194 To Terence Tiller

6 November 1956

76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

Dear Tiller,

Lord of the Rings

I have not had time for more than two rapid readings of the 3 episodes that you sent me; but I suppose it is 'now or never', if any comment is to be of practical use.

I am not offering any criticism of detail. The objects you had in making this version seem fairly clear, and (granted their value or legitimacy) I do not think that they could have been much better achieved. I wish your efforts all success.

But, as a private conversation between you and me, I could wish you had perhaps time to spare to tell me why this sort of treatment is accorded to the book, and what value it has — on Third. For myself, I do not believe that many, if any, listeners who do not know the book will thread the plot or grasp at all what is going on. And the text is (necessarily in the space) reduced to such simple, even simple-minded, terms that I find it hard to believe it would hold the attention of the Third.

Here is a book very unsuitable for dramatic or semi-dramatic representation. If that is attempted it needs more space, a lot of space. It is sheerly impossible to pot the two books in the allotted time — whether the object be to provide something in itself entertaining in the medium; or to indicate the nature of the original (or both). Why not then turn it down as unsuitable, if more space is not available?

I remain, of course, flattered and pleased that my book should receive this attention; but I still cannot help wondering: why this form? Personally, I think it requires rather the older art of the reading 'mime', than the more nearly dramatic, which results in too great an emphasis on dialogue (mostly with its setting removed). To take two points: (1) the episode of the corpse-candles is cut down to ineffectiveness; (2) the crucial moment when Gollum nearly repents disappears in a mere 'and so Gollum found them... &c' III/12. In this way both the 'scenery' and the 'characters' become flat: without precision and colour; and without motives or conflicts. I cannot help thinking that longer actual passages read, as a necklace upon a thread of narration (in which the narrator might occasionally venture an interpretation of more than mere plot-events) would, or might, prove both more interesting to listeners, and fairer to the author. But, as I have said, I lack experience in the medium, & this is in any case no criticism of your text, but a sighing for something quite different — a moon no doubt. Final query: can a tale not conceived dramatically but (for lack of a more precise term) epically, be dramatized – unless the dramatizer is given or takes liberties, as an independent person? I feel you have had a very hard task.

Yours sincerely
J. R. R. Tolkien.