"GL3" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol08)

little thinking that Frodo on that same night saw from afar the
white snows under the moon; but the red flames of the beacons
he did not see, for the mists of the Great River covered all the
land between.

On this see the Note on Chronology at the end of this chapter.(3)-The
leader of the men at the Pelennor wall is here named Cranthir, not
Ingold.

The next stage in the evolution of 'Minas Tirith' was a complete, or
nearly complete, draft text; that the page 'C' preceded it and was not
an abortive start to a typescript of it is certain `e.g., the leader of the
men at the wall is now Ingold).
My father here set a most curious puzzle. The datum is that (as he
said) he abandoned 'Minas Tirith' about the end of 1942, as 'the
beacons flared in Anorien': the story only went 'as far as the arrival in
Gondor'. A single typescript page ('C') does precisely that, and when I
first studied these papers I felt certain that it was the 'abandoned

opening', but it is clear and obvious that 'C' was developed from 'B'
and that from 'A', and in 'A' there is a reference to Faramir, who only
entered the story in 1944. Moreover 'C' was typed with a special type
which my father seems only to have begun using in 1944. The
emphatically underlined words in A 'Beacons. Messengers riding
West' certainly suggest that this is where those ideas actually arose;
but how could they have done so, since 'the beacons flared in Anorien'
already in the original opening of 1942? I was therefore forced to the
conclusion that that was lost.
But this conclusion is wrong; and there is very clear evidence that
my father erred in his recollection. The solution lies in a passage from
his letter of Thursday 12 October 1944, which I have cited before
(p- 100), but not in full:

I began trying to write again (I would, on the brink of term!) on
Tuesday, but-I struck a most awkward error (one or two days) in the
synchronization, v. important at this stage, of movements of Frodo
and the others, which has cost labour and thought and will require
tiresome small alterations in many chapters; but at any rate I have
actually began Book Five (and last: about 10 chapters per 'book').

I had taken (in view of what he said years later) the words that I have
italicised to mean that my father had begun 'Minas Tirith' anew, and
supposed that in this brief reference he simply passed over the fact that
the beginning of the chapter (and the beginning of 'The Muster of
Rohan') was long since in existence - or else that the earlier beginning
had now been rejected and set aside. But the words are much more
naturally taken to mean what they say: 'I have actually begun Book
Five'- on 10 October 1944, ab initio; and if they are so taken the entire
problem disappears. The abandoned opening is not lost, and it is indeed
the curious isolated page 'C' in 'midget type'; but it was written in