Posted on 03/14/2002 5:07:26 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
What's for breakfast?
Heh, heh, morning Hair! ;^)
Looks like Hair needs extra coffee today. I wonder why. :)
I guess it's all in the presentation. History "sticks" better when I can see how it leads to where we are today and I like it most when I start wondering how it was for people living back when. Somehow I missed that with the Silmarillion. Maybe it was getting confused with all the people and place names that made it all jumble together.
I don't rightly know, except that it was most likely on the Keweenaw Peninsula (in the UP). The pic was "borrowed" from this page right here.
Lots of nice pics of the Upper Peninsula on that site... as an ex-pat yooper I love going to that site to remember "home".
Question: When do you think The Silmarillion should be read; before or after The Hobbit and or LOTR?
Yum! That will do very nicely, thank you!
I am still a bit wiped out from the trip yesterday. ...And content enough with my position that I may choose to not even take the bait you are trying to set out for me!
It is chilly but sunny. I expect it will be hot enough later to give my horse a bath.
I can make some up real quick!
I would say after both, but at least you should have read LoTR before tackling The Silmarillion.
Now what fun would that be?
Maybe we should start on Bill Gates/Microsoft.
It's complicated by the long and complex history of the stories that make up The Silmarillion. Some of them are among the oldest stories JRRT ever wrote, going back to the late 'teens (1915-1919). Jen can probably add more about this, but some of the stories went through 3 or more significant revisions; some of the stories existed as both brief overviews and very detailed narratives.
The reason for the many reworkings, revisions, and different narrative styles is that JRRT couldn't decide on a framework in which to present the stories; he went from tales told around a hearth fire (The Book of Lost Tales) to a more concise collection of legends and back again. All of that was complicated by the stories themselves changing over the 50+ years since he put the first versions on paper.
When I really got into reading The Book of Lost Tales earlier this year, I found the background history on the stories to be as interesting as the stories themselves. For instance, did you know in at least one version of the Tale of Beren and Luthien, Beren was an Elf? Amazing but true!
I would say, the first time reader should start with The Hobbit and/or LOTR before moving on to The Silmarillion. If you're already familiar with the stories, though, it's fun to start with The Silmarillion and then go on to the other two; it really gives a feeling for the 7000+ years of history that the books span.
But then JRRT came to his senses. ;^)
Seriously, having Beren as an elf would take away from the story, wouldn't it?
The version with the elf-Beren is the one presented in The Book of Lost Tales. I thought it did take away from the story, and apparently JRRT thought so too. If I read the history of it right, the earliest version of the story had Beren as a man; then JRRT switched him to a Noldoli elf (precursor to the Noldor); then switched him back to a man. Sauron, who appears in that tale, went through changes a lot more radical than that, however.
Same here, the first time I read them. After seeing the movie the first time last December, I decided to re-read all the books, starting with The Silmarillion and moving forward (skipping The Hobbit, because I don't have a copy of that book here in Texas). I found it made for an interesting difference, starting with the creation myth and reading through to the End of the Third Age.
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