Xenite.Org News

It's only words, and words are all we have... - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

July 28, 2001 at 02:17:49

An old Bee Gees song comes to mind because, lately, there have been harsh words spoken over...words. J.R.R. Tolkien's words.

Flame wars are not news, especially Tolkien flame wars. But in March 2001 Xenite.Org was asked to announce the fact that Tolkien linguist Helge Fauskanger wanted help from fellow Tolkien fans in persuading the Tolkien Estate to extend permission to him to publish research he had engaged in concerning a translation into Quenya (by J.R.R. Tolkien) of the Pater Noster (Lord's Prayer) and Ave Maria (Hail Mary).

Well, many ethical questions have been raised by the brouhaha, which (some people allege) began several years ago. Our investigation into the war of the words over the words (of J.R.R. Tolkien) reveals to us that some people are taking the matter very seriously. Lawyers have indeed been rattling in their briefs.

We received a copy of an open letter Fauskanger had published to his fellow linguists. We did not reproduce the letter, but we summarized the points Fauskanger made on his own behalf without seeking out counter-points. We did not know precisely who else was involved. Furthermore, we believed that simply reporting the fact of the request, and the explanation provided by Fauskanger, would be sufficient. After all, we would have been more than willing to give equal space to a rebuttal. No rebuttal was submitted to us.

However, our article included a statement from Xenite.Org founder Michael Martinez, who is neither a linguist nor actively involved with the Tolkien linguistic community. Martinez wrote, "Tolkien's linguistic material has proven to be invaluable in researching and understanding Middle-earth. Although these poems won't provide any particular insight into Middle-earth's history and cultures, by allowing the linguistic research community to study the poems and engage in discourse with Helge Fauskanger, the Tolkien Estate will help broaden our foundation of knowledge and understanding of J.R.R. Tolkien's achievement. There has literally been nothing else like it in real history."

The sentiment expressed by Mr. Martinez was genuine, and remains so.

It was not Michael Martinez' intention, however, nor the intent of Xenite.Org's administrators or staff, to rebuke the Tolkien Estate, nor to encourage others to do so, for electing to withhold whatever permissions it deemed should be withheld.

The raging debate has now been brought to our attention once again through another source. It is our understanding that, while not necessarily misleading, Mr. Fauskanger's appeal to fellow Tolkien fans did not represent all sides of the issue. In any disagreement, the parties of either side are not likely to fairly restate the positions of their opponents. We understand that.

Nonetheless, it appears that Xenite.Org was asked to choose sides in a situation where all the facts were not available to us and in which, had we known then what we know now, we would have declined to make such a choice. We do not fault the original purveyor of the request, whom we feel acted then only out of a desire to see information shared freely.

At the center of the dispute is Fauskanger's research into the construction of two short Quenya citations from the hand of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Tolkien Estate, created by the author and led by his son Christopher, has established a process whereby some or all of the late author's writings concerning Middle-earth will be documented, archived, and possibly reviewed or analyzed. For every person who has been granted access to these materials, there are undoubtedly 100 more who wish to have similar access.

As the years roll by and revelations from the reputedly extensive archive have been slow to appear, some members of the Tolkien research communities have expressed feelings ranging from disappointment to doubt to grave reservations about the effectiveness of the process and/or the fitness of the trustees to whom the materials have been made available to. Even Xenite.Org's own Michael Martinez has, on occasion, expressed frustration regarding the limited accessibility of the published research. But some research has been published, and we understand that more is indeed in the pipeline.

It would be indiscreet for us to repeat specific points in the debate without attribution, or without permission from the combatants to do so, although at least one arena of the debate is a publicly accessible (and archived) mailing list. Yet we would be remiss were we not to set the record straight and to admit our error in this matter. We accepted at face value a letter we were given without inquiring, of parties we knew to be informed of related matters, where there was another side to the story which should be reported to our reader community.

The full story is, as in any extended disagreement, perhaps now known only to God and his scribes, as the adversaries appear to have drifted quite far apart in their recollections of events, as well as their assessments of what is appropriate, right, and acceptable.

Xenite.Org, as a repository of intellectual property rights, has stood firmly on the side of the holders of such rights through the years. We do not endorse the knowing or unwitting trampling of intellectual property rights. We also understand the zeal with which truly dedicated fans may pursue their interests, both on a professional and personal level. As a fan site dedicated to science fiction and fantasy, and adventure and classical romance, Xenite.Org constantly walks a fine of its own.

But though the (widely separated) moral high grounds concerning the two Tolkien texts and the related research may seem clear to all parties involved in the disagreement, we see only a protracted division among a genuinely talented community. To a casual observer, that division may seem little different from the wars which rage across the Internet every day. But to us it is a reminder that, since its inception in March of 1997, Xenite.Org has striven to be an island of calm amid the stormy seas, and we regret our departure from that policy.