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Great thread! If I were to give someone a recommended reading order of the Middle Earth books, it would be this: 1. The Hobbit 2. The Lord of the Rings 3. The Silmarillion 4. The Children of Hurin 5. Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth 6. The History of Middle Earth (all books in order) The first two, The Hobbit and LOTR, are obvious, since they were the only middle earth novels (aside from books of poetry, more on that later) that were published while Tolkien was still alive, and the ones that most people are familiar with. The third, The Silmarillion, is dense and difficult, but extremely rewarding if you're interested in the origins of Middle Earth mythology and lore. The fourth, The Children of Hurin, is an extended version of, arguably, the best tale in the Silmarillion, and though, perhaps, more accessible than the Silmarillion, is probably better understood after having read the broader history as told in the Silmarillion. The fifth, unfinished tales, is where we start getting into the metahistory of middle earth, which is essentially stepping outside the fictional history and delving into the nonfictional history of how Tolkien came up with his ideas. Still, the emphasis is more on the stories he wrote, in various stages of completion, and not on the study of how these stories came about. The sixth, The History of Middle Earth series of books, goes deeper into the meta-history. The first two volumes, The Book of Lost Tales is the earliest of his writings, dating back to his time as a soldier in WWI, and depict alternate versions of some of the stories he later rewrote for the Silmarillion. The following volumes delve deeper into the meta-history, and there's a lot more focus on Tolkien's life, and how he came up with the ideas for his world. I haven't read all of them yet, but I do find them very interesting. Still, these are meant primarily for hardcore Tolkien scholars interested in a deeper study of Tolkien's writings. Another book I haven't mentioned is "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", which likely belongs in that list (possibly even before The Silmarillion). However, I haven't read this yet, so I haven't included it. As far as I know, it's a collection of children's poems written by the hobbits of Middle Earth. Their connection to the greater middle earth mythos is questionable, as far as I know, and it's possible Tolkien wrote many of them as separate works, and not originally meant to be part of his mythology. Bombadil himself was such a character, and his inclusion in Fellowship of the Ring was a cameo for his children. Tolkien had based the character of Tom Bombadil around a doll that belonged to his daughter, and it's likely that the poems were written even before The Hobbit (which also was originally considered a seperate work from his larger mythology). Still, this is the only other Middle Earth book published while Tolkien was still alive, so it's probably worth reading before The Silmarillion by virtue of that fact alone. There were other books of poetry published during his lifetime that may or may not have been part of the middle earth mythos, and I've heard of a book published during his lifetime called "The Tale of Years" that was later included in the history of middle earth series of books. There's also "The Letter's of J.R.R. Tolkien", that consists mainly of questions that fans wrote to Tolkien, and Tolkien's responses to them, as well as other such goodies. I haven't read it yet, but it's definitely on my list. "Tales from Perilous Realms" is another collection of short stories, mostly non-middle earth related, but Tom Bombadil is in it. I've heard "Leaf By Niggle" is another great collection of stories unrelated to the middle earth mythos. The rest of his books, as far as I know, are not middle earth related. Some are collections of poems, some are translations of older myths and legends, and some are scholarly works and essays. Some of them may indeed have a connection to his middle earth mythology. But, aside from Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight, I have not read those books so I wouldn't know. So if anyone more knowledgeable than me wants to add to this, or correct any of my mistakes, please do so. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Feb 6, 2013 |
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Feb 6, 2013 21:36
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El Seven posted:I'm fairly certain that nothing specific was mentioned, however, my personal view (based on nothing, really) is that since orcs are sort-of-Elves, they go to the Halls of Mandos for a nice rehabilitation before getting released into the Undying Lands to rejoin the other Elves, thus finally completing the Great Journey began in the First Age. Very little is known about the Orcs. This is mainly because the books are written from the "good guys" perspective, so you can bet that things said about the evil characters, like orcs, goblins, trolls and dark lords, suffer slightly from unreliable narrator syndrome. As far as orcs being former elves, this is how it is explained in the Silmarillion, but how much of that is truth will never be known since the Silmarillion is basically the Elf bible and the creation of the orcs occurred before the elves even knew how to write. We don't even know if there are orc females or children. We know that they can be bred, and that Uruk Hai were Orcs bred with men. How they are bred is unknown as well, and the way it was shown in the films was entirely Peter Jackson's interpretation as Tolkien never went into much detail as to how orcs are born, bred and raised. Tolkien did this on purpose, of course, as the book was meant to be read from the perspective of the good guys, so the demonizing of the orcs as unnatural beings of pure evil was the view of them we got as readers. Had we gotten a book from Sauron's or the orc's perspective, the story would have likely been very different. The side that wins the war always gets to write the history from their pov though. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 13:43
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It annoys me when Game of Thrones fans call Lord of the Rings "cliched" in comparison to George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. One guy on IMDB was even saying that GRRM's books are more detailed than Tolkien's. I disagree. Tolkien's books were far more detailed, almost obsessively so. Tolkien was a much better world builder than GRRM. GRRM's strength is mainly in his characterization. Still, I wouldn't say he's better at writing characters than Tolkien was. He just approaches it differently. One of the common complaints you hear about Tolkien's characters is how one dimensional they are, and people compare them unfavorably to GRRM's morally complex characters. It's true GRRM is very good at writing morally complex characters, and they are more realistic than Tolkien's characters. But GRRM is writing a very different kind of story. LOTR was written as a history or bard's tale from the point of view of the hobbits. A Song of Ice of Fire is written as a series of novels that enters the minds of a great many characters on all sides of the conflict. Aside from a few chapters where we see the action unfold from Gimli's perspective, LOTR is written entirely from a the Hobbits' perspective. And the Silmarillion is written from the perspective of an Elven historian. That's why the bad guys in Tolkien's books are pretty much all seen as inhuman monsters. That's how the elves and hobbits saw the orcs and trolls and necromancers they had to battle. GRRM's writing is written in a much more modern style that focuses more on what the characters are thinking and feeling. It's not supposed to be an ancient historical record or bard song. The cliches in Tolkien's books are ancient ones and are used consciously to keep it within that form. He was trying to create an English mythology that resembled in style the ancient Norse mythologies and fairy tales. The cliches in GRRM's books are more post-modern and draw more inspiration from 20th Century novels than they do ancient mythologies and historical documents. It's pretty clear that, aside from the fact that they both wrote a series sprawlingly epic fantasy books, JRRT and GRRM are nothing alike ... well they both have RR in their name. What's up with that anyway? Just a strange coincidence?
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Oct 25, 2013 19:53
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Hamiltonian Bicycle posted:The Silmarillion has a short version of that whole story, which is in actuality editorially cobbled together from older short versions and parts of drafts of the expanded version; Unfinished Tales has some of the latter interspersed with Christopher Tolkien's notes and commentary, skipping some parts of the story that aren't sufficiently different from the Silmarillion version. The version in Children of Húrin is a unified tidied-up narrative. Most of the material in it is included in either Unfinished Tales or the Silmarillion, although not precisely; different drafts/manuscripts were used, Christopher Tolkien wrote a few bridging pieces to connect things together with the parts that were never fully expanded, and so on. Children of Hurin is a great read. It's more fleshed out and detailed than the truncated version in the Silmarillion, and by no means "unfinished" as the version in Unfinished Tales.
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Jan 12, 2014 17:07
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Spoilers Below posted:The elves have no idea. "Emerged from darkness? Maybe Melkor corrupted her? Everything is his fault anyways, so let's just blame him like we always do..." That's the cool thing about Tolkien's world. All we know is what survived from the ancient texts of elves and men. The story of the Silmarillion and LOTR could be completely different if told from the perspective of someone like Sauron or Morgoth.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:33
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Canemacar posted:Quick question about the silmarils. Was the Arkenstone in the Hobbit supposed to be one of the lost gems, though no one may have known what it truely was? It seemed to have the same kind of destructive allure to it the silmarils had. It is generally held, but never explicitly stated, that the arkenstone was Luthien's Silmaril and was the same one that was set in the nauglamir, the necklace that sparked the war between the dwarves and elves in the first age, and also led to the fall of Doriath.
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Mar 24, 2014 02:51
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Data Graham posted:It wouldn't be that one, because that's the one that Eärendil inherited and which we now see in the sky as Venus. Oh yeah, you're right. Nvm
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Mar 24, 2014 03:13
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redshirt posted:Is there a gain/loss equation in Sauron's rings? Which seem like the opposites of Feanor's creations, in function. I think of it like it was an effort that took a lot out of him and it would probably be another billion years before he recovers his energy to do something that great again. Melkor, for example, will return eventually and recover his strength, but by that point the world will be over. There's no mathematical formula, it's just that doing all the stuff they did eventually drained their mental and physical energy and it will take time for them to recover. But their recovery time is so long that it might as well be eternity. Elves age the same way. Those that went to Valinor have a lot less stress and the magical protection of the valar keeps them young for much longer. But those that stayed on Middle Earth age and grow weary more quickly. Cirdan, for instance, eventually grew a gray beard he stayed on Middle Earth so long.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There also seems to be a notion in Tolkien that artists have one "Great Work" in them and aren't endlessly creative. Feanor tops out with the Silmarils, etc. Yeah, but he usually prefaces it by saying something "until the end of the world" "never again on this world" implying that after the end of the world things get reset, for the immortals at least. No one knows what happens to mortals. Men apparently will have a place in the next music of the Ainur.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:59
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Radio! posted:This got me thinking, did Tolkien ever address what happens to orcs after death or is it one of those things he sort of hand-waved away? If you look at it from the perspective of orcs being corrupted elves I could see an argument for their just going to the Hall of Mandos they would have had they not been corrupted, except that there's still the weird disconnect with elves being immortal and orcs being mortal (presumably?). So little is known about the orcs and what is known is often disputed or in conflict with other facts. No writing from the orcs perspective has survived so there's no way to know for sure of their fates or how they came to be. I'm pretty sure Tolkien did this on purpose. His writing style was such so as to appear only as a translator of ancient texts that had recently been discovered. Since the orcs ultimately lost the conflict and died out as a race we never did get to see things from their perspective. It's only in the post modern age that you actually see history from the loser's perspective.
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Mar 27, 2014 06:33
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SHISHKABOB posted:Oh they're around, they're just really good at keeping out of sight. It's really sad what happened to the Hobbits. As men grew and multiplied the Hobbits were bullied off their land and forced to live like animals hiding from people in the forest. They lost their culture, and dwindled to only a few, their time spent primarily in the search for food.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:31
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100YrsofAttitude posted:I can't remember if it's been said but I have a copy of Children of Hurin as well as the Unfinished Tales. Should I skip reading the Narn I Hîn Húrin and it's notes and appendices? Will all of it be in the Children of Hurin. I'm prone to reading both if there's even one Note that's been changed cause I'm clearly that obsessive. I think the version in Unfinished Tales is slightly different, but it's skippable. Most of the Unfinished Tales is skippable unless you're really interested in the process Tolkien went through in writing these stories. Children of Hurin is a great read though.
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May 19, 2014 00:33
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Bongo Bill posted:The only thing The Silmarillion should ever be adapted into is other books about particular chapters. But then adapt those books into whatever, sure. I think Tolkien's intention was to eventually write the Silmarillion as a series of books a la The Cildren of Hurin that connected together into one big mythology. It would have been awesome had he lived long enough to finish it. It's too bad Christopher Tolkien refused to let any other authors adapt the stories into into larger novels. In the right hands it could have been great. Canemacar posted:The Ainulindele would work as a Fantasia-esque movie short. Where there's no dialogue, and everything is conveyed by visual metaphor that compliments the soundtrack. Definitely, we'd be able to hear the music of the ainur, and then combine with some high quality animation to show the creation of the world and life, the coming of melkor, and the ensuing battles that resulted. There are ways to make it the adaptation work well. But it's very easy to screw up.
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May 22, 2014 03:13
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