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Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference, 1992: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Keble College, Oxford, England, 17Th-24th August ... Birth of Conference (myth (Mythlore Series)

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This is not, as the reviewer below suggests, a book for "die-hard fans". Rather, it is a book for Tolkien *scholars*. Most Tolkien scholars, of course, are fans-- and a good number of fans are also scholars-- but the two sets are not identical.
Essentially, this book consists of the proceedings of (i.e. the papers presented at) the 1992 Conference on Tolkien that took place at Oxford on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It comprises several dozen short papers on a variety of Tolkien related subjects. The papers are divided into ten major sections: 1. Recollection and Remembrance, 2. Sources and Influence, 3. The Lord of the Rings, 4. The Silmarillion, 5. Linguistics and Lexicography, 6. Response and Reaction, 7. Tolkien Studies, 8. Middle-Earth Studies, 9. The Inklings, 10. Flights of Fancy. Some sections are much longer than others, and a few papers that were presented are not included because no written copy was submitted.

Of the various papers, a few are by renknowned scholars of Tolkien-- philologist Tom Shippey, bibliographer Wayne Hammond, literary scholar Verlyn Flieger, etc. There are also a few other 'surprises' by folks who are clearly among the up-and-coming crop of new Tolkien scholars. There is, however, some non-scholarly material mixed in here. Most of really kooky stuff is in the last section, butto be honest, quite a few of the purportedly scholarly articles in the other sections have an amateurish character to them-- both in style and substance (And, of course, the reminscences in part 1 aren't especially scholarly themselves... although they are still valuable to the Tolkien scholar for their anecdotal/historical value)
Of the various papers here, the most successful are those in the sections on Sources and Influences and on Linguistics. Of these, the most insightful are Chris Seeman's article on Tolkien's relation to, and reconceptualization of Romantic literary theory (a very astute piece of intellectual history) and T.A. Shippey's discussion of Tolkien and the Gawain-poet (i.e. the author of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"). Sadly, those works which address Tolkien's fiction directly-- i.e. those in the sections on the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion sections-- tend to be on the weaker side., while those in the rather vaguely defined sections (i.e. "Tolkien Studies" & "Middle-Earth Studies")are very weak indeed. The two exceptions to this are Hammond's "Tolkien and the Critics" (which perhaps ought to be called "Tolkien and the Reviewers" since he's really speaking about reviews that appeared in newspapers), and Anders Stenstrom's "A Mythology? For England?" (a careful piece of analysis that shows that Tolkien never appears to have really used the phrase 'mythology for England' to describe his fiction, but rather indicates that this overused catchphrase seems to be the result of Humprey Carpenter's conflation of some other references). A big disappointment here, though, is Shippey's paper on "Tolkien as Post-War Author", which just seems somewhat thin and vague-- a real surprise considering the strength of his other article here and his book _The Road to Middle-Earth_.

This conference took place nearly ten years before the time I write this review-- but it does reveal several things about the state of Tolkien studies then and now. The first of these is that Tolkien scholarship is still strongly rooted (peraps too strongly?) in a biographical approach. As one looks at the footnotes in this volume, one discovers reference after reference to Tolkien's letters, to Carpenter's biography, and to works like "On Fairy Stories", in which Tolkien outlines his theories of literature. There are very few footnotes for references to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. (Also, I think it is no accident that those sections on LotR and the Silmarillion happen to be the shortest and the weakest ones in the book-- or that there is no section devoted to _The Hobbit_ at all!_) This seems to me to be a bit of a shame-- as Tolkien's literary legacy is far more important and profound than his thoughts on philology or his theories of authorship, or his trip to Holland... and it also seems to me that more effort ought to be spend discussing Tolkien's fiction on its own terms, as works that can stand on their own, without such an overwhelming focus on matters of authorial intent and self-interpretation.
When all's said and done, this is certainly a worthwhile book for the Tolkien scholar-- or a research library-- to acquire. Not everything in it will be equally useful, but it's certainly better than a lot of other collections of Tolkien scholarship.

Not for the mere fan, as the previous reviewer indicates. This book is for the Tolkien-Academic-Enthusiast. That said, found this purchase completely satisfying. Fails a 5-star rating of perfection because the paperback binding on a book this size has proved fragile - after years of countless thumbings, pages have become loose as would have been expected for a non-hardcover binding. Great budget buy, nothing some tape doesn't rectify, go with the hardcover if pockets allow; insightful exploration of the world created by Tolkien for the scholarly-minded.