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http://www.slashfilm.com/tolkien-biopics/ The money quote quote:“Lewis becoming the poster boy for Christianity upset Tolkien,” explained Wernher Pramschufer of Tolkien & Lewis producer Attractive Films. “And obsessive genius Tolkien is blocked, terrified of finishing The Fellowship of the Ring, for fear of the strange, psychotic visions which torture him.” The first part is just factually wrong of course. Tolkien's objection was that Lewis didn't become Catholic. But the rest of that paragraph is just amazingly out there.
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Jul 17, 2014 13:50
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Sad news incoming: http://www.thetolkienist.com/2014/07/30/tolkiens-favourite-tree-oxfords-botanic-garden-cut/
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Jul 31, 2014 11:16
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Commemorative wood hardback edition of Leaf By Niggle?
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Jul 31, 2014 13:24
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Is there a decent authoritative description of which texts are in which versions of The Lord of the Rings? Wayne and Christina have some notes on their website. They indicate that the three-volume set sold with the Reader's guide has the original 50th anniversary text (but the reader's guide is updated), while the single volume 60th anniversary edition contains at least some further corrections. But the publisher says both contain the 50th anniversary text And is it possible to even know which versions the kindle ones are based on? Also I'm a little bummed that I just bought the reader's guide new and apparently only the boxed version is updated.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:56
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concerned mom posted:Melkor was clearly "bad" before that though. From the minute he played his own chords in the creation song. I think he represents aspects of a whole and will always play to those aspects. It's his nature. I just re-read the beginning of The Sil and I'll quote the relevant part, from the Valaquenta, regarding Varda: quote:Out of the deeps of Ea she came to the aid of Manwe; for Melkor she knew from before the making of the Music and rejected him, and he hated her, and feared her more than all others whom Eru made. This directly implies Melkor courted Varda, and she rejected him, before the Music. That alone is enough motivation to explain everything else Melkor does.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:50
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redshirt posted:This directly implies Melkor courted Varda, and she rejected him, before the Music. That alone is enough motivation to explain everything else Melkor does. She rejects him because she can tell he's an evil shitlord. Once again you're blaming a woman for a dude turning evil.
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Jul 31, 2014 15:18
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rypakal posted:She rejects him because she can tell he's an evil shitlord. Once again you're blaming a woman for a dude turning evil. I'm not blaming her, I'm positing a motivation for Melkor's actions. He gets rejected, he gets mad, he leaves the other Valar and in his absence from them, turns dark. He returns, they sing, and Evil is created in the world.
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Jul 31, 2014 15:25
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The text always implied to me that Evil - or at least a lot of the things that the Elves perceived as evil - was sort of built-in.quote:Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo! I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.' quote:And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and Ilúvatar has some sort of grand plan for the world, and all of what Melkor did was somehow part of it. It's just that all the people telling the story* take those things as Evil and believe they somehow came wholly from Melkor. *) quote:This was made by Rúmil of Túna in the Elder Days.
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Jul 31, 2014 17:01
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rypakal posted:She rejects him because she can tell he's an evil shitlord. Once again you're blaming a woman for a dude turning evil. Wow. For all the hand-wringing over "lack of female characters", someone goes and provides an(other) example of a female Tolkien protagonist showing greater wisdom than her male counterparts, exercising her free will in opposition to the will of a male, and you respond with this? Please tell me you're trolling. Regarding treechat, what would Sam do? He'd probably make some nice furniture out of it and give it to his cousins or something, and then he'd plant another tree. They should plant another tree there.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:51
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He'd make one of those Fletcher capstan tables out of it. Oh I know, someone should buy the wood and make it into a wardrobe. Just to gently caress with everybody.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:56
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Ynglaur posted:Wow. For all the hand-wringing over "lack of female characters", someone goes and provides an(other) example of a female Tolkien protagonist showing greater wisdom than her male counterparts, exercising her free will in opposition to the will of a male, and you respond with this? Please tell me you're trolling. The person I was replying to said Melkor did bad things because Varda rejected him. I was applauding her ability to read Melkor's jerkface intentions and disgusted by even the notion that his actions would be laid at her feet.
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Jul 31, 2014 20:25
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rypakal posted:The person I was replying to said Melkor did bad things because Varda rejected him. I was applauding her ability to read Melkor's jerkface intentions and disgusted by even the notion that his actions would be laid at her feet.
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Jul 31, 2014 20:27
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rypakal posted:The person I was replying to said Melkor did bad things because Varda rejected him. I was applauding her ability to read Melkor's jerkface intentions and disgusted by even the notion that his actions would be laid at her feet. My apologies for misunderstanding, then (and for sounding so snarky).
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Jul 31, 2014 20:41
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I haven't reread the Lord of the Rings in a while and decided that, instead of starting a massive book read-through when I don't have much time, I would instead give the audiobooks a shot on my commute. They are mostly good but christ it gets weird listening to the jolly old english narrator actually singing all the songs.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:20
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I loved Rob Inglis. He was a fantastic Saruman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz5WVmpvYp0
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Aug 3, 2014 18:16
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I don't disagree with you, he's a good narrator. I had just forgotten how many times the hobbits say "this was one of bilbo's favorite (eating/drinking/walking/bathing(?!)) songs" and then just start singing, and that was sort of a weird way to be reminded.
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Aug 3, 2014 18:58
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That's true and there are many more songs to come. I think, I could be misremembering, that Fellowship is the "worst" in terms of songs. There's one or two in TTT and I don't recall any in ROTK. I might be entirely wrong though. Glad you like him though. I can't see that well so reading stuff as long as LOTR is just not reasonable for me. As such, the audiobooks were a godsend.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:28
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When I last reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (a year or two ago), I got the idea in my head that I could actually see details of the different authors of the Red Book of Westmarch. There and Back Again is referenced, by Bilbo, as the book he's writing in Rivendell. In The Hobbit, everything speaks and everything sings. In Fellowship, you see people going "Oh god it's Bilbo. Run, or we might get caught up listening to another one of his songs/poems." ... but who wrote Book I? Frodo and the rest show up in Elrond's house and Bilbo begins interrogating them for details, because now he has to write another book. This also gave me the mental picture of the first few scenes of Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in The Two Towers being written by Frodo, sitting in Bag End, thinking "Okay, I know they told me what happened, but what do I actually say they said and did?" (I was trying to explain to myself why Aragorn had no internal voice. I decided it was either Frodo writing the scene in an overly formal style, or that Aragorn had spent so much time alone in the wilderness that he'd lost all inhibition against talking to himself.) Of course, it also makes a lot of sense from the exterior perspective: The Lord of the Rings is the sequel to The Hobbit, so it begins with writing that's very much like The Hobbit's, starting both the reader and the characters off in very familiar ground before going on a long journey to a different style/place.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:59
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NikkolasKing posted:That's true and there are many more songs to come. I think, I could be misremembering, that Fellowship is the "worst" in terms of songs. There's one or two in TTT and I don't recall any in ROTK. I might be entirely wrong though. One thing that he really nailed (if my consumption of british TV period dramas is any indication) is making the hobbits actually sound like english peasants rather than generic british-accented actors.
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Aug 4, 2014 02:03
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Is this off-topic? I hope not. Anyone pick up the recently released Tolkien translation of Beowulf? I'm reading it along with the extensive commentary and it's absolutely fantastic. I feel like I paid 20 bucks for a seminar with led by Tolkien himself. The commentary is a combo of close reading, historical context, and philological arguments that are written in his easy style.
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Aug 6, 2014 01:26
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JohnnyDangerously posted:Is this off-topic? I hope not.
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Aug 6, 2014 01:34
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Nessus posted:I'm shocked it took this long to release it, wasn't it his life work, academically? Not really any more than his other translation work. I really wish we could get thoroughly updated electronic editions of supplemental works. Would love to have a Readers Guide inline with the text of lord of the rings. I could make it myself if I had an ebook of the readers guide. Also why are only two volumes of HoME in ebooks. Stupid publishers take my money!
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Aug 6, 2014 12:50
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Nessus posted:I'm shocked it took this long to release it, wasn't it his life work, academically? His critical essay on Beowulf is what launched his academic reputation. This volume doesn't include that, though, just the translation.
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Aug 6, 2014 12:57
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Re: narrator's voice, I wrote an essay years ago on the topic. Other than the hobbits, there are only a handful of instances in LotR where we see the mind of a character. There's a fox in FotR , Legolas in TTT, and one other I can't recall at the moment. (Gandalf, perhaps?)
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Aug 6, 2014 23:20
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We are in Sauron's head for a brief moment.
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Aug 6, 2014 23:22
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rypakal posted:Not really any more than his other translation work. Ehh I'm not so sure. The New Yorker review of this translation mentioned that the reason this translation wasn't published in Tolkien's lifetime is that he considered it a life work, i.e. "if I finish (publish) this, I'll have to shift my efforts elsewhere - something I'm not very interested in doing" Sure, there are other translations that also went unpublished, but the author of the article attributed this to just bad timing (got a new job, focus shifted) I'm not sure I agree 100% with the article because it's very difficult for me to say that anything other than LOTR was Tolkien's life's work/purpose, but Beowulf definitely demanded more of his attention than say, Pearl
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Aug 6, 2014 23:44
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euphronius posted:We are in Sauron's head for a brief moment. When is this?
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Aug 9, 2014 02:35
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BatteredFeltFedora posted:When is this?
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Aug 9, 2014 04:45
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Yeah, I think it's when Frodo claims the Ring; Sauron realises his mistake and scrambles the Ringwraiths. But it's hardly stream-of-Sauronic-consciousness.Vavrek posted:When I last reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (a year or two ago), I got the idea in my head that I could actually see details of the different authors of the Red Book of Westmarch. There and Back Again is referenced, by Bilbo, as the book he's writing in Rivendell. In The Hobbit, everything speaks and everything sings. In Fellowship, you see people going "Oh god it's Bilbo. Run, or we might get caught up listening to another one of his songs/poems." ... but who wrote Book I? Frodo and the rest show up in Elrond's house and Bilbo begins interrogating them for details, because now he has to write another book. I remember convincing myself that Bilbo wrote Book I, Frodo wrote the rest (and probably revised Bilbo's work) except the end, which Sam wrote. Or perhaps it was all edited together later... Either way the narrator isn't too interested in internal perspective, so it's not because he was being formal.
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Aug 9, 2014 10:17
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That was the same breakdown I had come to. The first printings of The Hobbit were Bilbo's original drafts, the post-LotR editions of The Hobbit are Frodo's revised version, with the honest retelling of Riddles in the Dark... As a tangential aside, does anyone know how easy or difficult it is to get a copy of the pre-LotR The Hobbit? I've never read it, and would like to examine the differences and have it as part of my collection. I've wondered about it for years.
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Aug 9, 2014 11:01
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I'm sure if you know the right people it can't be that hard. My family has what I think is a fairly old edition of The Hobbit with Tolkien's 'Conversation with Smaug' cover. I suspect it doesn't pre-date LotR, though. I've had my own newer version with the original cover since I was about 11 or 12.
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Aug 9, 2014 11:48
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euphronius posted:We are in Sauron's head for a brief moment. I think I know the section you meant. I always wondered if it was because Frodo was in Sauron's thoughts, so to speak. Sauron spoke to Pippin directly via the Palantír, and several other times characters seem to communicate with their thoughts (e.g. Frodo hearing Gandalf on Amon Hen). Now I need to go re-read that chapter. Edit: VVV I wasn't clear. I was using the Palantír as an example of the mental communications. I understand the "inside Sauron's head" part is at Mount Doom. Ynglaur fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 03:21
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No it's when Frodo claims the ring in Mount Doom.
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Aug 15, 2014 03:34
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Greetings Tolkienailures, does anyone have the requisite experience to advise me on how to deflect a friend's well-meaning and persistent recommendation to read The Wheel of Time? He's one of those "Tolkien's fine and all, but Robert Jordan was a real soldier and really understood how battles worked  " types. I've tried to give it a halfhearted go once or twice, but it's always struck me as some kind of Dune/Narn i Hîn Hurin mishmash with lots of gratuitous sex, but then again I haven't exactly been fair or gone about it in good faith.Should I try harder at it, or anyone have any witty rejoinders I can use in defending my willful ignorance?
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Aug 19, 2014 03:12
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Data Graham posted:Greetings Tolkienailures, does anyone have the requisite experience to advise me on how to deflect a friend's well-meaning and persistent recommendation to read The Wheel of Time? He's one of those "Tolkien's fine and all, but Robert Jordan was a real soldier and really understood how battles worked It's a stupid fantasy series and you shouldn't read it, tell him the internet said so if you really want an excuse.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:17
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It's ok I guess but it's more like a guilty pleasure compared to other stuff.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:42
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Have you tried just telling him you didn't like it.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:44
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It's so crazy it just might work. Oh wait, no it won't, not unless I can convince him I read all 39,000 pages or whatever
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Aug 19, 2014 03:47
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Data Graham posted:Greetings Tolkienailures, does anyone have the requisite experience to advise me on how to deflect a friend's well-meaning and persistent recommendation to read The Wheel of Time? He's one of those "Tolkien's fine and all, but Robert Jordan was a real soldier and really understood how battles worked
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Aug 19, 2014 03:50
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Data Graham posted:Greetings Tolkienailures, does anyone have the requisite experience to advise me on how to deflect a friend's well-meaning and persistent recommendation to read The Wheel of Time? He's one of those "Tolkien's fine and all, but Robert Jordan was a real soldier and really understood how battles worked As a fan of The Wheel of Time, that's a pretty good description of it. When describing it to people, I usually use LotR analogies for three books, then start referring to every character by their equivalent in Dune for the fourth book. (Five and six ... I know stuff happens, but it doesn't get summarized quite as well. Then it's four books of "He had writer's block and no one bothered telling him no anymore..." capped off by "His writer's block ended! Then he died.") I looked up Rigney's (Jordan's) biography (was unaware he was a veteran) and it turns out he was a helicopter gunner in Vietnam, so I guess the too-pointed-to-be-helpful reply would be to counter that Tolkien was a footsoldier, clearly he knew better how pre-gunpowder battles worked. Thinking about it, there's a pretty decent case to be made for the difference in prose styles as a simple matter of taste. I know what I like about each of them, in terms of writing style, is radically different.
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Aug 19, 2014 04:17
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