A Question

[paranoid marvin]

Just thinking on this. Is The Lord of the Rings a trilogy, or should it be classed as a six book series. Or is it in fact just one book split into three - or six - parts. It's not as though any part is a story in and of itself, as the next simply continues on from the last. I know that it is usually considered as a trilogy, but that is probably because that is the way in which it was originally published and is often sold to this day.

Another question, I always found it unusual that each of the trilogy consists of 2 books. Is this a unique thing? Was there a reason why Tolkien had his work published in this way? He usually had reasoning behind everything he did in his stories.

 

[Pyan]

No, it's not a trilogy, it's one story split into 6 books, and published in three volumes, due to size and printing constraints. There are several one-volume editions - I've the Allen and Unwin version with the Pauline Baynes cover.
As for the 6 books thing, FotR is one linear story, but the TT and RotK make perfect sense split as they are, alternating Frodo and Sam's tale with the rest of the Fellowship.

 

[Extollager]

I agree with Pyan. C. S. Lewis's "soace trilogy" or "ransom trilogy" or "cosmic trilogy," namely Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, is a trilogy, a trio of related, but complete-each-in-itself, books. It is best to read them in the order given but not absolutely essential as it is with LotR; in fact, my impression, uncertain after 50 years, is that I read them in a 1, 3, 2 order, which actually wasn't a bad thing since the second book, Perelandra, is perhaps the most sophisticated of the three, with an extended, excellent debate sequence that might well have been "interesting, but tough" to a 14-year-old (I quote Huck Finn on The Pilgrim's Progress).

As for the 6 books thing, Pyan makes a good point; and I'd add that Fellowship does have a natural break between its two books. We learn that Frodo & friends arrived safely at Rivendell at the beginning of the second book. Tolkien set himself to write a sequel to The Hobbit, and one could well argue that the first book of Fellowship is that sequel, an adventure, with a fair share of hobbit silliness, etc., covering some of the same ground, etc. The Black Riders in this first book are mostly "spooks" -- not the terrible Nazgul they will become. The first chapter of Book 2 is the transition from "the Hobbit sequel" to The Lord of the Rings proper, which one could contend really gets going with the council of Elrond. That second chapter is really like nothing in The Hobbit for its grim seriousness and its demands on young readers who like "action." I may be overstating this argument a little, but not, I think, by much.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thanks for the replies. So had Tolkien completed all three volumes before the first was published? There was more than a year between Fellowship and Return being published, so presumably there was still time to work/tweak the later sections. I agree with you Extollager in that the 'Black Riders' scouring the Shire appear far less dangerous and deadly than the Nazgul as described later in the tale, so perhaps Tolkien felt that as the Fellowship grow more experienced and powerful, so does their enemy.

Pyan, I agree with you that LOTR is one story, and made commercial sense to be published in the way that it was. But I guess there is a fine line between describing what is one long story split into chapters, books and volumes and what is a series of books. So that , in actual fact, HHGTTG was never a (ever expanding) trilogy, but was always just one story told in several volumes. Same goes for GoT and any other large volume of work that does not complete minor stories in the overall arc.

 

[Pyan]

So that , in actual fact, HHGTTG was never a (ever expanding) trilogy, but was always just one story told in several volumes. Same goes for GoT and any other large volume of work that does not complete minor stories in the overall arc.

Not really comparable - JRRT completed LotR before FotR was published - and it was Unwins that insisted on the three-volume publication, for economic and cost reasons, as they didn't think people would buy the whole thing at the price it would have to be set at.
HHG was complete in itself, but DA just wanted to add more to the story, something JRRT considered, starting a sequel but abandoning it as "not worth doing".
ASoIaF is just one long, long story, split between volumes as it would be impossible to bring out a single-volume edition - it would have to be about a foot thick, even in TP. Here's how thick it would be:

The bookmarks are character deaths, btw - my apologies if anyone else has posted this before.

I don't know whether it will ever be completed (and to be frank, I doubt whether GRRM knows either). I'm not really concerned, either - I've read it once, and that was enough (as opposed to LotR, which I've read straight through at least 30 times). I like a character that stays alive more than 300 pages so I can get to like them. Every one I tried to do that to in ASoIaF came to a sticky end either in that book or the next. As a wise man once said "If you like a character, don't let GRRM or Joss Whedon get hold of them"...

 

[paranoid marvin]

Not really comparable - JRRT completed LotR before FotR was published - and it was Unwins that insisted on the three-volume publication, for economic and cost reasons, as they didn't think people would buy the whole thing at the price it would have to be set at.
HHG was complete in itself, but DA just wanted to add more to the story, something JRRT considered, starting a sequel but abandoning it as "not worth doing".
ASoIaF is just one long, long story, split between volumes as it would be impossible to bring out a single-volume edition - it would have to be about a foot thick, even in TP. Here's how thick it would be:

View attachment 73867
The bookmarks are character deaths, btw - my apologies if anyone else has posted this before.

I don't know whether it will ever be completed (and to be frank, I doubt whether GRRM knows either). I'm not really concerned, either - I've read it once, and that was enough (as opposed to LotR, which I've read straight through at least 30 times). I like a character that stays alive more than 300 pages so I can get to like them. Every one I tried to do that to in ASoIaF came to a sticky end either in that book or the next. As a wise man once said "If you like a character, don't let GRRM or Joss Whedon get hold of them"...

Thanks for that. The photo above speaks (literally) volumes for the way that Martin deals with writing. And I totally agree with you, I have also read into double figures LOTR and have often gone back to look up certain sections. Whilst I have read ASoIaF, it doesn't warm the heart in the way that Tolkien's work does, and although I may read it again at some point in the future it feels more of an undertaking than of something to pleasurably look forward to.

In relation to your first point then, I assume that there was no revision of RotK done after the release of Fellowship or Two Towers?

 

[Pyan]

I'm pretty sure that the whole thing was with Unwins before the publication of FotR - and I doubt whether Jarrold, the printers would have been very pleased if they had to change things at that late date. There wasn't that long between publication of the three volumes, either:
The Fellowship of the Ring – 29 July, 1954 in an edition of 3,000 copies.
The Two Towers – 11 November, 1954 in an edition of 3,250.
The Return of the King – 20 October, 1955 in an edition of 7,000.
There were certainly changes made between editions of the book - for these, it's probably best to get Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth, volumes 6-9, which goes into the writing of the book in exhaustive detail.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's one book. A really great one.

 

[Ashleyne]

One of the definitions of 'trilogy' is 'a group of three related things'. Lord of the Rings was released in three separate volumes. Yes, it is one long novel, but whether it was the author's original intention or not, it was released and is widely recognised as a trilogy of volumes.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks for the replies. So had Tolkien completed all three volumes before the first was published?

That's right. I believe Tolkien finished writing the narrative of LotR in 1949, but Fellowship wasn't published till 1954.

Ashleyne wrote, "it was released and is widely recognised as a trilogy of volumes." Was it in fact published as a "trilogy" (I suppose that's what "released" means)? Even if Allen and Unwin did that, though, that wouldn't make it right to have done so, but I'm not sure that they did.

I would say it's widely called a trilogy, but that such usage is only slack use. As is so often the case, here too there is pressure on a word that has a specific meaning to make its meaning less specific. This accommodates inexact speakers and writers, but at the cost of losing the value of a word: if The Lord of the Rings is a "trilogy," then what word can we use if we really do mean a trilogy, that is, three related but independent works? There is no such word. If unique means just "unusual," and trilogy means "three books that might be one novel published in three volumes, or three related but independent novels," what have we gained? We've certainly lost something! But we already had the word "unusual," and already could refer to LotR as "a three-volume novel" (6 syllables; "a trilogy" is 4 syllables; is the convenience of 2 fewer syllables a great gain??).

 

[Ashleyne]

Nobody put any pressure on the word ‘trilogy’ to try and get it to be something it’s not. Definitions come from popular usage. Language is created by the majority.

Lord of the Rings was released as three separate volumes that are related. By definition, it was released as a trilogy.

It doesn’t matter if we’ve lost or gained anything. All that matters is how words and their definitions are commonly used and recognised by the populations who speak them.

 

[Pyan]

You can call it a trilogy if you wish - it makes no difference to me, I'll keep calling it what it is, a long book originally split in three by the publisher. Would you call this a trilogy?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It is what they used to call a three-volume novel. It is all one story, but published in three parts.

 

[Extollager]

I love Pauline Baynes’s design (front and back) on that one-volume edition, Pyan. Of all the designs I’ve seen for LotR books, it must be the one I like best, although I have a very strong attachment to Barbara Remington’s 1960s design of one long image split into three covers, which nicely brings out the identity of the books as a single continuous narrative. The Allen and Unwin paperback you show is the edition I gave to one of my children.

Teresa reminds me of the once-famous Victorian “three-decker” novel. This format was important for the circulating libraries of that time. I think I’ve read a J. Sheridan le Fanu novel in that three-decker format — Wylder’s Hand — as a grad student — yes, the book could be checked out and taken away from the library!

 

[Pyan]

Word of God on the trilogy/not a trilogy subject:

P.S. The book is not of course a 'trilogy'. That and the titles of the volumes was a fudge thought necessary for publication, owing to length and cost. There is no real division into 3, nor is any one part intelligible alone. The story was conceived and written as a whole and the only natural divisions are the 'books' I-VI (which originally had titles).

Letters, No 165: to the Houghton Mifflin Co.

 

[Extollager]

That nails it, Pyan.

 

[Ashleyne]

Word of God

I respect your religion, but the dictionary is my God and it references LotR as an example of a trilogy.

pyan said - You can call it a trilogy if you wish...

Thank you. Very much appreciated.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The idea that the writer himself didn't know what he was writing or what it was properly called is a curious one to me—considering that he was so learned in philology.

Do you think it wise to make the dictionary your God, Ashleyne, when there are so many dictionaries and they don't agree on everything (some, perhaps, being less reliable than others)? Indeed, I foresee crusades ahead, schisms, heretics persecuted for their apostasy. No, no, I think we should not make Gods of our reference books; no good can come of it.

Anyway, we don't discuss religion here. Since it has become a topic in this thread, I fear this discussion may have to be closed.

 

[Ashleyne]

I was likening the dictionary to God in the same way pyan likened Tolkien to God, Teresa, which by the way, would most likely be offensive to a devout catholic like Tolkien. I know my vicar brother would be highly offended.

66 years ago it may not have fallen under the definition of trilogy, but it does nowadays. Word definitions change. It isn’t incorrect to call Lord of the Rings a trilogy.

 

[The Big Peat]

The idea that the writer himself didn't know what he was writing or what it was properly called is a curious one to me—considering that he was so learned in philology.

Does this mean that the SFF should be taken as standing for Science Fiction & Fairytales, what with that being the original term for Fantasy?

Or are we eschewing that logical extreme, and therefore accepting that definitions change, which means that how Tolkien saw his trilogy at the time of writing doesn't make a reliable guide to how it should be referred to now?

Most people I know would refer to a work published in three books (or movies) as a trilogy, regardless of how the books were conceived or organised internally. That makes LotR a trilogy and I don't see any particular reason to argue with using a definition that everybody gets.