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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 27, 2021 20:25:03 GMT -5
The thing is, I can accept the repetition in actual classics because it was part and parcel of its creation...but for a modern work just trying to give you the feel of being a classical work it just isn't needed because that's not how we tell stories anymore. If it was done once or twice it would be an effective literary technique in that it would immediately call to mind the classics but more than that and it becomes excessive and instead of contributing to the mood of the work it actually becomes a detriment. The repetition is part of the package for an epic poem as much as a paragraph is a part of a prose work though. If you are composing an epic (which is meant to be recited and listened to, not read) the repetition is part of the structure. We are just a written culture who has forgotten what the oral storytelling tradition consisted of and lack the literacy necessary to partake of an epic, just as someone who has never encountered the comic format lacks the literacy to parse panels and pages and the progression of the narrative visually until they learn how to do so, the difference is we as an modern audience never get to encounter an epic poem in its natural form. It's a reason why a lot of people don't like to read plays but do enjoy seeing them performed. They are not meant to be read, they are meant to be experienced. But Tolkien wasn't writing or composing for a modern popular audience, he was doing it for himself but the brand became so lucrative publishers wanted to put it out there to cash in on the popularity. -M Also the long lists in epics were not meant to give audiences reference pints, they were delaying tactics meant to give the orator time to read the audience and determine how t tell the story-they are meant to be tailored to the audience not monolithic stories told the same way every time. While reciting those lists form memory to keep the audience attentive, the orator was taking time to figure out what to tell next and how to tell it. It also gave them something to fill the time if they forgot something or couldn't "remember a line" but modern audiences have a recency bias and think of everything as having a set written form as the norm and correct way a story needs to have. Tolkien was hearkening to the earlier forms of the epics and figuring out the ways he wanted to tell these stories and what way would work best, and the lists are there as part of that process/format of the epic, not an attempt to give the audience touchstones to reference and connect with. -M I haven't forgotten, and I know the reasons why it was done in actual classics and for those specific authentic works it's acceptable...but the Silmarillion isn't an actual classical epic so the reasons don't hold so repeating lineages and linking geography are purely stylistic literary techniques and as such if they are over used they become a detriment. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2021 20:32:40 GMT -5
The repetition is part of the package for an epic poem as much as a paragraph is a part of a prose work though. If you are composing an epic (which is meant to be recited and listened to, not read) the repetition is part of the structure. We are just a written culture who has forgotten what the oral storytelling tradition consisted of and lack the literacy necessary to partake of an epic, just as someone who has never encountered the comic format lacks the literacy to parse panels and pages and the progression of the narrative visually until they learn how to do so, the difference is we as an modern audience never get to encounter an epic poem in its natural form. It's a reason why a lot of people don't like to read plays but do enjoy seeing them performed. They are not meant to be read, they are meant to be experienced. But Tolkien wasn't writing or composing for a modern popular audience, he was doing it for himself but the brand became so lucrative publishers wanted to put it out there to cash in on the popularity. -M Also the long lists in epics were not meant to give audiences reference pints, they were delaying tactics meant to give the orator time to read the audience and determine how t tell the story-they are meant to be tailored to the audience not monolithic stories told the same way every time. While reciting those lists form memory to keep the audience attentive, the orator was taking time to figure out what to tell next and how to tell it. It also gave them something to fill the time if they forgot something or couldn't "remember a line" but modern audiences have a recency bias and think of everything as having a set written form as the norm and correct way a story needs to have. Tolkien was hearkening to the earlier forms of the epics and figuring out the ways he wanted to tell these stories and what way would work best, and the lists are there as part of that process/format of the epic, not an attempt to give the audience touchstones to reference and connect with. -M I haven't forgotten, and I know the reasons why it was done in actual classics and for those specific authentic works it's acceptable...but the Silmarillion isn't an actual classical epic so the reasons don't hold so repeating lineages and linking geography are purely a stylistic literary techniques and as such if they are over used they become a detriment. I don't think the Silmarillion as we have seen it would be the way Tolkien would have published it. They are remnant of the process Tolkien used in creating what he was doing. He was not trying to create a story for a modern audience, he was trying to create the tales as they would have been told in Middle Earth-as oral recitations with all parts of an epic as it would have been recited intact. It wasn't just a stylistic choice, it was integral to what he was trying to create. The fact that Christopher and the publishers chose to took that and present it to a modern audience is the issue. Its like complaining someone trying to create a movie as it would have been presented in 1917 didn't use color and sound because modern audiences prefer those things. It wasn't a stylistic choice not to use color and sound, it's because those things aren't in movies that would have been made in 1917. Tolkien included those things because they would have been present in an epic recited in Middle Earth, because that was what he was trying to create. -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 27, 2021 20:41:15 GMT -5
I haven't forgotten, and I know the reasons why it was done in actual classics and for those specific authentic works it's acceptable...but the Silmarillion isn't an actual classical epic so the reasons don't hold so repeating lineages and linking geography are purely a stylistic literary techniques and as such if they are over used they become a detriment. I don't think the Silmarillion as we have seen it would be the way Tolkien would have published it. They are remnant of the process Tolkien used in creating what he was doing. He was not trying to create a story for a modern audience, he was trying to create the tales as they would have been told in Middle Earth-as oral recitations with all parts of an epic as it would have been recited intact. It wasn't just a stylistic choice, it was integral to what he was trying to create. The fact that Christopher and the publishers chose to took that and present it to a modern audience is the issue. Its like complaining someone trying to create a movie as it would have been presented in 1917 didn't use color and sound because modern audiences prefer those things. It wasn't a stylistic choice not to use color and sound, it's because those things aren't in movies that would have been made in 1917. Tolkien included those things because they would have been present in an epic recited in Middle Earth, because that was what he was trying to create. -M ...it very much is a stylistic choice though. He isn't reciting it to a crowd, so he doesn't have a limited time so he doesn't need short hand characterization, he isn't dealing with a provincial audience so he doesn't need to give them local color/relation to get them interested, and it's a written work so if he forgot the track he doesn't need a breather to reorient himself and as its written ahead of time so he literally can't use it to stall for time and read the audience...all it can do is serve as a tool to remind audiences of actual epics where all of those situations were necessary tools, and to accomplish that feat you don't need to do it nearly as often as he did. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2021 20:58:23 GMT -5
I don't think the Silmarillion as we have seen it would be the way Tolkien would have published it. They are remnant of the process Tolkien used in creating what he was doing. He was not trying to create a story for a modern audience, he was trying to create the tales as they would have been told in Middle Earth-as oral recitations with all parts of an epic as it would have been recited intact. It wasn't just a stylistic choice, it was integral to what he was trying to create. The fact that Christopher and the publishers chose to took that and present it to a modern audience is the issue. Its like complaining someone trying to create a movie as it would have been presented in 1917 didn't use color and sound because modern audiences prefer those things. It wasn't a stylistic choice not to use color and sound, it's because those things aren't in movies that would have been made in 1917. Tolkien included those things because they would have been present in an epic recited in Middle Earth, because that was what he was trying to create. -M ...it very much is a stylistic choice though. He isn't reciting it to a crowd, so he doesn't have a limited time so he doesn't need short hand characterization, he isn't dealing with an provincial audience so he doesn't need to give them local color/relation to get them interested, it's written so if he forgot the track he doesn't need a breather to reorient himself and as its written ahead of time so he literally can't use it to read the audience...all it can do is serve as a tool to remind audiences of actual epics were all of those situations were needed, and to accomplish that feat you don't need to do it nearly as often as he did. If he tried to create a tale of Middle Earth as told in middle Earth (which was the goal of the creation for him) it would make no sense to use modern storytelling techniques/formats. Such would be inauthentic. he didn't have a provincial audience sure, but he also wasn't writing for a modern audience either. He made choices based on what the goal/function of his intent was, not for what one audience or the other would prefer. If you are going to create (or recreate) an authentic medieval castle, you don't use modern pre-fab materials to do so. Using or not using them is not a stylistic choice in your act of creation, not using them is part of the fabric of it being an authentic medieval castle. Now if you are creating a medieval style castle for a modern audience to be in a theme park, that something entirely different and then using pre-fab or authentic materials becomes a stylistic choice. But if you are trying to create that castle the way it would have been created in medieval times-it's not a matter of style but a matter of actually doing what you set out to do. Tolkien's intent was not to create an old style epic for a modern audience, he was trying to created an epic the way it would have been structured/crafted had it been composed in the First or Second Age of Middle Earth. The forms of the epic then are part of the intent, not a stylistic choice. Had he not included them, he would have failed to create what he set out to do. he would still have had a story in the format of an epic poem and modern audiences would have been none the wiser, but that wasn't his intent-it was to create an authentic epic as it would have been created in the antiquity of the world it came from. For what he was intending to do, those lists are a feature, not a bug. All that said, I don't enjoy reading the long lists anymore than I enjoy reading long lists of begatting in the Old Testament, but my preference as a reader was never a consideration in their creation and if I don't want to read those, I shouldn't be trying to read epics in the authentic style. And, Christopher and Ballantne should have released such except for audiences who sought such (which they did with the History of Middle Earth series). If they were looking to put those stories out for a modern audience to be read as a narrative story and not a vestigial epic, they should have made the Silmarillion the equivalent of one of the modern translations we see of Homer, Beowulf and the like, or even the prose versions of the Iliad and Odyssey that were often used in American schools in the mid-20th century. But that's not on Tolkien and the choices he made. It's on the choices they made on how to bring an unfinished product to market. -M |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Dec 28, 2021 5:00:55 GMT -5
So, I finally finished reading the Silmarillion...and I have to say that I feel like those that say they enjoy reading this more than the Lord of the Rings, or that it's Tolkien's best work are just being elitists who feel lost by their favorite world being made mainstream by the films. There's a lot there to like from his take on the creation myth, to the love story of Beren and Lúthien,the rise and fall of Númenor, the war of wrath and even the rise of Sauron and the Rings of Power, but between them all is frankly a whole lot of garbage. We don't need all the recitations of names and lists of geography that take up so many of the pages between the mini narratives. I get it, they're included to give the book the feeling that it's a piece of antiquity...but you only need to use that technique once or twice to sell the audience on that, you don't need to do it each time a new character walks on to the page or everytime a new place is introduced. Sure, that's what they did in Gilgamesh, the Illiad and Beowulf, but doing so had purpose then. By reciting a lineage of a character it can give the storyteller a short hand for characterization, " You know who Hercules is right, well this character is his great-great grandson so you can tell what he's like." or it could be used to get an audience invested in the tale you're telling, " You know King Agamemnon? Well, hiss daughter was so and so who marred this other guy who's name is popular in this village" making you think, "I'm related to a king? Wow, I better listen." but neither of those techniques aid Tolkien's work, these are completely fictional characters so knowing that Elrond is descended from some mythical hero doesn't help me understand Elrond better...because that mythical hero has no relevance to me, and likewise I know it's wholly a work of fiction so there's no way a listing of decedents is going to make me feel more connected to the story because I know I'm not related to Túrin Turambar no matter how far I trace his relations...because they aren't real. So it just all comes across as excessive to me and only hinders the story rather than enriches it. All the problems you give with the Silmarillion are problems I have with the Lord of the Rings books. They're extremely excessive, have pages of names of names of people of no importance whatsoever, include whole sections that are pointless to the narrative like Tom Bombadil. The worldbuilding is so excessive that it makes the narrative a slog. The only difference is that these aspects are more justified in the Silmarillion because it's a different kind of book, and its less of a slog since it covers so much more ground in much fewer pages. That's why I prefer it to the Lord of the Rings. |
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Post by berkley2 on Dec 28, 2021 23:27:53 GMT -5
I'm with RR and mrp: I can see why someone might dislike the Silmarillion as a book but to me it makes no srnse to blame Tolkien for something cobbled together by others from notes never meant by thrir author for publication, as I understand it. They were bacground work for himself, like an actor who constructs an elaborate life-history for their character, none of which is ever directly referenced in the script, its just to enable themto play their role effectively, to lend depth to their performance. It's like criticising da Vinci's notebooks for their bad handwriting or for being unorganised. It's like ... oh well, you get the idea.
This is why I always advise people who find they cant get through the Silmarillionfrom coverto cover to treat it as a reference bookorcompilation to be dipped into at whimand will. Just read the bits tgat look interedting to you, skip or skim what looks unappealing, e.g. the infamous geneologies. You canalways go back andcheck later ifyou think you missedsomething important.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 29, 2021 9:14:25 GMT -5
I'm with RR and mrp: I can see why someone might dislike the Silmarillion as a book but to me it makes no srnse to blame Tolkien for something cobbled together by others from notes never meant by thrir author for publication, as I understand it. They were bacground work for himself, like an actor who constructs an elaborate life-history for their character, none of which is ever directly referenced in the script, its just to enable themto play their role effectively, to lend depth to their performance. It's like criticising da Vinci's notebooks for their bad handwriting or for being unorganised. It's like ... oh well, you get the idea. This is why I always advise people who find they cant get through the Silmarillionfrom coverto cover to treat it as a reference bookorcompilation to be dipped into at whimand will. Just read the bits tgat look interedting to you, skip or skim what looks unappealing, e.g. the infamous geneologies. You canalways go back andcheck later ifyou think you missedsomething important. The first time I read the Silmarillion, it was like reading the Old Testament. No dialogue to speak of, characters who quickly came in and came out, major events separated by two-three pages only... it was a lot to take in, and I didn't enjoy it as I had The Hobbit or LotR. As was said above, it wasn't a novel; it wasn't an adventure. Then I read it again with Foster's Guide to Middle-Earth at hand (just to remember how the Avari relate to the Nandor, say) and was floored by the elegant complexity of Tolkien's mythology. Just as with the OT (or the Iliad) I could see the myriad threads woven together, and the book quickly became a favourite. It remains the one I re-read regularly, and the one I plucked stories from to tell my kids at bedtime (they still remember why the world is a sphere instead of a flat disc!) Tolkien did intend to see in print, however, if probably not in the exact format that his son gave the work; in fact, Tolkien wanted it published with the Lord of the Rings. Love the Silmarillion as I do, commercially speaking, it was probably a wise move on the publisher's part; it would have been a bit much for a public who wasn't yet familiar with the whole concept! |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 29, 2021 11:39:35 GMT -5
Wow, I didn't know Nandor the Relentless was originally a Tolkien character. I also didn't realize vampires were part of the Middle Earth mythos.
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Post by berkley2 on Dec 29, 2021 14:30:04 GMT -5
I'm with RR and mrp: I can see why someone might dislike the Silmarillion as a book but to me it makes no srnse to blame Tolkien for something cobbled together by others from notes never meant by thrir author for publication, as I understand it. They were bacground work for himself, like an actor who constructs an elaborate life-history for their character, none of which is ever directly referenced in the script, its just to enable themto play their role effectively, to lend depth to their performance. It's like criticising da Vinci's notebooks for their bad handwriting or for being unorganised. It's like ... oh well, you get the idea. This is why I always advise people who find they cant get through the Silmarillionfrom coverto cover to treat it as a reference bookorcompilation to be dipped into at whimand will. Just read the bits tgat look interedting to you, skip or skim what looks unappealing, e.g. the infamous geneologies. You canalways go back andcheck later ifyou think you missedsomething important. The first time I read the Silmarillion, it was like reading the Old Testament. No dialogue to speak of, characters who quickly came in and came out, major events separated by two-three pages only... it was a lot to take in, and I didn't enjoy it as I had The Hobbit or LotR. As was said above, it wasn't a novel; it wasn't an adventure. Then I read it again with Foster's Guide to Middle-Earth at hand (just to remember how the Avari relate to the Nandor, say) and was floored by the elegant complexity of Tolkien's mythology. Just as with the OT (or the Iliad) I could see the myriad threads woven together, and the book quickly became a favourite. It remains the one I re-read regularly, and the one I plucked stories from to tell my kids at bedtime (they still remember why the world is a sphere instead of a flat disc!) Tolkien did intend to see in print, however, if probably not in the exact format that his son gave the work; in fact, Tolkien wanted it published with the Lord of the Rings. Love the Silmarillion as I do, commercially speaking, it was probably a wise move on the publisher's part; it would have been a bit much for a public who wasn't yet familiar with the whole concept! In thatcase i'd see it ss an exrptended appendix, too long to fit inat the end of Return, it would have to be published ss a separate volume, somethinv like the companion volume that is addedasa 4th book in one recent edition of the trilogy. The same advice would apply: no need to feel obliged to read it covrr to cover, just dip into it ssyou like, skim what looks teciius or unnecessary, etc.or use it ss a reference to look yhingsup. Having said that, ididenjoy reading it from start to finish mydrlf, but that doesnt mean thztyhats the only or even the best way toread it. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2021 13:26:36 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2021 19:28:06 GMT -5
Geoff Castelluci did a cover of O'er the Misty Mountains on his most recent release...
-M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2021 22:48:42 GMT -5
Another version of the Misty Mountain song, this one the full version with all of Tolkien's lyrics running over 17 minutes long...
-M
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 2, 2022 14:57:10 GMT -5
I actually really enjoyed the version we got in the Peter Jackson film, it was really one of those shining moments where you thought he had recaptured lightning in a bottle.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,213 
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Post by Confessor on Jan 2, 2022 16:03:39 GMT -5
For me, the version of the Dwarves' Misty Mountain song that "sounds right" to me is the one from the 1968 BBC radio dramatisation of The Hobbit. This is undoubtedly because it was the first version I heard and got to know. With every other version there's a sense of, "Hey! That's not the right tune!" to it for me.  This should play at the right moment hopefully... |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 2, 2022 19:42:07 GMT -5
I actually really enjoyed the version we got in the Peter Jackson film, it was really one of those shining moments where you thought he had recaptured lightning in a bottle. I agree! Unfortunately, it pretty much went south from then on, as far as I'm concerned. |
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