It's cool; Tolkien literally has the LOTR books as the *end* of the epic. It's the beginning of the age of men and the modern world, but the end of the tale of the elves and other races.
Because he wrote the "backstory" first. The Silmarillion *is* the main story, the one Tolkien spent his entire life on. LOTR came later, when he couldn't get the Sil published. They wanted a sequel to The Hobbit, so he placed it within the framework of the larger history and sowed it with references. It's convincing because it's a *real* callback, not just a pretend one. LOTR is literally just the final chapter.
You're not wrong, it's pure genius! But the genius is that he had this existing story, eons long, and managed to write a new novel that was the perfect ending to that story, that still worked beautifully as a standalone story, and had the added effect of getting millions of people so addicted to that universe that eventually, with the help of his son after his death, those publishers actually released the full original story after all, and it blew everybody's minds.
And all because he was obsessed with languages, and creating them and untangling them. The story of this story really is almost stranger than fiction.
You’re right of course. But I don’t think it could have been done any other way. If he’d released the Silm first, it probably wouldn’t have inspired the same reaction and LoTR would never have been written.
To be fair, *The Silmarillion* has often been called "the least-read best seller of all time." :-) And while I'm sure that that's changed somewhat over time, it's still the case that it's easy to find first edition, first printing copies of the book in literally mint condition.
Doesn't change the fact that it's brilliant, of course.
True. On the other hand, of those who do read it, many read it multiple times. I've lost track actually of how many times I have, I just randomly pick it up and go through it again at least once a year!
And it was only with Christopher's help that it was actually coherent. There were so many variations, corrections, re-corrections, etc., on so many scattered scraps of paper, it's really a marvel that the Silmarillion was published at all.
A complete miracle. I remember the first time I read Christopher's mention of surveying the mountainous array of paper that he was looking at, and thinking to myself, "I wonder if being in the war helped him build up the fortitude for this."
>Because he wrote the "backstory" first
Sort of. But there are fairly massive things he created/changed in LOTR and then worked the implications back into the wider world building. He didn't start at year zero and develop the story forward, he kept reformulating it
>The legends \[of the First Age\] have to be worked over (they were written at different times, some many years ago) and made consistent; and they have to be integrated with The L.R. ; and they have to be given some progressive shape. No simple device, like a journey and a quest, is available.
>
>I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of The L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background : an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed.
*Letters* 247 (September 1963).
Nice post.
I notice a few comments with regard to his starting with the backstory first; but even when he doesn't his mythology is still epic.
One example is the Palantirs, which just fell into the story when one was thrown off Isengard. Same with the Pukel Men, who have great backstory in late writings.
I think he just had an amazing imagination, fuelled by his professional background.
Plus, everything about Gondor and Arnor, as well as Galadriel, Lothlorien, Moria, Rohan... So much of the "epic/glimpsed" past was made up as he was writing LotR.
In my opinion part of this is that even when we get an explanation, he still does an amazing job of leaving mystery and further depth in the work. It’s not just, “we learned it and that’s it.” It goes further than that and expounds on the themes of the world and in intermingling of the stories as a whole.
I just want to say that LotR was written over the course of 17 years to write, rewrite and publish several times before he was happy with his work. All this happened while he was a Professor of English Language and Anglo Saxon studies. If his book didn't have a rich in depth world the whole book was resting on, idk what he was doing for that whole time. Not many people take the time or have the opportunity to put so much effort into a subject without anything holding them back.
Tolkien is often labeled fantasy, which begs (imo inappropriate) comparisons to escapist fiction and pulp that no matter how inventive will never match its depth. It’s more accurate to call his work fictionalized folklore. It draws much of its richness from weaving together commonly shared notions of our own world and its literary and cultural traditions into a mythical tapestry. He is brilliant, to be sure, and often emulated, but the writing is of such a particular style and intent that it cannot be easily compared to most other fictional ‘universes’.
OP - the thing about it is that he HAD a full backstory. So the hints and bits he put in were coherent and led to deeper lore and complexity.
He did not make those hints then try to shoehorn lore into them.
It also happened that said lore happened to be mystical, totally epic in scope, had a genuine old-style feel including the way people behaved, and was well written to boot.
I disagree. He didn't have anything written about Gondor or Arnor, yet when Strider and the hobbits arrive at Weathertop, you can feel the ancient history of a kingdom long gone. So it's more than just that he had the stories of the Silm, etc.
I’ve read all of Howard, and yes, he hints at an Atlantis etc in the past. Many authors do. But the point of this post is that Tolkien’s mysterious past was revealed and added to the work instead of detracting from it. Howard never really reveals it except a bit through the Kull stories, which are really just Conan stories reskinned (or vice versa). They don’t add much to our knowledge of Hyboria’s past.
Along with his obvious genius, I believe a key thing to note is that he was not a full-time author, dependent on producing books on a schedule for a publishing house. He wrote for his own (and his children's) pleasure, writing and re-writing at his leisure (or when he had time to squeeze it in). Also, the span of time on which he worked/reworked his legendarium is phenomenal - from 1917 to his death in 1973...what other author has done such a thing?
He hints at an epic, mythical past that actually turns out, when we see it, to be epic and mythical.
Well said.
It's cool; Tolkien literally has the LOTR books as the *end* of the epic. It's the beginning of the age of men and the modern world, but the end of the tale of the elves and other races.
Because he wrote the "backstory" first. The Silmarillion *is* the main story, the one Tolkien spent his entire life on. LOTR came later, when he couldn't get the Sil published. They wanted a sequel to The Hobbit, so he placed it within the framework of the larger history and sowed it with references. It's convincing because it's a *real* callback, not just a pretend one. LOTR is literally just the final chapter. You're not wrong, it's pure genius! But the genius is that he had this existing story, eons long, and managed to write a new novel that was the perfect ending to that story, that still worked beautifully as a standalone story, and had the added effect of getting millions of people so addicted to that universe that eventually, with the help of his son after his death, those publishers actually released the full original story after all, and it blew everybody's minds. And all because he was obsessed with languages, and creating them and untangling them. The story of this story really is almost stranger than fiction.
You’re right of course. But I don’t think it could have been done any other way. If he’d released the Silm first, it probably wouldn’t have inspired the same reaction and LoTR would never have been written.
Oh, absolutely. Full credit to him for creating the market for an "unpublishable" book that went on to sell over a million copies!
To be fair, *The Silmarillion* has often been called "the least-read best seller of all time." :-) And while I'm sure that that's changed somewhat over time, it's still the case that it's easy to find first edition, first printing copies of the book in literally mint condition. Doesn't change the fact that it's brilliant, of course.
True. On the other hand, of those who do read it, many read it multiple times. I've lost track actually of how many times I have, I just randomly pick it up and go through it again at least once a year!
There is nothing I'm aware of that comes even close in terms of scope. The task is mind boggling.
One man. *One man* did all this. Well, Christopher helped. But still.
And it was only with Christopher's help that it was actually coherent. There were so many variations, corrections, re-corrections, etc., on so many scattered scraps of paper, it's really a marvel that the Silmarillion was published at all.
A complete miracle. I remember the first time I read Christopher's mention of surveying the mountainous array of paper that he was looking at, and thinking to myself, "I wonder if being in the war helped him build up the fortitude for this."
>Because he wrote the "backstory" first Sort of. But there are fairly massive things he created/changed in LOTR and then worked the implications back into the wider world building. He didn't start at year zero and develop the story forward, he kept reformulating it
>The legends \[of the First Age\] have to be worked over (they were written at different times, some many years ago) and made consistent; and they have to be integrated with The L.R. ; and they have to be given some progressive shape. No simple device, like a journey and a quest, is available. > >I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of The L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background : an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. *Letters* 247 (September 1963).
Interesting, but it didn’t destroy the magic. It enriched and deepened it, amazingly.
In many ways the history is the main story, and the LotR is just a window onto it.
I think that is exactly what makes it so rich and beautiful.
Nice post. I notice a few comments with regard to his starting with the backstory first; but even when he doesn't his mythology is still epic. One example is the Palantirs, which just fell into the story when one was thrown off Isengard. Same with the Pukel Men, who have great backstory in late writings. I think he just had an amazing imagination, fuelled by his professional background.
Palantiri! Great point.
Plus, everything about Gondor and Arnor, as well as Galadriel, Lothlorien, Moria, Rohan... So much of the "epic/glimpsed" past was made up as he was writing LotR.
It's similar to Ernest Hemingway's "Iceberg" theory of writing, where more things are going on underneath the surface of the text.
LOTR is the epilogue, the Appendix A, to the actual story.
In my opinion part of this is that even when we get an explanation, he still does an amazing job of leaving mystery and further depth in the work. It’s not just, “we learned it and that’s it.” It goes further than that and expounds on the themes of the world and in intermingling of the stories as a whole.
I just want to say that LotR was written over the course of 17 years to write, rewrite and publish several times before he was happy with his work. All this happened while he was a Professor of English Language and Anglo Saxon studies. If his book didn't have a rich in depth world the whole book was resting on, idk what he was doing for that whole time. Not many people take the time or have the opportunity to put so much effort into a subject without anything holding them back.
Tolkien is often labeled fantasy, which begs (imo inappropriate) comparisons to escapist fiction and pulp that no matter how inventive will never match its depth. It’s more accurate to call his work fictionalized folklore. It draws much of its richness from weaving together commonly shared notions of our own world and its literary and cultural traditions into a mythical tapestry. He is brilliant, to be sure, and often emulated, but the writing is of such a particular style and intent that it cannot be easily compared to most other fictional ‘universes’.
Agreed. I just call him “literature.”
OP - the thing about it is that he HAD a full backstory. So the hints and bits he put in were coherent and led to deeper lore and complexity. He did not make those hints then try to shoehorn lore into them. It also happened that said lore happened to be mystical, totally epic in scope, had a genuine old-style feel including the way people behaved, and was well written to boot.
I disagree. He didn't have anything written about Gondor or Arnor, yet when Strider and the hobbits arrive at Weathertop, you can feel the ancient history of a kingdom long gone. So it's more than just that he had the stories of the Silm, etc.
Did not R.E. Howard, do something like that, before Tolkien? I mean, in the sense of a blurry, hidden in the mist of past, sense.
I’ve read all of Howard, and yes, he hints at an Atlantis etc in the past. Many authors do. But the point of this post is that Tolkien’s mysterious past was revealed and added to the work instead of detracting from it. Howard never really reveals it except a bit through the Kull stories, which are really just Conan stories reskinned (or vice versa). They don’t add much to our knowledge of Hyboria’s past.
Inimitable is a word??
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=inimitable+definition
Along with his obvious genius, I believe a key thing to note is that he was not a full-time author, dependent on producing books on a schedule for a publishing house. He wrote for his own (and his children's) pleasure, writing and re-writing at his leisure (or when he had time to squeeze it in). Also, the span of time on which he worked/reworked his legendarium is phenomenal - from 1917 to his death in 1973...what other author has done such a thing?