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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 17, 2022 4:46:56 GMT -5
On the upside, that leaves more time to re-read The Silmarillion.  Honest Injun: give it a try with Foster's Guide to Middle-Earth near at hand. The Silmarillion is an amazing epic if you can check who heck Maglor is and how he's related to Finrod! (I never could remember at first). Ha! I will definitely read it one of these fine days. I have Foster's guide, the Atlas of Middle-earth, and The Silmarillion in its entirety on audio book (read by Martin Shaw) to help me get through it and actually absorb it. In the past, I've just found it utterly impenetrable. I did read on Reddit someone suggesting reading some of the more accessible chapters first, such as "Beren and Lúthien" or "The Coming of Men into the West", as a gateway into the book in its entirety. What would your opinion of that idea be? It's not a bad idea, as Beren and Luthien feature the same central characters for an entire chapter; people we get to root for for a while. The same holds true with the children of Hurin, but that is my least favourite part of Tolkien's work so I wouldn't start there! However, the Quenta Silmarillion is like the Old Testament; if one skips the start, later events lose part of their impact, for lack of a certain context. The oath of Fëanor, the kinslaying at Alqualondë, the crossing of Helcaraxë, they all help define who the Noldor are, and why their fate is such a mix of glory and melancholy. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2022 10:15:27 GMT -5
Trotter and Bingo, Tolkien's original names for Strider (Aragorn) and Frodo, just don't seem to resonate as well as his final choices, and both remained in play through several drafts of the LOTR. I wonder if the reception of those characters (and the books overall) would have been different if those names had stayed in place through publication?
-M
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 20, 2022 13:22:56 GMT -5
Trotter and Bingo, Tolkien's original names for Strider (Aragorn) and Frodo, just don't seem to resonate as well as his final choices, and both remained in play through several drafts of the LOTR. I wonder if the reception of those characters (and the books overall) would have been different if those names had stayed in place through publication? -M I think Bingo would have killed it for me. The only Bingo I know was that dog from the children's song and that's all I would have been able to think of every time I read the name Bingo if Tolkien had kept it. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 20, 2022 13:48:20 GMT -5
Trotter as a name for an adventurous Hobbit sounds pretty good, as it evokes someone who travels a lot but has a short gait.
Bingo... well... Bingo evokes a game that old people play when they've been carted away to the hospice. "B-1 with the universe..." "BINGO!!!"
And don't get me started on Jenga the grey, Lego the Elf and Kerplunk the Dwarf...
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Oct 25, 2022 0:58:47 GMT -5
Yeah, I like Trotter as the name of a wandering Hobbit ranger-type character. But Bingo would've been a major misstep had Frodo ended up being called that.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2022 10:06:11 GMT -5
Look at this:
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2022 1:27:00 GMT -5
From the 1977 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a LOTR themed float...  -M |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2022 12:52:36 GMT -5
Another 70s LOTR merch relic...  -M |
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Post by berkley on Nov 27, 2022 23:12:41 GMT -5
Apparently there's a new Tolkien book out called The Fall of Numenor and it covers some of the same era the recent tv series did. Unfortunately for me, it's illustrated by Alan Lee, whose artwork I know is well thought of by many Tolkien readers but has never clicked with me. I might get it anyway, though. Not sure if this is material that's already appeared elsewhere and has been collected and re-arranged to coincide with the stuff covered by the tv show, or what.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 28, 2022 6:28:52 GMT -5
Apparently there's a new Tolkien book out called The Fall of Numenor and it covers some of the same era the recent tv series did. Unfortunately for me, it's illustrated by Alan Lee, whose artwork I know is well thought of by many Tolkien readers but has never clicked with me. I might get it anyway, though. Not sure if this is material that's already appeared elsewhere and has been collected and re-arranged to coincide with the stuff covered by the tv show, or what. I can't help but think "cash grab" when I see such repackaging of stories we already know. We've read the story of Turín several times already, and its the same for the fall of Numenór. Ditto for Beren and Luthien! For Tolkien fans who want more material, I recommend the Book of Lost Tales. It contains earlier versions of the stories and reads like actual ancient mythology (in which characters can change names and events don't always agree with the most widely accepted version of any given tale). |
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Post by berkley on Nov 29, 2022 10:56:17 GMT -5
So it is just a collection of material already published in various other posthumous Tolkien releases? That's what I was wondering.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2022 13:38:22 GMT -5
So it is just a collection of material already published in various other posthumous Tolkien releases? That's what I was wondering. From wikipedia's write up of the book: So it compiled everything Tolkien wrote relevant to the Second Age into one volume, rather than having to own multiple volumes and sift through them. Kind of like a greatest hits album for a musical artist or one of those year's best collections for a genre (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, detective, etc.) which has been a practice in entertainment industries since the mid-20th century, especially around holiday time. It gives them a solid, recent product to sell to consumers who want the convenience of having it all in one place and not have to track down or own several different volumes (or magazines, or albums) to get the stuff they are interested in. Might not appeal to someone who owns it all already, but these volumes sell well, often outselling the sources the collect material from and putting in front of readers who would never spend the time or money to track down all the individual sources. -M |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 30, 2022 1:27:27 GMT -5
From wikipedia's write up of the book: So it compiled everything Tolkien wrote relevant to the Second Age into one volume, rather than having to own multiple volumes and sift through them. Kind of like a greatest hits album for a musical artist or one of those year's best collections for a genre (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, detective, etc.) which has been a practice in entertainment industries since the mid-20th century, especially around holiday time. It gives them a solid, recent product to sell to consumers who want the convenience of having it all in one place and not have to track down or own several different volumes (or magazines, or albums) to get the stuff they are interested in. Might not appeal to someone who owns it all already, but these volumes sell well, often outselling the sources the collect material from and putting in front of readers who would never spend the time or money to track down all the individual sources. All true, but let's be honest with ourselves for a moment: this is just a cynical cash grab tie-in with The Rings of Power TV series -- nothing more, nothing less. The timing of it alone makes that obvious. That said, I am kinda tempted to pick this book up, as I don't actually have all of Tolkien's various writings on the Second Age, only the stuff that is included in the LOTRs appendices and The Silmarillion. Also, Brian Sibley co-wrote the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of LOTRs, along with Michael Bakewell, and that might well be my favourite ever adaptation of it. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2022 1:58:34 GMT -5
From wikipedia's write up of the book: So it compiled everything Tolkien wrote relevant to the Second Age into one volume, rather than having to own multiple volumes and sift through them. Kind of like a greatest hits album for a musical artist or one of those year's best collections for a genre (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, detective, etc.) which has been a practice in entertainment industries since the mid-20th century, especially around holiday time. It gives them a solid, recent product to sell to consumers who want the convenience of having it all in one place and not have to track down or own several different volumes (or magazines, or albums) to get the stuff they are interested in. Might not appeal to someone who owns it all already, but these volumes sell well, often outselling the sources the collect material from and putting in front of readers who would never spend the time or money to track down all the individual sources. All true, but let's be honest with ourselves for a moment: this is just a cynical cash grab tie-in with The Rings of Power TV series -- nothing more, nothing less. The timing of it alone makes that obvious. That said, I am kinda tempted to pick this book up, as I don't actually have all of Tolkien's various writings on the Second Age, only the stuff that is included in the LOTRs appendices and The Silmarillion. Also, Brian Sibley co-wrote the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of LOTRs, along with Michael Bakewell, and that might well be my favourite ever adaptation of it. Publishing is a for profit business. Many books don't turn a profit. I am not going to fault a publisher for putting out a sure thing in the holiday season. Some may call it a "cash grab" but it's simply a smart business decision if you are in business to make money. You can be cynical if you choose, but every product released in the entertainment industry by a for profit company is intended to generate as much revenue as possible. Criticizing them for doing so is like criticizing someone for taking a job to earn a paycheck. It's a necessity in the market that exists in our current civilization. If you don't, you're not in business for long. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2022 2:06:11 GMT -5
Further, publishers have always sought to maximize revenue from Tolkien's works, in fact the Lord of the Rings exists as a trilogy instead of as a single book as Tolkien wanted because Allen and Unwin wanted to maximize sales and revenue on it, so it being a trilogy, and not a single book could be characterized as a ash grab by the publishers, as they wanted sales of 3 books instead of one for their investment in Tolkien.
That's the publishing business, like it or not.
-M
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