Have you read other Tolkien books....

[Pyan]

j d; Have you the complete set of HoME? I wanted to know the reason for the Trotter/Strider change, and I can't find it anywhere.

 

[paranoid marvin]

But why release these 2 books - silmarillion and hurin - in a style totally different to the far more popular approach taken in LOTR and Hobbit?
Like I said , if these 2 books had been written in a similar 'high style' it's highly inlikely that they would be as popular today ; indeed it's arguable whether anyone would have a agreed to publish them in the first place

 

[j d worthington]

Pyan: Yes, I do, though it's been some time since I went through them. I'll try to track down that for you sometime this week, though.

As for why... well, for one thing, The Children of Hurin was written during the same time he wrote The Silmarillion... which he was working on long before he ever thought of The Hobbit, let alone LotR... and neither of them were done in a single go, but over years (decades, really). And actually, such books were much more the approach given to fantasy, outside the pulps. Even in LotR (or, for that matter, briefly, in The Hobbit) you see such a "high style"; it is more the tone used in some parts with Rivendell, or Rohan, and certainly with several portions of the sections on Gondor.

You still see fantasy books take this sort of approach at times, though not anywhere near the amount they used to. But many of the best-known names in fantasy used such a style, and they certainly didn't suffer any great lack of readers (as far as people read fantasy at that point, when no type of fantastic tale, be it horror, fantasy, sf, etc. was all that much in favor, it being a period of extreme realism in fiction save for the pulps). Eddings had three books in a much more difficult style published, which remain classics to this day (a fourth was also published, but posthumously and unfinished); Cabell has always had quite a strong reputation, as he was one of the greatest American stylists of the Twentieth Century; Dunsany certainly was extremely popular for some years, and is becoming so again... and influenced the majority of writers until LotR became such a well-known book; Clark Ashton Smith uses a very lapidary prose style, especially for his outright fantasies; not to mention Lovecraft.... So I'm not at all sure that it would have had such difficulty being published for that reason.

But The Silmarillion, at least (and, if I recall correctly, even the first volumes of The History of Middle-Earth), actually were on the best-seller lists for some time... and The Silmarillion went through several printings within the first few years; I don't know as it's been out of print since... so I think this is more a matter of taste than it being something the general readers (or fantasy readers in general) dislike....

 

[Pyan]

Thanks, jd.

I find that I think of The Silmarillion, TCoH and the Unfinished & Lost Tales as being myths, and The Hobbit and the LotR as being modern stories based on those myths - to me, at least, it explains the difference between the "high style" of the former, and the more colloquial language of the latter.
There are bits of LotR that are reminiscent of the Silmarillion, though: the scene where Aragorn and Gandalf find the sapling of the White Tree, (RotK, Book VI, Chapter V, The Steward and the King) is in the same high style, as is most of that chapter.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, there's that (which is quite accurate, in its way); there's also the fact (as it notes on the title page of LotR) that these were written by the hobbits, and therefore are more likely to be colloquial, or at least less rigorously scholarly, as they were intended to be read by hobbits, as well. Whereas The Silmarillion is supposed to be taken from older Elvish traditions, as are the majority of things in Unfinished Tales and HoME (save for the sections of the latter on LotR). Tolkien followed through on such stylistic niceties, being very aware of such things. That's also why the sections on the Annals and the later history of Arwen and Aragorn reads more in the "high style"... by that time, the material was at least based on things from sources in Gondor, even if slightly recast by later holders of the Red Book....

Which is not to say he didn't make errors in such (though they're surprisingly few, considering the extent of what he did). Simply that he was spot on in choosing the style to convey not only the overt information he wanted the stories to tell, but also the feel of the traditions from which they (supposedly) came....

 

[paranoid marvin]

Well , all I can say is that personally I found The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings interesting to read , and , although I have tried several times , I cannot say the same of The Silmarillion

Maybe that's just me , but I suspect it is also the opinion of many others

 

[Pyan]

Try skipping the Ainulindalë and the Valaquenta, Marvin - the story begins to speed up a bit about chapter 17 of the Quenta Silmarillion, and you can always refer back, using the Index, if you get stuck.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Try skipping the Ainulindalë and the Valaquenta, Marvin - the story begins to speed up a bit about chapter 17 of the Quenta Silmarillion, and you can always refer back, using the Index, if you get stuck.

Ok , I will! I must admit I was interested in the earlier (pre--Hobbit) history of Middle-Earth. I guess I was just disappointed that The Silmarillion was not written in a style I was accostemed to.

Mind you , it only goes to show what an accomplished writer Tolkein was , flitting between such contrasting styles of writing seemingly so easily

 

[Pyan]

I found the early part of the book very remote, if that's the right word, dealing as it does withe the creation and the coming of the gods. When it gets down to Numenor and Beleriand, and the interactions between the peoples that inhabit them, the fall of Gondolin, the stories of Beren, and Tuor, and Turin - "human" is not really applicable, but these stories are far more accessible than the start of the book.
Good luck with it anyway - I must confess, it took me a long time to appreciate the whole book, because I, like you I suspect, expected and wanted another LotR. But it is worth it, if you really like the writing of JRRT, I assure you.
I also recommend you read the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and cherrypick the History of Middle-Earth, if you really want to know more about the man, and the sheer depth behind the two main books.

 

[j d worthington]

I think "remote" is a very apt term here, Pyan... if I remember correctly, it's one that CRRT himself applied to those sections of the work. This isn't really surprising, as (according to the myth that Tolkien was creating) these were among the earliest Elvish traditions, dating back to before the fall of the Two Trees and the Noldorin exile (or encompassing the early parts of the latter)... so it is sort of like the earliest parts of the Bible; traditions that are so distant in antiquity that they are seen through a veil of ages... remote, high, and almost numinous in quality.

And yes, that can take some getting used to... but it can add to the feel of the thing, too, by putting the reader in the position of the later generations of elves, or even of men who are of the elf-friends, looking back to a history that is both hallowed and at the same time almost alien in its hoary antiquity...

 

[Pyan]

But unfortunately it's this very remoteness that seems to put a lot of people, eager to read more JRRT after finishing LotR or The Hobbit, off when they start the Silmarillion. After the pace and excitement of the Scouring of the Shire, and the prosaic last words of Sam, the "high" language of, particularily, the Ainulindalë is quite off-putting (hence my advice to Marvin earlier).

But I totally agree with the importance of the Ainulindalë and the Valaquenta: these are the bedrock of the whole amazing edifice of Tolkien's wrtiting, and, as you say, be regarded as the equivalent of the Greek Creation myths, or even as Genesis stands to the Bible.

 

[Gothic_Angelica]

I still haven't finished reading lord of the rings lol oops

 

[j d worthington]

Pyan: I owe you an apology... I didn't get a chance to dig out my copy of HoME last week... I promise I will get to it by this weekend. (Sheesh! That's what I get for making assumptions about how my time is going to go....)

 

[Pyan]

Pyan: I owe you an apology... I didn't get a chance to dig out my copy of HoME last week... I promise I will get to it by this weekend. (Sheesh! That's what I get for making assumptions about how my time is going to go....)

Don't make a special effort or put too high a priority on it, j d - it was only a passing query, and I can survive without the answer!

Anyway, who was it said "a battle-plan never survives the first contact with the enemy"? - and if you're fighting Time herself, then..........

 

[j d worthington]

Anyway, who was it said "a battle-plan never survives the first contact with the enemy"? - and if you're fighting Time herself, then..........

Hmmm. Why am I reminded of Dunsany's story about the assault on Time, who unleashes his hours against the king and his army with each assault....?

 

[j d worthington]

j d; Have you the complete set of HoME? I wanted to know the reason for the Trotter/Strider change, and I can't find it anywhere.

Well, after looking up all the citations of each, I don't actually see a reason for the change, as such; only the point at which it changed -- the revisions on Manuscript C, sixth stage, if I'm reading this correctly... so pretty much about at the stage he was going ove the typescript for the book... quite late. It was the change from the letter of the King to Sam, where he altered Aragorn Tarantar/Aranthornsson to Telcontar ("'that's Strider'", says Sam) -- Sauron Defeated, Chap. XI: "The Epilogue".

There's also this, from The War of the Ring, Chap. XI, "The Houses of Healing":

When Aragorn encounters Berithil and Pippin at the door Pippin says: 'Trotter! How splendid. There, Berithil, you see Denethor was right after all.' The last sentence was struck out, and replaced by Pippin's words in RK (p. 139): 'Do you know, I guessed it was you in the black ships. But they were all shouting Corsairs and would not listen to me. How did you do it?' And when Imrahil says to Eomer 'Yet perchance in some other name he will wear his crown', Aragorn overhearing replies: 'Verily, for in the high tongue of eld I am Elessar, Elfstone, the renewer.' Then lifting the green stone of Galadriel he says: 'But Trotter shall be the name of my house, if ever that be established; yet perhaps in the same high tongue it shall not sound so ill, and tarakil[14] I will be and all the heirs of my body.'

[14] tarakil: the fourth letter (a) is not certain, but is very probable, especially in view of the form in B, where the text remained the same as in A but with Tarakon here. This was altered to Tarantar, which survived into the first typescript, where it was altered to Telkontar (> Telcontar on the proof).

Now, I may be misreading this, but I get the impression the later alteration (the letter) was actually done first, and then he went back and altered the earlier passage. Either way, it didn't take place until the final stages... but the reasoning I do not find... perhaps "Strider" simply sounded a bit more dignified than "Trotter"; certainly JRRT would be sensitive to such things upon going over the manuscript again, especially given the shift in tone from the more colloquial hobbitish approach to the "high style" so many of the portions dealing with Gondor came to have.

Sorry it took so long... the last couple of weeks have been a meatgrinder, and I had to have time to go dig out the books from where they were packed away.....

 

[Pyan]

Thank you very much, j d - you're a gentleman and a scholar.

perhaps "Strider" simply sounded a bit more dignified than "Trotter"; certainly JRRT would be sensitive to such things upon going over the manuscript again, especially given the shift in tone from the more colloquial hobbitish approach to the "high style" so many of the portions dealing with Gondor came to have.

I would have to agree with you there - certainly Strider gives a far more authoritarian ring to the character than Trotter does - Strider goes on before, whereas Trotter struggles to keep up, to my hearing!

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thank you very much, j d - you're a gentleman and a scholar.
I would have to agree with you there - certainly Strider gives a far more authoritarian ring to the character than Trotter does - Strider goes on before, whereas Trotter struggles to keep up, to my hearing!

Yeah - and Del-boy and Rodney would sound odd as the Striders

 

[Pyan]

Yes, I confess that that did cross my mind - and that Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Elessar, Gondor's Heir, Lord of the Dunedain, would come from Peckham!

 

[j d worthington]

Thank you, Pyan... that is the nicest compliment I've ever received.