Middle Earth Returns!

[bydand]

I liked the Thomas Covenant books, but found them very depressing. Very.

Kinda heavy subject matter for bedtime stories, though, IMO, with the rape and Tom's dealing with the guilt thereof...


or did you mean Tolkien's Middle Earth was the bedtime stories?

Sorry about that, Lordy reading Thomas Covenant books to kids anytime would be questionable. I meant they love Tolkien's Middle Earth books.

 

[bydand]

It seems to me that aside from the books that actually made it to print when he was alive, none of the books actually were meant to be read by the typical reader. The various histories and such were a means that Tolkien used to flesh out his world. No one had to read them except him.

yeah what you said! I'm glad that somebody brought this up because the later books struck me in the same way. The way somebody would write references to people/places/events so that they wouldn't conflict in later books. I bet Whats-Her-Doodle who write the Harry Potter books has reams of this type stuff around as well.

 

[arnisador]

Silmarillion was like reading a textbook in many places.

Agreed. I've read it twice and was bored both times.

 

[Bigshadow]

I never could finish silmarillion.

 

[Kacey]

I love the Covenant books, as well as a 2 book set Donaldson wrote called The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through - although part of that may be that, when he was much less well-known, he came to my high school (in 1983 - I know, I'm old) and talked to a group of kids who had read the first trilogy - the first book in the second trilogy had been published, but only in England, because one kid had a copy a relative had sent him.

As far as Tolkien goes, The Hobbit was written as a children's story - and I first read it when I was 12. I reread all 4 volumes at least every few years.

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

Here's another perspective on The Children of Huin. A good read.

 

[exile]

Here's another perspective on The Children of Huin. A good read.

An interesting article... it's been a long time, but I do remember that there was some criticism of Christopher Tolkien when The Silmarillion came out. I just can't recall anything at all about what it was aimed at... was it just the dryness and programmatic character of much of the writing there, as vs. the intensity of immediacy of LoTR? Or was it something else...anyone remember?

Part of the problem with The Silmarillion was the emotional letdown. A lot of young people had read the book and found the ending unbearably poignant at many levels; we were hoping, even though we knew The Silmarillion was going to be about events that preceded the Third Age, that we'd get some kind of emotional closure, so we didn't have to go on feeling quite so bad about Galadrial leaving Celeborn behind on Middle Earth, or about Frodo and Gandalf leaving their friends behind, or the Elves abandoning Middle Earth, or the inevitable deaths of Aragorn and Arwen, as the Appendix relates, long after the official action of the narrative is over... there really aren't many crumbs of comfort in LoTR. And when we found out that there really was going to be a second massive work from Tolkien, we were all hoping it would make the reading of LoTR a little more hopeful... no such luck though. So our view of The Silmarillion was kind of angry and critical...