from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (a selection edited by
Humphrey Carpenter) with assistance of son Christopher Tolkien
If you re-read all the passages dealing with Frodo
and the Ring,
I think you will see that not only was it quite impossible
for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will,
especially at its point of maximum power,
but that this failure was adumbrated from far back.
He was honored because he had accepted the burden
voluntarily, and had then done all that was within
his utmost physical and mental strength to do. . .
No, Frodo 'failed'. It is possible that once the Ring
was destroyed he had little recollection of the last scene.
But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is
not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however 'good';
and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.
I am afraid I have the same feeling -- I have been forced
to publish up-side-down or backwards; and after the
grand crash (and the end of visibly incarnate Evil)
before the Dominion of Men (or simple History)
to which it all led up the mythological and elvish
legends of the Elder Days will not be quite the same.
But perhaps read, eventually, from beginning to
end in the right order, both parts may gain.
I am not writing the Silmarillion, which was long ago
written; but trying to find a way and order in which
to make the legends and annals publishable. And
I have a dreadful lot of other work to do as well.
LETTER 192 to Miss J. Burn (pages 251-2)
paperback edition by Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 978090618056996
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