Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to my series of substack readings.
Speaker 1: In case you are not aware, some time ago, I
Speaker 1: started a substack series on Tolkien's letters over at andrew
Speaker 1: Ininschnyder dot com dot substack, and in the series, I
Speaker 1: was providing a summary and analysis of each of Tolkien's letters.
Speaker 1: I then started to read and record these articles as
Speaker 1: a Tier two benefit over on Patreon. Well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: to say that I'm now reviving both practices over on substack.
Speaker 1: Every other post is free to everybody, with every other
Speaker 1: post being behind a small paywall. And the good news
Speaker 1: is that if you are a Tier two patron or higher,
Speaker 1: you get readings of all the letters delivered through the
Speaker 1: Patreon podcast feed. And my plan is to post one
Speaker 1: of these each Tuesday for the foreseeable future. And for now,
Speaker 1: I am catching up on the record from where I
Speaker 1: last left off, which was only letter four. I didn't
Speaker 1: give very far but previously, but we'll go much further
Speaker 1: this time. If if you want to listen to the
Speaker 1: first three, then just search for letter on Patreon and
Speaker 1: it should come up if you are a Tier two
Speaker 1: patron or higher. But now let's go ahead and get
Speaker 1: to it with letter four. This letter was written to
Speaker 1: Edith Bratt on March second, nineteen sixteen, and in this
Speaker 1: short letter, Tolkien notes that he's been bored reading old
Speaker 1: military lecture notes, but that more enjoyably, he's made some
Speaker 1: improvements to his quote nonsense fairy language. But he's hesitant
Speaker 1: to revel in this too much, as he writes, I
Speaker 1: often long to work at it, and don't let myself
Speaker 1: because though I love it so, it does seem such
Speaker 1: a mad hobby reflection. This is the last of the
Speaker 1: initial short letters to Edith, so next time we'll start
Speaker 1: getting into some more of his his denser correspondents. Now,
Speaker 1: it took me a bit to arrive at that word denser.
Speaker 1: I initially used weightier, but that wasn't quite right. As
Speaker 1: I've previously discussed, these short letters with his beloved Edith
Speaker 1: aren't frivolous, even though they're generally just reciting his daily
Speaker 1: life with a bit of commentary. A shared life, even
Speaker 1: through paper and ink, is never something trivial. That being said,
Speaker 1: as always, there's something worth focusing on in this letter
Speaker 1: for reflection now, and that is Tolkien's mad hobby with
Speaker 1: his fairy language. One hand, it does seem to be
Speaker 1: a bit mad. He's pouring his energy, his time, and
Speaker 1: his talents into crafting an intricate fantasy language. Even as
Speaker 1: a child, Tolkien had this affinity for made up childish languages.
Speaker 1: But this is something more than a child's game, even
Speaker 1: if it maintains a similar kind of humor. He's now
Speaker 1: creating a real, constructed language based on his philological scholarship.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that this is a man who, when
Speaker 1: still in grade school, was able to hold debates in Latin, Greek,
Speaker 1: Gothic and English Saxon, not to mention his acquaintance with French, German,
Speaker 1: Spanish and Welsh, among other languages. Of everything he might
Speaker 1: do with such linguistic expertise, why invent this fairy language?
Speaker 1: Tolkien gives us the answer in this short letter. He
Speaker 1: loved it. Of course, hard work is essential and building
Speaker 1: something worthwhile, But it really is that simple beauty, empowered
Speaker 1: by love is able to awaken true greatness. There's this
Speaker 1: great clip from a BBC interview that makes us rounds
Speaker 1: from time to time. When the interviewer asked Tolkien, we said,
Speaker 1: why did you do this? You know, why invent this world?
Speaker 1: Why invent this language even before you give us the hobbit, like,
Speaker 1: why did you do all this? And Tolkien response by
Speaker 1: just giving a small little smirk and shrugging his shoulders,
Speaker 1: as if to say, like, why wouldn't I do this?
Speaker 1: So that you had invented, literally invented the world before
Speaker 1: you even wrote the hobbit? Oh? Yes, why? And I
Speaker 1: just I think that there's something very very true and
Speaker 1: very good about that, something very much of the artistic's
Speaker 1: soul in that response. Now, as we've seen in previous letters,
Speaker 1: Tolkien's secondary world was already starting to take shape just
Speaker 1: as the primary world came to be through the divine word,
Speaker 1: so too would his world be born of language. And
Speaker 1: a letter much further down the road, he writes, nobody
Speaker 1: believes me when I say that my long book is
Speaker 1: an attempt to create a world in which a form
Speaker 1: of language aggreefable to my personal aesthetic might seem real.
Speaker 1: That's from Letter two O five. See. Many modern fantasy
Speaker 1: authors have invented nonsense languages that would match their worlds,
Speaker 1: but Tolkien's approach is exactly the opposite. Tolkien made a
Speaker 1: world that match his language, which in turn is drawn
Speaker 1: from deep philological prime matter that lays beneath various primary
Speaker 1: world languages. This relates to an idea that will be
Speaker 1: explored further as we journey through these letters. Tolkien's world
Speaker 1: is not made up. It is at its core true
Speaker 1: one man's mad hobby very well may yield an enchanted
Speaker 1: and enchanting world that brings us sanity when we need
Speaker 1: it the most. And I end today with a clip
Speaker 1: of Tolkien writing and speaking a bit of Elvish, and
Speaker 1: so you can listen to it through this feed, and
Speaker 1: then I will also link the YouTube video in the
Speaker 1: show notes in case you haven't seen it right. I
Speaker 1: hope that you enjoyed that. And this was a short
Speaker 1: little letter. Some of them have a lot more to
Speaker 1: deal with, but I feel like already you can see
Speaker 1: that there are significant things to draw out from even
Speaker 1: these short letters written to Edith. And so if you
Speaker 1: are not already a Tier two patron or higher, the
Speaker 1: I no, that's what you need to be in order
Speaker 1: to get access to these recordings moving forward. So I
Speaker 1: hope that you appreciate that benefit, and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you next time. Until then, God Speaking. The music
Speaker 1: from this episode is owned by Warner Music Group. Please
Speaker 1: don't sue me.