Tolkien’s tumultuous love affair with Madras. Not.

I recently borrowed The Letters of JRR Tolkien from the library. Although I have read most of Tolkien’s more significant letters where he discusses the finer points of his mythology (with an academic rigour that would make a fanatic’s heart soar with excitement, whilst simultaneously putting the non-fanatic instantly to level 4 sleep), this is the first time I am actually reading the published letters in its entirety. Being so intimately familiar with Tolkien’s legendarium, it is strange that I knew so little about the man himself. It was with some trepidation, then, that I embarked on reading John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s letters, some of them intensely private.

Anyway, I was having a jolly old time (not strictly in a bohemian sense) reading the letters when a certain Letter #216 caught my attention. The word ‘Madras’ was staring up at me from an unassuming corner. So I perked up and read the small, almost footnote-like letter. It was most amusing.

#216 From a letter to the Deputy Registrar, University of Madras
12 August 1959

I have to thank you for the honour of appointing me a member of your Board of Examiners. May I respectfully suggest, nonetheless, that it is inadvisable to do this without first consulting the persons appointed? I am unable to accept this examinership. I am fully occupied with other affairs, and I have in any case retired, and do not propose to take any further part in teaching and examining.

My first impulse was to laugh out, and I did. The idea of a Mr. T.V. Krishnaswamy Iyer coming to know of an increasingly popular English author and his incredibly nuanced, quaint, almost old-world-Madras-like book and deciding (and to a degree assuming) that Mr. Tolkien would serve splendidly on the Board of Examiners in the university is at once absurd, and yet perfectly understandable. In fact, I can visualize Mr. Krishnaswamy coming home after work and telling his children and the nephews and nieces of his joint family that he had invited Mr. Tolkien from England to join the university and they would all have to be there when Mr. Tolkien would come home for lunch one day [much to the wide-eyed bemusement of the kids].

So what really prompted the University of Madras to appoint Tolkien on a whim? I doubt it was honorary. A doctorate, for instance, would have been understandable. My attempts to find out more about the university’s side of the story were unsuccessful, and I gather that nothing more about this little incident is mentioned in the superlative Tolkien Companion piece by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull (possibly the definitive published Tolkien resource).

I also find Tolkien’s tone in this letter amusing. He is obviously not pleased with the Deputy Registrar. “I have to thank you for the honour..” sounds like a very courteous way of conveying that he is really far from grateful — a typically English put-down, like ‘With great respect..’

In my attempts to uncover more information, apart from spending considerable time trawling through the internet, I have emailed the University of Madras, for what it’s worth. I don’t suppose they will even read my email. So all five of you in the world who care enough about this — if you happen to find yourselves in the University of Madras with some time to kill, this may provide a minor source of amusement.