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Review: Tolkien's World
Tolkien's World, The Paintings of Middle Earth, coincides with the centenary of his birth. More than a dozen artists, already famous for their interpretations of Tolkien landscapes, some newcomers to the trilogy, have created more than 50 paintings published therein ($15 from Harper Collins).
The full-page images are all illustrated with text from Tolkien's works, and they bring the stories to life in a way that is sometimes dark, sometimes lively, usually haunting. The book is clearly organized -- text on the left, painting on the right.
At the end, the artists -- they are from all over the world -- explain their interpretations and drawings and where applicable, their personal experiences with the trilogy. For a Tolkien afficionado, it's immensely satisfying to match your own imagination against those of artists like Michael Hague and Roger Garland. John Howe's "The Great Goblin" is amazing, and Inger Edelfelt has painted a stark, strange and simplistic "Gollum." As the Hobbit himself put it, "deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum -- as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face." There is more good writing in that paragraph than in plenty of fictional and mythological tales.
"Thorin, Prisoner of the Elves," "The Arkenstone," "Frodo and Gandalf." "The Haven of Morionde," "The Brandywine River " -- the collection will intrigue readers who want to prep for the movie, or newcomers who want a sense of what Tolkien's worlds might look like. It would also work beautifully for kids.
The art is uneven -- certain painters' images might not square with your own. But some, like Ted Nasmith's "Glittering Caves of Aglarond," or John Howe's "Gandalf," will make you want to frame them and hang them up. Tolkien's World is a first-rate creative achievement.
Why, oh why, can't JonKatz do some very basic research? The Silmarillion was never finished; Tolkien worked on it for many decades (even on the month he died), before and after the other books. After his death 1973 his son Christopher edited and published the material.
1) Started: Silmarillion
2) Started and completed: Hobbit
3) Started and completed: LOTR
4) Tolkien Died
5) Christopher Tolkien and Guy Kay compile Silmarillion
Katz writes:
after World War II,
"The Hobbit" was published in 1937. World War II ended in 1945.
The Silmarillion (or, rather, Quenta Silmarillion[1]) was a work that was never definably "started" and never really "finished" in the sense of most books. Tolkien began writing the stories that *eventually became* the Quenta Silmarillion long before The Hobbit. There are several references in The Hobbit to places or events in Quenta Silmarillion (eg: Gondolin, Glamdring), but he didn't, at first, consider the two works as sharing the same "universe". Later, in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien merged the worlds of The Hobbit with that of Quenta Silmarillion. There are still some remaining inaccuracties/contradictions, though.
[1] While Quenta Silmarillion consists of the vast majority of the published work The Silmarillion, the book is actually a collection of several inependent works: The Ainulindale, The Valaquenta, Quenta Silmarillion, and Akallabeth.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
There's a very good book "An Introduction To Elvish" (Ed. Jim Allen), that I used to borrow from my University library....
Tom.
Oh arse
I don't believe that Tolkien would have agreed that his family convinced him to write about more worldly events. Tolkien and the other Inklings (esp Lewis and Williams) were quick to say that they were using man's ability as a sub-creator (below God) and not corrolating any of their mythology to wordly events. Especially denied were any connections between The Lord of the Rings and any wars during the 20th century.
Frodo was indeed young, the Lord Of the Rings starts out with him at 33 (and Bilbo at "eleventy-one", or 111). 33 was considered to be just "coming of age," so it would equate with about 18 or 21 in human years (emotionally speaking), but of course hobbits are small, so a youngish hobbit would look like a young child.
Agreed. It's high time it happened.
But what should it be?
* A simple gold ring? (the merest of trinkets)
* A small icon of a hobbit (cf. GNU)?
* "LotR" letters?
* A v. small pic of tolkien + pipe (cf. biography pic)
I vote for the gold ring. simple, effective, and we *know* what it signifies.
any other suggestions?
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
I'll have to disagree with you. IIRC, didn't Pippin and Merry get mistaken for children while in Gondor? And it's not like the Gondorians didn't know what dwarves were and looked like. This tells me they should look more like human children than dwarves.
He made another common error as well. To quote Douglas Anderson, who wrote the 'Note on the Text' published in the 1994 Harper Collins edition of Lord of the Rings:
"The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, sometimes published in three volumes."
This fact is confirmed by Tolkien in his Foreward, where he often refers the tale as one large volume.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
Tolkien had his own symbol, composed of the J, R, R and T, which looked like a candle. You'd think that'd be the obvious choice.
toeslikefingers.com - because