{"id":333,"date":"2004-01-13T09:51:02","date_gmt":"2004-01-13T14:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=333"},"modified":"2015-05-13T14:21:40","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:21:40","slug":"i-am-not-gandalf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=333","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI am not Gandalf\u2026\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0618056998&#038;asins=0618056998&#038;linkId=BEKUL4CFXIE5X26Z&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nTolkien wrote a draft to an unidentified reader, and in it he describes his affinity to Faramir.  (Or should I say, his affinity &#8220;with&#8221; Faramir?  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patrickprescott.blogspot.com\/\">Patrick<\/a>, Grammar Guru, care to comment?)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<i>14 January 1856<\/i><br \/>\n&#8230; There is hardly any reference in <i>The Lord of the Rings<\/i> to things that do not actually exist on its own plane (of secondary or sub-creationary reality): sc. have been written.  (The cats of Queen Beruthiel and the names and adventures of the other 2 wizards (5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.)  <i>The Silmarillion<\/i> was offered for publication years ago, and turned down.  Good may come of such blows.  <i>The Lord of the Rings<\/i> was the result.  The hobbits had been welcomed.  I loved them myself, since I love the vulgar and simple as dearly as the noble, and nothing moves my heart (beyond all the passions and heartbreaks of the world) so much as &#8220;ennoblement&#8221; (from the Ugly Duckling to Frodo).  I would build on the hobbits.  And I saw that I was <i>meant<\/i> to do it (as Gandalf would say &#8211; I am <i>not<\/i> Gandalf, being a transcendent Sub-creator in this little world.  As far as any character is &#8220;like me&#8221; it is Faramir &#8211; except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) <i>Courage<\/i>), since without thought, in a &#8220;blurb&#8221; I wrote for <i>The Hobbit<\/i>, I spoke of the time between the Elder Days and the Dominion of Men.  Out of that came the &#8220;missing link&#8221;: The &#8220;Downfall of Numenor&#8221;, releasing some hidden &#8220;complex&#8221;.  For when Faramir speaks of his private vision of the Great Wave, he speaks for me.  That vision and dream has been ever with me &#8211; and has been inherited (as I only discovered recently) by one of my children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tolkien wrote a draft to an unidentified reader, and in it he describes his affinity to Faramir. (Or should I say, his affinity &#8220;with&#8221; Faramir? Patrick, Grammar Guru, care to comment?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[262,1095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101187,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/101187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}