Eh oui, Cher M. Tolkien, voilà une des énigmes qui restent en suspens à la fin de la
lecture de votre oeuvre, au grand désespoir des Ents, inconsolables.
pardon?
Pardon his French.
Was there any definitive explanation given on what happened to the
Entwives?
No definite answer was given to this question within the story. However, Tolkien did
comment on the matter in two
letters, and while he was careful to say "I think" and "I do not know", nevertheless the
tone of these comments was on the whole pessimistic. Moreover, he doesn't seem to have
changed his mind over time. The following was written in 1954 (in fact before the publication of LotR):
What happened to them is not resolved in this book. ... I think that in fact the Entwives had
disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance
of the Allies down the Anduin. They survived only in the 'agriculture' transmitted to Men (and Hobbits). Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must
have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so,
they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult -- unless experience of industrialised and militarised agriculture had made them a
little more anarchic. I hope so. I don't know. [Letters, 179 (#144)]
that's why i always prefered stanislaw lem to j.r.r. tolkien
