Michael’s Comments (group member since Jun 10, 2010)

Michael’s comments from the J.R.R. Tolkien group.

I think that as LotR is one of the most popular books on the planet, we can say that his idea of creating a new mythology is doing pretty well!

Elves as tall warriors were part of many northern myths: the Irish sidh and Germanic álfar, for example. Many mythic beings become diminutive as they pass into folklore: Elves>Faeries; Trolls>Trows; Arthurian knights>Ants (Cornish folklore, the last). So Tolkien was doing a bit of reversal of the trend, rather than inventing a new image.

After Tolkien, loads of authors took his interpretation of mythic peoples as their template, and if he didn't exactly invent the genre of High Fantasy, he's certainly responsible for giving it the particular form that now seems standard - aloof elves, earthy dwarves, Dark Age/Medieval men, etc. I'm not a gamer, but I'd bet that Tolkien-inspired monsters are rife throughout fantasy games.

Hi Donald - we did a Silmarillion Group Read last quarter - you can still join in the discussion in the Silmarillion folder.

The Hobbit is this quarter's Group Read, until the end of August, then the upcoming reads are The Children of Húrin for Autumn and LotR for Winter. Hopefully, you'll be able to join in with those "live" :-)

We'll have a poll for the following quarters' main reads in due course.

Hi John

Thanks for joining the Group. It's nice to have another long-time fan on board :-)

We have an existing thread for new members to introduce themselves: here. If you could copy and paste your post to that thread it will help people find you and keep the discussion threads tidy like a Hobbit hole!

Excellent score!

Sean - the particular part of the book you especially is all of it! I like the all-inclusiveness of that :-)

Razmatus: The eagles are good, and according to Rateliff in The History of the Hobbit, Part 1: Mr. Baggins, Tolkien found them so, too, to the extent that he had to write them out of certain parts of the story as he felt he was over-relying on them to get the heroes out of trouble.

Well, not unnaturally for this Group, we seem to have reached a consensus that the guy is (edits original thought) mistaken in his assessment.

Gopnik Wormtongue!

Lucinda wrote: "I cannot wait to see the hobbit on the big screen and recently herd the news that the once predicted 2 films are now becoming 3! Origionally i believe that it was designed to be 1: the hobbit- an u..."

See post 25 and after of this thread re the Hobbit Trilogy announcement.

If you're a librarian and there aren't too many people liking the film-origin quotes, you can delete them. If there are too many likes, you can post a request for a Super-Librarian to delete them in this topic: Please edit or correct or delete this quote. (part 2)

Please do make sure that the quote is not from a book before deleting it. I guess that there might be some "film books" which hold the queried quote and, in that case, you should not delete it, but rather should edit the quote to attribute it to the author of that book, rather than JRRT.

If you have any doubts, post a link to the quote in this thread and we can discuss its proper attribution as a Group and then take informed action.

I think the Botany quizzes are the hardest ones I've written - I doubt I'd get 100% myself now!

I memorised it as I challenged myself to do in my first post, but the words have since followed Bilbo into the West :-(

I think it will probably come back fairly easily when I re-read it :-)

Hyarrowen wrote: "I didn't get round to looking up the statue, but it has a tremendous presence. I think of Radagast as being rather more scruffy, but the statue has a indefinable affinity with how I see him!..."

It's a very striking statue, isn't it? But the links between the Slavic Radegast and Tolkien's Radagast look tenuous. It was probably one of the elements "in the air" when Tolkien was writing, but not a direct source.

I agree about the mystery of these two characters: I want to know more, but that knowledge would probably take away the very thing that interests me in them.

Onto the section covering Eagles, Bears and Brown Wizards! The commentaries seem to get better with each section, or maybe it's just my enthusiasm for them.

Lots of stuff about the sources for Beorn (or Medwed as he was called at this stage of Tolkien's writings), linking to Beowulf and associated legends - which is all good.

Then, my particular favourite so far, Radagast the Brown!. Radagast has always been a rather mysterious figure, and Rateliff brings together all that Tolkien wrote about him (which is little enough) from both the pre- and post-LotR period. Even Tolkien seemed to be uncertain as to the origins of his name, "Radagast a name of Mannish (Anduin Vale) origin - but now not clearly interpretable".

In trying to recreate the lost Slavic pantheon of gods, a Radegast deity has been mooted as a god of hospitality, although this is about as authentic as the modern Druidic movement (i.e., not at all). Nonethless, there's a nice stature of Radegast the god on a mountain in the Czech Republic

. The statue is modern, but Tolkien would probably have been aware of the speculative pantheon, though whether this is the actual source is not certain (at least not to me as in my enthusiasm I'm writing this before having finished the commentary!).

There's also a Czech-brewed Radegast beer!

This section also touches briefly on the two Blue Wizards and my interest is piqued to read more about them. I've resisted the lures of The Book of Lost Tales and The History of Middle-earth so far, but fear that their shadows begin to loom large!

Hey, Donald.

This discussion thread for The Silmarillion is still open, so there's nothing to prevent you reading it (other than your library's inventory!) and leaving your comments, which will get feedback, rest assured!

As we recently had The Silmarillion as a Group Read, and as there's so much of Tolkien we haven't read as a Group, I hadn't thought of rescheduling it so soon, However, I'm a slave to public opinion and will put it to the vote later in the year.

It's great to see that you can get The Children of Húrin for next quarter's Read and I look forward to your participation in the discussion :-)

Kevin wrote: "Hi, my name is Kevin, and I collect copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I have many copies of the first edition of Lord of the Rings, along with three copies of the Ace version, and thr..."

Hi Kevin

It sounds like you've put together a great collection really quickly! (I'm old, so 10 years seems quick to me!!)

Welcome aboard :-)

Donald wrote: "Hello, all. I'm Don and just noticed your board last night. I've read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings at least once a year since 1975. In fact, I've read them so many times, I've worn out the l..."

Hi Donald - The Silmarillion is very different in tone to The Hobbit and LotR, but if you persevere it's certainly worth the effort! Thanks for joining us :-)

My son read Paolini, enjoyed the first book, got through the second book and gave up on the third book, as he did find that boring. I haven't read them myself.

Hi David,

Sorry about the delay replying - notifications not working properly again!

Your writing will need to be published and listed on Goodreads for the usual link function to work - "add book/author" just above the comments box.

If you have published your work on a site like Smashwords, but it isn't on Goodreads yet, send a message to my inbox with the details of your work, and preferably its url, too, then I can add it to the Goodreads database for you.

NB: Goodreads does require that your work be published , either on paper or electronically, in order to be listed.

Hope this is clear, but I'm feeling a bit fuzzy-headed as we're about to have a thunderstorm, so apologies if it's a bit disjointed!!

Interesting, and the insight into Tolkien in the classroom was quite funny, but I don't agree with the article's evaluation of Tolkien as an author. Obviously, I also don't think that The Silmarillion is boring!

Thanks, Hyarrowen. I couldn't see Ecthelion in Elrond's family tree, although Idril's there.

Why do you think Orcrist might have belonged to Idril?

Who was the original owner of Orcrist? Was it also one of Elrond's family heirlooms?