The Atlas of Middle Earth 307
| The Atlas of Middle Earth | |
| author | Karen Wynn Fonstad |
| pages | 210 |
| publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | Jon Katz |
| ISBN | 0-618-12699-6 |
| summary | The Geography of Middle-Earth |
If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is," Tolkien told an interviewer, "particularly the natural earth." He also wanted to provide a new, Brit-centric mythology for the world, so he took the literal earth and changed it just enough to make it "faerie."
With the cinematic trilogy of his books under production -- three separate films are scheduled for release over the next two years -- Middle Earth is going mainstream. These films will probably be nearly as big as Star Wars, if they're half as good, touching mythological and creative nerves that revolve around what we like to call science fiction in its varied forms.
As is often the case with culture The Lord Of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion -- provided comfort, stimulation, and escape for a particular sub-set of the human species, especially young, enchanted brainiacs growing up apart from the mainstream and eager -- desperate, maybe -- for other worlds to explore.
If you want to enter Tolkien's world, the best way is to read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the The Silmarillion. For hard-core Tolkien lovers who have already done that, I'd highly recommend -- there's plenty of time before the first movie in December -- The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Houghton Mifflin), by Karen Wynn Fonstad, a University of Wisconsin cartographer who has drafted unbelievably detailed maps of Middle Earth from the First Age through the Third, including thematic and other maps, guides, places and events (the mapping of the The Silarillion is astounding).
Tolkien created the details of Middle Earth for himself, for his own creativity and intellectual exercise. He was, Fonstad writes, envisioning his world much as our medieval cartographers viewed our own.
Fonstad's descriptions of the pain-staking process she used to create these hundreds of details maps are almost as interesting as the stories upon which they're based. The atlas is a composite of the physical surface with the imprint of the "Free Peoples." A number of basic map types are included -- the physical, including landforms, minerals, and climate; the political (spheres of influence); battles; migrations (closely tied with linguistics); the traveller's pathways and finally, situation maps -- towns and dwellings, all arranged roughly in sequence. Fonstad even includes detailed pathway tables -- the distance Frodo spent on his pony on dozens of trips, the length of marches, the treks of elves, the flights of refugees.
Fonstad concedes that an almost endless series of questions, assumptions and interpretations were necessary in creating these maps. But each line has been drawn with a reason behind it, she says. And she explains the reasoning.
Middle Earth was the creation of a world, and is deserving of its own geography. Fonstad's atlas is well and clearly written, even for the casual fan of Tolkien. And the hundreds of maps she created offers a new prism through which to look at these works. This is by no means a book for everybody, and even die-hard fans of the trilogy might ask why they need to know so much. The hard-core fanatic will know.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Atlas (Score:2, Informative)
Well worth the money in my opinion.
I have this book! (Score:4, Informative)
Get it at Amazon (Score:3, Informative)
Not just the maps... (Score:5, Informative)
Although the great maps Tolkien obviously created to detail the civilizations, migrations, and geography/geology of his world(s) have a huge impact on their shocking reality, I think there are many other factors that contribute as much or more. First of all is the languages. Look at the appendices of Return of the King if you want to know what I mean. These languages are in depth, realistic, and utterly amazing. Many of them closely parallel structure and syntax of North-Germanic languages (e.g. Norwegian, Danish, Old English). They parallel them enough that it isn't entirely inconceivable that the Common which is spoken in Middle Earth is in fact written as it sounds. It sounds just like English. Notice how Tolkien doesn't use very many words of Latin origin (which can often give a clinical feel to speech). This gives the books a hominess (sic?) and a feeling of old beauty.
Also, the mythology. My favorite Tolkien book of all is the Silmarillion because of the great mythology it presents for Middle Earth. Also look how closely it mirrors our own mythologies, particularly Norse, Greek, and Christian. The stories are so rich and so human (even though many of them take place before humans are invented
Details? (Score:3, Informative)
This is the kind of info that should be IN THE REVIEW.
Re:Not just the maps... (Score:2, Informative)
There's a perfectly good reason for this. JRRT was by profession a philologist and lecturer at Oxford University. His academic specialities were Norse, Old English and Saxon saga-form stories. [1] The development which became the Lord of the Rings began with a dream he began having prior to WWI of a great tidal wave engulfing an island, with a norse-style long-ship sailing out of the destruction. This dream later saw the light as the original stories which became, during the 20's, the tale of the Fall of Numenor.
He began evolving a mythology and language for the elves of a semi-Norse alternate past during the twenties, and his aim was to make his experiment in language theory (the intentional creation of working, practical language) as full as possible, by creating the things which influence language: myth, stories and 'history'.
He then wrote a story, which grew out of his enduring love for the Warwickshire and Oxfordshire countryside and the people therof, called The Hobbit. To his eternal surprise, it was a huge success, and he began to be plagued with requests for further stories about Hobbits. While discussing this with Stanley Unwin, he came up with a way he could bring his Hobbits into the world he had begun to create as a setting for his philological experiments, and this he proceeded to do on and off for the next 35 years.
If you're interested in where I got all of that from, the places to start are 'The Book of Lost Tales' (parts one and two, ed. Christopher Tolkein) and 'Tolkein's Letters' (which is an absolute must-read if you're interested in Tolkein himself as well as his middle-earth fiction).
~cHris[1] His translation of Beowulf was a set text when my sister was studying at degree level in 1994. It's a very good translation.
Re:I have this book! (Score:3, Informative)
I also own a copy of this book; it adds immeasurably to the pleasure of re-reading Tolkien's works. Fonstad has also written The Atlas of the Land [amazon.com], The Atlas of Pern [amazon.com], and atlases for both Forgotten Realms [amazon.com] and Dragonlance [amazon.com].
I also have The Atlas of the Land, which details the world described in the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is an excellent and extremely well done reference.
A bit of advice (Score:2, Informative)
Most people recommend that you start with The Hobbit and then continue on with the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, Return of the King). They are separate stories, though they are closely coupled. If you don't normally like fantasy, then I suggest you defer reading The Hobbit until after reading the trilogy (if you finish it at all). Why? Two reasons: a) The Hobbit is mostly backstory to the larger and more epic story in the trilogy. While helpful, it is not really necessary for reading the Lord of the Rings. b) The Hobbit was originally written by Tolkein for his children. The storytelling style is very much in the mode of a children's fairy tale. It is a ripping good yarn and well worth the time for adults, but its distinctly juvenile style can seem a little "cute" at times. Please note that a little of this style rubs off on the first few chapters of Fellowship. The style seems to "mature" rapidly as the principles get farther from home, so it may be seen more as a literary device than anything.
2nd Do read the books before Fellowship is released in the theaters.
From all that I have read Peter Jackson and his team are doing superb job of adapting the story to the screen, but it is STILL an adaptation. There is a depth and breadth to Tolkien's prose that cannot be captured on film no matter how good the director or the production. This richness comes from Tolkien himself. He was one of the premier philologists (historian of languages) of his time. He had a decades long fascination with creating languages and mythologies/histories to describe them. From these deep roots grew Lord of the Rings. No author before or since has been able to match the scope and depth of this story. To do so would take the two things Tolkien had: genius and a long lifetime of hard study.
3rd Remember, Lord of the Rings was not written yesterday.
Why is this important? Sometimes readers dismiss perfectly good books because they consider the style or the story archaic. If you do really enjoy SF, like Babylon 5, then you should give Tolkien a chance. You will recognize some very familiar themes and stories and characters. No author writes in a vacuum. Epic fiction, whether it is Beowulf or LOTR or Babylon 5, has similar themes. Later authors will often borrow and reshape much older stories, if only subconciously. Tolkien drew on the mythologies of Beowulf and the Der Ring des Nibelungen, and created a world. Strazynski drew on Tolkien and Doc Smith and a dozen other sources to expressed his own ideas about the future. All I am trying to say is that you will see familiar faces, if in a different form, if you choose to make the journey. It is worth it.
Now go grab a copy and READ!!!
IV
Re:I have this book! (Score:3, Informative)
At first it just seemed like more supplementary material for the ravenous fan, but I came to appreciate that while Fonstad obviously simply began to merge her own geography skills with her love for Tolkien's world, it went far beyond that. Certainly by the time she began to prepare these maps she had taken a much more analytic and critical approach to the material.
Katz didn't mention it, but the original maps were done as her master's thesis in cartography! That tells you right off this isn't a casual work.
Fonstad begins by telling us that Tolkien himself was unhappy with the geography of his world. The original map was done by Christopher Tolkien from his father's notes and sketches around the time of the 2nd printing of the trilogy [sic], as I recall, and the trouble was that the map sketches dated from very early in Tolkien's own conception of the stories. Remember that Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion first, partly while inhabiting a trench in WWI (!), and the Hobbit came much later. He wasn't even sure they were part of the same universe, so to speak (without the experience of modern marketing of sf/fantasy universes, this was not a trivial question). The LoTR maps had to conform to the Hobbit map more than anything, but there was at least one major problem: scale.
Fonstad's careful textual analysis of the Hobbit and the Rings books showed that, for example, the Fellowship {Rings} made its way to Rivendell on foot at a speed roughly 50-100% faster than the Grey Company {Hobbit} on ponies. Tolkien, of course, hadn't made any such detailed effort to conform these accounts (nor does Fonstad suggest he should have). Instead this is just another example of how the Rings stories evolved organically over the course of Tolkien's lifetime.
Other important and useful things Fonstad does include developing workable hypotheses for the types of geologic history that could have produced Middle-Earth, and on a more detailed level, geographic descriptions that tell us how the types of areas that the characters traverse came to be. What are the Barrow-Downs, really? Why does the Anduin come to an escarpment and flow down a great falls at Rauros? What could have produced the arid region of Mordor so close to verdant Ithilien?
The answers to these questions are not always wholly satisfying, but they do help the careful reader get a sense of a more realistic world and underscore just how much information and observation Tolkien gave us. I've always thought that he's a terrifically visual writer (one reason the story should make a great screenplay). This brings out the colors in his story and makes them more vivid.
Re:pagan, not christian (Score:2, Informative)
Have you read the Silmarillion? (Well, you must have... considering you don't even get to see that stuff in the other works.)
I actually find it to be a fascinating mixture of both pagan and Christian ideas.
There is a pantheon of gods (primarily the Valar, and to an extent the lesser Maiar), having individual traits and attributes... and mythological stories to go with them. Very pagan type of structure, similar to the classic Greek/Roman/Norse/Celic pagan mythologies.
But at the same time even they are subject to a Great Creator (Iluvatar). Whom is as much God in relation to them as they are to anyone else. The Valar run things day to day and have their exploits... but the overall picture is run by Iluvatar (God) and even they don't ever fully grasp it, or see the direction.
Kind of a weird combination of both mono and polytheism. There are a few aspects that approach actual Christian ideas, too...
Elves and Men - Actually children of Iluvatar, albeit with different destinies.
The chaining of Melkor (Satan) - Achieved by the Valar, but ultimately due to intervention by Iluvatar. He is the great evil, but after the close of the 1st age he needs an agent to act in his stead. (Sauron, his former leiutenant.)
The sending of the Istari (wizards, in particular Gandalf) - Actually Maiar... to help "save" middle earth from Sauron (probably a Maiar himself). The actual mission being to organize and inspire... not actually do the job. (Gandalf accomplished much himself, but primarily followed this ideal... Saruman did not, resulting in his fall.) Not exactly synonomous with a Christ figure, but with enough similarites to have been noticed by many. Probably as somewhat of a "savior" element, which is present in many mythologies, not just Christianity.
Anyway, Tolkien was not fond of allegory, and not intending any by his writing. But he drew on many ideas for his works, and tended to lean towards concepts (and the emotions created by them) found in mythology, including all those named above. I think he did a pretty good job of that, with the result being unique in its own right.
A bit of trivia... Tolkien was a devout Catholic. And his Christian-mythology-writing buddy that you mentioned... C.S. Lewis. Most people know that. But did you know that "Jack" Lewis had at one time been essentialy atheist, and had come around to being essentially agnostic right about the time he met Tolkien? And that he became an actual Christian as the end result of many arguments/discussions with Tolkien? (And another friend that used to walk with them... don't recall the name right now.) I didn't know that until recently, and it suprised me quite a bit. But very interesting, considering the reputation Lewis made for himself afterwards.
(No, I'm not a raving looney... I hope! My sources are both his and his son's published works, and a biography I read recently. Would give the author, but I don't remember and it's at home.
Re:Other works... (Score:3, Informative)
I think Jon's starting to get to me.
I'm listening to the radio drama right now!! (Score:2, Informative)