600,000? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Formendacil · 10-12-2022, 02:02 PM

If you look at the sorts of things Tolkien was producing in the early 1950s renaissance of the Silmarillion (I'm specifically thinking of the Tuor and Túrin texts that went into Unfinished Tales), it's not crazy to think that a whole Silmarillion rewritten to that level of detail compared to the older texts might have been of a similar bulk to The Lord of the Rings: even the little cuts that Christopher made to produce a coherent Silm would add up in parts, and it's quite possible that Tolkien envisaged "the Great Tales" having a Narn-like depth. If you had Beren, Túrin, Tuor, the Fall of Doriath, and Eärendil all of a detail in the ballpark of the Narn, I think he'd get there.

But, of course, he never did--never got close either. Tolkien had a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver on timelines with Allen & Unwin; it would seem to me that he extended that tendency at a dramatic level to Collins here.

10-12-2022, 02:02 PM	#2
Formendacil Dead Serious Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Perched on Thangorodrim's towers. Posts: 3,328	If you look at the sorts of things Tolkien was producing in the early 1950s renaissance of the Silmarillion (I'm specifically thinking of the Tuor and Túrin texts that went into Unfinished Tales), it's not crazy to think that a whole Silmarillion rewritten to that level of detail compared to the older texts might have been of a similar bulk to The Lord of the Rings: even the little cuts that Christopher made to produce a coherent Silm would add up in parts, and it's quite possible that Tolkien envisaged "the Great Tales" having a Narn-like depth. If you had Beren, Túrin, Tuor, the Fall of Doriath, and Eärendil all of a detail in the ballpark of the Narn, I think he'd get there. But, of course, he never did--never got close either. Tolkien had a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver on timelines with Allen & Unwin; it would seem to me that he extended that tendency at a dramatic level to Collins here. __________________ I prefer history, true or feigned.