För en tid sedan kommer jag ihåg att läsa en lista över förändringar som Tolkien gjorde till sina ursprungliga få utkast till Ringenes Herre. Bland dem var saker som Strider som ursprungligen kallades Trotter, och att han på ett eller annat vis faktiskt var Bilbo (på stylter?).
Jag har sedan dess inte kunnat hitta listan, men jag tänkte på att det skulle bli mer insiktsfullt om det här.
Så min fråga är, vilka delar av berättelsen har drastiskt förändrats från slutprodukten? Var det någonsin en helt fleshed ut version som hade Bilbo som Trotter / Strider? Och om så, hur påverkar detta resten av berättelsen? Tack.
Christopher Tolkien skrev fyra böcker i sin History of Middle Earth -serie som går över skrivhistoriken om Ringenes Herre i invecklade detaljer. Den har flera versioner av många kapitel, särskilt de tidiga, och diskuterar de problem som Tolkien hade pågått från The Hobbit 2 "till" En bok så stor att den måste delas upp på grund av pappersbrist ".
Därför var de flesta större förändringarna tidiga i skrivhistoriken:
[The] most intractable problem lies in the development of the story through successive drafts, always changing but always closely dependent on what preceded. In the rather extreme case of the opening chapter 'A Long-expected Party', there are in this book six main texts to be considered and a number of abandoned openings.
Men när historien slog sig ner, är det väldigt få "drastiska" förändringar. De är mer av en långsam utveckling, med funktioner som framträder medan historien skrevs, vilket kräver omskrivning av tidigare delar. Tolkien byggde i princip ett hus medan stiftelserna ständigt byttes eftersom det blev för högt.
Jag har kommit upp med det jag tycker är de mest intressanta förändringarna i historiens grundläggande riktning. Listan är inte fullständig, men den kan fungera som utgångspunkt.
Observera att de flesta namn gick igenom många ändringar. Till exempel var huvudpersonen ursprungligen kallad Bingo och Merry var Marmaduke . Jag kommer inte att kommentera dessa namn längre.
Tolkien gick igenom minst sex olika versioner av öppningskapitlet. Hans huvudproblem var med slutet av The Hobbit , där det sägs att Bilbo "levde lyckligt någonsin".
The sequel to the Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. For another nearly all the 'motives' that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either 'thinner' or merely repetitional.
Detta är en sammanfattning av de olika stadierna:
Bilbo gives the party, aged 70. ('I am going to tell you a story about one of his descendants') Bilbo gives the party, aged 71. Bilbo married, and disappeared from Hobbiton with his wife (Primula Brandybuck) when he was 111. His son Bingo Baggins gives the party, aged 72. Bilbo, unmarried, adopted his young cousin Bingo Bolger (son of Primula Brandybuck), changed his name to Bingo Bolger-Baggins, and disappeared from Hobbiton when he was 111. His adopted cousin Bingo Bolger-Baggins gives the party, aged 72. Bilbo gives the Party at the age of 111 and vanishes at the end of it. Frodo departs quietly from Hobbiton with his friends 17 years later.
Det fanns ännu ett projicerat plot, men det utvecklades aldrig:
Bilbo departs quietly from Hobbiton at the age of 111. Frodo ('Folco') gives the Party and vanishes at the end of it.
Det finns också många andra anteckningar, falska startar, namnändringar och modifieringar till festen som anges från Hobbiton.
I det första utkastet till Tre är Company , vid den punkt där Hobbits senare skulle möta den första Black Rider ser de Gandalf istället.
The sound of hoofs drew nearer. Round a turn came a white horse, and on it sat a bundle - or that is what it looked like: a small man wrapped entirely in a great cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out, and his boots in the stirrups below.
The horse stopped when it came level with Bingo. The figure uncovered its nose and sniffed; and then sat silent as if listening. Suddenly a laugh came from inside the hood.
'Bingo my boy!' said Gandalf, throwing aside his wrappings.
Christopher Tolkien skulle säga detta:
Here this draft stops, at the foot of a page, and if my father continued beyond this point the manuscript is lost; but I think it far more likely that he abandoned it because he abandoned the idea that the rider was Gandalf as soon as written.
It is most curious to see how directly the description of Gandalf led into that of the Black Rider - and that the original sniff was Gandalf's! In fact the conversion of the one to the other was first carried out by pencilled changes on the draft text, thus:
Round a turn came a white [> black] horse, and on it sat a bundle - or that is what it looked like: a small [> short] man wrapped entirely in a great [added: black) cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out [> so that his face was entirely shadowed]...
Om beskrivningen av Gandalf i utkastet jämförs med den av Black Rider i typtexten kommer det att ses att med ytterligare förfining ligger den fortfarande mycket nära baserat på den andra. Den nya svängen i historien var verkligen "oförutsedd".
Aragorn började som "Trotter", en Hobbit med träskor:
Suddenly Bingo noticed that a queer-looking, brown-faced hobbit, sitting in the shadows behind the others, was also listening intently. He had an enormous mug (more like a jug) in front of him, and was smoking a broken-stemmed pipe right under his rather long nose.
He was dressed in dark rough brown cloth, and had a hood on, in spite of the warmth, - and, very remarkably, he had wooden shoes! Bingo could see them sticking out under the table in front of him. [...]
'O! that is one of the wild folk - rangers we call 'em. He has been coming in now and again (in autumn and winter mostly) the last few years; but he seldom talks. Not but what he can tell some rare tales when he has a mind, you take my word.
What his right name is I never heard, but he's known round here as Trotter. You can hear him coming along the road in those shoes: clitter-clap - when he walks on a path, which isn't often. Why does he wear 'em? Well, that I can't say. But there ain't no accounting for East or West, as we say here, meaning the Rangers and the Shire-folk, begging your pardon.'
Som Gandalf / Black Rider konvertering ovan är det alltid intressant att se hur nära de tidiga texterna är till den slutliga versionen, men ändå hittills. Tolkien skulle fråga "Vem är Trotter?" många gånger i sina anteckningar.
Rangers are best not as hobbits, perhaps. But either Trotter (as a ranger) must be not a hobbit, or someone very well known: e.g. Bilbo. But the latter is awkward in view of 'happily ever after'. I thought of making Trotter into Fosco Took (Bilbo's first cousin) who vanished when a lad, owing to Gandalf. Who is Trotter? He must have had some bitter acquaintance with Ring-wraiths &c.
Från draget till utkastet blir Trotters personlighet närmare Aragorns sätt som han talar och i sin kunskap om den gamla historien. Först senare skulle Tolkien besluta att göra honom till en man och skulle bestämma sin anor:
Trotter is a man of Elrond's race descendant of [struck out at once: Turin] the ancient men of the North, and one of Elrond's household. He was a hunter and wanderer. He became a friend of Bilbo. He knew Gandalf. [...] Reason of wooden shoes - no need in this case because Aragorn is a man.
När det gäller ändringen från Trotter till Strider , blev det gjort mycket sent, men det finns inte mycket information om det. Jag antar att "Trotter" arbetade för en Hobbit med träskor, men "Strider" var bättre för en Man med långa ben.
Det var ett stort problem med Ring och Gollum, som ursprungligen skrivits i Hobbit : i första upplagan ville Gollum ge Ring som en present . Tolkien spenderade mycket tid på att försöka arbeta runt detta och komma med anledningar till varför Gollum skulle vilja ge upp ett föremål som beskrivits som omöjligt att ge upp.
It is important to realise that when my father wrote this, he was working within the constraints of the story as originally told in The Hobbit. As The Hobbit first appeared, and until 1951, the story was that Gollum, encountering Bilbo at the edge of the subterranean lake, proposed the riddle game on these conditions: 'If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, we gives it a present, gollum!' [...]
This is why, in the present text, Gandalf says 'I think it certain that Gollum knew in the end that Bilbo had got the ring', and why my father had Gandalf develop a theory that Gollum was actually ready to give the ring away: 'he wanted... to hand it on to someone else... I suppose he might have put it in [the goblins'] path in the end... but for the unexpected arrival of Bilbo... as soon as the riddles started a plan formed in his mind.'
This is all carefully conceived in relation to the text of The Hobbit as it then was, to meet the formidable difficulty: if the Ring were of such a nature as my father now conceived it, how could Gollum have really intended to give it away to a stranger who won a riddle contest? - and the original text of The Hobbit left no doubt that that was indeed his serious intention.
Det är oklart när han äntligen bestämde sig för att ändra The Hobbit för att passa den nya historien, men den andra upplagan publicerades 1951, tre år före Ringenes Herre .
Treebeard var ursprungligen tänkt som en ond jätte, i liga med fienden. Eftersom Saruman inte existerade ännu, var det Treebeard som hade fångat Gandalf:
'Yes!' laughed Gandalf. 'There are many powers greater than mine, for good and evil, in the world. I was caught in Fangorn and spent many weary days as a prisoner of the Giant Treebeard. It was a desperately anxious time, for I was hurrying back to the Shire to help you. I had just learned that the horsemen had been sent out.
Också i en separat anteckning:
Frodo meets Giant Treebeard in the Forest of Neldoreth while seeking for his lost companions: he is deceived by the giant who pretends to be friendly, but is really in league with the Enemy.
En ytterligare översikt skulle ändra detta:
If Treebeard comes in at all - let him be kindly and rather good? About 50 feet high with barky skin. Hair and beard rather like twigs. [...]
I en anteckning märkt "förklaras före slutet" är denna post:
Aragorn weds Éowyn sister of Éomer (who becomes Lord of Rohan) and becomes King of Gondor.
Vid denna tid existerar inte Arwen. Jag tror inte att denna historia någonsin utvidgades eftersom Tolkien bestämde sig för det:
Cut out the love-story of Aragorn and Éowyn. Aragorn is too old and lordly and grim. Make Éowyn the twin-sister of Éomund, a stern amazon woman. [...] Probably Éowyn should die to avenge or save Théoden.
Detta svar går in i några av detaljerna. Kort sagt var Minas Morgul ursprungligen vid Svarta porten och det var här Frodo kom in i Mordor. Det skulle senare flyttas till Cirith Ungol, cirka 150 miles söder om porten.
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