21st Century Tolkien

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by davem

There are more reasons, other than just the story becoming too dark & upsetting, for saying 'Shut the book now, dad, we don't want to read any more.' Me, I often wish I was still back in the pre-Sil days, with just my original paperbacks of LotR & TH on the shelf (Oh, & Smith, of course).

Not me.

Shippey, Flieger, edhc... well, I can take them or leave them- and generally I leave them.

But not have the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, or the HoME? I'd rather lose the Lord of the Rings than the Silmarillion at this stage in my fandom. That bittersweet feeling of the Fall of Noldor, the endless progression of defeat after defeat until the final and sudden eucatastrope of Eärendil... it comes to mean more to mean than the success of Frodo.

Mind you, I dearly love the Tale of the Ring- but I love it far more in the context of the Silmarillion. Having read the Akallabêth, I am far more in love with mystique of fading Gondor and the Dúnedain of the North than otherwise. Knowing the Lay of Leithien, I am far more enamoured of Arwen than I would be if all I knew were what lay covers of the RotK.

I have no use for critics or experts... but the whole of Middle-Earth, from the Book of Lost Tales to Tal-Elmar, and all the tales of Hobbits, Elves, and Men that lie between are a part of my fannishness.