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News from the BBC
Christopher Tolkien, who edited and published the posthumous works of his father, Lord of the Rings writer JRR Tolkien, has died aged 95.
The news was confirmed by the Tolkien Society, which described him as "Middle-earth's first scholar".
After his father's death in 1973, Mr Tolkien published the acclaimed work The Silmarillion.
Scholar Dr Dimitra Fimi said the study of JRR Tolkien "would never be what it is today" without his input.
My first introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien's work was The Father Christmas Letters, which were written for Christopher and his siblings. In more recent years, I've dipped into Christopher's work on Middle Earth, both his History of Middle Earth, and the various pieces of his father's work that he edited and expanded upon.
What memories do Soylentils have of the Tolkiens' work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @09:06PM (10 children)
Has anyone actually finished this book? I mean no disrespect to Christopher -- the first books I read after the SRA readers, were the Narnia books and the Lord of the Rings set and I imagine I've been seriously influenced by both having started reading them (and then re-reading multiple times as I've aged) from a pretty young age (starting around six or seven). But I just couldn't get through the Silmarillion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)
I've read it through several times (but not in the last 10 years). I really enjoyed it. I read Hobbit and Lord of the Rings before that, of course, but I found I really enjoyed The Silmarillion to the point where I used to recommend it to others. I would have to go back and pull it off the shelf to look it over again because it is hard for me to distinguish the details in my mind from Unfinished Tales, which I read about the same time, but I for sure enjoyed them both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:14AM
Do you also find fascination in the movements of the skies?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday January 17 2020, @11:07PM (1 child)
I've read it, twice at least, maybe 3 times. It's not really a book. It's a collection; and in some respects reads like the bible, in other respects it reads like the Iliad. Or put another way, the language, ever a character in its own right in a Tolkien work is deliberately even more archaic here; because this is this world's oldest stories; and that age comes through. And this is this worlds old mythology and so its constructed like a mythology and it reads like one. The result is a difficult read but a literary feat. That's perhaps why it is both so satisfying and so difficult at the same time. The complete experience of it lends it a remarkable authenticity that you just don't see in anything else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:01AM
Silmarillion is not a polished work. It's the background for Lord of Ring saga. Tolkien wanted to publish that work along with the Lord of the Ring, but the publishers wouldn't have it.
It was the background tale constantly revised as he published the Lord of the Ring trilogy. and Christopher gathered, compiled, edited, and published, so the readers can appreciate the world Tolkien wanted to portray,
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 17 2020, @11:58PM
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings have been criticized as "comfort food". The Silmarillion is definitely not comfort food. Much darker. And actually, I found some of the darkness overdone and illogical. Why couldn't Feanor make more Silmarils? Why did he stop at 3 when he made them? One could suppose that the substance of which they are made is exceedingly rare, and that's why there were only 3. But then, why do they have to be destroyed in order to revive the Trees? But, you know, it's more dramatic that way.
And even if it is comfort food, there's still a Neo-Goth tone to Lord of the Rings. Everything used to be greater, and has been in a long decline ever since the Elder Days. Lothlorien is fated to fade away. Win or lose, the elves must leave Middle Earth or decline, just because. The Ents are probably doomed, having become separated from the Ent-wives millennia ago. King Theoden says of the great horse Shadowfax that in him one of the great steeds of the morning has returned, and that such a return shall not happen again.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday January 18 2020, @02:20AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:24AM
Just so you don’t feel like you’re the only one, my experience was much the same as yours. I was a voracious reader and The Silmarilion wasn’t my first Tolkein book. I expected to enjoy it, but page after page whittled down my enthusiasm until I finally had a critical moment of self-awareness and said, “I don’t *have* to read this.”
Put it down, never tried it again. Read lots of other stuff I enjoyed more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:26AM
It reads as a history book, IMO. Whether that's a good or bad thing… Well, I've more enjoyed reading ‘Black book of Arda’ fan fiction than Silmarillion itself.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday January 18 2020, @02:02PM
Yes, but it's been so long ago I forgot what it was even about. Maybe I should read it again?
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(Score: 1) by tbuskey on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:36PM
It's a tough read I've been told. I've reread the Silmarillion more than I've reread LOTR; it's my favorite. Maybe it's because I was fascinated by Norse Mythology in elementary school.