LMP/Davem are spot on for me. You guys have the gift of consise gab! Here is my take:
The crafting of the
published work incorporated all the authors aforementioned skills, resulting in a work that is both heavy as a freight train and subtle as feather. I am walking in fairie when I read LOTR.
We all become literary scholars of a sort with HOME and UT. Its how we each use that information that's the difference. The gift for us was the subcreation. Now that its inside my own personal universe, HOME and UT merely fill in the empty gaps and plug a few holes. But it's the joy of creativity of the author that I encompass when I take on these books. I am wrapping my head around the creative process as I read how the author tried to wrap his head around his creation. Otherwise for me, its as dry as any other literary breakdown that an academic is attempting on another's creation.
The Silm has to be taken for what it's worth. Like other threads have concluded: it was better than nothing.
I read through it, and imagine an ancient tome that has weathered and decayed to a point that half (if not most) of its contents are missing, and I must be carefull as I turn the brittle pages (or enchantment), as I read the primeval elvish histories. If you want Histoy, then don't expect a Tale, or a Myth. What you will get ultimately is page after page of what's in the appendixes - which I truly enjoy myself, because it adds to the enchantment - it doesn't detract from it, and it certainly doesnt stand on it's own feet.
Heres a timely analogy of continuity: Lucas had a rough story line for all 9 episodes when he cranked out the 1st Star Wars movie (Ep 4), never really imagining the tremendous popularity of that original work. But, when it comes to enchantment, do the other episodes (other than mabye Ep 5) come even close to the original? Does all the merchandise, books, techie manuals adnauseum that the scifi fans consume to "fill in the blanks" do anything for those other movies as far as treatment of the medium (cinema)? Then factor in time (the original premise being a fairie tale set in space- the fall from democracy to empirialsim a morality tale based on the Vietnam war), and success (ewoks and JarJar
), then you have a comptletely different critter than the original. In fact, for me, it did evaporate the rare, effusive enchantment of the original work. The blush is off the rose, and the dew has dried...