hello yes I am so here for this thing We're discussing once we move and it's just the three of us in the family again, reinstating nightly readaloud time for the Silmarillion. Kai and I did it years ago when we were living with our poly unit, but it's been years, and Asynch hasn't ever managed to read it on their own. I'd discovered, way back when, that I had an easier time coping with the density of the text if I read it aloud to myself, and things kind of snowballed from there. It's very fun. :)
So i was gonna do a cool sort of thing where I'd draw a bunch of named weapons from the legendarium as types of weapon appropriate to the period they were created in, with like Anduril as a 19th century cavalry saber and working backwards from there. But turns out that that would wind up with the original Narsil, Sting, Orcrist, Gurthang, Glamdring etc. looking about like this 6,500 years is a long time for civilization, kids.
Worth noting that those knives there are made from native copper (i.e. not smelted from ore) Hardly the iron (ang-) that keeps showing up in First Age weapon names.
*Frankensteins thread back to life* AWAKEN. I'm re-reading the trilogy and must nerd out with like-minded folk.
:D Now, to actually contribute to the thread! I'm stupidly excited about Beren and Luthien being released as its own book (although I saw a reference to it as a "Lord of the Rings spinoff" which…no…this thing that was written decades before LOTR is not a spinoff…) not least because it will now be a physical object to throw at people who claim Tolkien didn't write any strong female characters.
The legendarium as a whole is basically an ongoing spitefic against like all literature and myth and language combined. It's also his unabashed love letter to these very things. but god damn does tolkien have opinions on your stories
me, posting about the silmarillion, writing silm fanfic, just sort of generally Acquiring knowledge about feanorians: Ive Never Read The Silmarillion
honestly that's alright with this fucking world Like half the material in it is just academic styled essays anyway so I mean it's already in the spirit of the thing to just gather knowledge and write about them. Especially when the Silm's material is covered in like 15 other fucking books to some degree or another.
ive been explicitly told by several different people that i shouldnt bother reading it. ill probably get around to it eventually but like. not anytime soon. Spoiler: image
I never like the "You shouldn't bother reading it" approach to most anything. Especially not Tolkien. To put it very mildly. It might not end up being your thing and it isn't most people's thing, but honestly it's worth a shot. I personally love the thing but then I have a very high tolerance for religious texts and their type of writing. Which is what you'll be in store for with the Silmarillion. It's also an interesting text from an editing standpoint, since good chunks of it had to be written by his son Christopher in order to get something readable out of it. Older versions of the text can be found in the History of Middle-Earth series which, again, are interesting reads. Some consider them the more canon takes on the text due to the lack of Christopher's own writing. Christopher also does write quite a bit about his process of editing the text into something readable and the timeline of the drafts so if you're really curious about the First Age then reading both the Silmarillion and the various HoME books that deal with older versions of it is for you. Those books also contain what are my favorite bits of writing in the universe, namely things like the Shibboleth of Feanor. Essentially Tolkien wrote several essays as characters in his world that both tell about some thing, often linguistic in nature, and tell a story. The Shibboleth of Feanor is both about the linguistic change of the thorn into an s in Quenya, as well as being a story about the politics of the Noldor and how Feanor's reputation affected his work. Namely because he was such a prick his work was ignored and tossed aside even by people who agreed with his conclusions because they hated him that fucking much.
i know about the linguistic change! i write sauron/thauron interchangeably cause my introduction to silm stuff was through someone who writes the feanorians saying thauron, and i dont think before i write things haha. i think part of the "dont read it" was "you already know most of what it covers anyway" and part was "it's dry" but i dont super mind either, i just dont have the spoons for reading it rn and it's harder for me to focus on ebooks anyway and that's what i have. most of the corner of the fandom i hang around in has also not read the silmarillion, and yet. there is so much silmarillion discussion. it's wonderful. also we spawn fun AUs like "what if the marring of arda was shapeshifting"
Yeah no I find that a bullshit reason to tell someone not to read someone. That's like telling someone not to read another, prettier translation of Beowulf because they've already been told the details. Well, yes, I guess I have read it already but god dammit pretty words are pretty words and are half the reason to read. Granted, I'm a form slut like no other and consider things like essays that are actually stories brilliant because FORM. I tend to avoid the fandom at large. If I do spy at it, I'm mostly looking at the academia side of matters. So journal articles and writeups on things.
oooh yeah that is a good way to words that, thank you. i am interested in the academic side of things but i have 0 idea where to even start
E.L.F's site has an online journal with some articles up for free that you can read. You can also purchase the other print journals if you'd like. Ardalambrion has some articles about the various languages as well. The site is a bit hideous though because it is from an earlier time in the internet's history. I've issues with David Salo's methodology, but he is the one behind the languages heard in the recent films if you're curious. He has written some stuff about the languages. E.L.F. has several reviews detailing his academic dishonesty, but the basics of it are he does not clearly differentiate between what is Tolkien's work and his own work, he outright says that Tolkien is wrong and "corrects" him, and he doesn't admit to it being a Neo-Sindarin. He does however have a very complete Neo-Sindarin that is easily available. And I suppose on that note, it's important to know that you actually cannot fluently speak ANY of the languages. Attempts at making them functional languages based off Tolkien's basis are considered Neo-Sindarins or Neo-Quenyas. If you want JUST Tolkien's material then it is highly recommended that you get all the HoME books E.L.F. mentions as well as LotR and the Silmarillion. Be skeptical of literally everyone writing about his work, languages or otherwise. Tolkienian academics is rife with the same crap all academics is.
The best cases are characters whose names literally keep fucking changing throughout the drafts. One of these cases got mixed up even by Tolkien himself and he basically said fuck it he came back to fucking life and went back to Middle-Earth because I Said So.
i mixed up olorin and orome the other day and got called out about it like. i dont care!!!! it's all the same!!!! i dont know!!!!! i do care. but goddamn is it a pain and a half to keep track of who is who.
