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

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

Hi Lianne and Maria, glad you've both joined us :-)

Thanks for joining us, Ian.

My introduction to Tolkien was also The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, but as a class read at junior school in the early 70s - you've got a few years on me, I guess, but not many ;-)

I think that would be a bit early in the narrative, leaving too much for the second film to cover. Maybe a bit later on, (view spoiler)[after they've met Beorn, who is in the film, and when Gandalf has travelled south. So, you set up the next stage of the journey, with the start of film 2 being the journey through the forest and the "attercops", plus Gandalf entering Dol Guldur and meeting the Necromancer (hide spoiler)]!

I don't see how they could really get Aragorn in without drastically changing Tolkien's back story: he was busy doing the vital, but narratively unimportant, job of protecting the northern marches of Eriador.

On the other hand, the film will include Gandalf's journeys in southern Mirkwood, his infiltration of Dol Guldor, the White Council and their attack upon the Necromancer. So that's all good!

Pallavi, I've moved the thread to the Film topic so that those who haven't read the book can avoid it if they wish.

It's OK to give spoilers, providing you either flag them by *** SPOILER ALERT ***, or even better by using spoiler tags: <?spoiler?> hidden text <?/spoiler?>, but without the question marks, like this: (view spoiler)[hidden text (hide spoiler)].

Regarding your question, I don't think there is an official answer yet. There's a slightly out-of-date entry on Wikipedia and a more current discussion thread on the topic at the Fan Site The Hobbit Movie.

I couldn't find any mention on the official movie site, but there's loads on there and no search facility, so I might have missed it.

But A Long-Expected Party (first chapter of LoTR) is rather light-hearted and leads gently into the more serious tone of the longer work.

I would agree that it doesn't really matter which you read first, but if you haven't read either it's just kind of logical to start with the earlier of the two. Plus LoTR contains some "spoilers" for The Hobbit if you haven't read that already.

Suffice to say, you'll likely enjoy them both regardless of the order you read them in.

Anybody wanting an alternative to our summer read of The Hobbit may find The History of the Hobbit, Volume 1 by John D. Rateliff the thing they're looking for.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was second in our recent poll for a Group Read. With the spring choice of The Silmarillion well under way, here's your summer reading.

As many of us will have read The Hobbit multiple time, and possibly quite recently, I've also queued up an alternative, as you will see from the Group Reads folder.

I like the scene where Beren stands before Thingol to claim Lúthien, saying "Even now a Silmaril is in my hand." Thingol tells him to show it to prove he's completed his quest; Beren shows first his empty left hand, then the stump where Carcharoth bit off the hand holding the jewel. Class!

Continuing with comparisons, I thought Thingol's demand that Beren complete a seemingly impossible quest in order to win Lúthien's hand had elements about it of The Mabinogion story, Culhwch and Olwen. There's obviously the quest itself, set by a father with the intention that the upstart hero will be killed rather than marry his daughter. Olwen means "White Path" in Welsh because of the white flowers that grew wherever she walked, and Lúthien also has that attribute. Then the ravaging of the land by Carcharoth is similar to the destruction visited upon Britain by the great boar, Twrch Trwyth during Culhwch's hunting of the beast.

Razmatus wrote: "btw the scene from Akallabeth, where Sauron rises a hill with a temple and makes himself be worshipped by ppl... thats like Satan in Paradise Lost, who raised a mountain in Heaven to match the one ..."

That's an interesting comparison. I've got Paradise Lost to read, but doubt it will be this year.

The Ainur are those beings which sprang from the thought of Ilúvatar, of whom the more powerful were the Valar, the lesser the Maiar.

I've been so taken up with reading The Silmarillion that I've forgotten to post anything much about it. So now that I've almost finished, I will punish you all with a few random thoughts ;-)

Ainulindalë: The Music of the Ainur brought to my mind some pieces by the modern classical composer, György Ligeti, probably best known (and how I came across him) for a couple of his pieces used in the soundtrack for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The First Theme brings to my mind Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, with its ethereal harmonies. Melkor's interpolations of his own thoughts into the Second Theme is like Aventures, with its sudden, strange interjections of voice, but still having an overall cohesion. Then the third theme is like "Atmosphères", with its slow quite build to overpowering peaks and troughs of sound.

I doubt Tolkien would have been influenced by Ligeti, and the latter wrote these pieces before The Silmarillion was published. But for me, the sets of work have enriched the other and enhanced my appreciation of both: as Yavanna says, All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.

No offence taken, and I think we probably all read other authors, but I think you're preaching to the wrong congregation. Tolkien is Lord!

:-D

Gundula wrote: "Michael wrote: "Just completed the chapter, Of Beleriand and its Realms, which took a relatively long time as I kept referring to the map to guide me through and put the geographical description in..."

I've got the Atlas, and have been referring to that, too, but have found it easier to have the map on my laptop rather than juggling two books - I'll need to be reading the Atlas as a work soon, rather than dipping into it as reference.

Just completed the chapter, Of Beleriand and its Realms, which took a relatively long time as I kept referring to the map to guide me through and put the geographical description in context. That's not a criticism as I love books with maps.

In order that I don't wear out the map in my book by constantly unfolding/refolding it, I've downloaded a high resolution version from here and keep my laptop nearby as a reference.

How far through is anybody else?

There's a beautiful passage near the beginning of the Quenta Silmarillion (page 40 in the original edition) regarding Ulmo:

And thus it was by the power of Ulmo that even under the darkness of Melkor life coursed still through many secret lodes, and the Earth did not die; and to all who were lost in that darkness or wandered far from the light of the Valar the ear of Ulmo was ever open; nor has he ever forsaken Middle-earth, and whatsoever may since have befallen of ruin or change he has not ceased to take thought for it, and will not until the end of days.

Ulmo is the Vala with command of the seas and of the waters above and beneath the earth. He tends to solitude and rarely interacts with the other Valar, and yet in this passage, Tolkien illuminates the great compassion he holds for all the Children of Ilúvatar.

Actually, I'm inclined to agree with you there, Tim: Ainur/Valar considered as lesser gods and Maiar as angelic. However, I would stress "considered as", as I still feel (only my interpretation, of course) that ultimately, all of these beings, as emanations of Eru, The One, are part of a monadic godhead.

I'd base that partly on the beginning of the Valaquenta: Of the Valar, where it says of the Valar, "...and Men have often called them gods," implying that they are not necessarily so.

As creators, the Valar are materialising the vision given to them in the Ainulindalë, and so may be cognate with the Demiurge of Gnosticism.

Again, I agree that it is wrong to look for direct analogies: Tolkien was combining and re-shaping concepts from many traditions, but comparing themes from those traditions with his finished work is certainly fruitful. This is probably why we're all in love with Tolkien's work: like the best literature, it has many levels, can mean different things to different people, and even more than one thing to the same person.

Tolkien's purpose with The Silmarillion and LoTR was to create an English national epic or mythology, given that anything we had went unrecorded apart from odd survivals in legends and folklore. That effort would necessarily be non-Christian so, as an imaginative exercise, I'd think that Tolkien would be able to give himself free-rein.

I've always thought of the Ainur and Valar as angelic-type beings rather than deities.

Tim wrote: "Michael wrote: "So, are the Ainur separate entities, or are they really aspects of the one, indivisible deity, playing out a kind of psycho-drama?"

They're separate entities, or at least that's wh..."

The Ainur seem to me similar to, if not identical with, figures from Gnostic belief: Aeons, which are emanations of the one God and which partake of certain qualities of the godhead, but in a limited fashion. So, they are separate and independent beings, but they owe their existence to the One, of which they are part. This seems pretty much like Ilúvatar and the Ainur.

I'm not saying that they are exactly correspondent (it's been too long since I last read The Silmarillion to say that at the point to which I've currently read), but there are certainly similarities. I'm pretty sure that Tolkien would have been familiar with Gnostic ideas - does anybody know?

I've just started on our Group Read, and in the very first paragraph, Tolkien has something interesting to say: The Ainur are the offspring of the thoughts of Ilúvatar and they comprehend only that part of his mind from which they are sprung.

So, are the Ainur separate entities, or are they really aspects of the one, indivisible deity, playing out a kind of psycho-drama?

Or maybe The Silmarillion could be read in more human, Jungian terms as the fragmentation of the Self, with the promise of a re-integration to come? (I've only read a little Jung, so this could be way off base :-))