Appendices C, D, E – Introduction

N.E. Brigand

N.E. Brigand

Half-elven
When the vacancy in this week’s discussion was announced, it had been suggested that we repost questions from the three previous discussions of these chapters. I’ll work a few of those into this week’s posts, with attribution, (there will also be a few questions from Beren IV, the scheduled leader for this week) but I found that many of the questions leaned heavily on the context in which they were originally posted (especially for squire’s 2006 discussions). Reprinting whole posts was more recycling than I wanted.

So I’ve prepared four new posts to follow this one: one each for Appendices C and D, and two posts for Appendix E: one on Pronunciation and one on Writing. If you have further questions on these appendices, you can ask them in repsonse to those threads, or start your own – I ask only that you wait until the initial thread for each section has been posted before adding your own thoughts.

Here are a couple questions to kick off the week: Which of these three appendices do you refer to most often? Which one sheds the most light on the main text?
 
Which of these three appendices do you refer to most often?

Probably Appendix E, just because I have, from time to time, tried to figure out how certain words are pronounced.

Which one sheds the most light on the main text?

It depends on what you mean by light. If you think it is important to pronounce Tolkien's invented words correctly, then it's Appendix E. If not, then I would go with Appendix C, which sheds some light on Tolkien interrelations.

I wonder if Tolkien himself underestimated his readers' interest in his invented languages. In his original Foreword, Tolkien gave some short clues to pronunciation. In the Foreword to the Second Edition, Tolkien gave no clues, and now the only guidance on pronunciation is buried in Appendix E. Even those who read it are likely to do so after they have finished the text.

As far as Appendix D is concerned, I sometimes wonder whether the purpose of Appendix D is to confuse the issue of whether the dates in LotR correspond with dates in the Primary World. After all, consider all we have said about dates in LotR that seem to correspond with changes in seasons or dates in the Christian calendar. None of that would be true if the dates in LotR don't correspond with Primary World dates, which seems to be the main point of Appendix D. Personally, I trust the text of LotR more than I do Appendix D.
 
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These days I refer most often to Appendix C (family trees) and in fact keep it permanently bookmarked, because I can't write fanfic without it.

In the past I spent most of my time in Appendix E, learning how to write elvish, at least well enough for my own purposes. It's terrifically useful, when I want to scribble notes to myself that I don't want others to read yet can't guarantee my privacy, like the appointments I used to write down on my calendar at work, that were nobody else's business. Nobody can decode it in the usual cryptogram fashion, because the letters don't correspond precisely to the standard English alphabet. It includes quite a number of dipthongs, omits the vowels in favor of diacriticals (yet also has diacriticals for other non-vowel usages) and has several different versions of the same letter when positioned differently in a word. Someone can't even pick up the book and easily decode my notes from that, at least before I have time to catch them in the act, because the meanings of the symbols change according to what sounds most commonly crop up in a dialect, and I have attuned my own version to English. Most convenient!

I would love it if someday I could make more use of Appendix D (calendars.) These systems seem so much more sensible than our current mess of uneven lengths of months! Although I would demur at the hobbit custom of only having a half-day off for the weekend (Still, that makes sense in an agrarian society--gives you time to take care of the barn animals before wandering off for a picnic.)
 
I'd say that the geneologies shed the most light on the texts, for me at least, because they help us place who was alive when, and at what age, how they relate to each other, and how families changed over time. I saw Bilbo quite differently when I realized that he lived through the Long Winter as a child, for instance. Also Sam's inheritance of Bag End becomes more legally understandable (in terms of how he got away with bequeathing such valuable real estate to his gardener) when one sees that Lotho's death left Frodo as the the last male hobbit with the Baggins last name.

However, the Calendars are full of juicy cultural tidbits that also enrich my picture of Middle Earth, tucked away in unexpected places. I'd consider them a must-read for anyone with an appetite for anthropology.
 
Which of these three appendices do you refer to most often?
Probably appendix C. I like geneology, and my interest in linguistics is quite recent - and has to do quite a bit with my RL job.

Which one sheds the most light on the main text?
Once again, I would think appendix C - but I possibly underappreciate appendix E. As Curious noted, that depends on what light you want to shed on the main text.
 
This will not be popular, but it's just my view, no big deal......


Which of these three appendices do you refer to most often?

None.....

I have never had a reason to need to know who Merridoc's third cousin was.

I don't read or write Elvish.


Which one sheds the most light on the main text?


I actually read the books to my 11 year old son who has autism recently & he wanted to hear every single word from cover to cover - and knew all the chapters, so it was the first time I read or even looked at C, D & E in a very long time. I'd say 'F' which talks about the languages with the mention of the Olog-hai is the most interesting passage for me after Appendices A & B, which to me are the real meat in terms of shedding light on the story.
 
Remember, I suggested that there is no need for any of the appendices, and they might even detract from the story. I'm not sure why you think you need to duck.
 
But are you certain that Frodo was the last male Baggins?

Tolkien states that these names are "only a selection from many", so I think one may make the assumption that not all of Bilbo's cousins were listed there, due to space constraints; for example,that Bingo's line showed only the link to a descendant who attended the Party, and not any other progeny.

Hobbits supposedly had large families; Bungo and Belladonna, and Drogo and Primula, were exceptions rather than the rule, in having only one child.

A distant Baggins might have made some complaint about the inheritance of Sam, had Sam not by that time become quite popular. And no doubt Frodo made the papers out proper, all signed by seven witnesses with red ink. [;)]

I quite agree about the Calendars: it's not just the dates, it's all the little niceties thrown in there that make that section a fun read (as long as you don't actually try to coordinate that calendar with ours!).
 
Porto Baggins, second cousin once removed to Bilbo - not as strong a relation as Frodo, who is both Bilbo's second cousin once removed on the Baggins side and first cousin once removed on the Took side.

Probably ended up working for Sam...
 
I've been trying to figure out who this mysterious Baggins was. So--the name goes on. Oh--I see! There he is, squeezed between Ponto and Peony, hiding from my aging eyes. Just because he appears to be a batchelor without descendants doesn't mean he is, of course. He just looks kind of cramped for space, there, with the rest of his putative family squeezed out.
 
In letter #214, a draft dating approximately from 1958-59, Tolkien explains much about hobbit custom, and wrote that once it was agreed in 1427 that Bilbo would not be returning again, "Presumably the title of 'head' then passed to the descendants of Ponto Baggins -- probably Ponto (II)." It's not clear to me if Frodo, though heir to Bilbo's estate, was ahead or behind Ponto and Porto in line for the head of the family, but Tolkien is clear in the letter that the matter of headship was in 1341-42 separate from "questions of property that would have arisen if [Lotho's] cousin Bilbo had died intestate".
 
As dernwyn had also suggested Porto. But it wasn't a matter of poor eyesight for both to think of middle child Porto, given that Ponto is shown with a daughter: if Angelica was his only child, the title would pass to Porto on his death. And from the family tree, we don't know when either Ponto or Porto died, nor when Bilbo was declared dead. This appears only in the letter -- and who knows if Tolkien ever finished it, or considered it to be as authoritative as his published books? From The History of "The Hobbit", we know that he might create a genealogy in correspondence, but discard it in later writings.
 
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