About eight months ago, I introduced the Tolkien Encyclopedia Diary to Lingwë readers. This was an ambitious project to systematically review every single entry in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (ed. Michael D.C. Drout, Routledge, 2006) begun by one of its contributors. As I blogged then, I got involved a couple of months into the project — not long after another fellow contributor, and between us, we set to work.Now, just over a year after the Diary’s inception, we’re finished. Between the three of us (plus a small handful of reviews by two other contributors), we’ve set down 815 reviews of the Encyclopedia’s 537 entries. I wrote 111 of these (mostly when I should have been doing something else — shhhh! ;). Also thanks to some meticulous record-keeping by N.E. Brigand, I can tell you that more than 200 of the entries were reviewed by two people, and roughly 25 were reviewed by three. It was important to us to record multiple perspectives whenever we could, but close to 300 of our reviews are still just “one person’s opinion”, for what it’s worth. Of course, even those multi-angle reviews are still just our opinions. I, for one, would still love to hear from others.
That being said, I think we’ve made some good observations during the long, slow process of digesting the Encyclopedia. Have a gander and see if you don’t think so. What’s next for the Encyclopedia Diary? Well, without getting too far ahead of ourselves, we’re investigating the possibilities of turning it into a printed book – to preserve our reviews and to serve as a companion (a very useful one, we think) to the Encyclopedia. It would be a poor substitute for those who don’t own a copy of the Encyclopedia; however, the price would be a mere tithe, so perhaps a poor substitute is better than none at all.
Drop me a comment with any thoughts you may have. Would any of you
I'd love to get my hands on your reviews...the Tolkien Encyclopedia is a fantastic reference piece, but many of the entries could use additional viewpoints and references. I'd buy it!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the feedback, AM. It’s nice to hear from people who actually own a copy of the Encyclopedia. If we do get to the point of publication — perhaps this summer? — you’ll hear about it here first, so keep an eye on Lingwë for the news.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of responding to the many viewpoints expressed about the individual articles, including I might say reviews of my own contributions. Apparently it hasn't occurred, for example, to you bright bulbs that someone might actually know something about medieval literature that influenced Tolkien independent of Shippey or other Tolkien studies. Shocking I know, but some of us were experts in medieval literature BEFORE we were experts in Tolkien. Or a review of another contributors entry criticized the author for NOT talking about somebody NOT in the article (i. e. the author's topic was author A as a possible influence on Tolkien and was upbraided and downgraded in your diary for not talking about somebody completely different in the entry. Duh, people!)
ReplyDeleteI often stop by your blog here because you have some interesting things to say about Tolkien etc, but on finding out that you were associated with the diary, I can only say that I'm disappointed.
Hi Anon,
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by with your thoughts.
I've been thinking of responding to the many viewpoints expressed about the individual articles, including I might say reviews of my own contributions.
I can’t make any particularly specific responses to what you’ve said, since I don’t know who you are or which contributions were yours. But let me strongly encourage you to email Squire (his address and his open-armed solicitation for feedback are on the Diary) with any response or defense you might care to make. We fully recognize that ours are only three opinions; we’ve been hungry for others for an entire year and would welcome yours. Again, without knowing which contributions you wrote, I don’t know whether one, two, or all three of us commented on them, but of course, I’m curious to know now.
Apparently it hasn’t occurred, for example, to you bright bulbs that someone might actually know something about medieval literature that influenced Tolkien independent of Shippey or other Tolkien studies.
Again, I don’t know which entry/ies you’re alluding to here. If you would care to make a more specific reply, maybe the reviewer can explain his comments. It sounds as if you are accusing us of saying that Tom Shippey’s are the only opinions about medieval influence we recognize, but that is not at all true.
I often stop by your blog here because you have some interesting things to say about Tolkien etc, but on finding out that you were associated with the diary, I can only say that I'm disappointed.
I’m sorry to hear of your disappointment. Am I writing in taking that to mean that you don’t see any validity in my own personal comments on the Diary? Speaking for myself, I feel I can defend anything I’ve written in any of my reviews. Are they sometimes very nit-picky? Sure! But what’s inherently wrong with that? We all wanted the Encyclopedia to be the best resource it could be — but I think we must all admit that it isn’t all it could be.
I hope you will leave another comment with more specifics. Or else email Squire — or email me privately, if you’d rather not put yourself on public display. I hope to hear from you again.