A discussion was going on in the "Now Reading" thread about Tolkien and his work and IMO the man also deserves his own thread
There's so much to discuss about him...

First, his books of course!! Considered as the father of the fantasy genre, he created a whole new mythic world, a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and other literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth, identified as an 'alternative' remote past of our own world. His work includes the famous Lord of the Rings trilogy, bit also the Silmarillion, the Hobbit, the Book of Lost Tales,... (for a detailed bibliography ask Wiki ). Let's discuss his writings

Then the adaptation by Peter Jackson. I personnaly loved the movies due to actors and special effects, but I think the story was messed up to adjust to every kind of public and I disliked it. In particular the big part played by Arwen and her romance with Aragorn was seriously getting on my nerves...

There are also serious discussions about Tolkien... Like this argument I had with a friend about Tolkien being a racist or not. I was bringing up that point: An undercurrent of the Lord of the Rings seemed to focus on racial purity. The elves were supposed to have the purest blood, followed by the Numenorians, followed by common men, and then down to Orcs. Remember the scandal when Aragorn married Arwen? She was seen as tainting her bloodlines by marrying a "mere" man. Remember the scandal when Faramir married Eowyn? He was said to be diluting the precious Numenorian blood lines. There were also frequent mentions to the "thinning" of the Numenorian blood lines.
Does this obsession with "my race is purer than yours" show that Tolkien was a racist who believed in racial superiority?
Well, the question was worth asking IMO (obviously since I asked it ), but I think he wasn't... Because despite the differences between "races", the relationships between Arwen and Aragorn (love between an elf and a man), or Legolas and Gimli (friendship between an elf and a dwarf, races so different), or Gandalf and the hobbits proves that he doesn't believe in racial purity. Feel free to discuss it too

Love the books by Tolkien, especially 'The Silmarillion' wich I see as kind of a bible of the Tolkien universe. About Tolkien being a racist. I don't think he was, 'cause as written by Sekhmet his stories tell about interracial friendships and marriges. The 'pure blood' thing is something about wich race was created first and by wich god if I remember 'The Silmarillion' correctly.

AH! I love Mr. Tolkien too! first my fav. book is 'The Silmarillion' because there I read all the story of Arda and the Valar and the Maiar... the beautiful love story between Beren and Luthien... the war... everything!
But I get confused with all that names!!! I don't think can remember a half of them. And I have to admit that i don't understand the map...
About Tolkien, i don't really think he is racist, he just reflect what he was living (the World War I) and all those things. I believe he was just a dreamer... that make us dream

I was a bit confused too at the end of the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales... Too many names, places, remote links. He created a quite complex world: yes:

Here's somthing I found on the Internet. Rather funny IMO

What would the headlines look like immediately after the end of The Lord of the Rings? Wouldn't it be interesting to read it in....
The Middle Earth Daily News

A Score of Hobbit Thieves made off with the entire contents of a 7-11 in Bree last week, down to the last crumb of lembras, the famous elvish animal crackers. Representatives of King Aragorn brought up the matter with Shire Mayor Sam Gamgee. "We'll look into it," he promised earnestly, munching on a piece of elvish waybread.

Real Estate Developers Report that Barad-dur, Sauron's tower of evil in the heart of scenic Mordor, is now completely refurbished and apartments are being sold as Co-ops. Units start at low as 20,000 GP and up (those with a view of Orodruin, Mountain of Fire, 30,000 and up).

Rohan and Gondor are embroiled in a border dispute. Faramir, the Steward, claims that Edoras, the capital of Rohan, is really part of Gondor. King Eomer of Rohan heartily disagrees. King Aragorn sent in two regiments of impartial negotiators, who have resolved the dispute in Gondor's favor.

King Aragorn has awarded Elrond's elves at Rivendell a defense contract to forge 2000 magical swords. Elrond says he'll try to limit cost overruns this time, but isn't making any promises.

"Intolerable" is what the Dwarves are calling the mysterious disappearances of their personnel. Dwarvish miners, bearing mithril from the newly reopened Mines of Moria, have simply vanished, usually when they passed near the Elvish forest of Lorien. Galadriel of Lorien is puzzled by the Dwarven
disappearances. "Maybe they took a detour and got lost on the way home," she hypothesized. King
Aragorn has appointed his elvish wife, Queen Arwen, to look into the matter.

Gandalf the Grey, Mithrandir, Merlin, or whatever you call him, is going out on the lecture circuit. For 5,000 GP he will recount some of his favorite tales: "How I beat the Balrog in Moria", "Why Saruman was always jealous of me", "How to bully insipid Dwarves" and the everpopular "20 easy ways to fool Hobbits."

Violence! Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, hobbit knights of Rohan and Gondor respectively, were assaulted last week by a bunch of wild rabbits. Merry and Pippin were kncoked
out cold, and when they awoke, their armor and weapons had been stolen. They went whining to Gandalf for help, but he only told them, "I told you guys to keep away from anything larger than a squirrel."

Giant Spiders are again coming out of southern Mirkwood, and
threatening neighboring communities in the Dale. King Bard of Escargo has ordered several miles of giant flypaper laid across the border with the dark forest.

Gollum Found Alive! Gollum, the last possessor of the ring of power, has been found alive. Evidently when he fell into Oroduin, the ring came off and went into the lava, but Gollum himself landed safely on an outjutting protection of rock on the volcano wall. Gollum plans to work on his authorized autobiography, "My Precious, Me, and I," detailing how "Baggins, Baggins the thief!" stole his precious, the ring of power. Gollum will also reveal never before published transcripts of interviews with Sauron, formerly the chief foe of goodness in the War of the Ring. "He was not a big conversationalist, no, my precious," said
Gollum, shivering a little during the midsummer's news conference. Gollum will also recount the final journey of the ring. "Gollum was serving Baggins, yes, Baggins, and the naassty Gamgee hobbit. Gollum was always helping hobbitses, O yes, but they complains all the way, all the way, always picking on poor Smellygul. 'Gollum, go and get us food,' they says. 'Gollum, be good to Baggins' 'Gollum, take filthy paws off Master Frodo's throat.' Always something they complains about." "No, no, never would they say, 'Thank you,
Smellygul, thank you for guiding nice hobbits through cold cruel land'. No, O no, Smellygul's only reward was to be dumped into volcano by nice hobbits."

The Environmental Cleanup of Mordor proceeds apace. King Aragorn has designated an isolated patch of land to be used to store the toxic wastes removed from the cleanup, but residents of the Shire are protesting the move.


Not the funniest ever, but it made me smile.

I only read LOTR and The Hobbit, never found The Silmarillion, it's good, right?

I love Mr Tolkien too, unfortunately for me i first saw the first movie, The Fellowship of the ring, and ran immediately to read the book, and boy was i sorprised, not only for the superiority of the book of course, but also for this amazing and complex world i found in Tolkien's words, he even invented a languaje! so i fell in love with the books and all that surrounded that amazing world, all the cultures and stuff. Well i only read the trilogy of The Lord of the rings and they became some of my favourite books. Right now im reading The Silmallirion, and well is very good, only that like you guys said is written more like a bible so is a little complicated, but is so amazing to learn how it began, the cultures that were developing and all of that. And about the racist thing i agree with Alouqua i dont think he was a racist or someting like that, he was just expressing himself and kind of showing the world the was living in, through the wars and all the problematics.

Written by Damnated on 02.08.2006 at 23:12

I only read LOTR and The Hobbit, never found The Silmarillion, it's good, right?

Yep! is great! This book was the first that i read before the LOTR! I really hope you to find it and enjoy it as many did! The first parts were very complicated for me (gods, firts born, Behaviour) but with the time it become a very interesting Book that introduce you to the LOTR trilogy (even when it appear after the trilogy).

Written by Vinnie R. on 03.08.2006 at 02:33

Written by Damnated on 02.08.2006 at 23:12

I only read LOTR and The Hobbit, never found The Silmarillion, it's good, right?

Yep! is great! This book was the first that i read before the LOTR! I really hope you to find it and enjoy it as many did! The first parts were very complicated for me (gods, firts born, Behaviour) but with the time it become a very interesting Book that introduce you to the LOTR trilogy (even when it appear after the trilogy).

Sounds good, thanx, I'll try to get my hands on it now.

I´m also a huge fan, you can see that just by looking at my nickname Anyway, I consider Tolkien one of the best writers ever for several reasons, for example, he created more than one language, his incredicble creativity which you can see just by looking at everything he wrote, among other things. Specially for that, is why I hate when people dicredit him by saying he´s a writer of children stories and don´t give the credit he deserves.
Still, he´s one of my favorite writers, and his stories, epics, and legacy will be long remembered

Written by Damnated on 02.08.2006 at 23:12

I only read LOTR and The Hobbit, never found The Silmarillion, it's good, right?

...it's an amazing book...actually my favorite, id highly recommend it to you...it has many many things to look at and analize...such a bunch of interesting stories with amazing characters...there's were i actually got my nickname...varda is one of the characters of the book, my favorite btw hehe...
...tolkien's books are an adventure to a different world, he made a whole world alive, his imagination didn't have limits and i wish he would of written more things...

Excellent thread ! Tolkien really created something genuine and worth checking out. I've read the LOTR trilogy in french but couldn't stand the names and the heavyness so I've read it again in english Was so much better in it's original language.

About The Silmarillion actually I got confused in the first 100 pages (which are imo the hardest part to assimilate) with all these names and that huge genealogy listed there. I've quite enjoyed Beren and Luthien too.
I just recently purchased the three ages books, it's "Contes et légendes perdues" in french I don't know the proper title in english, however I'm planning them for later on

LOTR the book is probably better then the movie although the movie did give the book some justice...there are a lot of spoofs that the last movie is too long and might trail on forever but that's just how Tolkien writes...I mean, he writes a description of something for pages and pages therefore, the movies should be the same...

as probably all of you, Tolkien books are my favorites. it's incredible how this guys created all that story (events, names, dates, even languajes!!!) in just the period of a life. so far, i have read the silmarillion, the hobbit and the three books of LOTR 7 times and i don't get tired. wish they lived longer so he could write the last book of the saga

i remember something about Tolkien that make me fall in love with him as a person, you know... not only as a writer .. was the fact that he add the name Baren to his own name well in his grave, and Lúthien to his wife grave... something like this:

Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973

Very romantic don't you think?

I think Tolkien was genius when it comes to his linguistic skills and creating such a detailed world, but seriously overrated as an actual writer. Sure, he made nice children stories, but they don't really stand up to many of the great literary works.
For example, Lord of The Rings. I cannot stress enough how poor is the concept of fight between good and evil. It's shallow, it's unrealistic, it's blunt. A book where two sides are created; One which strives to conquer the world, and the other which strives to stop the first one, usually only shows how little imagination has the writer (I know that's not the case for Tolkien, and the concept rather came from the influence of the Bible, but the argument remains). I don't know, characters didn't seem to be too deep either. Just your avarege heroes that go and fight against the "Dark Lord".
I don't really see any strong point in the trilogy. I think it can be actually compared to many of the Hollywood movies. They aren't all that good, but they're enjoyable to watch. And many people love them.

I'm not saying LOTR is lousy amongst all the high fantasy novels. No, quite the contrary. But the problem is, high fantasy isn't a demanding genre at all. Anyone can write a story in it. There are many other genres that demand much more skills from the writer and allow him to create something much greater.

Although there are still some faults in Tolkien's writing, not connected with the genre... The descriptions were way too long... They should blend into the storyline, not stick out of it like an orc in the elven grove :|

And Tolkien wasn't in any way father of the fantasy genre. "High Fantasy", maybe. But fantasy in general was created long before his birth. For example we have an old epic fantasy poem that Tolkien actually knew - Beowulf.

Written by Guest on 06.08.2006 at 19:20

I think Tolkien was genius when it comes to his linguistic skills and creating such a detailed world, but seriously overrated as an actual writer. Sure, he made nice children stories, but they don't really stand up to many of the great literary works.
For example, Lord of The Rings. I cannot stress enough how poor is the concept of fight between good and evil. It's shallow, it's unrealistic, it's blunt. A book where two sides are created; One which strives to conquer the world, and the other which strives to stop the first one, usually only shows how little imagination has the writer (I know that's not the case for Tolkien, and the concept rather came from the influence of the Bible, but the argument remains). I don't know, characters didn't seem to be too deep either. Just your avarege heroes that go and fight against the "Dark Lord".
I don't really see any strong point in the trilogy. I think it can be actually compared to many of the Hollywood movies. They aren't all that good, but they're enjoyable to watch. And many people love them.

I'm not saying LOTR is lousy amongst all the high fantasy novels. No, quite the contrary. But the problem is, high fantasy isn't a demanding genre at all. Anyone can write a story in it. There are many other genres that demand much more skills from the writer and allow him to create something much greater.

Although there are still some faults in Tolkien's writing, not connected with the genre... The descriptions were way too long... They should blend into the storyline, not stick out of it like an orc in the elven grove :|

And Tolkien wasn't in any way father of the fantasy genre. "High Fantasy", maybe. But fantasy in general was created long before his birth. For example we have an old epic fantasy poem that Tolkien actually knew - Beowulf.

Totally agree with every word you said. He was frst and foremost a linguist with a specialization in medieval times. He was actually a very revered professor. Like you said he took inspiration from Beowulf, but also from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The books are pretty good but not as good as the majority says IMO. The second part of The Two Towers is really boring. The movie "The Fellowship of the Ring" is one of my favorite movies but the other two were not so good, watching them on a big theatre screen was pretty cool but when I rented them and saw them on a normal TV screen I noticed that they were pretty boring.

Like I said in the "now reading" thread, I'm currently reading the first book o LOTR trilogy: The Fellowship Of The Ring".
At the beginning I found the book boring, when Tolkien describes the hobbits, because there was many names, many locations, many stories, etc. Now I'm falling in love with the book, and it seems that the best part hasn't start yet, some people have said me that soon I'll read the book without stopping, it might be true.

I think that Tolkien had a huge imagination, I admire the amount of things he created in the story. On the other hand, I agree with Draklar's post, as for the main theme of the story: the heroes fighting against the 'Dark Lord' is quite typical. But the success of the story is mainly because of the huge imagination of Tolkien despite the main theme imo.

Well, Tolkien is my literature god. I have LOTR, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion and love all of them.

Unfortunately for me, the other books are almost imposible to get here in Colombia and I have no money to e-buy them

Like Draklar and The Alchemist sadi, the Good Vs. Evil theme may be stereotypical, but the fatc is that Toline created a whole universe, the races, the places, the languages (remember he was linguist), and the whole context and ages of the Middle Earth.

We can see all of that in The Silmarillion, which is like the pre-history of the Middle earth, of it's creation through the music of the Ainur, the creation of the races, and the born of evil, as Morgoth. The , in The hobbiot we see the relation between the races, now "evolved" and overcome the first ages of teh middle earth. And in LOTR we see the end of an era, and get to know better the hobbits, through the amazing prologue.

I think he was a great writer, my favourite writer of all time, I can'tr wait to get money and buy the books I don't have yet.Hail moghty Tolkien!

Written by Guest on 04.08.2006 at 05:22

i remember something about Tolkien that make me fall in love with him as a person, you know... not only as a writer .. was the fact that he add the name Baren to his own name well in his grave, and Lúthien to his wife grave... something like this:

Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973

Very romantic don't you think?

...yes i agree with you, that part was very romantic...actually tolkien has several romantic details in most of his stories...it doesn't matter if its a small or a huge detail but he enfazises alot in love and romance...i like that because he also analizes it from different point of views, he writes about the lovely dreaming component of love and romance, but he also speaks about how much harm, melancholy, sacrifice and sadness it involves...it's quite interesting...

Tolkien is a great writer. Lord Of The Rings is one of the best books i ever read, The Hobbit is also a really good book. Silmarillion is awesome. It's the entire story of the world that Tolkien created.

I liked the Lord of the Rings, he created an amazing world
.. But I got really disappoited when I saw the movies. So many things where missing!

Can someone explain to me the overall idea behind "Leaf By Niggle" ? I must say I didn't understand anything by the end...No, I didn't understand it all in fact. Help !

Right now I'm reading the third book of LOTR trilogy: "The Return Of The King"
Now I have to admit that the books are good, as I said before, the huge Tolkien's imagination, all those fantasy worlds, names, locations, characters, and of course languages! and as I said before too, the story has the stereotypical idea: the heroes fighting against the "Dark Lord", now I begin to find it kind of weak, not only for being stereotypical, but because these stories have a similar development.
Anyways, the story is quite enjoyable and good, books and movies, but imo, it's just because the big amount of created things

I love Tolkien's books. By far I've only read LOTR and The Hobbit, but I'd like to read Silmarillion too, as soon as I have time (which won't probably happen in the next 8 years or so ). I liked the movies, but a lot had been left out and some parts were extremely boring... I've heard that Tolkien used Finnish language as a base of the Elf language. That makes reading the books rather interesting, though I haven't found any similarities yet...

All Tolkien's works are great!
Maybe he was the first writer who complexity adopted and used old Germanic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon myths to create "own" mythology. Result is impressive!
I love old tales, legends and myths from Ancient, Pagan Europe (especially from Scandinavia) and every time when I m reading Tolkien's books I feel how many "subjects" and "themes" he took and used from ideological and cultural heritage of our European ancestors... And maybe that is the reason why so many people love to read his works. It is like cognition and study of our roots...

Written by Ernotar on 26.11.2006 at 17:56

Tolkien used Finnish language as a base of the Elf language. That makes reading the books rather interesting, though I haven't found any similarities yet...

Quenya is a typical oogry-moogry language....it is even worse....it has ten cases and FOUR numbers....
You would have to decline a word in ten cases in singular, plural, dual and partitive plural.....
that means....you'll have to learn one word and its forty declensions....
lassä(leaf)....lasselinna, lasseli, lasselin, lasselillo, lasselisse, lassi, lasset, lassetwa, etc etc etc.....(the order is irrelevant....)

I know some phrases....but not much....

TOLO SI!
I don't know how that would be in Finnish but in estonian I say
TULE SIIA or
TULÕ SEIE!

which ultimately means....
COME HERE.....

if you see some words, you'll notice the similarities....and the pronounciation is oogrymoogry as well.....

@ Miotalhobad Ten cases...well, Finnish has 15 cases, so at least that is rather similar. And that phrase you mentioned, in Finnish it'd be something like "tule tänne", so with a bit of imagination one could work it out.

Aaah.. Tolkien! ^^ I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time as a 12 year old and has been a fan ever since. :] I adore his works, then especially LOTR, the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, both for their stories, their unique depth and width and how much those works have influenced me.


What thoughts do you guys have on "The Children of Húrin" which will be published later this year?
I'm looking very much forward to it. If this had been done a few years ago, I might have been skeptical, but I know Christopher Tolkien has tried restoring/gathering all the existing parts of the Narn for years, so I believe this might be very good.
It's also too late for this work to cause some commercial jippo, I believe, since it's a few years since the films came out.

Written by Guest on 06.01.2007 at 14:24

What thoughts do you guys have on "The Children of Húrin" which will be published later this year?
I'm looking very much forward to it. If this had been done a few years ago, I might have been skeptical, but I know Christopher Tolkien has tried restoring/gathering all the existing parts of the Narn for years, so I believe this might be very good.
It's also too late for this work to cause some commercial jippo, I believe, since it's a few years since the films came out.

I didn't know anything about this! That's sounds interesting!
Indeed, if Christopher Tolkien had some collaborationed/created about it, it could be great.
Thank you for informations!