Christopher Tolkien, Warren Hamilton Lewis, and Laurence Housman

Earlier this week, somebody called JPB posted a controversial op-ed on TheOneRing.net, “Concerning Christopher – An Essay on Tolkien’s Son’s Decision to Not Allow Further Cinematic Licensing of His Work” (read it here). In addition to a lively discussion following the article (more than 200 comments so far), the op-ed inspired a thorough and spirited rebuttal from Marcel R. Aubron-Bülles, “A Commentary on ‘Concerning Christopher’” (read it here). Marcel’s piece, though long, is well worth reading, and I happen to agree with his point of view. Marcel shared his rebuttal on Facebook, where it touched off another animated discussion, in which one particular comment caught my eye (excerpted here):

When Christopher inherited his father’s papers, he could have burnt the lot, including Tolkien’s diaries, letters and non-Middle-earth fiction, and his academic papers too. J.R.R. had given him leave to do so, when he made him his literary executor. None of us would have been any the wiser.

This immediately reminded me of C.S. Lewis. Walter Hooper tells the story that in January, 1964, two months after Lewis died, his brother “Major Lewis, after setting aside those papers that had a special significance for him, began disposing of the others. Thus it was that a great many things which I was never able to identify found their way on to a bonfire which burned steadily for three days” [Preface to The Dark Tower]. The story continues that Hooper was tipped off by Lewis’s gardener, Fred Paxford, and arrived just in the nick of time to save “a great quantity of C.S. Lewis’s notebooks and papers”, which he has been publishing ever since.

But in fact, this probably never happened. In The C.S. Lewis Hoax (Multnomah Press, 1988), and in her subsequent books, Kathryn Lindskoog has pretty thoroughly debunked the bonfire story. Wendell Wagner sums it up for us in a letter to the editor of Mythprint (August, 1995): “Not only did Fred Paxford deny ever having burned any important papers of C.S. Lewis, but Lindskoog shows that Hooper’s time scheme for the bonfire is impossible. Hooper claims that the bonfire occurred in January of 1964 and that he brought the rescued papers back to his rooms at Keble College. (He also claims to have spent three weeks during that month working with Warren Lewis on C.S.Lewis’s letters.) But it’s clear from Warren’s letters that Warren and Hooper didn’t even meet until Warren returned from Ireland in February of 1964, by which time Hooper had moved from Keble to Wycliffe Hall. To place any credence in Hooper’s story, we would have to believe that he got the month of the bonfire and the place he was living at the time wrong and that Paxford had somehow forgotten the bonfire entirely. Lindskoog has also discovered that in a published interview in 1979 Hooper forgot the bonfire story and claimed that he found the manuscript when he and Douglas Gresham cleaned out Lewis’s rooms at Cambridge in the summer of 1963.”

But then my mind swam back to another story of the destruction of literary papers, some three decades earlier. I pulled the book off the shelf to refresh my memory. I hope you will indulge me in a lengthier quotation:

This final selection of A.E. Housman’s poems is published by his permission, not by his wish. His instructions, allowing them to appear, while committing other material to a less fortunate fate, were as follows:

“I direct my brother, Laurence Housman, to destroy all my prose manuscripts in whatever language, and I permit him but do not enjoin him to select from my verse manuscript writing, and to publish, any poems which appear to him to be completed and not to be inferior to the average of my published poems; and I direct him to destroy all other poems and fragments of verse.”

The responsibility which has thus been laid on me is of a double character; for while I am anxious to include nothing that can do hurt to my brother’s literary reputation, I am most reluctant to deprive his lovers of any poems, however minor in character, which are not inferior to the others […].

It may be some consolation for those who regret this order for destruction, to know that there are no fragments or unfinished poems of outstanding quality. A few beautiful phrases, sometimes single verses, will have to go. […] All the rest is mainly work-shop material — chiefly of interest as showing the author’s method of composition — his many alterations of phrase or rhyme before finding the one which best satisfied him. [Preface to A.E. Housman, More Poems (Knopf, 1936)]

I am sure it is quite a disconsolation to Housman scholars that what they should be deprived of is some of the very material which would interest them most, that “showing the author’s method of composition”. Imagine how much these long-gone notebooks might have revealed about Housman’s working methods!

And now imagine if Christopher Tolkien had taken the same course, how much would have been lost. Indeed, the loss of native English mythology in the wake of the Norman Conquest that Tolkien so rued would in some ways have been repeated, a millennium later, almost to the year. It causes actual psychological pain to imagine it all consumed by fire. How easily paper burns! The Ring, when it was consumed by the Fire, took with it much that had been made through its power, or in resistance to it, and led to the changing of the Age and the passing of the Elves — but, perhaps most ironically, what survived the fire was a book. Or rather more than one.

Three beloved authors, three literary executors. One carried out his brother’s wishes and destroyed all but a tithe of his papers; one was rumored to have done so, but probably didn’t; and one has labored for decades to share nearly everything his father left behind. Consider that dedication for a moment and reflect: isn’t it the height of ingratitude for anyone to complain about what Christopher has done or what little he has declined to share? The fire would have greedily taken it all, until not a single page remained. We should try to be a little more grateful than that.

Flirtations with minor celebrity

For those who haven’t seen it yet, I was recently interviewed for PBS NewsHour. Not the television program, but their website. You can read the parts of the interview they published by following this link. The interview has been picked up and shared on a number of different PBS affiliate websites, and PBS shared it on their Facebook page as well. The Facebook post has been shared by more than 200 people. Nice!

But the biggest surprise came today. This morning, Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the world’s best and most-read blogger, mentioned me by name, quoted something I said in the PBS interview, and told his more than a million loyal readers about my book! You can read his blog post on The Dish (part of The Daily Beast). Please feel free to share the interview and the Andrew Sullivan blog post!

Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time political bloggers and pundits have picked up stuff I’ve said. Some time ago, I was consulted on the whole “tea party hobbits” kerfuffle. You can read the original piece in the Christian Science Monitor online. That interview also made the rounds of various political websites. Then-Senator Jim DeMint even quoted me (that was pretty surreal!), but catching the attention of Andrew Sullivan is much more gratifying!

Deep discount on my book!

The Kindle edition of my book is now available at a fantastic discount as part of a limited-time promotion by McFarland and Amazon. The softcover normally retails for $40, and the Kindle edition for $24.99, but for a short time, you can get it on Kindle for only $3.99! That's a savings of 90% off the softcover list price! Follow this link to buy it.

There’s no better time than now to get a copy if you don’t already have one. Or if you have a print copy but not the Kindle, this price makes it easy to get both formats. And please note that you don’t even have to have a Kindle to get the Kindle edition. Amazon provides a PC version of the Kindle reader as a free download. So if you’d benefit from having a digital, searchable copy of the book, now’s your chance. Even if you already have the Kindle edition, please share the link on any Tolkien websites or forums you frequent, and tell your friends about it.

In the old days, deep discounts usually meant that printed books were being remaindered, the first stop on their way into oblivion. But that’s not what this is about. This is part of deliberate, short-term marketing promotion designed to get my book (and some others McFarland has selected) into more people’s hands by Christmas. McFarland also hopes that the increased traffic and sales will catch the attention of Amazon’s cross-promotional algorithms, resulting in a boost in softcover sales as well. Let’s hope so!

Sorry for the blatantly commercial post, but the more people reading my book, the better. I’m sure you understand. :)

Mystery Tolkien passage, solved!

A passage caught my eye in Alliterative Poetry in Middle English (Volume 1), by James Parker Oakden and Elizabeth Ruth (Manchester University Press, 1930). Discussing matters of Middle English dialectal orthography, the authors quote Tolkien thus: “The local names originally beginning with hw, written down at Cockersand in Furness are spelt qu, whereas such local names south of the Ribble are spelt wh, w.” (p. 29)

Does anyone recognize this? It’s not ringing a bell, and the authors don’t footnote their source.

Though the book was published in 1930, the manuscript would have been completed in 1928 or 1929. In an addendum (p. 273), the authors make reference to a new edition of Alexander A and B by F.P. Magoun, published in 1929, “too late to be considered in the present volume”. This suggests that any work by Tolkien  to which they could have had access must have been published, at the latest, by early 1929. That leaves a relatively short list.

• A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
• “Philology: General Works.” The Year’s Work in English Studies 4 (1923) [1924]
• “The Devil’s Coach-Horses.” The Review of English Studies 1.3 (July 1925)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon (1925)
• “Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography.” The Review of English Studies 1.2 (April 1925)
• “Philology: General Works.” The Year’s Work in English Studies 5 (1924) [1926]
• “Philology: General Works.” The Year’s Work in English Studies 6 (1925) [1927]
• “Foreword.” In Walter E. Haigh’s A New Glossary of the Dialect of the Huddersfield District (1928)
• “Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad.” Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association 14 (January 1929)

The passage in question could be from Tolkien and Gordon’s edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, because the authors do cite that edition, but they normally refer to Tolkien and Gordon together (e.g., pp. 73, 257, 266, 267). There is one instance where they refer to this text by Tolkien’s name alone (p. 17), so the passage quoted above could be from Sir Gawain. But I don’t remember it and didn’t spot it at a glance. There are sections of Tolkien’s review essays for YWES discussing place-names, but at a quick glance, I didn’t see the quoted passage their either. Likewise, I scanned through his other works of the period and didn’t come across it. Some of these works I know pretty well, and I don’t recall this passage. It’s certainly possible I missed it in hasty skimming.

Anyone? And if we can’t track it down, what does that mean? That the authors err in attributing the remarks to Tolkien? Or could they be quoting a statement Tolkien made privately? Or what? If any of you reading this can track down the passage, please do tell.

Update: Utúvienyes and eureka! I’ve found it! See the comments. :)

Sméagol — what’s in a name?

On Facebook today, Marcel Aubron-Bülles sent out an appeal to linguistically minded Tolkien scholars, tapping me on the shoulder along with Michael Drout, Thomas Honegger, Rainer Nagel, and others. His question: “Sméagol is derived from ‘smygel’, in itself an OE noun (see Bosworth/Toller). Is ‘Sméagol’ therefore a modernised adaption, i.e. a noun?”

Michael Drout was the first to weigh in, suggesting Sméagol derives not from smygel “burrow, cave” but from sméagan “to inquire, investigate, be curious about”, on the grounds that Sméagol was “the most inquisitive member of his community, and he got his name before the murder of Déagol (which means ‘secret’).”

Then, Marcel quoted from the guide to the people, places, and things that Tolkien prepared for translators in the mid-1960’s: “Smials. A word peculiar to Hobbits (not Common Speech), meaning ‘burrow’ […]. It is a form that the Old English word smygel ‘burrow’ might have had, if it had survived. The same element appears in Gollum’s real name, Sméagol.”

To this, I would add that Tolkien had already addressed this point in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, where he wrote:

This assimilation [i.e., the same as in “the forms and spellings of place-names in Rohan”] also provided a convenient way of representing the peculiar local hobbit-words that were of northern origin. They have been given the forms that lost English words might well have had, if they had come down to our day. Thus mathom is meant to recall ancient English máthm, and so to represent the relationship of the actual Hobbit kast to R. kastu. Similarly smial (or smile) ‘burrow’ is a likely form for a descendant of smygel, and represents well the relationship of Hobbit trân to R. trahan. Sméagol and Déagol are equivalents made up in the same way for the names Trahald ‘burrowing, worming in’, and Nahald ‘secret’ in the Northern tongues. [App. F, II]

And there is a relevant passage from Tolkien’s letters also, in a 1967 draft letter to “Mr. Rang”, who had written Tolkien to inquire about his nomenclature. Here, he notes that Old English is the source for:

a few […] survivals in Hobbit-dialect derived from the region (The Vale of Anduin to the immediate north of Lórien) where that dialect of the Northmen developed its particular character. To which may be added Déagol and Sméagol; and the local names Gladden River, and the Gladden Fields, which contains A.S. glædene ‘iris’, in my book supposed to refer to the ‘yellow flag’ growing in streams and marshes. [Letters, #297]

Sméagol is not attested in the Old English corpus, though there are many words built from the same roots. In addition to sméagan (as Mike Drout has already noted), there are sméah “creeping in, penetrating”, sméalic “searching, penetrating”, smúgan “to creep, crawl”, sméa(g)ung “search, inquiry, investigation”, etc. But since *sméagol isn’t attested, how do we know whether it would have derived from a noun or a verb. Indeed, how do we know what part of speech *sméagol itself would have been? These questions are at the heart of what Marcel was trying to figure out.

The key lies in its mate, déagol, which is a genuine Old English word. As Mike and others have pointed out, it means “secret, dark, obscure, hidden”, quite suitable for any friend of Sméagol’s. Appropriately enough for an associate of Gollum, déagol also appears in a riddles in the Exeter Book (“Hyrre ic eom heofone, || hateþ mec heahcyning / his deagol þing || dyre bihealdan”). So, if anything can, déagol ought to shed light on *sméagol.

Déagol (also dégol, díegol, dígol, etc.) is an adjective deriving from Primitive Germanic *dauȜilaz. There are cognates in Old High German tougal(i) “hidden”, Old Norse dul “concealment” and dylja “to hide, conceal” (which exhibits palatalization and would probably have been *dylga at some earlier point), and even Modern Swedish dold. The Old English word also survived into Middle English as diȜel. Adjectives ending in –ol normally derive from verbs, and the suffix is indicative of tendency, inclination, ability, etc. Besides déagol (from díegian “to hide” + –ol), there are plenty of other examples: béogol “agreeable”, fretol “greedy”, hetol “hateful”, meagol “earnest, mighty”, numol “capable, nimble”, sprecol “talkative”, sweotol “plain”, þancol “thoughtful”.

This suggests very strongly that *sméagol could well have been a genuine adjective (derived from Primitive Germanic *smauȜilaz), even though it is nowhere recorded. It would apparently have been formed from sméagan “to consider, meditate, examine” + –ol. It probably would not have come from smúgan. That verb could have given rise to an adjective *smugol “creeping, crawling, gliding”, and indeed the Middle English smuhel “lithe, gliding, stealthy, slippery”, a hapax legomenon occurring only in the Ancrene Wisse, is its likely descendant (and cp. Old Irish smugall). This is a word that probably attracted Tolkien’s eye at some point, considering his work on the Ancrene Wisse. But indirectly, the verb sméagan probably did arise metaphorically from smúgan “to creep, crawl”, with its more appropriate sense of Gollumishness. And cp. Old Norse smjúga and of course, Tolkien’s Smaug. Although *sméagol is not recorded, the element sméa– is attested in the adjective sméa-þancol “contemplative, sharp-witted”. And although an adjective *sméagol hasn’t survived in English, at least the noun smygel has. I’ve wondered whether this may be the source of the Germanic/Slavic/Jewish surname Smigel, Smiegel, Schmiegel, etc. Does anyone know?

So, to bottom line this meandering meditation on our slippery friend. The name Sméagol has not been modernized. It retains the form of an unattested but straightforward Old English adjective, precisely analogous to Déagol. And I agree that Mike Drout is probably right that Sméagol derives directly from sméagan (with the addition of a suffix of tendency), and not from smúgan or smygel directly. Moreover, we must conclude that Tolkien was a little bit, well, wrong, when he suggested that Sméagol had to do with burrowing, creeping, worming, etc. Or rather, that sense is there, but it’s buried deeper (appropriately enough), underneath the more immediate sense of inquiring, investigating, being curious about things.

Reconstructed lexis in Tolkien and Gordon’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I recently posted a list of reconstructed word-forms compiled from Tolkien’s Middle English Vocabulary, which met with some enthusiasm. Thus encouraged, and as a further public service, I have now compiled a similar list from the glossary to Tolkien and E.V. Gordon’s 1925 edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for which Tolkien was responsible for the text and glossary, Gordon the notes. There are several entries common to both glossaries, but there are a lot more French forms in Sir Gawain. In addition, the Old English forms are predominantly Mercian. This list adds to the raw material available to researchers into Tolkien’s philological work.

My copy of the book is a 1946 reprint with the corrections of the 1930 impression, and it happens to be somebody’s Examination Prize from Pembroke College, Cambridge. I wonder whose? The impression is important, because in 1967, the edition was revised by Tolkien’s student Norman Davis; therefore, the glossary may not be an entirely reliable guide to Tolkien’s work from that point on.

As before, please let me know if you spot oversights or errors. The only deliberate change I’ve made is not to mark vowels that were long but in the process of shortening with both the macron and breve. Since most fonts do not contain those glyphs, I’ve simply marked them long.

OLD ENGLISH (= ANGLIAN; USUALLY MERCIAN)

*ǣniges cynnes; at any
*be līfe; at biliue
*bitācnung; at bytoknyng
*boþm; at boþe
*byldan; at bylde
*byrde; at burde
*clædde, pret. of rare clǣþan; at clad
*cyllan; at kylled
*dræht; at draȜt
*drūhþ–, drūgoþ; at droȜt
*dylle, rel. to dol; at dille
*féldan; at felde
*fician, cf. befician; at fyked
*forþ, ford; at forþe
*gēgan, rel. to ON geyja; at ȜeȜe
*gelping; at Ȝelpyng
*georran; at Ȝar(r)ande
*glimerian; at glemered
*halian, or OFr haler; at hale
*hecg; at hegge
*hyppan; at hypped
*lēofman; at lemman
*mān, rel. to mǣnan; at mone
*mysig; at misy
*piccan, cf. late pīcan; at piched
*pīn; at pine
*pīpian; at pipe
*rāmian; at rome
*rīfe; at ryue
*rittan; at rytte
*ryccan, cf. ON rykkja; at ruch(ch)e
*(ge)sǣte; at sete
*scaterian; at schaterande
*slīet, *slēt, cf. MLG slōte; at slete
*slittan; at slyt
*slūmerian; at slomeryng
*stecan; at stoken
*stertan; at start(e)
*stihtlian; at stiȜtel
*stiorne; at sturn(e)
*strāc; at strok(e)
*talcian; at talk(ke)
*toht; at toȜt
*trȳstan; at tryst
*unto; at vnto
*wæ(c)st; at wast
*smīlan, cf. OHG smīlan; at smyle
*wíld; at wylde

OLD FRENCH

*a(u)mail; at aumayl
*blanc de mer; at blaunmer
*cel(e)ure, cf. L cēlātura; at selure
*cout(i)ere; at cowters
*daliance; at dalyaunce
*malgred; at mawgref
*molein; at molaynes
*reuerenc(i)er; at reuerenced
*sa(u)ve-nape; at sanap
*teme; at teme

OLD NORTH FRENCH

*kenil; at kenel
*lekerous; at lykkerwys

ANGLO-FRENCH

*avanter; at avanters
*entrelude, Anglo-Latin interludium; at enterludeȜ

OLD NORSE

*banke, later bakki; at bonk(e)
*beiðna, later beina; at bayþe(n)
*blenkja, later blekkya; at blenk(e)
*drahtr, later dráttr; at draȜt
*fjaska; at fyskeȜ
*glenta, cf. Norw glenta; at glent
*hrunka; at ronkled
*ke(a)rr–, later kjarr; at ker(re)
*renk, later rekkr; at renk
*skiuj–, later ský; at skweȜ
*slenta, later sletta; at slentyng
*sprenta, later spretta; at sprent
*þoh, later þó; at þof
*trýsta; at tryst
*dréug–, later drjúgr; at dreȜ

MIDDLE ENGLISH

*cauelaciounȜ; at kauelacion
*inurned; at enn(o)urned
*quoþ; at coþe

MIDDLE WELSH

*crag, cf. Middle Breton cragg; at cragge

Reconstructed lexis in Tolkien’s Middle English Vocabulary

Most of my regular readers are aware that Tolkien’s first published book was a glossary of Middle English compiled to accompany Kenneth Sisam’s collection of Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose. I won’t rehearse the history of the book here, but you can learn more at the Tolkien Gateway.

In the glossary, Tolkien offers etymologies for the words he glosses, and many of these etymologies contain reconstructions, or “asterisk-words”. These are word-forms that do not survive in any recorded text. Their form and shape have been reconstructed according to the principles of historical linguistics. Such words are of enormous interest to me in my philological work, just as they were to Tolkien in his. I found myself wishing that I had a list of the words Tolkien had reconstructed, so I made one.

As a public service for the linguistically minded, here is the complete list of the asterisk-words from Tolkien’s Middle English Vocabulary, arranged by language and then alphabetically. I had thought this to be a complete list, but seemingly I missed quite a few words in the initial compilation. See Diego Segui’s comments below! Eventually, I’ll update the list here in the main blog post, but it may take a little time.

The headword in the glossary where the asterisked etymology may be found is given in boldface. I think that all the abbreviations I’ve used will be obvious to anyone who would actually have an interest in this list, but if not, just ask. And if anybody spots any typographical or other errors, please let me know. Typing these out almost gave my word processor a seizure! Enjoy! :)

OLD ENGLISH (“frequently differ[ing] from the normal West-Saxon”)

*ǣniges cynnes, later ME eny kyns; at Eny
*alra cynna; at Alkyn
*be līfe; at Belyue
*be-cwiss, rel. to be-cweþan; at Biqueste
*blencan, poss. identical with blencan; at Blenk
*brēo; at Bre
*cāpe, from ML cāpa; at Cope
*clēat; at Clete
*cyllan; at Kille
*dasian, cf. darian, ON dasa-sk; at Dase
*dawe; at Daw
*dearf-, cf. ON djarf-r; at Derffe
*dingan, cf. dencgan, ON dengja; at Dynge(n)
*dræht; at Draught
*dūfe, cf. ON dúfa; at Dowue
*for-fǣran; at Ferde
*halian, from OFris halia or OFr haler; at Hale
*hecg; at Hegges
*hlysnan, ONth lysna, infl. by hlystan; at Lystens
*hyppan, cf. hoppian; at Hypped
*lēfn–, from *lau(h)mni–, cf. Goth lauhmuni; at Levyn
*lēof-man; at Lemman
*lēomian, cf. ON ljóma; at Leme
*mylnere; at Mullere
*naglas; at Naule
*nēdig; at Nedy
*on-bufan, var. of abufan; at Aboue(n)
*pīn; at Pine
*pīpian; at Pypynge
*rāmian; at Rome
*rīfe, var. of rȳfe; at Rife
*ryccan; at Ryched
*salu; at Sale
*scǣre, rel. to scīr, cf. ON skǽr-r, skír-r; at Scere
*slūmerian, cf. slūma; at Slombrende
*smīlian, rel. to MHG smielen, Swed smila; at Smyle
*snēowan, var. of snīwan; at Suewe
*solgian, cf. solian; at Solowe
*spræg, cf. spraec; at Sprai
*stēorne, var. of stȳrne; at Sturn(e)
*stertan, var. of styrtan; at Start
*strāc, rel. to strīcan; at Strok(e)
*talcian, rel. to talu; at Talk
*þeorc; at Þerk
*toht, rel. to tēon; at ToȜt
*tollian; at Tolled
*untō, cf. OS untō (prep.), Goth, untē (conj.); at Vnto
*widr(i)an; at Widder
*ymb(e)-þencan, cf. ymbe-þanc, but prefix infl. by ON umb; at Vmbethoncht
ān + *hǣdu; at Onehed
tō + *ryccan; at To-rochit
tō + *rittan; at To-rett
wōd + *hǣdu; at Wodehed

OLD KENTISH (DIALECT OF OLD ENGLISH)

*cē, cf. OE cū; at Cou
*certel, cf. OE cyrtel; at Kirtel(l)
*scettan; at Vnschette

MIDDLE ENGLISH

*anowrned; at *Anowrned
*blissefulest; at Blisseful
*kyþeȜ (MS lyþeȜ); at Kyþe

OLD FRENCH

*demeur, in demeurement; at Dimuir

OLD NORSE

be + *veila; at Beweile
*bredd–, cf. Swed. bräddfull; at Bretfull
*dreog–, later drjúg-r; at Dregh
*myk(i)-dyngja; at Mydyng
*stern–, later stjarna; at Starne
*þéht–; at Tyste
*þoh, or unacc. form of OE þah; at ÞaȜ(e)
*wrá; at Wro
*wrang–; at Wrang(e)
*þoh, later þó; at Þogh

How to review books

I read reviews, I edit them, and I write them. It stands to reason, then, that I ought to have some opinions about book reviewing. Moreover, my approach to reviewing books has evolved a good deal over the years. I’ve been mulling over sharing some of these opinions for a while now, and I’ve decided that today is the day. What follows should not be taken for any more than it is: some, not all, of my opinions about how to review books; some of what I think makes a review good or bad (i.e., successful or unsuccessful); what, in my view, are the most important goals of a book review; and so on. This is hardly exhaustive, and will hardly be my final word on the subject. I’m also interested in thoughts and feedback from you.

I’d like to begin with the appropriate scope and subject for book reviews, mainly because this is something that often sticks in my craw when I’m reading and editing them. Here, I’ve got a visual aid. If you take a look at the pie chart I’ve included above, you’ll get a rough idea of what I think book reviewers should spend their time discussing and in what proportions. Perhaps 70% of the review should discuss what a book is actually about. Maybe 18% of the review can then talk about what the book should have been — that is, oversights and missed opportunities closely related to its central argument, without which the argument is weaker, or with which the argument could have been made stronger. Then another, say, 10% of the review might touch on what the book might have been — that is, more digressive, or more distantly related things that the author missed, chose not to include, or perhaps hinted at or merely adumbrated. The final 2% (if even that) of the review could be used to talk about what the book is not. These numbers are, of course, not absolute. The idea is to illustrate what I take to be the relative importance of each of these four kinds of review content.

You might think this is all pretty obvious. It should be. But I have read a surprising number of book reviews that do not conform to this model at all. A good (or rather a bad) example which stands out in my mind is the review of Truths Breathed Through Silver (ed. Jonathan Himes; Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), by Charles Foster, published in The C.S. Lewis Chronicle (6.2 [April 2009]: 40).

The review is short, a shade under 300 words, already almost too short to be of much value, and most of it is not about what the book is, but rather about what it is not. It consists of three paragraphs, of which the first might be summarized thus: “The Inklings were a tweedy crowd who shared a common belief in inescapable myths, of which Christianty was the supreme.” The second, thus: “Their respect for myths shaped their writings, some of which took the form of new mythologies.” At this point, the reviewer, who is already two-thirds of the way through his commentary, writes: “That is what I thought this book would be about. But it isn’t.” When I read this review, an inner voice wanted to snidely reply: “Actually reviewing the book in question is what I thought this review would be about. But it isn’t.” The reviewer limits his actual commentary on the book to about three or four sentences, of which even these make little attempt to assess the merits and flaws of the collection under consideration. An unbalanced, unsuccessful review.

At this point, it might be worth taking a moment to consider the purpose of book reviews. The first and most important goal of a review ought to be to answer the question, should anybody read the book being discussed? An enormous number of books are published every year, and nobody can read them all. Even within a narrow field of interest such as Tolkien studies, it can be hard to keep up. Reviewers are meant to be knowledgeable guides who can advise which books are worth a reader’s time. A review like Charles Foster’s is not useful in this regard. All it really manages to convey is that Foster was disappointed with the book. But of course, he would be, since he expected it to be something it wasn’t.

Speaking of bad reviews, what about bad reviews? That is to say, reviews of bad books. Edgar Allan Poe used to be notorious for his “tomahawk” reviews, reviews that were so relentlessly vicious it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a suicide or two on his conscience. These can be very entertaining to read — for people with no connection or vested interest in the target, at least — but I have come to agree with Auden, who felt that reviewing bad books was bad for you.

“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character,” Auden wrote. “If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.” (W. H. Auden, “Reading”, in The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays, New York: Random House, 1962, p. 11).

If I take a good, hard look at my own early reviews, I can see some evidence of the truth of this, especially where showing off is concerned. Reviewers are normally engaged to review a book because they are more knowledgeable in their field than the average reader (on the other hand, sometimes you get this kind of tripe). That knowledge provides a larger context for judging the successes and failures of a book, so it’s a very important ingredient in a successful review. But, like paprika, it is an ingredient of which a little goes a long way. It is shockingly easy for even a well-intentioned reviewer to lapse into intellectual ostentation. I’ve been guilty of this myself. I now make a deliberate effort to avoid it in my reviews, and that deliberation is an attitude which I think can only come from experience. And when it comes to books I think so bad as to be unworthy of any but the most scathing review — the kind of book Auden had in mind — I’ve been known to decline the assignment and return the book to the editor. There is an argument to be made for reviewing even books this bad, if for no other reason than to warn away readers, but I have decided that I will leave that task to others. It’s not about sparing the feelings of the book’s author(s); rather, it’s about sparing my own character and freeing up my time for more rewarding pursuits.

What else is a book review for? I’ve said the most important thing it should do is help potential readers to decide whether to pick up a book or pass it by. Its next most important purpose, in my view, is to describe the contents of the book and offer judgments about those contents. A large part of a book’s appeal is subjective, depending on what’s in it. In the case of a multicontributor collection, especially, potential readers would like to know what the collection contains as this will normally help them to decide whether they want to read it. It’s true that readers have other sources of information besides book reviews — Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Books, publishers’ websites, etc., will often enumerate tables of contents — but reviews should do likewise if they can. If space is at more of a premium, they still ought to at least summarize the contents. It’s worth pointing out that enumerating the contents of a collection and describing every piece can be taken too far. The best example I know of this is Deidre A. Dawson’s recent review for Tolkien Studies of The Ring Goes Ever On, a two-volume conference proceedings. Dawson’s review is an astonishing 100 pages long, nearly one-eighth the size of the collection under review. To put this in perspective, if my own book had been reviewed with a corresponding level of attention, that review would have been thirty pages long instead of four!

Rehearsing a book’s contents falls into the category of describing what a book is actually about, and it gives the reviewer an organized, intuitive structure for then offering opinions and value judgments on each constituent part of the book. As the reviewer works his or her way through each chapter, section, or what have you, there will also be an opportunity to point out oversights, on perhaps a one in four (~18:70) ratio. Less often still, perhaps for one piece in seven, the reviewer could venture further in opining about what the piece might have been. And there might — might — be room for just one or two observations about what the book isn’t. All of this requires good judgment, and ample room. When the length of a review is severely constrained, these extra digressions have to be sacrificed.

One other quick point, on the subject of noting errors. I think it’s important for reviewers to call out major errors, but this has to be done with care. Far too easily, the exercise of nit-picking errors falls into the category of showing off (and again, I’ve been guilty of it). I have also seen situations, and narrowly avoided them myself, where a reviewer’s attempt to point out an error is itself in error. But reviews themselves are seldom reviewed, and so, sometimes, an unfair or mistaken criticism can stand unchallenged. Another good example: I have seen situations where a quotation is wrong in an advance reading copy, but has been corrected in the final published book. And finally, there is the situation where a reviewer criticizes grammar, spelling, typos, etc., only to commit them him or herself. A real-world example to back this up: “Another rather serious flaw is the apparent lack of any proofreading of the manuscript, which would have spared some of the authors […] embarrassment”, followed closely by: “A set of eyes real eyes, not virtual ones is necessary”. Tsk, tsk, clearly a set of eyes — real eyes, not virtual ones — was necessary in this review as well. I should note that the author of this particular review does indeed point out some very serious editorial errors, such as the appearance of the same essay twice between the same covers.

Better to avoid getting egg on your face by refraining, except under exceptional circumstances, from this kind of criticism. Unless it is very frequent and conspicuous (and naturally there are legitimate examples of this extreme), it is unlikely to affect a reviewer’s ultimate recommendation. And if you are going to make a point of noting grammatical and spelling errors, triple-check your review to make sure you aren’t equally guilty. :)

So, there you are. To me, all of this constitutes a recipe for a pretty successful and useful book review. Agree? Disagree? Things I missed?

Book giveaway!

Attention, fans of Ursula K. Le Guin, Earthsea, and free stuff! Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Simon & Schuster have worked together to produce a brand-new set of all six Earthsea books with beautiful new art and packaging. Thanks to their kindness, I have a set to give away to a fan. For the next 24 hours, leave a reply here to enter the random drawing. Tell me what you like about Le Guin and/or Earthsea, leave a reminiscence about the first time you read her books, or whatever else you might like to share. I'll take the names of everyone who leaves a comment on this thread by 12:00 PM PST Thursday, October 18, and randomly pick a winner. Good luck!

You can get a sneak peek at the new set here.