LOTR Fan Club | J.R.R Tolkien Reading/discussion group discussion
ˋ°•*⁀➷Start Here!!
>
Favorite book by J.R.R. Tolkien
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Teuntje
(new)
Apr 15, 2024 10:56PM
I like the return of the king the most. I also love The Hobbit.
reply
|
flag
The Lord of the Rings (which was always supposed to be a single book, not three volumes, but paper costs in the UK in 1954/55 would have meant a single volume would have cost customers about £108 in 2024 terms, so JRRT had to concede that it had to be split into 3 volumes, even though the book pairs were never created with that in mind - and he was never happy with The Two Towers as Books III and IV don’t relate to each other at all and he was far from certain which particular two towers were being referred to). Away from Middle-earth I’d always recommend Smith of Wootton Major ❤️, Leaf by Niggle and Farmer Giles of Ham.
Beren and Lúthien, with its epic verse story telling is also a new favourite.
M wrote: "Angus wrote: "The Lord of the Rings (which was always supposed to be a single book, not three volumes, but paper costs in the UK in 1954/55 would have meant a single volume would have cost customer..."Hi M. Despite Tolkien being very clear in the introduction to LotR that he disliked allegory and avoided it I believe most Tolkien scholars see Leaf by Niggle as being really quite allegorical. It can be read in a number of different ways, one of the obvious ones given his great devotion to the Roman Catholic faith (driven in part by how badly his protestant relatives treated his mother after she converted, and then her early death) is the idea of life, death, purgatory and heaven. Another interesting one is the idea that it reflects his own obsession with detail and the way he would continually re-work his ideas instead of finishing off the basic story first and also instead of doing some of the academic work he had said he would do (although he never neglected his under graduates and indeed did a lot more classes than he was obliged to). Christopher Tolkien had an absolutely massive job to do, working through his father's papers and continually re-worked and often contradictory versions of the same stories in order to produce The Silmarillion and later works. When Tolkien and his colleagues shared their works in groups such as The Inklings C.S. Lewis reported that JRRT only had two responses to criticism - he either ignored it altogether or went to the other extreme of reworking the whole thing from scratch.
It's easy to find discussions on Leaf on the net if you want to read more about it.
I really recommend Smith of Wootton Major to everyone - it's a lovely little story which I have re-read many times. It was written in 1967, just 6 years before he died, and does reflect an old man's sense of loss about things he can now never re-capture. (Interestingly, Terry Pratchett wrote JRRT a fan letter saying how he had found it moving in a way he found hard to describe and he received a response by return post saying that Tolkien felt the same way.
M wrote: "Angus wrote: "M wrote: "Angus wrote: "The Lord of the Rings (which was always supposed to be a single book, not three volumes, but paper costs in the UK in 1954/55 would have meant a single volume ..."Hi M.
Humphrey Carpenter's is the only official biography of JRRT and I've never seen anything which tries to challenge the veracity of what he wrote. I am aware that there are other bios out there now, but I haven't read any and I've seen some criticism that claims some of them have basic facts wrong but I have no personal knowledge of them. Carpenter would definitely be my starting point - I've read it a number of times and it is a very well written, easy read. It's one of the books I have written a personal review for in Goodreads. He had at least met JRRT for one thing. It was first published in 1977, so predates the Peter Jackson films and the massive upsurge in interest in all things Tolkien since then by some 25 years.
I will say that I understood much more of it reading it as a 60 year old than I did as a 14 year old, the basic facts certainly went in at 14, but not so much the emotional response and deeper comprehension of his motivations. One thing that stands out, and you will know this if you've read The Father Christmas Letters, is that he was obviously an extremely loving and caring father. The love story of him and Edith is also very touching.
I'd also recommend reading his published Letters. I have an original copy from 1981 but I know an extended version has since been issued. There is a particular letter, #340 in my 1981 version, which Christopher Tolkien also refers to in the introduction to Beren and Luthien. Within it JRRT talks about wanting Luthien put on Edith's gravestone and there is an utterly heartbreaking passage where he says "But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos." It makes me tear up just writing this now.
Mod
Ah I love this! That is so true!!!
Mod
As i read it when i was a child and loved it then, (although it was then in dutch, and i have now since read it in English) i will say the hobbit. But it is hard to choose
Beren and Luthien for me ☺️ such a sad beautiful tale.
The Two Towers is my favorite out of the LOTR books, but I think the Hobbit is my overall favorite!
The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings
