Other People's Mail

I just finished reading The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

I'm not sure if I should have done that. I get the feeling that Professor Tolkien would be highly offended to find that I had been reading correspondence not addressed to me. But what's done is done.

I did find out a few interesting things. One, the Lord of the Rings did not make Tolkien Fabulously Wealthy - at least not right away. Two, he was a slow worker when it came to his writing. He fiddled around with LotR for twenty years or so, and after its publication he fiddled around with The Silmarillion for thirty more, eventually leaving completion to his son Christopher after he died. (I'm sure he was busy with Other Things but really. Come on.) Three, he seemed to get crabbier with people after the series became successful. Here's an excerpt from a letter he sent to Time-Life in 1968, presumably in response to a request for a photo session:

Your ideas of the natural and mine are different, since I never in any circumstances do work while being photographed, or talked to, or accompanied by anybody in the room. A photograph of me pretending to be at work would be entirely bogus.

Nothing like a nice friendly letter, eh?

The other thing I learned is that his favorite part of the book is one of mine as well. So I've got that going for me.