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Hemos
from the from-way-back-in-the-vaults dept.
AngrySpud writes "For those LotR fans out there, Salon.com has posted an MP3 of J.R.R. Tolkien himself reading from The Two Towers. It can be found here."
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These were released -- on this side of the Atlantic, at least -- a few years ago by HarperCollins, who have their own Tolkien imprint. There's a double cassette of the great man, not only reading, but singing all those elven things that I tend to skip over in the book.
If you're interested, wander over to here [fireandwater.com] (which is a frame inside this [harpercollins.com])
Say to thorin 'carry me'|say to thorin 'go window'|se|e|se|e|get ring|n|d|n|go crack
It seems that movie adaptations of first-rate books turn out somewhat dismally. Just imagine a movie of _War and Peace_ (I know there is one, but haven't seen it; I _have_ read the book); I can't imagine it doing any kind of justice to the book.
Have you actually read princess bride, the example cited by the person you replied to? It is in fact an excellent book in many ways (Not the least of which is its imagination) and yet the movie was still quite good. Perhaps not your cup, but it was well-acted, well-produced, makes god use of cinematography, et cetera. The movie, of course, does not go into as much as the book does, but somehow it manages to feel complete in any case. The book is simply more so.
Most good movie adaptations are of second-rate books. I think it's a matter of expectations.
Or maybe it's because the story was better suited to a movie than to a book.
Now Tolkien, he wrote some first-rate stuff.
No argument here. Of course, IMO The Silmarillion is a stinker; It's more like an intellectual exercise than anything else to me, using the "Holy" Bible as sample material, with a bunch of Begats and whatnot. About as exciting as watching flies copulate. Your mileage may vary, of course. Anyway, I have hopes (though perhaps not high ones) for the LotR movies coming out, which at least seem to have the heart in the right place.
Larn was the game for me!!!!
Larn totally kicked ass. Kobolds etc. Its amazing, I used to get exactly the same adrenaline rush from playing Larn that I now get from QIII Arena !!!
I think you missed on of the most important points of the whole story. The Ring was incredibly dangerous, especially to the powerful. Gandalf spoke specifically of this issue at the beginning of "Fellowship" when Bilbo offerred him the Ring. The Ring basically drove Saruman and Boromir, two powerful characters, mad with desire for it and its power. If either had obtained it they would have either become slaves to Sauron, who would have thus reaquired his ring, or possibly overthrew him only to take his place. It took a humble, determined Hobbit to do the deed, and even he succumbed to the Ring at the end. Lucky thing Gollumn was there...
I think the Hobbit may be for kids, but LOTR has depth.
Just a quick note, The reason the Ring was given to Frodo was because if Gandalf or Elrond or any of the 'powerful' types laid there hands on it, then they would get sucked in by the ring. Like Saruman did when he started talking to Suaron. Frodo had less potential if he was overcome by the ring. The plot is not illogical, just complex, which can appear illogical if you aren't careful
Is that I feal like I'm moving in a real place. You know that JRRT knew what was on the other side of that hill or under that mountin. He may not tell you in the book but he knew. To many SF and fantasy books have felt like a movie set where if you went past that wall there would be a grey nothing.
To be fair I feal the same way about Terry Pratchet's Diskworld and the Harry Potter books. In both cases I feal that they author has a lot more vision than we see in print. (OK its not quite the same but I like all 3)
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
In general the whole plot of the LotR just seems very "cheap". Gandalf always appears at the right moment to help the others: when he finds the two lesser hobbits (I forget their names), when goes to Gondor, when he rescues Faramir from the fire, and of course when he starts the battle at exactly the right moment. Too many coincidences for my liking. It seems to me that when Tolkien was writing this, whenever he got stuck he thought "Oh, time to bring Gandalf to save the day". Not very convincing is it?
Hmmm... where to begin?
Where was Gandalf when the four hobbits were being chased by the Black Riders throughout Book One? (Answer: Imprisoned in a tower far away.) The hobbits had to help themselves out of that one, and needed to trust Strider.
The two "lesser" hobbits (Merry and Pippin) escape from the Uruk-Hai (orcs) on their own when the Riders of Rohan attack. And then they come across Treebeard, becoming a catalyst for the Ents attack on Orthanc. This is all before Gandalf shows up. (Book Three in The Two Towers)
Gandalf doesn't just resuce Faramir from the fire. Pippin has to abandon his post, convince a fellow guard to mutiny, and find Gandalf in order to make the resuce happen.
And let's see... To criticize the book because Gandalf decides to go to Gondor or starting a diversionary battle is like, well, criticizing Moby Dick because Ahab decided to go to sea. What'd you expect him to do?
When Gandalf does always "show up just in time" is in the Hobbit, but that's another story.
I was teasing. I know you know where the name come. It's obvious from the intelligence of your posts. I've yet to hear a Tolkien fan who actually cheered for the Orcs.
I'm a huge dwarf fan myself, so your name really jumped out. My username, Erore, is Quenyan (supposedly) and something I made up about 18 years ago to use as a magic-user in AD&D.
I love the story of Turin myself. Beleg was a favorite of mine. I still cry when Turin kills him.
I would not feel insulted in the least if the book was recorded by the author. Particularly Tolkien. Just to hear his pronounciation of the various Hobbit or Lord of the Rings character names and story settings would be a treat.
Incredible scope? Incredible scope?!?! Damn, that's an understatement. It requires five pages of genealogical charts, a pronunciation guide, dozens of pages of glossary, a fold out map, an index, and footnotes every other page just to make heads or tails of it.
For comparison, I've never seen a history textbook with that much scope, nor that much detail.
The fact that such a wonderful writer is dead is a terrible tragedy. It is wonderful to have a chance to hear him reach out over the years, his voice reaching out to us.
The other thing I love about this is the idea of one of the most wonderful of all geek heroes lending his voice to the movement showing that mp3s are for more than stealing the music of Christina Aguellara.(sp, I'm sure)
A moment of silence for such a great man. This is a fitting tribute.
Another thing seems to be that it is the Unix geeks above all who seem to have a higher artistic sensibility, and like tolkien more than the average NT geek, for whom the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" seems to hold more interest.
I think you're stereotyping a bit. Not all Unix geeks like Tolkein. Not all NT geeks like Adams. I'm a Terry Pratchett fan and I prefer Unix over NT as a server. I could rattle off the names of several of my coworkers that think that the whole fantasy genre is crap.
I can take or leave Tolkien. I don't like anime much. I wasn't one of the downtrodden in high school. Hemos, CmdrTaco, JonKatz and the rest of the Slashdot crew don't speak for the entire geek community, by any stretch of the imagination. Any attempts to put us in nice little easily-filed boxes is destined to failure.
I have to admit that I really enjoyed reading Tolkien's books when I was a child. The hobbit was the first book that I read in English, and I was thrilled. A few years later when I my English had improved, I read the Lord of the Rings and again I was so impressed with Tolkien's Middle Earth.
A few years later though, I decided to re-read the book. Even though Tolkien's descriptions amazed me as much as the first time, this time I didn't enjoy it so much.
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I mean there are the first born elves, creatures far superior to hobbits, almost immortal seasoned warriors with millenia of experience, and yet Gandalf has to give the ring to a hobbit who barely knows how to use a kitchen knife.
There are wizards like Gandalf and Saruman with the ability to defeat entire armies on their own, and yet they send a hobbit who cannot defend himself from a wild animal.
Sorry, but I think that the plot of the book is just illogical. Yes, it is a good childrens' book, but it certainly does not deserve the cult status it has gained...
Actually, there have been several, including a massive, filmed-in-70mm, 7-hour Russian version [imdb.com] made in 1968. Yes, that's not a typo, it really is 7 hours long!
Just imagine a movie of _War and Peace_ (I know there is one, but haven't seen it; I _have_ read the book); I can't imagine it doing any kind of justice to the book.
There's lots. The one that rocks is Bondarchuk [imdb.com]'s. 6 1/2 hours, subtitles, absolutely fantastic. Beg, buy, borrow or steal it.
I think it is great to hear Tolkiens voice and how he changes it for Golum. It is exactly how i would expect Golum to sound like it if i have not heard the voice through the author. It just goes to show how amazing and genious his works of fiction are.
I don't think that's a fair assessment of Dune. For instance, I remember reading Max Weber's essay on the routinization of charisma and being surprised how much it helped in an understanding of the politics of Dune. I think you could enjoy Dune just as a fictional adaptation of a host of literature on mob psychology and leadership nd charisma.
Also, I don't think your argument by way of example of the term Bene Gesserit is any less paper-thin. The term may not mean anything per se, but Herbert certainly invested a great deal in developing the background of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood--arguably as much as Tolkien did for any race or class in LotR. Consider the BG as religious order, political unit, or the description of the BG breeding program, blah blah.
My Middle-Eastern friends have always pointed out to various cultural and language references in Dune as well.
Whether or not LotR is "better" than Dune as literature, in depth, etc., however, is a holy war I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole =)
You forgot the bear's fiery furry slippers. Ralph Bakshi has a lot to answer for (although it should be noted that he ran out of funding part of the way through, which is why the second movie was never made).
There should be a greater availability of audio books, although it's pretty difficult to concentrate and to work at the same time... that doesn't seem to stop us from reading slashdot:)
Ok, Erore, I have something just for you:
[arnor.net] http://www.arnor.net/tolkien.html
I've put up scans of three pictures by John Howe and Ted Naismith: Turin's tragic slaying of Beleg, plus Turin stabbing Glorund, and the assault on Gondolin.
(/me braces for slashdotting... this is coming off the server in my closet...)
What does Erore mean in Quenya?
Er seems to mean "one" or "alone", but I can't find a meaning listed for -ore.
orn means "tree", though, so "Erorn" would be "one tree" or "lone tree".
I'm going to have to work more on my web site. I have a whole bunch of Tolkien content that I want to put up, but just haven't gotten to... I have all the artwork from all the Tolkien calendars in the last ten years scanned, and plan to make a big web site discussing each painting, with some commentary...
Beleg's death at Tuor's hands is indeed one of the saddest moments in the whole tragic story.
He tried to get it published several times before the
Hobbit was even written, and nearly gave up in frustration. If he had, we never would have had the Hobbit, nor the
LotR.
The really remarkable thing about the Silmarillion, IMO, is that it was apparently never really finished. Tolkein continued to revise and completely rewrite sections well after the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were published. Part of the reason that the Silmarillion is of such uneven tone and polish throughout is that some of the stories hadn't been revised since the 1930's, while others had been rewritten shortly before his death. The Silmarillion as published was really a compilation of stories in different stages of revision, and even from slightly different stages of his conception of the underlying story, edited just enough to ensure coherence, as they existed at the time of Tolkein's death.
This stuff is revealed (in inordinate detail) in the whole History of Middle Earth series, which is basically his son's editing and deciphering of his papers. If you're a hardcore Tolkein fan, or just somebody who's very interested in the creative process, it's fascinating to see how the stories developed over time. What is particularly interesting is the way in which elements that were minor and trivial in the earliest versions gradually became more important, and vice versa. It makes you wonder if such a thing could even be possible today, given the way that people tend to overwrite their old word processing files instead of leaving paper copies of their work at different stages around to be looked over by later scholars.
There are plenty of audio books. I have a CD collection of the Hobbit and the Trilogy. It was only around 90 bucks (heh..) You can find it on Barnes and Nobles probably.
Because the elves are a bunch of elitist punks, who'd rather see Middle Earth trashed than to risk their precious, immortal hides. They don't even necessarily want Sauron defeated, because destroying the One Ring destroys the three elven rings. It had to be someone as humble as a hobbit, as anyone powerful would have been corrupted by the ring and brought the attention of Sauron. For a children's book, it was certainly a little too complex for you... -- Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
I would recommend that you read The Hobbit prior to reading LOTR. It gives you a bit of background on some things that you might not otherwise "get" right off, such as the origin of Smeagol and so on.
I've read LotR a few times over the past 10 years or so, and every time except the most recent rereading I just skipped over all the poems and 'elven things'. The most recent time I read all the poems, making sure I understood what each was about and what was happening in each the whole time. It made an enormous difference. I felt much more immersed in the world and into the story than I had before. So the next time you read the books, take the effort to read the poems, songs, etc. It's worth the extra work.
The Lord of the Rings is NOT a children's book. The story is far too deep, the imagery far too dark.
The Hobbit was a children's book, written for children (Tolkien's own), with the same story in mind.
It makes only the most perfect sense that Frodo be the ringbearer. Certainly, there were many many people who were more qualified to make the journey and return. However, none were better chioces to carry the ring on the journey. You may have forgotten that Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, a wizard, an elven lord, and an elven lady, (of the third generation of elves ever to live, IIRC), all REFUSED the burden of the ring. They claimed the temptation to use the ring would be too great, and they would only replace Sauron as the next great power of the land, vying for dominance. (Absolute power corrupts absolutely.)
The power of the ring corrupts the bearer, as it has much of Sauron's essence in it. This is why its destruction essentially destroys Sauron, as with it, much of his power passes from the world.
The temptation to take the ring and use it would have been too great for any other being - you may remember how Boromir was found incapable to resist the draw of the ring, although he had never even touched it! The feeling of power and madness the ring gave its bearer would cause a powerful warrior to declare himself its rightful owner and to begin his own reign of power - and in doing so reveal himself to Sauron and be destroyed.
Instead, Frodo was sent with strong companions, who would help him and support him on his journey for as far as they could go.
And don't belittle hobbits (no pun intended) so quickly - Bilbo resisted the draw of the ring's evil for what, 50 years, before he released it. And Frodo and the other hobbits each survived blows and injuries which would have slain outright many strong men and elves.
Read the Lord of the Rings again, and take your time with it, especially the council at Rivendell. You'll be surprised at how much of this is written out there in more or less plain speech.
There is also a MP3 of Tolkien reading an elvish poem [salon.com] on the page. It the one that starts with "Ailaurie lantar lassi surinen" from Book II, Chapter VIII.
I think the reason we, the UNIX/linux geeks like Tolkien and such RPG's is because it awakens our heritage of warrior blood from better years gone by, where our ancestors battled the heathen hordes.
Or something along those lines. I know that it awakens my more adventerous Viking and Trapper blood.
No argument here. Of course, IMO The Silmarillion is a stinker; It's more like an intellectual exercise than anything else to me, using the "Holy" Bible as sample material, with a bunch of Begats and whatnot. About as exciting as watching flies copulate. Your mileage may vary, of course. Anyway, I have hopes (though perhaps not high ones) for the LotR movies coming out, which at least seem to have the heart in the right place.
Tolken never actually finished the Silmarillion. If I remember correctly he actually wrote it _BEFORE_ LOTR and then after writing LOTR he thought the Silmarillion to be inaccurate and not meriting up to LOTR. It is interesting when you look at it in context though;
The Hobbit: A Childrens story, quite an easy read.
The Lord Of The Rings: Far more graphic and epic in construct than the Hobbit. (JRRT had to re-write about 15 pages of the Hobbit to make it work with LOTR)The language has more influence from Old and Middle English than the Hobbit by far.
The Silmarillion: Like you said, a rewrite of the Bible for Middle Earth, based very strongly on Old and Middle English, a far tougher read.
I have always been a huge fan of Tolkein, but I always had trouble getting into the Silmarillion, it was just too boring for me. Then I had to read Beowulf (and not one of the newer translations that are really easy to read), and after that, I picked up the Silmarillion and found that it read like a cheap pulp novel. I read the damn thing in one sitting, and I had never managed to finish it before.
You can lambast JRRT's work in some areas like character development (LOTR needs more) and general constrution (Silmarillion was unfinished), but JRRT's ability to write within the framework of Old/Middle English, is IMO, unmached.
You're welcome - but the server's just my old P150. Although it does have 80GB of disk... If the load on the server doesn't get too high, I will add more images. I have 44 just about ready to go, but I'm afraid if I put them all up and leave it for a few days, all the Tolkien fans on the net will find it, and I'll discover that I owe my ISP for a few hundred GB of transfer... I pay $12 / GB.
And that's supposed to be Glaurung, not Glorund. (the name of the dragon that Turin Turambar is stabbing.) Oops.
Hm, you said it yourself, really...you seem to like light, entertaining reading that doesn't require a lot of effort. To someone raised on fantasy written in the 90's, Lord of the Rings must seem awfully dull. Why, there are three whole books and you can count the number of spells cast on one hand.
The thing to remember when trying to read the greatest fantasy epic ever is that it wasn't even written by a fantasy author! That's right, the man who wrote Lord of the Rings didn't depend on appealing to a certain demographic in order to sell novels. The author was a professor of literature, and liked to invent phony languages. In order for a phony language to make sense, it has to have a phony cultural backdrop, and Tolkien had always been partial to the legends of elves and dwarves and hill people. Hence, he invented half a dozen races, each with their own language, and an entire history for an entire world. Since he was a linguist, not a profit-driven author, he took his time fashioning the world (decades), and it was something he enjoyed doing, not a chore to be completed. The result, a slim three volumes plus a few supplements, must seem unconvincing at best to a person accustomed to a single trilogy being the smallest unit of paperback novel creation.
Try reading "the Hobbit". It's much shorter, doesn't deal with weighty issues, and is an easy read (it is often the first full-length book that foreign students of English read).
The animated movie sucks. Everybody pretty much agrees.
I agree. Also, as stated elsewhere, The Hobbit isn't as tough a read as The Lord Of The Rings. It can be read in its own right as the fine story that it is. If it wets your appetite for something darker and more epic on the same theme, The Lord Of The Rings comes in real handy.
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I think Tolkien handled this quite well actually. A few things come to mind:
A sense of fate. Fate that a small hobbit first found this ring. A progression of small hobbits owned it actually. Deagol, Smeagol, Bilbo, and Frodo. It was destined into their hands and perhaps their duty to carry it to it's destruction.
Fear of what the great ones would do with this. We find Gandalf refusing the temptation, Galadriel tempted but resisting, Saruman corrupted just by wanting it, and Boromir nearly ruined by wanting but redeemed. It's like saying we have an Earth destructo ray that we are afraid the enemy might use against, or in despair we might use ourselves, so lets take it to it's destruction and only let someone too stupid to use it carry it. Hobbits are resistant to the temptation. They represent basic, good, sensible people (best shown by Samwise outside Cirith Ungol).
You might be underplaying the need for secrecy. They could not challenge Sauron head on. Frodo himself was caught, but the captors did not know the significance. The Mouth of Sauron, while negotiating with the Armies of the West did not know that the one Ring was in Mordor...if he did no army would be on the field, it would be scouring Mordor for ultimate victory. If they had captured an elven lord such as Glorfindel, they would have been more concerned, and did a lot more searching.
You seem to think that it was Gandalf's or Saruman's job to directly confront Sauron and his armies. It was not. In fact, Saruman's desire to do just that was his downfall. The Istari (wizards) were there to unite the people, provide guidance, wisdom, and hope. Gandalf alone succeeded. They were emissaries of the spiritual beings of the world (lesser gods if you will) and acted as instruments of their will.
You are making the incorrect assumption that elves are superior to hobbits. As the books point out, Frodo did what an elf probably could not, he resisted temptation. Immortality, good looks, and perfect health do not a superior person make.
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the book the second time around. I did. And the 10th as well. There is a depth to Tolkien's works that cannot be found in any other Fantasy writing.
His best works, to me, are the stories of the Silmarillion, published after his death and edited by his son. Check it out sometime.
is one of the BBC style radio play serials of LoTR.
I'm sure the/. crowd has to be familiar with some famous radio serials, such as Star Wars, Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows or (most famously) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
There's something magical about radio plays that film or video will never capture. I can't imagine a subject more fitting than LoTR.
I can easily think of reasons why Frodo was chosen to be the Ringbearer.
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
From a story perspective, this is an item that practically embodies corruption. In the Tolkein world, powerful figures are very given to corruption, eg Saruman. It's quite reasonable to think that Gandalf was afraid of possessing the ring, that he might give into its temptations. Only someone with a humble heart and no great love of power could stand a chance. (And, indeed, it took the help of someone even more humble than Frodo to ultimately triumph.)
From a literary point of view, Frodo relates very well to the readers. The Shire is in many ways a metaphor for England. Frodo is a person from a mostly familiar and mundane landscape, with a bit of an eye for the fantastic. Much like most readers. The fact that this everyman goes on the epic quest makes it mean more to the average reader than if Aragorn had just taken over from the beginning.
Not to say that the Lord of the Rings is a perfect story. It definitely has a unique style, and has a lot more in common with a Norse Mythological Epic than the modern Fantasy genre. I don't expect it to naturally appeal to Fantasy readers - no more or less so than, say, Shakespeare. It is slow-paced in places, particularly (and unfortunately) the first half of book 1.
And it has the disadvantage that most of the good ideas have been distilled and redistributed, so that if someone is familiar with Modern Fantasy at all, it appears derivitive. Which is unfortunate. It does seem cliche'd in parts, and often the cliche originated in these books as an original idea. Such is often the fate of influential works. (Sort of like Romeo & Juliet - someone who had somehow no direct knowledge of the play would probably expect the ending, because that's how those stories go. And the go like that - because of Romeo & Juliet, mostly.)
I'm looking forward to the movies. It's possible for a book to be well-translated to a movie, albeit somewhat rare. Still, worth my $10 to find out - it's quite possible that the language and pacing issues that make it difficult for many readers to appreciate this story will finally be overcome.
(And not to sound elitist - there's lots of Authors I find difficult to appreciate for stylistic reasons. Such as Dickens, or James Joyce. And Shakespeare, while I enjoy, isn't something I dive into casually.)
Any attempts to put us in nice little easily-filed boxes is destined to failure.
But of course it will fail, hence the hundreds and thousands of strands of *nix just so that every geek can have their own peculiar box:)
I personally prefer Anne Rice.....but I did grow up on Adams and Tolkien.
I'm actually rereading the series right now, and the reasoning as I understand it is that a hobbit had to be the ringbearer due to hobbits' greater resistance to the corrupting effects of the One Ring.
The complaint you make is that hobbits are relatively weak compared to the wizards and elves, but this weakness is exactly what enabled them to carry the ring without great harm. The Ring would have magnified Gandalf's power greatly, but would also have corrupted him beyond redemption. Hobbits are resistant to this corruption, as shown by Gollum's survival of years of ownership of the Ring. Not to say that Gollum was not corrupted, but the same corruption would have taken mere weeks or months with an elf or wizard owner, culminating in their death.
And try as I might, I just can't get into LOTR. Thomas Covenent (Stephen[?] Donaldson), no problem. Wizard Of Earthsea (Ersula K. LeGuin), no problem. Even the Dragon/threads thingy I kind of enjoyed. But Lords Of The Rings just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's because I did see the animated movie...but I read the books before that, so that can't be it. I dunno... it just doesn't click like Dune, or Stranger In A Strange Land, or Rendezvous With Rama...
Now, I realize that those last three were science-fiction (as opposed to science-fantasy), but like I said, I liked the science-fantasy novels mentioned at the beginning of this post.
So, I guess my question is, what is so fascinating about LOTR, other than maybe being the first of the genre?
OK, I consider myself something of an expert on the LOTR, having read dozens of times, as well as "The Road To Middle Earth", the Silmarillion, and the entire history. Anyway.
The plot is NOT illogical. There is an excellent reason why Frodo is chosen to carry the ring, and not Gandalf, Glorfindel, or one of the other much more powerful characters.
The Ring tends to corrupt anyone who owns it, and is a huge temptation for the powerful. Gandalf was offered the Ring by Frodo and refused it, since he knew it would make him far more powerful, but also that he would not be able to resist the urge to use it... "Do not tempt me!... I shall have such need of it".
Frodo, on the other hand, has far less innate power and thus is not so tempted. Even so, by the time he and Sam get to Mordor Frodo has reached the point where he can barely resist using the ring, and certainly cannot throw it into the Fire on his own willpower.
If you didn't get that fundamental point in the plot, no wonder you didn't enjoy the book.
Didn't you notice the discussion between Gandalf and Denethor about the ring? Denethor, who has great power, makes exactly the same complaint you do."To send this... in the hands of a witless halfling [into Mordor] is foolishness".
But Gandalf replies "Were it buried beneath the roots of [Mount] Mindolluin, still it would burn your mind away.... I do not trust you... Nay, stay your anger! I do not trust myself in this matter".
And that is why Frodo carried the ring. Please, read the book again - or at least the two chapters "The Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond" from the first book. All of this stuff is very carefully set up by Tolkien so the rest of the book follows logically from these premises.
That's a co-incidence; I'm from Oxford, and when I was small my parents used to live in the house next-door to Tolkien too (albeit a few years after his death). The house still has a little plaque on it.
Sometimes slashdot seems like a cesspit full "intellectualism" (I spit the term like a curse). Its like this place people gather to revel in a shared sense of superiority
Perhaps. However it is worth remembering that anti-intellectualism is also often worn as a badge of honor, as you appear to be doing.
I bet your life is this really deep "poem" that nobody quite understands.
A metaphor. Oh dear. That borders on your hated intellectualism, you know, even if is intended to be mocking.
A message to you and half the people here on slashdot: get off your f***ing high horse!
Just as soon as you get off your populist nag. My grandfather was a proletarian so I probably have a greater right to it than you anyway.
The sentimental ending proves that it is the journey, not the destination, that matters in Tolkien.
It's awfully fun escaping the Shire, sitting in on the Council at Elrond, going through Moria, destroying Isengard, and fighting at the siege of Gondor. Those are the narrative highpoints for me.
Yet after the sundering of the Fellowship, things change for the worse. The interesting racial friction between the members of the Fellowship is, naturally, gone, and in its place there is quite a bit of flabby, slow-moving stuff -- on a recent rereading of the trilogy, I found myself skimming pages that held me spellbound twenty years ago, but really don't cut it today.
Some specific grumbles... Sam's endless solicitations of Frodo -- Tolkien's tiresome patrician paean to the servant-master relationship -- make the Mordor scenes almost unbearable. Gandalf, Tolkien's best creation, is never around enough. The verse is mainly bad (wisely, Jackson is cutting nearly all of it from the films).
That said, the story is still a wonder. Its themes of power corrupting and hope in renouncing corrupt power are as vital today as they were when Tolkien wrote them in the wreckage of WWII. I'm grateful for the books.
> Tolkein has so many subtle depths and hiddenmeanings,
Yes,
> and thats before you even start to problematize (look it up on google) the text.Was Gandalf a homosexual? Was the hobbit an African-american ?
And no...
Read "Tolkien: Man and Myth". It's an excellent account of how Tolkien's life influenced Middle Earth and his literature. It also does a good (sometimes hilarious) job of exposing the ludicrousness of claims such as sexuality, etc, etc in The Silmarilion and LOTR.
> There is just so much to take in.
There is certainly A LOT behind Tolkien's works, but PLEASE, let's not try and denigrade his works by trying to shoehorn modern agendas into them.
Middle Earth/The Silmarilion/The Hobbit/LOTR was essentially written as a fairy story (read Tolkien's essay "On Fiary Stories") but is also largely centred on Tolkien's Catholocism and his beliefs about the nature of the universe: good/evil, the nature of God, what happens at the end of the world, etc...
That took me back a few years... it's how to get out of the prison in the goblin's caves in the mountains.
I believe there's something to dig for in the prison first though (goblin cache?) --
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN
If you're a hardcore Tolkein fan, or just somebody who's very interested in the creative process, it's fascinating to see how the stories developed over time. What is particularly interesting is the way in which elements that were minor and trivial in the earliest versions gradually became more important, and vice versa.
Although if you do read those books you will probably be shocked to find out that Strider was originally called "Trotter" and "Trotter" was a Hobbit and not a Numenorian. An incredible read, for the hardcore fan, but it does put a little ding in the magic...
Hmm... I am getting mixed messages here. Kiss The Blade agrees with me that I should not try to rationalise the Lord of the Rings, whereas you say the exact opposite. In response to your points:
You may have forgotten that Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, a wizard, an elven lord, and an elven lady, (of the third generation of elves ever to live, IIRC), all REFUSED the burden of the ring.
Yes, but that does not mean anything. They refused the ring simply because they knew it too well. It was their skills that Sauron had copied in order to make it. They had the three rings and they knew their amazing strength. The one ring was more powerful than the others combined, so the elves were rightly terrified.
Frodo on the other hand was a totally clueless hobbit: the only magic he knew was Gandalf's fireworks and smoke rings. Not very scary stuff, is it? If he had any idea what powers the ring held he would have been just as terrified. The elves had the responsibility to destroy the ring as:
a. it was their skills that Sauron had copied to make the ring
b. they were they supreme race on middle-earth
c. they did not know almost anything about hobbits and their resistance to magic or the other physical wounds that you mention as no hobbit before Frodo and his friends had been in such an adventure. Placing their faith on Frodo was therefore totally unjustified.
As for Boromir: he was a weakly mortal human, I will not even compare him to elves.
In general the whole plot of the LotR just seems very "cheap". Gandalf always appears at the right moment to help the others: when he finds the two lesser hobbits (I forget their names), when goes to Gondor, when he rescues Faramir from the fire, and of course when he starts the battle at exactly the right moment. Too many coincidences for my liking. It seems to me that when Tolkien was writing this, whenever he got stuck he thought "Oh, time to bring Gandalf to save the day". Not very convincing is it?
In other words LotR appears to much like a another childrens' story of a poor little boy who lands unwillingly is a large adventure, struggles a lot, comes close to failing (to have some suspense), but manages to save the day and become a hero. Just like all those stories with the same theme (Star Wars, The Matrix, E.T) it is good for children, but it does not come close to becoming a proper mythology (like the ancient Greek legents with real heroes battling real monsters and god) despite what Tolkien's fans seem to think.
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her.
Tolkien imagined his wife more as Luthien, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. Read about her in the story of Beren and Luthien in the Silmarillion. A love so strong that it defied the gods and death itself. In fact, John's and Edith's tombstones read:
EDITH MARY TOLKIEN LUTHIEN 1889-1971
JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN BEREN 1892-1973
They refused the ring simply because they knew it too well
No. The powerful (Gandalf, Galadriel) didn't refuse the One Ring because they "knew it too well". What would that have to do with it? They refused it because they knew it would corrupt them and turn them to evil.
It was their skills that Sauron had copied in order to make it.
No. Sauron did not copy the Elves' skills to make the one ring. He gave the elves (Celebrimbor, actually) much of the neccessary knowlege, and he had a hand in making all the rings except the Three (Narya, Nenya, and Vilya). He was the source of the knowlege for making the rings.
But since Sauron was giving this information to Celebrimbor, he knew more than he said and thus was able to forge the One Ring to rule all the others. While he wore the One Ring, he could read the thoughts of the other ring bearers.
they did not know almost anything about hobbits and their resistance to magic or the other physical wounds that you mention as no hobbit before Frodo and his friends had been in such an adventure
No. Gandalf was an expert on Hobbits. And Bilbo had been on a similar, if lesser adventure. Gandalf knew that Bilbo had amazing powers of resistance to the Ring, and knew that Frodo could resist it as well. After all, Frodo had kept the ring for about twenty years already at the start of the story without too much effect, and Gandalf had been keeping an eye on him to see how he did.
It seems to me that when Tolkien was writing this, whenever he got stuck he thought "Oh, time to bring Gandalf to save the day".
Actually, if you read the history of the LOTR you can find out a lot of what Tolkien was thinking as he designed the plot. Gandalf certainly saves the day sometimes, but what would you expect - he is the most powerful, magic-using person short of Sauron himself. But Gandalf can't be everywhere. When he saved Faramir from the funeral pyre, a consequence of it was that Eowyn and Merry had to face the chief of the Nine Riders unaided - and very nearly died as a result. Gandalf had planned to be in the battle instead of saving Faramir, and he worried aloud about the consequences.
but it does not come close to becoming a proper mythology (like the ancient Greek legents with real heroes battling real monsters and god
Uh, have you actually read any Greek mythology? Do you know how little sense that stuff makes? Do greek myths have maps, a cast of thousands of characters, a continuous and consistant imaginary history spanning thousands of years... Ok enough ranting.
It is difficult to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I'm not meaning that personally, but you do not have a good grasp of the material.
You are wrong. Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, Galadriel all refuse the ring because they fear that they will succomb to it's power. Galadriel's temptation is the most elegant and complete description of this temptation. The Council of Elrond provides the background. Frodo knew very well the burden he was bearing, and what it was capable of. That is why he offered it to Galadriel, because he saw the good she could do with it; she saw the evil.
Sauron did not copy the skills of Gandalf, Elrond, or Galadriel. The elven rings were made by Celebrimbor (grandson of Feanor the greatest elven smith ever) and Sauron never touched them. However, since their construction was dependent upon ring lore which Sauron revealed to Celebrimbor, they were still slaves to the One Ring.
The Elves were not the supreme race on earth. You seem convinced of that and I don't understand why. Read the Silmarillion, find out why the Elves were glad for the arrival of the Edain (men) into Beleriand because they were a hardy race and able to keep watch on Morgoth (Sauron's mentor; think Emperor to Sauron's Darth Vader) in the extreme cold where the elves would not go for long. Read about how the dwarves were the only ones to withstand the onslaught of the Father of Dragons, Glaurung, while the elves fled. Find out about Turin Turambar who slew Glaurung, and Hurin his father, the greatest warrior to ever live, who defended the retreat of the elves during the 5th battle and was the last on the field that day, killing 70 trolls as he hacked through the ranks of the bodyguard of the Lord of Balrogs.
The Wise did know of Hobbits. Gandalf had taken an interest in them for many years and long studied them. The Dunedain, the survivors of the ancient kingdom of Arthedain (of which Aragorn was chief), had long guarded the Shire and kept watch on the hobbits. Bilbo had adventures, had carried the ring, and he was known and loved by elves, dwarves, and men. He had found the One Ring, saved the dwarves, helped bring about the downfall of the great dragon Smaug, and indirectly helped bring Elves, men, dwarves, and eagles together to wipe out a large portion of the goblins in that area of the world. Bilbo legitimized hobbits like no other. The Wise knew of hobbits.
Two lesser hobbits? I assume you mean Merry and Pippin. The two hobbits who raised the Ents to take action and destroy Saruman's war machine? The hobbits who became knights of two of the most powerful kingdoms of men? The hobbits who helped with the killing of the Chief of the Nazgul, who helped recover the Shire from Saruman's clutches, who sat exposed to the will of Sauron himself through the palantir and resisted as even Saruman could not?
Gandalf does not just ride in to save the day. He sacrificed himself against the Balrog, yes. If not him, Aragorn, or Boromir, or Legolas would have. He did not lead the Hourns to Helm's Deep, they came because of their hatred of orcs, they were mustered by the Ents, who were roused to fight by Treebeard, who was convinced by the two hobbits you discounted. Gandalf was not a deux ex machina, as you would have him be. His appearances and arrival make good sense. Did he save the hobbits from Old Man Willow? The Barrow Wights? Bree? Weathertop? Shelob's Lair? Cirith Ungol? No, he did not. Did he seize an opportunity to direct the eagles to the rescue of Frodo and Sam once the ring had been destroyed? Yes, he is intelligent and knew what was happening.
The Lord of the Rings is not a children's story in the sense that you mean it. It is high fantasy, epic, dark, glorious, and real. Many people hold that themes get repeated, and the same is true for LotR. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature and he drew upon many stories, names, legends, etc to create his work. In fact, he did such a good job, that Tolkien's very complete fantasy world helps a modern reader better understand such works as Beawulf, King Arthur, and the Ring Cycle. It can however, be enjoyed by children and adults.
Boromir was not a weak human. In fact, he is a typical man. Strong, capable, and frustrated that he can not exercise his will (which in his heart he believes to be pure) for the good of everyone. He was strong in that he realized his errors and short comings. Boromir is everyman in a very real way.
There are very good reasons why the Lord of the Rings is a book/books that appears at the top of every most influential books list. I'm sorry that you are missing them.
"'The Lord of the Rings', on which he'd worked for over 14 years, had been refused by publishers and he had almost given up hope of ever seeing it in print."
How close...
IMHO, the world would be a worse place without this book (these books). And I'm sure there are plenty of others out there who will agree with me.
Thanks for this, Hemos. Don't know why I like this, but I really do.
Its interesting isn't it, that almost all geeks seem to be into fantasy/roleplaying and all like the same kind of stuff, star trek, tolkein etc.
I've lost count of the wasted hours I've spent on some of the old warhammer games, sometimes the line between fantasy and reality became somewhat blurred
The herbal remedies I was partaking of at the time probably did not help, but then, that also goes with being a geek.
Another thing seems to be that it is the Unix geeks above all who seem to have a higher artistic sensibility, and like tolkien more than the average NT geek, for whom the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" seems to hold more interest. I suppose it could be because reading tolkien is very similar to the old 'colossal cave' adventures that many of us older geeks cut our teeth on.
Go North
I cannot go north
You have been killed by a Kobold
etc etc etc
I wonder if there is some kind of 'geek gene' that we have all inherited? Tolkein has so many subtle depths and hidden meanings, and thats before you even start to problematize (look it up on google) the text. Was Gandalf a homosexual? Was the hobbit an African-american ? There is just so much to take in.
Could the current popularity of the 'Harry Potter' series of books be due to the recent emergence of the 'cool geek' and 'geek chic' ?
It is excellent that these recordings have been released. It will be good to hear the words of one of the greatest and most creative writers of the millenium speak to us down the generations. My sister enjoys painting scenes from the Hobbit, and hopefully these words will give her a new creative input.
Knowing more about the creator means you know more about his works. I look forward to appreciating his genius all the more.
Don't you think that it would far less cynical to simply wait before condemning unfinished movies for not living up to your expectations? Not all movies have ruined the books they were based upon. For example, I thought that the Princess Bride was a rather good adaptation. Mostly I think it comes down to the ethics of the producers, the dedication of the director, a faithful screenplay and a well chosen cast. From what I have seen, all of these criteria are at least plausibly being met.
For this story, none of this applies, as it is simply Tolkein reading verbatim from his own manuscript. And that recording is old... Why not try and find more of these, as they are out there?
I read LotR in the 3rd grade - I've therefore forgotten most of it long ago, and fully admit I need to read it again. And I didn't succeed in reading silmarillon, despite numerous attempts. Maybe I'll try again in 2001.
Anyway, I remember hearing that it was all analogous to WWII - i.e. most of the characters were heads of state, the biggest bad guy was Hitler... I don't remember who was who anymore... but I am interested in thoughts on this point.
What you say about Trotter is true. Also, the original main character's name was Bingo. One of his companions was named Frodo.
After many revisions, the characters stayed the same although their names were changed. Bingo became Frodo, and Frodo became either Pippin or Merry; I don't recall offhand which.
Also, Tolkien had no idea what the Palantir was. He just needed something shiny to be thrown out the window.:-) Discovering it to be one of the Stones of Seeing was as big as surprise to him as it was to Gandalf and Aragorn.
I love authors who discover and translate their worlds instead of merely creating them.
Specifically, this is the song sung by Galadriel in Farewell to Lorien, the eighth chapter of Book Two, which is the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring.
It translates as:
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly. Who now shall refill the cup for me? For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya forever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar! Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!
Well, for starters, it is genuine literature rather than genre fiction, which is both good and bad -- literature is heavy and the very words themselves are to be savored, but that takes work, and not everyone wants to put that amount of work in. I have to admit that sometimes I simply like to veg out with a cheap paperback SF novel as well.
Secondly, the amount of detail in the LoTR is simply astounding. Entire cultures with histories and linguistically plausible languages are created. The background material is so immense that Tolkien's son makes a good living simply editing and publishing his father's notes that didn't make it into the books. Other authors simply don't do this. Scratch the paper-thin facade of the "Dune" novels, for example, and you'll find nothing behind it -- for example "Bene Gesserit" is just a cool sounding name Herbert thought up -- it doesn't *mean* anything.
My grandparents were Tolkein's neighbours in Oxford shortly after LOTR became well-known. Apparently they kept fairly much to themselves (Tolkein & wife).
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her. My grandmother had to break it to her that Mrs Tolkein was actually short, plump, and completely down to earth and unimaginitive.
It's funny. I have all of these recordings on LP. My parents gave them too me (4 record box set 1 of poems, 1 for hobbit and FotR, 1 for 2T and RotK. 1 of Christopher Tolkien reading The Lay of Beren and Luthien) YEARS ago (like 1982). In 1999 I dug through my parents place and found them, and realized what they actually were. The next trick was to find a turntable...:-)
Not to mention that the man was dead before anyone picked up the Silmarillion, which is an absolutely amazing piece of work, once you take the time and patience to read it. The scope of it is simply incredible. To give people who have read the LotR perspective, that entire series' synopsis resides in the last six or so pages of the Silmarillion. It is that dense in its storytelling, and the stories are far more beautiful and fantastic. He tried to get it published several times before the Hobbit was even written, and nearly gave up in frustration. If he had, we never would have had the Hobbit, nor the LotR.
There IS a BBC radio play of the entire LOTR trilogy. Its 13 hours long, produced sometime in the 70's.
I have no idea where to find it legitamately. I stumbled across the mp3's for it a couple years ago. Its very well done. Although obviously they have to leave out SOME parts as 13 hours is hardly enough to cover everything, they don't drop out anything of extreme importance, and the story doesn't betray the book at all.
Mr. and Mrs. Tolkien's personalities aside, the story of Beren and Luthien from the Silmarillion was inspired by the circumstances of Tolkien's courtship of Edith. While she may not have aged well, early pictures show her to have been a reasonably attractive young woman.
more available (Score:5)
If you're interested, wander over to here [fireandwater.com] (which is a frame inside this [harpercollins.com])
Say to thorin 'carry me'|say to thorin 'go window'|se|e|se|e|get ring|n|d|n|go crack
Re:Galadriel & Tolkein's wife - trivia (Score:1)
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:2)
Have you actually read princess bride, the example cited by the person you replied to? It is in fact an excellent book in many ways (Not the least of which is its imagination) and yet the movie was still quite good. Perhaps not your cup, but it was well-acted, well-produced, makes god use of cinematography, et cetera. The movie, of course, does not go into as much as the book does, but somehow it manages to feel complete in any case. The book is simply more so.
Or maybe it's because the story was better suited to a movie than to a book.
No argument here. Of course, IMO The Silmarillion is a stinker; It's more like an intellectual exercise than anything else to me, using the "Holy" Bible as sample material, with a bunch of Begats and whatnot. About as exciting as watching flies copulate. Your mileage may vary, of course. Anyway, I have hopes (though perhaps not high ones) for the LotR movies coming out, which at least seem to have the heart in the right place.
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:1)
Larn totally kicked ass. Kobolds etc. Its amazing, I used to get exactly the same adrenaline rush from playing Larn that I now get from QIII Arena !!!
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
I think the Hobbit may be for kids, but LOTR has depth.
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
What I really love about LOTR (Score:2)
To be fair I feal the same way about Terry Pratchet's Diskworld and the Harry Potter books. In both cases I feal that they author has a lot more vision than we see in print. (OK its not quite the same but I like all 3)
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:1)
Hmmm... where to begin?
Where was Gandalf when the four hobbits were being chased by the Black Riders throughout Book One? (Answer: Imprisoned in a tower far away.) The hobbits had to help themselves out of that one, and needed to trust Strider.
The two "lesser" hobbits (Merry and Pippin) escape from the Uruk-Hai (orcs) on their own when the Riders of Rohan attack. And then they come across Treebeard, becoming a catalyst for the Ents attack on Orthanc. This is all before Gandalf shows up. (Book Three in The Two Towers)
Gandalf doesn't just resuce Faramir from the fire. Pippin has to abandon his post, convince a fellow guard to mutiny, and find Gandalf in order to make the resuce happen.
And let's see... To criticize the book because Gandalf decides to go to Gondor or starting a diversionary battle is like, well, criticizing Moby Dick because Ahab decided to go to sea. What'd you expect him to do?
When Gandalf does always "show up just in time" is in the Hobbit, but that's another story.
Re:Azog! You son of a worthless... (Score:1)
I'm a huge dwarf fan myself, so your name really jumped out. My username, Erore, is Quenyan (supposedly) and something I made up about 18 years ago to use as a magic-user in AD&D.
I love the story of Turin myself. Beleg was a favorite of mine. I still cry when Turin kills him.
Re:Don't audio books make you feel insulted? (Score:1)
Re:...and in other news. (Score:1)
'One Ping to rule them all. One Ping to find them.
One Ping to bring them all. And in the darkness bind them.'
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=1999101 8
Pentapod...
Re:Tolkien doing Gollum's voice (Score:1)
Just wondering.
Re:Just think... (Score:4)
For comparison, I've never seen a history textbook with that much scope, nor that much detail.
...and in other news. (Score:5)
One-upmanship (Score:1)
I went to school with his one of his great-nephews and got taught latin by another relative (The truly great 'Mad' Mike Tolkien).
Elgon
Wonderful! (Score:1)
The other thing I love about this is the idea of one of the most wonderful of all geek heroes lending his voice to the movement showing that mp3s are for more than stealing the music of Christina Aguellara.(sp, I'm sure)
A moment of silence for such a great man. This is a fitting tribute.
FRODO LIVES!
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:2)
I think you're stereotyping a bit. Not all Unix geeks like Tolkein. Not all NT geeks like Adams. I'm a Terry Pratchett fan and I prefer Unix over NT as a server. I could rattle off the names of several of my coworkers that think that the whole fantasy genre is crap.
I can take or leave Tolkien. I don't like anime much. I wasn't one of the downtrodden in high school. Hemos, CmdrTaco, JonKatz and the rest of the Slashdot crew don't speak for the entire geek community, by any stretch of the imagination. Any attempts to put us in nice little easily-filed boxes is destined to failure.
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
A few years later though, I decided to re-read the book. Even though Tolkien's descriptions amazed me as much as the first time, this time I didn't enjoy it so much.
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I mean there are the first born elves, creatures far superior to hobbits, almost immortal seasoned warriors with millenia of experience, and yet Gandalf has to give the ring to a hobbit who barely knows how to use a kitchen knife.
There are wizards like Gandalf and Saruman with the ability to defeat entire armies on their own, and yet they send a hobbit who cannot defend himself from a wild animal.
Sorry, but I think that the plot of the book is just illogical. Yes, it is a good childrens' book, but it certainly does not deserve the cult status it has gained...
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:2)
Actually, there have been several, including a massive, filmed-in-70mm, 7-hour Russian version [imdb.com] made in 1968. Yes, that's not a typo, it really is 7 hours long!
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:1)
There's lots. The one that rocks is Bondarchuk [imdb.com]'s. 6 1/2 hours, subtitles, absolutely fantastic. Beg, buy, borrow or steal it.
Voice of author (Score:1)
Stupid Movies also (Score:1)
Sounds neat! (Score:1)
Re:I tried... (Score:1)
Also, I don't think your argument by way of example of the term Bene Gesserit is any less paper-thin. The term may not mean anything per se, but Herbert certainly invested a great deal in developing the background of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood--arguably as much as Tolkien did for any race or class in LotR. Consider the BG as religious order, political unit, or the description of the BG breeding program, blah blah.
My Middle-Eastern friends have always pointed out to various cultural and language references in Dune as well.
Whether or not LotR is "better" than Dune as literature, in depth, etc., however, is a holy war I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole =)
Back from the dead? (Score:5)
Cool, he came out of the grave to help promote the new films. Now that is professionalism
Re:Does anyone think.. (Score:1)
Way old news (Score:1)
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:1)
Audio books (Score:1)
Re:Azog! You son of a worthless... (Score:1)
[arnor.net]
http://www.arnor.net/tolkien.html
I've put up scans of three pictures by John Howe and Ted Naismith: Turin's tragic slaying of Beleg, plus Turin stabbing Glorund, and the assault on Gondolin.
(/me braces for slashdotting... this is coming off the server in my closet...)
What does Erore mean in Quenya?
Er seems to mean "one" or "alone", but I can't find a meaning listed for -ore.
orn means "tree", though, so "Erorn" would be "one tree" or "lone tree".
I'm going to have to work more on my web site. I have a whole bunch of Tolkien content that I want to put up, but just haven't gotten to... I have all the artwork from all the Tolkien calendars in the last ten years scanned, and plan to make a big web site discussing each painting, with some commentary...
Beleg's death at Tuor's hands is indeed one of the saddest moments in the whole tragic story.
Yours,
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
how much (Score:1)
Re:What would REALLY do Tolkien justice... (Score:1)
Re:Back from the dead? (Score:4)
Nah, that aint Proffessional.
--That is Deadication!
Scientists today discovered signs of intelligent life on planet Earth.
They believe the species died out last year.
--
Scientists today discovered signs of intelligent life on planet Earth.
link (Score:5)
Refrag
Re:Just think... (Score:5)
The really remarkable thing about the Silmarillion, IMO, is that it was apparently never really finished. Tolkein continued to revise and completely rewrite sections well after the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were published. Part of the reason that the Silmarillion is of such uneven tone and polish throughout is that some of the stories hadn't been revised since the 1930's, while others had been rewritten shortly before his death. The Silmarillion as published was really a compilation of stories in different stages of revision, and even from slightly different stages of his conception of the underlying story, edited just enough to ensure coherence, as they existed at the time of Tolkein's death.
This stuff is revealed (in inordinate detail) in the whole History of Middle Earth series, which is basically his son's editing and deciphering of his papers. If you're a hardcore Tolkein fan, or just somebody who's very interested in the creative process, it's fascinating to see how the stories developed over time. What is particularly interesting is the way in which elements that were minor and trivial in the earliest versions gradually became more important, and vice versa. It makes you wonder if such a thing could even be possible today, given the way that people tend to overwrite their old word processing files instead of leaving paper copies of their work at different stages around to be looked over by later scholars.
Re:how much (Score:1)
Re:Text Version for Comparison (Score:2)
e-text [speakeasy.org] of the Lord of the Rings. But it seems to have mutated a bit
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Not that good a reader... (Score:1)
The best reading I have ever heard is Michael Kramer and Kate Redding reading "The Wheel of Time".
- Alain
Voice of Gollum (Score:1)
Re:Back from the dead? (Score:1)
Odds are MU will allow access to these items in exchange for $.
When in town for gen-con, walk up 10 blocks and visit MU. You might be able to take a look at the collection.
Re:Tolkien newbie, help needed (Score:1)
Read the Poems (Score:1)
Mr. Spey
Cover your butt. Bernard is watching.
Hang on a second... (Score:1)
The Hobbit was a children's book, written for children (Tolkien's own), with the same story in mind.
It makes only the most perfect sense that Frodo be the ringbearer. Certainly, there were many many people who were more qualified to make the journey and return. However, none were better chioces to carry the ring on the journey. You may have forgotten that Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, a wizard, an elven lord, and an elven lady, (of the third generation of elves ever to live, IIRC), all REFUSED the burden of the ring. They claimed the temptation to use the ring would be too great, and they would only replace Sauron as the next great power of the land, vying for dominance. (Absolute power corrupts absolutely.)
The power of the ring corrupts the bearer, as it has much of Sauron's essence in it. This is why its destruction essentially destroys Sauron, as with it, much of his power passes from the world.
The temptation to take the ring and use it would have been too great for any other being - you may remember how Boromir was found incapable to resist the draw of the ring, although he had never even touched it! The feeling of power and madness the ring gave its bearer would cause a powerful warrior to declare himself its rightful owner and to begin his own reign of power - and in doing so reveal himself to Sauron and be destroyed.
Instead, Frodo was sent with strong companions, who would help him and support him on his journey for as far as they could go.
And don't belittle hobbits (no pun intended) so quickly - Bilbo resisted the draw of the ring's evil for what, 50 years, before he released it. And Frodo and the other hobbits each survived blows and injuries which would have slain outright many strong men and elves.
Read the Lord of the Rings again, and take your time with it, especially the council at Rivendell. You'll be surprised at how much of this is written out there in more or less plain speech.
Poem In Elvish (Score:1)
Enjoy...
Gullum (Score:1)
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CAIMLAS
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:1)
Or something along those lines. I know that it awakens my more adventerous Viking and Trapper blood.
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CAIMLAS
Idea... (Score:1)
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:1)
Tolken never actually finished the Silmarillion. If I remember correctly he actually wrote it _BEFORE_ LOTR and then after writing LOTR he thought the Silmarillion to be inaccurate and not meriting up to LOTR. It is interesting when you look at it in context though;
The Hobbit: A Childrens story, quite an easy read.
The Lord Of The Rings: Far more graphic and epic in construct than the Hobbit. (JRRT had to re-write about 15 pages of the Hobbit to make it work with LOTR)The language has more influence from Old and Middle English than the Hobbit by far.
The Silmarillion: Like you said, a rewrite of the Bible for Middle Earth, based very strongly on Old and Middle English, a far tougher read.
I have always been a huge fan of Tolkein, but I always had trouble getting into the Silmarillion, it was just too boring for me. Then I had to read Beowulf (and not one of the newer translations that are really easy to read), and after that, I picked up the Silmarillion and found that it read like a cheap pulp novel. I read the damn thing in one sitting, and I had never managed to finish it before.
You can lambast JRRT's work in some areas like character development (LOTR needs more) and general constrution (Silmarillion was unfinished), but JRRT's ability to write within the framework of Old/Middle English, is IMO, unmached.
Re:more available (Score:2)
thorin, carry me. thorin, go through window. se. e. se. e. get ring. n. d. n. enter crack.
(real interactive fiction uses prepositions)
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:2)
Of course they do, they're all sci-fi fans.
</me ducks>
Re:Azog! You son of a worthless... (Score:1)
And that's supposed to be Glaurung, not Glorund. (the name of the dragon that Turin Turambar is stabbing.) Oops.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Another tolkien mp3 (Score:1)
It's an Elvish poem. Great stuff.
Elvish poem [salon.com]
Greetings,
Merlinz
Re:I tried... (Score:2)
The thing to remember when trying to read the greatest fantasy epic ever is that it wasn't even written by a fantasy author! That's right, the man who wrote Lord of the Rings didn't depend on appealing to a certain demographic in order to sell novels. The author was a professor of literature, and liked to invent phony languages. In order for a phony language to make sense, it has to have a phony cultural backdrop, and Tolkien had always been partial to the legends of elves and dwarves and hill people. Hence, he invented half a dozen races, each with their own language, and an entire history for an entire world. Since he was a linguist, not a profit-driven author, he took his time fashioning the world (decades), and it was something he enjoyed doing, not a chore to be completed. The result, a slim three volumes plus a few supplements, must seem unconvincing at best to a person accustomed to a single trilogy being the smallest unit of paperback novel creation.
Try reading "the Hobbit". It's much shorter, doesn't deal with weighty issues, and is an easy read (it is often the first full-length book that foreign students of English read).
The animated movie sucks. Everybody pretty much agrees.
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:2)
Um... go back and read The Hobbitt again. It says Gandalf the Grey.
Thank you.
Re:Tolkien newbie, help needed (Score:1)
What chapter is this from? (Score:1)
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
It's not even factually concurrent with LotR.
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CAIMLAS
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I think Tolkien handled this quite well actually. A few things come to mind:
You are making the incorrect assumption that elves are superior to hobbits. As the books point out, Frodo did what an elf probably could not, he resisted temptation. Immortality, good looks, and perfect health do not a superior person make.
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the book the second time around. I did. And the 10th as well. There is a depth to Tolkien's works that cannot be found in any other Fantasy writing.
His best works, to me, are the stories of the Silmarillion, published after his death and edited by his son. Check it out sometime.
What would REALLY do Tolkien justice... (Score:1)
I'm sure the
There's something magical about radio plays that film or video will never capture. I can't imagine a subject more fitting than LoTR.
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
From a story perspective, this is an item that practically embodies corruption. In the Tolkein world, powerful figures are very given to corruption, eg Saruman. It's quite reasonable to think that Gandalf was afraid of possessing the ring, that he might give into its temptations. Only someone with a humble heart and no great love of power could stand a chance. (And, indeed, it took the help of someone even more humble than Frodo to ultimately triumph.)
From a literary point of view, Frodo relates very well to the readers. The Shire is in many ways a metaphor for England. Frodo is a person from a mostly familiar and mundane landscape, with a bit of an eye for the fantastic. Much like most readers. The fact that this everyman goes on the epic quest makes it mean more to the average reader than if Aragorn had just taken over from the beginning.
Not to say that the Lord of the Rings is a perfect story. It definitely has a unique style, and has a lot more in common with a Norse Mythological Epic than the modern Fantasy genre. I don't expect it to naturally appeal to Fantasy readers - no more or less so than, say, Shakespeare. It is slow-paced in places, particularly (and unfortunately) the first half of book 1.
And it has the disadvantage that most of the good ideas have been distilled and redistributed, so that if someone is familiar with Modern Fantasy at all, it appears derivitive. Which is unfortunate. It does seem cliche'd in parts, and often the cliche originated in these books as an original idea. Such is often the fate of influential works. (Sort of like Romeo & Juliet - someone who had somehow no direct knowledge of the play would probably expect the ending, because that's how those stories go. And the go like that - because of Romeo & Juliet, mostly.)
I'm looking forward to the movies. It's possible for a book to be well-translated to a movie, albeit somewhat rare. Still, worth my $10 to find out - it's quite possible that the language and pacing issues that make it difficult for many readers to appreciate this story will finally be overcome.
(And not to sound elitist - there's lots of Authors I find difficult to appreciate for stylistic reasons. Such as Dickens, or James Joyce. And Shakespeare, while I enjoy, isn't something I dive into casually.)
This is a bit o/t.... (Score:1)
Hobbit headlines for "The Star":
"I had Gollum's baby!"
"Bilbo Baggins arrested for ring theft"
"Wizard Gandalf seen associating with halflings"
"Rogue dragon Smaug taken down in hail of arrowfire"
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Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:1)
But of course it will fail, hence the hundreds and thousands of strands of *nix just so that every geek can have their own peculiar box :)
I personally prefer Anne Rice.....but I did grow up on Adams and Tolkien.
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
The complaint you make is that hobbits are relatively weak compared to the wizards and elves, but this weakness is exactly what enabled them to carry the ring without great harm. The Ring would have magnified Gandalf's power greatly, but would also have corrupted him beyond redemption. Hobbits are resistant to this corruption, as shown by Gollum's survival of years of ownership of the Ring. Not to say that Gollum was not corrupted, but the same corruption would have taken mere weeks or months with an elf or wizard owner, culminating in their death.
--
Paxtech
Hmmmm... (Score:2)
I tried... (Score:1)
Now, I realize that those last three were science-fiction (as opposed to science-fantasy), but like I said, I liked the science-fantasy novels mentioned at the beginning of this post.
So, I guess my question is, what is so fascinating about LOTR, other than maybe being the first of the genre?
Dildo Bugger must die. (Score:2)
Re:Galadriel & Tolkein's wife - trivia (Score:2)
Re:...and in other news. (Score:3)
Re:Interesting. (Score:4)
The plot is NOT illogical. There is an excellent reason why Frodo is chosen to carry the ring, and not Gandalf, Glorfindel, or one of the other much more powerful characters.
The Ring tends to corrupt anyone who owns it, and is a huge temptation for the powerful. Gandalf was offered the Ring by Frodo and refused it, since he knew it would make him far more powerful, but also that he would not be able to resist the urge to use it... "Do not tempt me!
Frodo, on the other hand, has far less innate power and thus is not so tempted. Even so, by the time he and Sam get to Mordor Frodo has reached the point where he can barely resist using the ring, and certainly cannot throw it into the Fire on his own willpower.
If you didn't get that fundamental point in the plot, no wonder you didn't enjoy the book.
Didn't you notice the discussion between Gandalf and Denethor about the ring? Denethor, who has great power, makes exactly the same complaint you do. "To send this
But Gandalf replies "Were it buried beneath the roots of [Mount] Mindolluin, still it would burn your mind away.
And that is why Frodo carried the ring. Please, read the book again - or at least the two chapters "The Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond" from the first book. All of this stuff is very carefully set up by Tolkien so the rest of the book follows logically from these premises.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
More Tolkien trivia / claim to fame (Score:2)
Re:Some words for you to savor... (Score:1)
Perhaps. However it is worth remembering that anti-intellectualism is also often worn as a badge of honor, as you appear to be doing.
I bet your life is this really deep "poem" that nobody quite understands.
A metaphor. Oh dear. That borders on your hated intellectualism, you know, even if is intended to be mocking.
A message to you and half the people here on slashdot: get off your f***ing high horse!
Just as soon as you get off your populist nag. My grandfather was a proletarian so I probably have a greater right to it than you anyway.
Amazon has the set and BN probably does too (Score:1)
Amazon links
The Lord of the Rings : Audio CD Box Set [amazon.com] and also The Hobbit : A Dramatization of J.R.R. Tolkien's Classic [ABRIDGED] [amazon.com]
Re:Literary Comparison (Score:1)
It's awfully fun escaping the Shire, sitting in on the Council at Elrond, going through Moria, destroying Isengard, and fighting at the siege of Gondor. Those are the narrative highpoints for me.
Yet after the sundering of the Fellowship, things change for the worse. The interesting racial friction between the members of the Fellowship is, naturally, gone, and in its place there is quite a bit of flabby, slow-moving stuff -- on a recent rereading of the trilogy, I found myself skimming pages that held me spellbound twenty years ago, but really don't cut it today.
Some specific grumbles... Sam's endless solicitations of Frodo -- Tolkien's tiresome patrician paean to the servant-master relationship -- make the Mordor scenes almost unbearable. Gandalf, Tolkien's best creation, is never around enough. The verse is mainly bad (wisely, Jackson is cutting nearly all of it from the films).
That said, the story is still a wonder. Its themes of power corrupting and hope in renouncing corrupt power are as vital today as they were when Tolkien wrote them in the wreckage of WWII. I'm grateful for the books.
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:1)
Yes,
> and thats before you even start to problematize (look it up on google) the text.Was Gandalf a homosexual? Was the hobbit an African-american ?
And no...
Read "Tolkien: Man and Myth". It's an excellent account of how Tolkien's life influenced Middle Earth and his literature. It also does a good (sometimes hilarious) job of exposing the ludicrousness of claims such as sexuality, etc, etc in The Silmarilion and LOTR.
> There is just so much to take in.
There is certainly A LOT behind Tolkien's works, but PLEASE, let's not try and denigrade his works by trying to shoehorn modern agendas into them.
Middle Earth/The Silmarilion/The Hobbit/LOTR was essentially written as a fairy story (read Tolkien's essay "On Fiary Stories") but is also largely centred on Tolkien's Catholocism and his beliefs about the nature of the universe: good/evil, the nature of God, what happens at the end of the world, etc...
Re:OT: The Hobbit, the game (Score:1)
I believe there's something to dig for in the prison first though (goblin cache?)
--
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN
Re:Just think... (Score:3)
Although if you do read those books you will probably be shocked to find out that Strider was originally called "Trotter" and "Trotter" was a Hobbit and not a Numenorian. An incredible read, for the hardcore fan, but it does put a little ding in the magic...
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:2)
You may have forgotten that Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, a wizard, an elven lord, and an elven lady, (of the third generation of elves ever to live, IIRC), all REFUSED the burden of the ring.
Yes, but that does not mean anything. They refused the ring simply because they knew it too well. It was their skills that Sauron had copied in order to make it. They had the three rings and they knew their amazing strength. The one ring was more powerful than the others combined, so the elves were rightly terrified.
Frodo on the other hand was a totally clueless hobbit: the only magic he knew was Gandalf's fireworks and smoke rings. Not very scary stuff, is it? If he had any idea what powers the ring held he would have been just as terrified. The elves had the responsibility to destroy the ring as:
a. it was their skills that Sauron had copied to make the ring
b. they were they supreme race on middle-earth
c. they did not know almost anything about hobbits and their resistance to magic or the other physical wounds that you mention as no hobbit before Frodo and his friends had been in such an adventure. Placing their faith on Frodo was therefore totally unjustified.
As for Boromir: he was a weakly mortal human, I will not even compare him to elves.
In general the whole plot of the LotR just seems very "cheap". Gandalf always appears at the right moment to help the others: when he finds the two lesser hobbits (I forget their names), when goes to Gondor, when he rescues Faramir from the fire, and of course when he starts the battle at exactly the right moment. Too many coincidences for my liking. It seems to me that when Tolkien was writing this, whenever he got stuck he thought "Oh, time to bring Gandalf to save the day". Not very convincing is it?
In other words LotR appears to much like a another childrens' story of a poor little boy who lands unwillingly is a large adventure, struggles a lot, comes close to failing (to have some suspense), but manages to save the day and become a hero. Just like all those stories with the same theme (Star Wars, The Matrix, E.T) it is good for children, but it does not come close to becoming a proper mythology (like the ancient Greek legents with real heroes battling real monsters and god) despite what Tolkien's fans seem to think.
Re: (Score:2)
There are two mp3 ! (Score:2)
http://media.salon.com/mp3s/tolkien2.mp3
It is: "The Mirror Of Galadriel"
Re:Galadriel & Tolkein's wife - trivia (Score:3)
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her.
Tolkien imagined his wife more as Luthien, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. Read about her in the story of Beren and Luthien in the Silmarillion. A love so strong that it defied the gods and death itself. In fact, John's and Edith's tombstones read:
EDITH MARY TOLKIEN LUTHIEN 1889-1971JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN BEREN 1892-1973
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:3)
No. Sauron did not copy the Elves' skills to make the one ring. He gave the elves (Celebrimbor, actually) much of the neccessary knowlege, and he had a hand in making all the rings except the Three (Narya, Nenya, and Vilya). He was the source of the knowlege for making the rings.
But since Sauron was giving this information to Celebrimbor, he knew more than he said and thus was able to forge the One Ring to rule all the others. While he wore the One Ring, he could read the thoughts of the other ring bearers.
No. Gandalf was an expert on Hobbits. And Bilbo had been on a similar, if lesser adventure. Gandalf knew that Bilbo had amazing powers of resistance to the Ring, and knew that Frodo could resist it as well. After all, Frodo had kept the ring for about twenty years already at the start of the story without too much effect, and Gandalf had been keeping an eye on him to see how he did.
Actually, if you read the history of the LOTR you can find out a lot of what Tolkien was thinking as he designed the plot. Gandalf certainly saves the day sometimes, but what would you expect - he is the most powerful, magic-using person short of Sauron himself. But Gandalf can't be everywhere. When he saved Faramir from the funeral pyre, a consequence of it was that Eowyn and Merry had to face the chief of the Nine Riders unaided - and very nearly died as a result. Gandalf had planned to be in the battle instead of saving Faramir, and he worried aloud about the consequences.
Uh, have you actually read any Greek mythology? Do you know how little sense that stuff makes? Do greek myths have maps, a cast of thousands of characters, a continuous and consistant imaginary history spanning thousands of years... Ok enough ranting.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:3)
You are wrong. Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, Galadriel all refuse the ring because they fear that they will succomb to it's power. Galadriel's temptation is the most elegant and complete description of this temptation. The Council of Elrond provides the background. Frodo knew very well the burden he was bearing, and what it was capable of. That is why he offered it to Galadriel, because he saw the good she could do with it; she saw the evil.
Sauron did not copy the skills of Gandalf, Elrond, or Galadriel. The elven rings were made by Celebrimbor (grandson of Feanor the greatest elven smith ever) and Sauron never touched them. However, since their construction was dependent upon ring lore which Sauron revealed to Celebrimbor, they were still slaves to the One Ring.
The Elves were not the supreme race on earth. You seem convinced of that and I don't understand why. Read the Silmarillion, find out why the Elves were glad for the arrival of the Edain (men) into Beleriand because they were a hardy race and able to keep watch on Morgoth (Sauron's mentor; think Emperor to Sauron's Darth Vader) in the extreme cold where the elves would not go for long. Read about how the dwarves were the only ones to withstand the onslaught of the Father of Dragons, Glaurung, while the elves fled. Find out about Turin Turambar who slew Glaurung, and Hurin his father, the greatest warrior to ever live, who defended the retreat of the elves during the 5th battle and was the last on the field that day, killing 70 trolls as he hacked through the ranks of the bodyguard of the Lord of Balrogs.
The Wise did know of Hobbits. Gandalf had taken an interest in them for many years and long studied them. The Dunedain, the survivors of the ancient kingdom of Arthedain (of which Aragorn was chief), had long guarded the Shire and kept watch on the hobbits. Bilbo had adventures, had carried the ring, and he was known and loved by elves, dwarves, and men. He had found the One Ring, saved the dwarves, helped bring about the downfall of the great dragon Smaug, and indirectly helped bring Elves, men, dwarves, and eagles together to wipe out a large portion of the goblins in that area of the world. Bilbo legitimized hobbits like no other. The Wise knew of hobbits.
Two lesser hobbits? I assume you mean Merry and Pippin. The two hobbits who raised the Ents to take action and destroy Saruman's war machine? The hobbits who became knights of two of the most powerful kingdoms of men? The hobbits who helped with the killing of the Chief of the Nazgul, who helped recover the Shire from Saruman's clutches, who sat exposed to the will of Sauron himself through the palantir and resisted as even Saruman could not?
Gandalf does not just ride in to save the day. He sacrificed himself against the Balrog, yes. If not him, Aragorn, or Boromir, or Legolas would have. He did not lead the Hourns to Helm's Deep, they came because of their hatred of orcs, they were mustered by the Ents, who were roused to fight by Treebeard, who was convinced by the two hobbits you discounted. Gandalf was not a deux ex machina, as you would have him be. His appearances and arrival make good sense. Did he save the hobbits from Old Man Willow? The Barrow Wights? Bree? Weathertop? Shelob's Lair? Cirith Ungol? No, he did not. Did he seize an opportunity to direct the eagles to the rescue of Frodo and Sam once the ring had been destroyed? Yes, he is intelligent and knew what was happening.
The Lord of the Rings is not a children's story in the sense that you mean it. It is high fantasy, epic, dark, glorious, and real. Many people hold that themes get repeated, and the same is true for LotR. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature and he drew upon many stories, names, legends, etc to create his work. In fact, he did such a good job, that Tolkien's very complete fantasy world helps a modern reader better understand such works as Beawulf, King Arthur, and the Ring Cycle. It can however, be enjoyed by children and adults.
Boromir was not a weak human. In fact, he is a typical man. Strong, capable, and frustrated that he can not exercise his will (which in his heart he believes to be pure) for the good of everyone. He was strong in that he realized his errors and short comings. Boromir is everyman in a very real way.
There are very good reasons why the Lord of the Rings is a book/books that appears at the top of every most influential books list. I'm sorry that you are missing them.
Just think... (Score:5)
How close...
IMHO, the world would be a worse place without this book (these books). And I'm sure there are plenty of others out there who will agree with me.
Thanks for this, Hemos. Don't know why I like this, but I really do.
JJ
Twin Towers... (Score:2)
Thank you.
I wonder why the link ? (Score:3)
I've lost count of the wasted hours I've spent on some of the old warhammer games, sometimes the line between fantasy and reality became somewhat blurred
The herbal remedies I was partaking of at the time probably did not help, but then, that also goes with being a geek.
Another thing seems to be that it is the Unix geeks above all who seem to have a higher artistic sensibility, and like tolkien more than the average NT geek, for whom the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" seems to hold more interest.
I suppose it could be because reading tolkien is very similar to the old 'colossal cave' adventures that many of us older geeks cut our teeth on.
Go North
I cannot go north
You have been killed by a Kobold
etc etc etc
I wonder if there is some kind of 'geek gene' that we have all inherited? Tolkein has so many subtle depths and hidden meanings, and thats before you even start to problematize (look it up on google) the text.
Was Gandalf a homosexual? Was the hobbit an African-american ? There is just so much to take in.
Could the current popularity of the 'Harry Potter' series of books be due to the recent emergence of the 'cool geek' and 'geek chic' ?
Interesting. (Score:3)
Knowing more about the creator means you know more about his works. I look forward to appreciating his genius all the more.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
Re:Stupid Movies also (Score:3)
Don't you think that it would far less cynical to simply wait before condemning unfinished movies for not living up to your expectations? Not all movies have ruined the books they were based upon. For example, I thought that the Princess Bride was a rather good adaptation. Mostly I think it comes down to the ethics of the producers, the dedication of the director, a faithful screenplay and a well chosen cast. From what I have seen, all of these criteria are at least plausibly being met.
For this story, none of this applies, as it is simply Tolkein reading verbatim from his own manuscript. And that recording is old... Why not try and find more of these, as they are out there?
LotR and WWII (Score:2)
Anyway, I remember hearing that it was all analogous to WWII - i.e. most of the characters were heads of state, the biggest bad guy was Hitler... I don't remember who was who anymore... but I am interested in thoughts on this point.
And Frodo was a sidekick to Bingo (Score:2)
What you say about Trotter is true. Also, the original main character's name was Bingo. One of his companions was named Frodo.
After many revisions, the characters stayed the same although their names were changed. Bingo became Frodo, and Frodo became either Pippin or Merry; I don't recall offhand which.
Also, Tolkien had no idea what the Palantir was. He just needed something shiny to be thrown out the window. :-) Discovering it to be one of the Stones of Seeing was as big as surprise to him as it was to Gandalf and Aragorn.
I love authors who discover and translate their worlds instead of merely creating them.
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
of course its illogical. its fantasy afterall!
--
Re:Links... (Score:2)
Specifically, this is the song sung by Galadriel in Farewell to Lorien, the eighth chapter of Book Two, which is the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring.
It translates as:
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly. Who now shall refill the cup for me? For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya forever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar! Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!
KdL
Re:I tried... (Score:2)
Secondly, the amount of detail in the LoTR is simply astounding. Entire cultures with histories and linguistically plausible languages are created. The background material is so immense that Tolkien's son makes a good living simply editing and publishing his father's notes that didn't make it into the books. Other authors simply don't do this. Scratch the paper-thin facade of the "Dune" novels, for example, and you'll find nothing behind it -- for example "Bene Gesserit" is just a cool sounding name Herbert thought up -- it doesn't *mean* anything.
Galadriel & Tolkein's wife - trivia (Score:3)
My grandparents were Tolkein's neighbours in Oxford shortly after LOTR became well-known. Apparently they kept fairly much to themselves (Tolkein & wife).
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her. My grandmother had to break it to her that Mrs Tolkein was actually short, plump, and completely down to earth and unimaginitive.
Just some Tolkein trivia for yas.
Pentapod
Ahh. (Score:2)
If you can find them, I highly recommend them.
Re:Just think... (Score:3)
Not to mention that the man was dead before anyone picked up the Silmarillion, which is an absolutely amazing piece of work, once you take the time and patience to read it. The scope of it is simply incredible. To give people who have read the LotR perspective, that entire series' synopsis resides in the last six or so pages of the Silmarillion. It is that dense in its storytelling, and the stories are far more beautiful and fantastic. He tried to get it published several times before the Hobbit was even written, and nearly gave up in frustration. If he had, we never would have had the Hobbit, nor the LotR.
Re:What would REALLY do Tolkien justice... (Score:2)
I have no idea where to find it legitamately. I stumbled across the mp3's for it a couple years ago. Its very well done. Although obviously they have to leave out SOME parts as 13 hours is hardly enough to cover everything, they don't drop out anything of extreme importance, and the story doesn't betray the book at all.
-Restil
Does anyone think.. (Score:3)
Re:I wonder why the link ? (Score:2)
Re:Galadriel & Tolkein's wife - trivia (Score:2)