Thread: Tolkien

I read the Hobbit when I was seven, and I loved it. I still like it more than The Lord of the Rings, but mostly for sentimental reasons.
I really do enjoy Tolkien's style. When I first read The Lord of the Rings, when I was thirteen, I slogged through it and didn't enjoy it much, though I did like the story overall. However, when I read it again last year (and again just a few weeks ago) I was completely captured by his fluent, romantic style.
Where I disagree with many people is in the 'creative genius' side of things. I don't think he was that original; in fact, he was quite derivative. Having been inspired by so many different cultures, much of Middle-Earth can be traced back to mythical inspirations that range anywhere, from the Nordic cultures to the Anglo-Saxons (The Riders of Rohan). This is consistent with the prehistoric earth that Tolkien was attempting to create, but it's too easy to forget that Tolkien, like everyone else, is inspired. He took what he'd read and studied and made it something new, but it wasn't terribly original.
Take the poem 'The Rider'.

'Where now is the horse and the rider? Where now is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?'

Etc, etc.
This can be traced directly to an Anglo-Saxon poem called 'The Wanderer', which is longer.
Tolkien is, perhaps, the father of modern fantasy. The elves we see (all too often) in fantasy these days are taken from his ideas. Our dwarves and men, our lost kings, all of these things are taken from him, who in turn took them from ancient myths and legends. But because he made them new doesn't mean he should be given the credit for inventing them.
Man, that was a long and pretentious rant. Sorry to sound like such a tool.

Tolkien gave us a new way to look at things, and took most of his life to create Middle-Earth and the history behind it. He is the one that made most people want to become writers, and for that he should be commemorated. J. R. R. Tolkien will always remain in my memory throughout my life as the one who brought me to write, and I know that if I ever do get published, I'm giving him special thanks.

I only read the first book - the fellowship, and thought it was good and enjoyed it but there were moments were i was a bit bored, he described things a bit too thickly and so i sort of wound up skimming those parts and getting back on the story (I do the same with Anne Rice novels).

What i loooove about his stories are the choices in names, they are just so damn gorgeous! Mooooordooor lol, good names are hard to generate.

Tolkein was a ground breaker in literature. As the Beatles were to music, so Tolkein was with books. Some of his work can be tiresome, unfortunately I found it to be 'the fellowship' as it was devoid of a lot of the action the next two books possess. I persevered and am glad I did.

As to the basis of his ideas, apart from being a cunning linguist (my favourite kinda man...ahem) he also studied early written myth and legend. If you look at the ancient texts of celtic myth and the icelandic sagas, you'll find a whole lot of people and places you'll recognise. The elves were inspired by the 'sidh' the faerie folk of ancient myth. Check it out. If you like Tolkein you'll be inspired as he was. I certainly have been.

Originally Posted by gabriella

He didn't have normal, average people longing for respect after being ridiculed their whole lives, or people who have committed a crime and felt there was no other way around it - a simpler way of stating it, is the greedy and arrogant and proud people you mentioned chose the dark willingly, and they never regret that decision. There isn't a single person I found that chose it unknowingly, or chose it because they felt they had no other choice, etc, and now look back.

I love anything dealing with Middle Earth. I've read the Hobbit about 4x, LOTR about 3x, and I've also read The Book of Lost Tales 1 and 2, The Lays of Beleriand, and I'm almost done with The Silmarillion.

In response to the above quote, The Silmarillion deals with the first and second age. Gondolin was a city built in that time to remind Turgon (the founder) of his home back over the sea. His sister left Gondolin and was found by a dark elf. She was forced to marry him and had a son, Maeglin. Maeglin wasn't evil when he was born. It says he loved hearing stories of Gondolin, even though his father tried to prevent him from hearing them. Obviously he loved his mother more than his father. Finally he and his mother were able to escape to Gondolin. His father, Eol, found out they left and followed them. When he came to claim them, neither would leave. Maeglin disowned his father. From all this, it sounds like Maeglin isn't all that bad. He was a good fighter and loved by the king. And yet he was also the person who betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth when he left Gondolin. A factor that influenced him in betraying Gondolin was his desire for something he could not have, his cousin Idril, but he was also tortured before he told. In his mind, it was a way to get her and become the ruler of Gondolin.

My point is not all the characters are "black and white." If Maeglin had never left Gondolin, Morgoth probably would have still found Gondolin, just at a later time. And when he did come, Maeglin would have been fighting for Gondolin, not against it. The circumstances influenced his decision. He's only one example of a character that didn't really have a choice. It was either tell, become a thrall, or die. Not much of a choice there.