More! More! More!

[Kuruharan]

We sort of touched on this in the "Wrong Kind of Details" thread of many moons ago.

The short answer to the question is "yes, I think the glimpses are one of the best qualities of the works." It is important they be glimpses and not expositions for a few reasons. First, the glimpses help maintain that air of mystery and excitement. Second, and more important from a storytelling perspective, you don't want full-on expositions of unnecessary background information distracting you from the main story.

On the other hand, if I were satisfied with just these glimpses I probably would not be here right now.

did it destroy that magic (for you) that is established in The Lord of the Rings?

That has never been my experience. Obviously my interest in Tolkien's work waxes and wanes over the years but I've never found them to be less magical the more I've come to understand them.

And there will always be material about which we cannot arrive at a definitive answer.

[Lalaith]

The glimpses were definitely not enough for me, and I first read LotR as a seven-year-old.
I was desperate to know more about Valinor and Elbereth, about Feanor's hands at work, about Numenor before its fall, about the Elf-friends of old, the First Age and everything that happened there. I got some from getting a copy of Return of the King from the library with all appendixes complete (my paperback only had the Arwen and Aragorn appendix) but I wasn't truly satisfied until I got hold of the Silmarillion. I was a bit put off when it plunged first into the Ainulindale, (well, I was very young!) but I was delighted by all the stories of the Quenta Sil.
The Unfinished Tales I read much later, and while I really enjoyed them, I didn't have the same sense of urgency, I now knew the answers to most of what I really *needed* to know.

I never got that feeling of wanting more from the Hobbit, however. (Which was the first Tolkien I read) Yes, there was that paragraph about Deep-Elves and Sea-Elves etc, also the swords from Gondolin, but these references didn't have the same glamour, somehow.

But it is interesting, why Tolkien abandoned the attempt to edit the Sil for publication? Was it a classic case of scholarly procrastination - a touch of the Casaubons - or did Allen & Unwin not encourage him as much as they could have done, that the work would have a ready market, which might have put him off?

[Boromir88]

Great posts, Lal and Kuru.

On the other hand, if I were satisfied with just these glimpses I probably would not be here right now.

Neither would I.

And it's indeed these glimpses that make LOTR so attracting. We have the main story of this quest motif, filled with stories, songs, and poems of the past. And I think what makes it magical, at least for me, is that it left me with a sense of wanting more. It feuled me into reading more. It was sort of like someone was teasing me feeling...you know, like here's a little bit, but you never got enough.

I think with the Silmarillion it was harder to do that...because with the Silmarillion, he had to write something from the beginning, there were no 'back stories.' And he wasn't able to create this simplistic 'quest/journey' as he puts it, because it all had to tie in and progress to LOTR.

That's also kind of why we had Christopher too, or why Christopher did what he did. In the Foreward to Book of Lost Tales, he talks about all his long hours of putting The Silmarillion together, and all his fathers other writings, was for those who were like him and felt the desire to want more and know more.

I never got that feeling of wanting more from the Hobbit, however.

That's interesting...I wouldn't know though, I think that's because I read LOTR first, then I went to The Hobbit.

But it is interesting, why Tolkien abandoned the attempt to edit the Sil for publication? Was it a classic case of scholarly procrastination - a touch of the Casaubons - or did Allen & Unwin not encourage him as much as they could have done, that the work would have a ready market, which might have put him off?

It was probably a bunch of stuff. He knew that revising the Silmarillion to fit with LOTR was going to be a daunting task, especially since many of his stories were written at different times. Also, he seemed to have been a sickly guy and would remark a lot about falling 'under the weather' and his health began to decline in his later ages...and this really starts effecting him a lot around the time he just kind of let the Silmarillion go:

I never recovered form the confusion of my affairs when I had a terrible bout of fibrositis and neuritis of the arm last October.~Letter 22, (1952)

…my wife’s in creasing ill-health ..has involved me in various distresses since November…In addition the ill will of Mordor decreed that I should lose most of the vital Christmas vacation being ill.~Letter 133 (1953)

In 1959 he retires, and is followed by more health problems:

I am glad to say that we are both rather better this year….I had some treatment last September, and have been free and easy on the legs since, though my usual lumbago afflicted me in June.~Letter 236 (1961)

Then once he reaches the age of 70, in Letters 245, 247, 248, and 250, he talks about his rheumatism in his right arm and hand, and he becomes as 'unbendable as an Ent.'

I don't think he ever lost love for his stories, or a desire to write more. Because in Letter 250, he talks about his health, but rather jokingly compares his 'old/unbendable bones' to the Ents. But, I think getting the Silmarillion ready and out there to get published, compounded with his ailing health, and answering his Letters, he just got more or less tired and bogged down.

(Cross-posted with Squatter)

[alatar]

This post may or may not make a point, obscure or otherwise; be warned.

• Anyone with access to time-travel technology please take a laptop back to the good Professor, one preferably with speak/write and word processing software installed. Ever think what we would have today if we weren't limited by the physical writing process?

• Maybe, after devoting much of his life to Middle Earth, Tolkien wanted to get away from fulfilling the insatiable fan requests and simply just write greeting card text.

• Do we truly want more, or is it that we just want that feeling back that we had when we first read LotR, when we were innocent and Middle Earth was brand new? Is this feeling nothing more than the adrenaline rush that we got when we first walked across Middle Earth with Frodo? Does that not mean that the amount of text that is or could have been provided meaningless as it would never bring back that chemical rush of the 'first time?' Surely if the appendices or the Silmarillion were rubbish, we would lose all hope and possibly move on, but they weren't and so we got strung along a bit longer than usual, letting the addiction/desire gain a better foothold on our hearts. I think that, even if we knew what Beren had for breakfast on the morning that he lost his hand, it still wouldn't be enough.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Do we truly want more, or is it that we just want that feeling back that we had when we first read LotR, when we were innocent and Middle Earth was brand new? Is this feeling nothing more than the adrenaline rush that we got when we first walked across Middle Earth with Frodo?

Good point, alatar, on whether we want to get back to the garden. But in a post-lapsarian world, what are we to do?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and hope it is an entish limb that will catch me should I fall.

To be entirely honest, it wasn't any of Tolkien's glimpses that got me reading more, nor was it Middle-earth itself (herself?). Nor was it the hobbits, who are so endearing, nor Gandalf, who as the Grey is one of the bestest wizards ever. There are two things that have compelled me to delve deeper into Tolkien lore, ever watchful for balrogs along the way.

First, it was Tolkien's essay On Fairie Stories that intrigued me so much I wanted to know more of his brand of fairie. That got me reading the Minor Works and rereading TH. And, then, it was this forum which prompted me to read on, read on. Had I not seen the enthusiasm for the Legendarium and the intense curiosity for The Silm which many of you Downers passionately declare, I might never have bothered to finish The Silm, which I treat as an encyclopedia rather than a story. Even now it remains for me a bit of a curiosity piece rather than a good old fashioned page-turner, which LotR and TH are, for me.

So credit must rightfully belong to you Downers and not only The Professor. It is you also who fuel the magic.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

So credit must rightfully belong to you Downers and not only The Professor. It is you also who fuel the magic.

Interesting. So your desire is external. Think that the first 20 or so times that I read LotR and the Sil that this site didn't even exist; the internet wasn't even created for many of those readings. In my case then the magic was that there was more, and I think that, in retrospect, though I liked the additional information I was in reality chasing that initial thrill in the appendices and Sil. Surely I must have given up on that long ago, but by then I was hooked, in love perhaps, and so the rush wasn't as important.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Interesting. So your desire is external. Think that the first 20 or so times that I read LotR and the Sil that this site didn't even exist; the internet wasn't even created for many of those readings. In my case then the magic was that there was more, and I think that, in retrospect, though I liked the additional information I was in reality chasing that initial thrill in the appendices and Sil. Surely I must have given up on that long ago, but by then I was hooked, in love perhaps, and so the rush wasn't as important.

Oh, I first read LotR and TH looong before the Internet and looong before we knew The Silm! It's The Silm I am mainly referring to here. And in between, I was introduced to Tolkien's academic work, too.

But I don't quite get your distinction between external and internal. Maybe it is all the paint fumes I've been breathing lately, but it seems to me that whether we read internet posts or books on the printed page, that desire is created, is mediated, in the space between the object we read and our eyes.