printing, right away. Part 2 continued the trend.
> Fans had to wait months for Part 3 while JRRT and his publishers
> squabbled over how much of the Appendices they were willing to
> include. Since Part 2 ends with the Mother and Father of All
> Cliffhangers, the wait must have been very frustrating.
> 
	It was for me, in Sacramento California very frustrating
and I was buying the imported books that broke the copyright
and permitted the sale of mass market paperbacks.

	bliss

-- 
b l i s s dash s f 4 e v e r at d s l e x t r e m e dot c o m