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Title: The History of the Lord of the Rings by Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN: 0-618-08355-3 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: September, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The DVD of the Book
Comment: The advent of DVD technology increased what many of us expect to get out of a movie. When I buy a movie I love on DVD, I expect to get as much extra data as possible. I want to see the original drafts of the script, I want to hear the director and writer talking about the movie, I want to see a 'making of' documentary and all the deleted scenes that never made it to the final version.
This is *precisley* what you get with this compendium of Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth. Unlike the previous volumes that cover the actual internal history and chronology of Middle Earth in the same way the books of Lost Tales did, this series details the *writing* of the Lord of the Rings. We *see* Tolkien's thought processes as he figured out what happens next. We watch as Aragon shows up with the unlikely name of Trotter. We watch Frodo get moved around so much that, by the time he's recognizable to us as the character in the novel, he's had several names and other characters have had his name!
We see the *entire plotline* surrounding Saruman's defection from the Council, one of-if not *the*- major subplots of the novel arise out of Tokien's problems with the Nazgul. If the Nazgul are going to chase Frodo and Co. around on the way to Rivendell, Gandalf *can't be there*. Otherwise he'd just smack the Nazgul around. Ok, where can Gandalf be? Hmm. . .he'd have to be *captured* by someone if he couldn't make it to defend Frodo. And so the entire notion of Saruman takes form.
This is more than just a fascinating examination of the development of a famous novel; it's a lesson on how books are written. About the endless series of compromises that must be made to get the story into print.
Two points you should consider, though. This is not *fun* to read, it's not remotely entertaining. It's not *meant* as entertainment, it's mean as a scholarly examination of the development of a novel. Christopher Tolkien is occasionally casual; he'll say; "Then father wrote something I honestly can't figure out and doesn't make any sense to me." Fair enough, but that's about as engaging as this gets. If you pick this up, be prepared to read it like a textbook.
Secondly, Christopher Tolkien is necessarily bound by the things his father thought were important. Gargantuan volumes of text are devoted to following his father's obsession with working out the precise timeline, often down to the hour and minute, things occurred in the story. I don't think this is going to be interesting to anyone except another Tolkien scholar. I don't think the timeline is that important in the first place, so I can't honestly say that it was interesting watching its development.
But you shouldn't let these two things stop you. Some advice; skip the parts that are boring to you. Each book has a hell of an index. Start leafing through it, looking for interesting subjects. I was fascinated by the development of the Palantir. Much time is spent talking about the different drafts, but we don't need to know when the different drafts were written, or why, just that there *were* different drafts. I was able to learn a lot about the development of the Palantir just by reading that section, without understanding the nature of the different drafts of the story.
The whole series is filled with this stuff. It's worth it alone for the development of the poem Errantry, which Bilbo recites in the house of Elrond. Great stuff!!
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating, but not for newbies
Comment: This three-book set (plus a small fourth book) is an amazing look at the thought processes of one of the greatest writers of this century. The reader sees how a loose jumble of ideas was molded into possibly the most complex cosmology of all time.
In the beginning of Tolkien's conceptions for the Lord of the Rings, it was to be just a sequel to the Hobbit. Frodo was named Bingo, the name Frodo was assigned to another character, and Aragorn and the Nazgul were nameless characters hovering on the edge of Tolkien's imagination.
However, these books are definitely not for those who have just watched the movie...and probably not for those who have only read the books once. Only a truly devoted Tolkien fan will find them anything but boring.
But if you have read the books a lot, are deeply interested in the chronology, geography, etc. as it developed, this is an enthralling insight into literary genius, as well as a manual for those of us interested in doing a little writing of our own.
Rating: 3
Summary: for the die hard tolkein fan
Comment: I bought the set out of curiosity and, for one, was disappointed.
It reminded me of writing college term papers a long time ago. Things underwent so many revisions that the finished product bore little resemblance to the original effort. I felt so labored at the end that I wanted only to hand the thing in and never see it again. Now, I truly enjoy The Lord of The Rings as it is but I simply couldn't find myself interested in a history of someone else's labored revisions.
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Title: Histories of Middle Earth, Volumes 1-5 by J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN: 0345466454 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $32.97 |
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Title: The Peoples of Middle-Earth (The History of Middle-Earth - Volume 12) by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien ISBN: 0395827604 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Unfinished Tales: The Lost Lore of Middle-earth by J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN: 0345357116 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 12 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN: 0345325818 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 12 January, 1985 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Morgoth's Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One (The History of Middle-Earth - Volume 10) by Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien ISBN: 0395680921 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 14 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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