JRR Tolkien
This item is for discussion of the author that has written so many wonderful
books, from the hobbit and the lord of the rings to less known poetry books.
I belive many of you have read his work, and i was surprised not to find an
item about him already.

37 responses total.

Well, some of us have been discussing his works for 30 or 40 years, and may
not necessarily have a lot new to say.

I've read The Hobbit, LORT, The Tolkien Reader, & Smith of Wootton Major (?).
Very cool stuff.  Don't know what i'd try next of his if i had the time,
thought.

I read somewhere he invented the languages first, as a kind
of private game with some friends, then he created the
characters that speak them.

That's a bit oversimplified, at least.  Tolkien's son Christopher has been
editing (for many years) a long series of volumes containing his early,
unpublished writings which led up to the published ones.  (The series name
is History of Middle-Earth.)  These include extensive critical discussion of
various fragments & alternate versions; the way Tolkien worked produced
**many** alternate versions of most everything, often only partially legible,
sometimes erased and overwritten with something else.

I think it would be somewhat closer to put it like this: Tolkien's (personal
and professional) interest in historical languages was one major thread in
the development of the works everyone's familiar with.  He also started out
with some story ideas, which he thought of (fairly early on) as providing an
imaginary mythological/historical background for England.  He worked on these
things over many years, and developed them in quite a bit of detail.  They
(roughly) form what after his death was put together as the _Silmarillion_.
_The_Hobbit_ emerged somewhat independently, though this extensive, developing
background kind of broke in at a number of points.  (But the whole idea of
*hobbits* didn't come from it, & didn't fit in very well.)  As he worked on
a sequel to _Hobbit_, it started tying in with his "mythology", a few millenia
down the road.  By now this could no longer be a background for England,
however, though you find echoes of this all over the place.

The languages were developed along with the "mythology", starting quite early.
However, I'd have to say that some story elements which were there pretty much
from the beginning were at least as important.

It's been a long time since I read LOTR, but I remember thinking that
the "Rohirrim" (despite the Hebraic plural) spoke a form of Old English.
"Theoden" means "prince" or "chief" in OE, for example.  Many Rohan
terms have OE origins, such as "mark" and "eorl."  If I went back to the
book I'm sure I could find a hundred examples.  The language of Mordor,
on the other hand, struck me as invented solely to sound ugly: "Ash nazg
durbatuluk," etc.  In the same way, the language of Lothlorien was designed
to sound lovely.  

Also, didn't Tolkein reveal in the introduction or one of the appendices
to LOTR that the cutesy Hobbit names were actually translations from a
stranger and far less cutesy language?  If I'm remembering it aright, it was
a wonderful distancing technique, like one of those cinematic transformations
in which a living person changes into a figure carved on a frieze, which
then ages and crumbles before your eyes.  You find yourself reading this
rather dry and matter-of-fact translator's note, and suddenly you get
goose bumps.  He was a genius, that man.  Hoom, hom.

Heh.  Yes, there are echoes of extant languages all over the place.  A lot
of the dwarves' names, for example, are in fact names of dwarfs in some OE
(or something) text.  As for the Hobbit names, yes again.

I've only read "The Hobbit" and the Lord of the Rings series.  I've got 
two or three friends trying to convince me to read the Silmarillion.

My impression is that _The Silmarillion_ is good reading if you really 
liked the material appended to _The Return of the King_ and isn't if
you didn't.  

I haven't read any of that either.  It appears I'm behind.

School's got me busy reading other stuff.

silm. i a really great book, trouble with it is that is a  very difficult
book, lot's of names and old english. 

i hadn't heard that about hobbit names - anyone know /what/ they were 
translated from?

most of his runes were proper runes, too.  i can still remember the 
shock of familiarity when i first came across them in an academic 
context...:)

Two examples from LOTR, Appendix F:

"But Sam and his father Ham were really called Ban and Ran.
These were shortenings of Banazir and Ranugad, originally
nicknames, meaning 'half-wise, simple' and 'stay-at-home';
but being words that had fallen out of colloquial use they
remained as traditional names in certain families.  I have
therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise
and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwis and
hamfaest which corresponded closely in meaning."

"Hobbit is an invention.  In the Westron the word used,
when this people was referred to at all, was banakil
'halfling'."

Note, btw, Tolkein's donnish consistency: the prefix "bana-"
evidently means "half-" as in "banazir" ("half-wise") and
"banakil" ("halfling").  Those notes in the Appendices *still*
give me goosebumps.  

[I keep misspelling the author's name.  Tolkien.  Sorry.]

Searching around the Web, I find that Tolkien scholarship has 
gone from maturity to decadence when I was looking the other way.
There are some incredibly detailed studies of Tolkien's invented
languages.  One of the facts that comes to light is that Tolkien
would go to great lengths to square the original childrens' 
tales with the elaborate histories that came later.  He would
even go so far as to explain and preserve simple misprints!

The most controversial element of LOTR, at least from my limited
readings, is the identity of Tom Bombadil.  The beings of Middle
Earth are all pretty well categorized, except for Tom.

The ents also don't fit in very well, but at least there are a lot of
them, not just one.  But yes, Bombadil does not fit in.

I've just been reading that part (first time through) in
_The_Return_of_the_Shadow_ (which is an account of the writing of
_The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring_, based on the early mss.).  Of course,
Bombadil already existed, in print, in a poem called "The Adventures
of Tom Bombadil", which involved Old Man Willow, Farmer Maggot, and
barrowwights, among other things.  What's interesting (to me, anyway)
is that almost from the very beginning, before Tolkien had more than
the foggiest idea of what was going on in the story, a visit to Bombadil
was intended.  At that point there was very little goal besides getting
Bingo (earlier main character) to Rivendell, with some adventures on the
way.

The whole story (of LotR) didn't really fit into the rather complex world
Tolkien had envisioned (whose history is given in the Silmarillion,
basically); it started as nothing more than an attempt to write
*some* kind of sequel to _The_Hobbit_, which was not intended to be in
that world.  For the most part, LotR came to be fully and comfortably
connected with the larger background, but (despite the bits at the
Council of Elrond) Bombadil does not AFAICS fit in.

Nonetheless, the decision to leave it in seems to me to be correct from
every point of view.  From my first reading (almost 35 years ago) to date,
the Bombadil episode has been one of my favorite parts of the whole thing.

Bombadil doesn't fit at all into the tightly-woven cloth of inter-threaded
fates that is the main tapestry of LOTR.  To judge by the words of Elrond
and Galdalf in Rivendell, Tolkien doesn't want Bombadil to fit in.  I see
Tom as an early sign that the world is wider, older, and far less under-
stood (even by its wisest inhabitants; perhaps too, in a sense, by JRRT
himself) than that richly detailed central tapestry...and that that 
tapestry cannot ignore what lies beyond its edges.

One writer makes a convincing argument that Tom Bombadil
is a god who stayed behind when the others withdrew to 
the West.  By this theory, he is Aule and Goldberry is 
Yavanna.  Other writers say that Tom is a Nature spirit 
of some sort.  (Bombadil started life as the name of one 
of the Tolkien children's dolls.  J.R.R. made up stories 
and poems about him.  Imagine having *him* telling you
your bedime stories.)  There is a scene in which Tom 
tells the Hobbits a story that gradually travels back to
the creation of the world; after a long pause, Frodo says,
"Who are you, Master?"  It doesn't get much stranger than
that in LOTR.  

        Tolkien also wrote a wonderful set of stories to his children, of Santa
Claus and the North Pole.  I've got it around here somewhere;  I should
endeavour to read it.

Re 18: The early name for the character that became Frodo was "Bingo",
apparently named after a family of stuffed pandas belonging to the Tolkien
kids.  Christopher says that this seems really strange, citing their (the
pandas') malevolence, religious monomania, and tendency to blow everything
up with explosive devices.  JRRT was never a simple man, I think.  (I could
find that footnote, if pressed, & give exact wording, but that's the gist
of it.)

("Christopher" meaning Christopher Tolkien, & *not* meaning to suggest that
I'm on first-name terms with him.)

Yeah, I felt that Tom was there (sort of) because he chose to be there.

Is that strange?

Anyone here unaware of the three movies in production of The Lord of 
the Rings? If so, then http://www.xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie.htm could 
be a good starting point for you. (My apologies for writing about 
movies in the book forum)

Re Tom Bombadil & the Ents:
Re-reading _Fellowship of the Ring_ lately, I thought the contrast between
these two was interesting.  Both are nature spirits of some sort, and both
are 'leftovers' from a much older time, but they are almost entirely opposite
in character.  I can't decide whether I think that's very clever of Tolkien,
or a little sloppy.

Well, as I say I've just been reading the (edited/collected) early
manuscripts; still much in the middle.  I was flabbergasted to find that
initially Treebeard (sometimes Tree Beard) was a bad guy.  Tolkien was trying
to come up with a reason why Gandalf wouldn't have warned Bingo/Frodo that
the ringwraiths were about; Saruman had not yet come into the picture, at all,
and so Tolkien had Gandalf be taken prisoner in Fangorn Forest by the Giant
Treebeard, who was to later pretend to Frodo to be a Good Guy.

It's very interesting, reading this.  We've been reading systematically (and
slowly) through all the History of Middle Earth stuff (for Mythopoeic Society
discussions); most of it I've found *very* hard going, hard to make myself
do it.  Now that we're into the background for LotR, I suddenly can see that
this was because I'm really only slightly familiar with what the earlier parts
led to (roughly, the Silmarillion).  As I read the early versions of (what
became) _The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring_, I can pretty much say easily and
instantly which things were kept and which changed and which were removed,
and it's very interesting.  But I've read LotR dozens of times over almost
35 years, now, so I am mostly very familiar with it, & *care* about it.

(to change the subject slightly) The appendices don't give much in the way
of info on languages, except origins and a few words of the language of the
Dwarves, and a little Orkish. I would be interested in finding more info on
languages, esp. Elvish, of the Dwarves, and Entish.

http://www.uib.no/people/hnohf is probably good starting point for the 
languages created by Tolkien.

This is a highly interesting site.  I never realised anyone had done so 
much research of the Tolkien Languages

I am 24 years of age and first read The Hobbit at the age of 13 after given
a hard cover copy, and was completely blown away.  At that age I never
imagined there were writings such as that due to the fact that I wasn't a big
reader. It wasn't untill later that I had even heard of LotR, and eventually
bought a 3-book hard cover series.  I read The Hobbit again before reading
LotR, and I have now read the LotR 3 times....wow! What a story.  I have
partially read The Silmarillion, which is very difficult to follow if you are
going to try and learn the detailed history of Middle-earth.  I have now
gotten to the point of seeing things within in the LotR that were so far
advanced for his writings..his imagination was incredible.  I have heard that
the he began writing the LotR as said before in this discussion was a simple
sequel to The Hobbit.  He would write a short chapter and send it to his son
who was in the war  (WWII) and his son would write back with his opinion on
it, and then JRR would take that and write more, send it, etc.  Eventually
he decided to write a serious conclusion and story of the War of the Rings.
I have also heard that he spent 12 yrs. writing the story  1937-49.  I haven't
really researched these facts, but am really interested in your opinions. 
But as far as his imagination goes,  I think the Mines of Moria portion of
the story is by far one of the best parts because its such turning point and
shows just how serious of an adventure they face, espacially the Balrog. 
Imagine facing a beast as descibed in the battle:  "The flames roared up to
greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air.  Its
streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it.  In its right hand was a blade
like a stabbing tounge of fire, in its left it help a whip of many thongs."
"It steeped forward on the bridge and drew itself up to a great height, and
its wings spread wall to wall; but still gandalf could be seen, ......grey
and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm."   Truly awsome.
Reading his writing can make one wish that there was more to read on the war
of the rings, or a more detailed story of what happened afterwards.

It also would have been exciting to read a detailed battle of Gandalf facing
the Balrog on top of the endless stair.....

Bombadil fits in the same way Redhorn fits.  Note that the mountain itself
generated the storm that stopped the Fellowship and forced them to go through
Khazad-dum.  Lots of interesting stuff going on in Middle-Earth. :)

Somewhere, I read that people were writing to Tolkien, in Elvish, before the
second volume was published; they got enough from the poetry and translations
in The Fellowship of the Ring to figure out the language.

that would be another cool thing for Tolkien fans, books published in the
languages like elvish to appear from the elves themselves.  I thought tho that
Redhorn Pass tumbled on them due to the magic of Sarumen.....

Only in the movie.  Not in the book.  The mountain, itself, was at least a
little conscious.  Aragorn pointed that out to Gandalf.

Yep.  One of the many make-it-like-other-fantasy-movies changes the movie made
for no obvious reason.

ahh...thats right.  hmm...need to polish up on LotR i guess.  I am definately
interested in the next two movies.  The special effects will have to be
amazing to keep up with the book. 

They should have made six movies, one from each of Tolkien's six books.
That the books are bound in pairs in the book store has nothing to do
with their dramatic structure.

Six movies would have been great, more details about the story could have been
included.  I have recently picked up the story again and i still love reading
it.  Tolkien had an awesome way with words.....

one more thing...although the LotR includes the ents as a big part of the
story, and also giving credit to the elves for 'awakening and teaching them',
there isnt really anything said in the silmarrilion about it....or is there?
maybe i just missed it, but i thought that was kinda strange, especially since
they played a huge part in the destruction of Saruman.  And treebeard noted
many times that the entwives had disappeared, but they didnt know where, or
if they were all dead.  hmmm......any thoughts on this?

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