Rupert Dolbear
| Rupert Dolbear | |
|---|---|
| Englishman | |
 | |
| "Notion Club Papers - Dolbear" by Afalstein | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Other names | Ruthless Rufus; Rufus |
| Position | Research Chemist |
| Affiliation | The Notion Club |
| Language | English |
| Birth | 1929 |
| Physical Description | |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Red hair and beard |
Rupert Dolbear (born in 1929) was a member of the Notion Club.
History[edit | edit source]
Rupert Dolbear was a Research Chemist who gained an education at Wadham College, and among his interests were philosophy, psychoanalysis, and gardening. He was a close friend of Michael George Ramer and was known to the Club as Ruthless Rufus.[1] He had a habit of sleeping loudly during long readings or discussions, but he would rouse up in the middle of a debate, showing that he had an odd ability of both sleeping and listening (he said that it was a time-saving habit that long membership of the Club had forced him to acquire).[2]
Inspiration[edit | edit source]
There was a chemist's shop in Oxford called Dolbear & Goodall and Christopher Tolkien recollects that his father found this particularly engaging and that it may be that Tolkien found in Dolbear the chemist a comic appropriateness to Robert Havard or to Havard as he was going to present him, since in one of the manuscripts he wrote Havard beneath Dolbear, indicating that Dolbear, with his red hair and beard and his nickname in the Club, can be seen as a sort of a parody of Havard.[3]
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Sauron Defeated, "Part Two: The Notion Club Papers: Foreword and List of Members"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Sauron Defeated, "Part Two: The Notion Club Papers Part One", "Night 60"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Sauron Defeated, "Part Two: The Notion Club Papers: Introduction"
