Christopher Tolkien (1924–2020)

It is unreasonable of me to rate this 5⭐, and yet this is where we find ourselves! 🧐

Of the 144 pages, about 35 contain Tolkien's words, but they are interesting in being post-apocalyptic science fiction! Set hundreds of years in the future following an environmental catastrophe, archeologists/philologists draw comically inaccurate conclusions about mid-20th century Oxford based on fragmentary documents relating to the consumerist worship of motor vehicles, with consequent traffic show more congestion and its fatal ecological impact. The satire that starts out whimsically enough, rather like LotR, proceeds to a very dark place.

Given the story is written as a mock academic piece with fictitious footnotes, the editorial contributions of Tolkien Jr are not always easily distinguishable from the story, which actually nicely added to the meta-ness of it.

The bulk of the book, then, is Ovenden's social history of Oxford's mid 20th century industrial and urban development, and the town planning battles (with maps) that raged around motor infrastructure, as this forms the context for Tolkien's story.
It's unlikely I'd otherwise give a 5⭐ review to a local history essay about urban development, and yet as it relates to Prof. T., here, as I said, do we find ourselves 🤨 show less

"En el principio Eru, que en la lengua élfica es llamado Ilúvatar, hizo a los Ainur de su pensamiento; y ellos hicieron una Gran Música delante de él. En esta música empezó el mundo

Continuándo con la aventura de leer completo el Legendarium de Tolkien llega "El Simarillion", la clase de libro sobre el que no tengo idea de como hablar ¿Cómo juzgas la obra de una vida? ¿Cómo hablas de la manera que tiene Tolkien de explotar y dar tantos matices a su tema recurrente (a.k.a. la show more obsesión)? ¿De que manera hablas de los personajes cuando son tantos y tan bien definidos? Supongo que no hay manera correcta de hacerlo aunque trataré de dar algo de sentido a mis palabras.

Esta obra es literalmente el inicio de Arda, el mundo donde seubica la Tierra Mieda, de como Ilúvatar la concibió y los Valar la construyeron. La primera historia, Ainulindalë, es absolutamente hermosa. Concentrar tanta genialidad en tas pocas paginas es asombroso, sólo con esa yo ya quería continuar y ver como se desenvolvía.

Lo que ya entra de lleno a la Quenta Simarillion se me hizó pesado de leer, no porque aburra sino porque son tantos sucesos, tantos personajes, tantos nombres que mi cabeza pedía tiempo para procesarlo todo, y la verdad es que, aunque los Valar son importantes en toda la historia, el verdadera protagonista innamovible fue Melkor, creador del mal en Arda y "el Valar caído", cuya existencia influye en todo lo que suederá en la Tierra Media.

No creo que exista en el género obra similar ni un mundo tan bien pensado y es poco probable que lo que Tolkien ha creado alguien logre igualarlo. show less

This was my second time through (my third attempt in total) and it took me over a year (I started May 2014). I was intentionally slow this time around. It's true, this is a very hard book. It's fiction, but this is not straightforward bubblegum. This is the fiber to The Lord of the Rings's meat and potatoes. You might read of Gondolin in the comparative bubblegum of The Hobbit, but the reality of this book is that it is religious text, prophecy, cosmology, and history all in one. But yes, show more fiction, and all from the mind of one man.

Tolkien devoted much of his life to writing the history, and it remained unfinished at his death. How? You try writing a self-contained fictional history of over ten thousand years. Though unfinished, its creation and development bookends the releases of his two most popular books. Even in the bird's-eye view of the mythos, you can see Tolkien's philosophy, religion, and worldview. Interestingly, when the stories zoom in to examine these characters in depth is when the moral ambiguity dissolves into place. There are complaints that Tolkien's characters are weird black or white, good or bad, but these people have never read anything beyond his two popular books. What to think of the characters that are presented as among the greatest mortals to ever grace Middle-Earth, but commit fratricide? Or the tragic warrior held in high esteem that unwittingly plays into the hands of a demon, killing his closest friends and entering an incestuous relationship? This is Tolkien at his most Shakespearian if you can take it.

If you've tried, and failed, at this book, but maintain a love of Tolkien, I cannot recommend enough following along to lectures on what you've just read. The Tolkien Professor is great and knowledgeable not only of this work but all the other supporting ones.

I guess I'm off to read The History of Middle-earth now.

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First read: Oct 17, 2013-Dec 3, 2013
Second read: May 21, 2014-Oct 12, 2015 show less

I tried to read, this, I really did, back when I first finished The Lord Of The Rings and wanted more more MORE. The opening chapters defeated me, however, which really is a pity. I wasn't sure how to deal with a brand new creation myth, for one thing. As a Catholic teen, it seemed to close to blasphemy. As a Catholic teen who wasn't all that enamoured of being a Catholic, it was too much like religion. Then again the archaic language was also off-putting, and though the chapters were short, show more the reading was long, so it seemed to take forever to get to the point. So I gave up. Still, I must have dipped in and out of it, flicked through, read passages here and there, because this time I did read it, and quite a bit of it was oddly familiar.

I think the creation myth is interesting, because it isn't 'let there be light' or anything like it. Everything here starts with song, then comes the world. Getting light to the world is a long and fraught process, and, indeed, that's where a lot of the trouble comes from. First you have the lamps, which mean old Melkor knocks down, then you have the trees, which Ungoliant eats, then at last you have the sun and the moon, put up in the sky as a last resort where mean old Melkor can't get them.

Once you get past the creation myth and the descriptions of the Valar and the lands of the West, the story really kicks off, and keeps kicking all the way. We already know from the appendices that The Lord Of The Rings is only the tail end of a story that begins when Iluvatar starts the singing, a tale packed with the epic and the extraordinary, any one page of which could be spun into a trilogy of its own. The silmarils are created, Melkor steals them, Feanor, the first great elvish asshole, swears his vow, murders his kin, heads back to Middle Earth and the fun starts. So we have sieges and chases and betrayals and cruel fates and massive destruction and triumph in adversity and the whole damn thing. It gets especially Wagnerian around poor old Turin, a veritable Siegfried, and the whole shebang ends, appropriately, with a literal deus ex machina.

Marvelous stuff. Mythic grandeur, evocative with magic, drenched with evil, tragic with nobility and rife with unbearable sadness. I would have loved it.

There's also a bit about that fecker Sauron and the fall of Numenor, more detailed than the account from the appendices, and another chapter about the lead-up to the War of the Ring, more detailed in some ways and less in others, so they both make good additions if you're into that sort of thing. I know I am.

2021 - listened to this on audio, the recording by Martin Shaw is justifiably legendary in its own right. show less