The Lord of the Rings

[Norton Canes]

It's fashionable to think they're nerd shit, but they're superb bits of literature

The best thing about them is that they're both

[Brigadier Pompous]

The Silmarillion suffers from starting with the Ainulindalë , which is the most impenetrable bit of the whole book. 

[bgmnts]

Silmarillion is ace, cheers.




Took me a few years to read it though.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea if you don't like tiny dudes pissing about for gods sake give this a miss

[Glebe]

Of course Tolks kicks off with the Valar 'cos they're the ones who made everything.

[Ferris]

Of course Tolks kicks off with the Valar 'cos they're the ones who made everything.

It's a creation myth! And the music in Ainulindalë mirrors (summarizes?) the rest of the saga and lets you know Eä will be alright in the end. What an intro!

[Brigadier Pompous]

I like the Ainulindalë well enough, and it's an obvious place to start, what with it being the creation myth.  It's not part of the Quenta Silmarillion itself though and JRRT didn't assemble the published Silmarillion.

I just think a lot of people who give up on the Sil probably don't make it through the Ainulindalë which is unfortunate as the Sil proper is (a bit) more like LotR.

[Norton Canes]

On a related note, does anyone else have J.E.A. Tyler's Complete Tolkien Companion?



I've got the 1979 edition (it's as scuffed as the one in the image here) revised to include entries concerning The Silmarillion. I think I've read it more times than the LOTR books themselves - albeit by dipping in rather than reading it right through. I see it's taken some stick for adding a bit of colour, shall we say, to some of the characters and events rather than sticking absolutely to the information provided in the narrative, but the lengthy entries on the history of many of the major races and locations of Middle Earth are absorbing and informative. Want to know your Noldor from your Sindar? This is the place to look.

While we're on the subject of ancillary information, anyone enjoy a good pore over the LOTR appendicies?

[Mister Six]

I never read any of the Tolkein books as a kid, which I think was a mistake; I remember a classmate enthusing about LotR, but then I saw the size of the first book and thought "Nah, I've not even caught up with Terry Pratchett yet, fuck that."

I planned to do a full Tolkein blitz, Silmarillion and all, during lockdown, but I got a little way into The Hobbit and gave it up as a bad job. I actually found the opening chapters very endearing, and the narrator's voice a lot funnier than I'd expected, but then it became too episodic, with our characters getting into some scrape them more or less getting immediately out of it, and I lost interest. I gave it up somewhere around Gandalf throwing burning pinecones about.

I should probably have a crack at LotR anyway, though, right?

[Ferris]

I like the Ainulindalë well enough, and it's an obvious place to start, what with it being the creation myth.  It's not part of the Quenta Silmarillion itself though and JRRT didn't assemble the published Silmarillion.

I just think a lot of people who give up on the Sil probably don't make it through the Ainulindalë which is unfortunate as the Sil proper is (a bit) more like LotR.

Very true on all fronts. I (ignorantly) had no idea the boy JRR didn't do the final Silmarillion assembly so that's useful context

[touchingcloth]

I read the books before the films came out (maybe finishing the third after the first film was released), and I have a distinct memory of people my parents' generation complaining that the first film was shite because it didn't match the book, and how scandalous in particular it was that they had left Tom Bombadil out.

Mental. The mincing woodnonce was the worst thing about that book, and the film was already four hours long.

[non capisco]

Out of pure nostalgia I'm a big fan of Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord Of The Rings, the one that doesn't actually complete the story as plans for a sequel fell through,  (it was the first thing I ever taped off the telly when we got a video recorder in 1986, can still remember the ad breaks featuring Island Life - The Best Of Grace Jones and something about Luton Airport) and that cuts out Tom Bombadil as well. At that point in the narrative he would slow the story right down with his being all jolly and dancing about. There's meant to be a swelling dread and threat of pursuit by dark forces, you can't have that undercut onscreen by Middle Earth's answer to Timmy Mallett.

[bgmnts]

Not into this Bombadil hatred at all.

[Chollis]

I like the Ainulindalë well enough, and it's an obvious place to start, what with it being the creation myth.  It's not part of the Quenta Silmarillion itself though and JRRT didn't assemble the published Silmarillion.

I just think a lot of people who give up on the Sil probably don't make it through the Ainulindalë which is unfortunate as the Sil proper is (a bit) more like LotR.

Iiiinteresting, I remember giving up when I tried to read it in my teens, after absolutely adoring Hobbit+LoTR, because I thought it was all gonna be like that! Gonna go back and have another pop at it now.

[Milo]

I like the Ainulindalë well enough, and it's an obvious place to start, what with it being the creation myth.  It's not part of the Quenta Silmarillion itself though and JRRT didn't assemble the published Silmarillion.

I just think a lot of people who give up on the Sil probably don't make it through the Ainulindalë which is unfortunate as the Sil proper is (a bit) more like LotR.

Where would you recommend skipping to?

[Norton Canes]

Read the Ainulindalë! It's not that long and it's in perfectly comprehensible language.

[Mr Vegetables]

I like Tom Bombadil— sitting there outside the story, singing songs at people who say "you don't fit neatly into this!" as though that wasn't the explicitly stated point

[Milo]

Read the Ainulindalë! It's not that long and it's in perfectly comprehensible language.

I think I found it more boring than incomprehensible.

[superthunderstingcar]

Where would you recommend skipping to?

It's hard to suggest skipping anything because the book is cleverly interwoven, so that plots and characters introduced early are returned to eventually. You could maybe skip straight to the start of the Quenta Silmarillion proper (i.e. skip Ainulindalë and Valaquenta), but if you have access to them you may prefer reading The Children of Hurin or Beren and Luthien, which are the best bits of the Silmarillion (except for all the bits with Feanor in them) published as standalone works.

[Famous Mortimer]

Where would you recommend skipping to?

The first chapter of LOTR

[madhair60]

nobody who came to LOTR as an adult likes it.

edit: and if they did you can write them off.

[magister]

On a related note, does anyone else have J.E.A. Tyler's Complete Tolkien Companion?



I've got the 1979 edition (it's as scuffed as the one in the image here) revised to include entries concerning The Silmarillion. I think I've read it more times than the LOTR books themselves - albeit by dipping in rather than reading it right through. I see it's taken some stick for adding a bit of colour, shall we say, to some of the characters and events rather than sticking absolutely to the information provided in the narrative, but the lengthy entries on the history of many of the major races and locations of Middle Earth are absorbing and informative. Want to know your Noldor from your Sindar? This is the place to look.

While we're on the subject of ancillary information, anyone enjoy a good pore over the LOTR appendicies?

I had that as a present for my 9th birthday, 42 years ago. Not seen it in decades - it must have been thrown out at some point.

[Pranet]

A few months ago I saw it in one of those phone box book exchanges/dumping grounds. I was sorely tempted but I decided to leave  it for someone who would appreciate it more than me.

[Vodkafone]

It's ages since I read The Silmarillion but I think that's where you get to find out Tom Bombadil's real name:

Spoiler alert

Ian Bombadil

[close]

[Brigadier Pompous]

That's in the Silmarillian

[Phoenix Lazarus]

nobody who came to LOTR as an adult likes it.

I was bored, after enjoying the Hobbit at about age eight.

[Vodkafone]

That's in the Silmarillian

Heh!

[Chollis]

Finished the Silmarillion audiobook finally. Fucking class. I've basically been falling asleep to it over several months and I lost my bearings for a bit in the middle where it's all the Elven kingdoms in Beleriand and I swear there is just too many names of both people and places to keep track of. Reading rather than listening would be better for this but I ended up enjoying it so much I think I'll end up giving lots of it a re-listen. Loved anything involving Morgoth and all the later stuff with Gondolin, Earendil, Numenor and setting the scene for the Third Age + LoTR too.

Are Sons of Hurin and Unfinished Tales worth a go then?

[FredNurke]

They're different beasts, really. Unfinished Tales is a grab-bag of material that Christopher Tolkien thought would most interest the audience (sections on the Druedain, Numenor, the ever-changing background of Galadriel, the death of Isildur, the Istari, etc.) whereas Children of Hurin is an attempt to put together the most complete of the three narratives that Tolkien came to feel were the great sagas of the Silmarillion (the other two being Beren + Luthien and the Fall of Gondolin segueing into Earendil and the War of Wrath). There's actually a fair amount of overlap, in that there's a substantial account of the Children of Hurin drafts in Unfinished Tales, but Children of Hurin also includes material from the Wanderings of Hurin which appeared in volume 11 of the History of Middle-earth. It represents what Christopher Tolkien ended up wishing he'd done with (some of) the Silmarillion, basically.

Unfinished Tales is the place to go to answer a lot of the immediate questions that generally arise from reading the Hobbit / LOTR / Silmarillion, and it also gives you an idea of what to expect from the History of Middle-earth, so I'd start with that if that sounds interesting. Children of Hurin is more of a self-contained work, and is probably the biggest 'story' outside those three. (Point of interest: little bits of Unfinished Tales  actually ended up in the BBC radio adaptation of LOTR in 1981, because they dealt directly with Christopher Tolkien and he was quite well disposed towards it.)

[Chollis]

They're different beasts, really. Unfinished Tales is a grab-bag of material that Christopher Tolkien thought would most interest the audience (sections on the Druedain, Numenor, the ever-changing background of Galadriel, the death of Isildur, the Istari, etc.) whereas Children of Hurin is an attempt to put together the most complete of the three narratives that Tolkien came to feel were the great sagas of the Silmarillion (the other two being Beren + Luthien and the Fall of Gondolin segueing into Earendil and the War of Wrath). There's actually a fair amount of overlap, in that there's a substantial account of the Children of Hurin drafts in Unfinished Tales, but Children of Hurin also includes material from the Wanderings of Hurin which appeared in volume 11 of the History of Middle-earth. It represents what Christopher Tolkien ended up wishing he'd done with (some of) the Silmarillion, basically.

Unfinished Tales is the place to go to answer a lot of the immediate questions that generally arise from reading the Hobbit / LOTR / Silmarillion, and it also gives you an idea of what to expect from the History of Middle-earth, so I'd start with that if that sounds interesting. Children of Hurin is more of a self-contained work, and is probably the biggest 'story' outside those three. (Point of interest: little bits of Unfinished Tales  actually ended up in the BBC radio adaptation of LOTR in 1981, because they dealt directly with Christopher Tolkien and he was quite well disposed towards it.)

Nice one! Unfinished Tales first I think