The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post

jallanite · 06-02-2015, 08:32 PM

HoME was for me a must-read. I didn’t like The Silmarillion much when it first came out, but the Book of Lost Tales, the first two volumes of the HoME series, gave me much of what I then felt I was missing in The Silmarillion.

The writing was fuller and more detailed and more poetic, with even bits of real poetry, at least more than in the published Silmarillion. That it was more archaic in style did not bother me at all. I was used to reading archaic prose, such as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the fantasy novels of William Morris, the fantasy novels of William Hope Hodgson, and various other works, so that archaic English hardly registered with me as being archaic.

I felt that Christopher Tolkien ought to have merged the text of the Book of Lost Tales into the published Silmarillion.

Years later I realized why this was impossible, at least for someone so fixed on putting out the work of his father and only the work of his father with no additions or changes. The very names no longer fitted. The Gnomish language used for the seven names of the city of Gondolin no longer fitted with Sindarin as revised. True, readers would mostly not pick up on such apparent ephemera, but much of the charm of Tolkien’s work is the feeling that came through that Tolkien had cared deeply about such apparent ephemera. That it did matter.

So what we have is what is possible: the record of what Tolkien thought years before The Silmarillion was published, somethling that Christopher Tolkien himself did not think was possible, until he found himself forced to defend the position that the published Silmarillion was indeed mainly his father’s work and not mainly something quickly cobbled together by himself and an assistant, really their invention.

And HoME was an immense publishing success. Originally published only in hard-cover only for hoped-for specialists, it proved popular enough to unexpectedly jump into paperback and to reach twelve volumes, to stay in print and stay in print. In 2000–01, the twelve volumes were republished in three limited edition omnibus volumes. Non-deluxe editions of the three volumes were published in 2002.

The HoME series seems to me to have been possibly more of a publishing success than most fantasy books.

06-02-2015, 08:32 PM	#13
jallanite Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 479	HoME was for me a must-read. I didn’t like The Silmarillion much when it first came out, but the Book of Lost Tales, the first two volumes of the HoME series, gave me much of what I then felt I was missing in The Silmarillion. The writing was fuller and more detailed and more poetic, with even bits of real poetry, at least more than in the published Silmarillion. That it was more archaic in style did not bother me at all. I was used to reading archaic prose, such as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the fantasy novels of William Morris, the fantasy novels of William Hope Hodgson, and various other works, so that archaic English hardly registered with me as being archaic. I felt that Christopher Tolkien ought to have merged the text of the Book of Lost Tales into the published Silmarillion. Years later I realized why this was impossible, at least for someone so fixed on putting out the work of his father and only the work of his father with no additions or changes. The very names no longer fitted. The Gnomish language used for the seven names of the city of Gondolin no longer fitted with Sindarin as revised. True, readers would mostly not pick up on such apparent ephemera, but much of the charm of Tolkien’s work is the feeling that came through that Tolkien had cared deeply about such apparent ephemera. That it did matter. So what we have is what is possible: the record of what Tolkien thought years before The Silmarillion was published, somethling that Christopher Tolkien himself did not think was possible, until he found himself forced to defend the position that the published Silmarillion was indeed mainly his father’s work and not mainly something quickly cobbled together by himself and an assistant, really their invention. And HoME was an immense publishing success. Originally published only in hard-cover only for hoped-for specialists, it proved popular enough to unexpectedly jump into paperback and to reach twelve volumes, to stay in print and stay in print. In 2000–01, the twelve volumes were republished in three limited edition omnibus volumes. Non-deluxe editions of the three volumes were published in 2002. The HoME series seems to me to have been possibly more of a publishing success than most fantasy books.