Why do you read HoME?

[Mithadan]

(For those posting in Questionable Thread Titles, I'll propose my own repartee: Because it's not on television).

For those of you who actually read HoME, and I recognize many do not, why do you engage in this exercise? HoME is difficult. Some of it is archaic. It is certainly highly redundant. It is long. Many would argue that it is overly scholarly and inaccessible.

Yet, when I learned that these message boards would be "reborn" (I still haven't figured out what to call it, given the barrow theme here), I did not pick up LoTR, the Hobbit, or even the Silmarillion. Strange, perhaps, because I have not read any of them in a few years. Instead, the first book I grabbed was Morgoth's Ring, Home X. I got to thinking about my motives for doing so and, generally, why I read HoME, which is what prompted this thread.

HoME and I have a very long and changeable history, that I would be delighted to convey in detail. But first I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Inziladun]

I remember seeing The Book of Lost Tales 1 when it was first released, when my father got it from a book club to which he belonged. Though I was well familiar with The Hobbit and LOTR by that time, Lost Tales was incomprehensible, as I hadn't even read The Silmarillion then. Although I have, of course, broadened my Tolkien horizons since by reading the Silm and Unfinished Tales many times over, I haven't had any real desire to pick up Lost Tales again, nor any of the HOME series dealing with First and Second Age matters.

I have actually bought the four HOME volumes about LOTR though, and I find them quite illuminating. Knowing Tolkien's early ideas for the story really does give me an appreciation for the eventual 'finished' product. Also, I've found the answers to some questions I've had.
For instance, I had wondered if Gollum hadn't really committed suicide, consciously or not, when he 'slipped' into the Crack. I found Tolkien had considered and rejected that very idea.
Another interesting tidbit is seeing that in an early concept Tom Bombadil and Farmer Maggot were some sort of kindred spirits, and that Maggot wasn't a pure Hobbit.

Of the other HOME books, the only one I have read (though I don't own) is The Peoples of Middle-earth. There's some good stuff in there. I might eventually get the whole series, but my money miserliness is holding me back. Them things don't come cheap.

[Belegorn]

I read them because there is extra information there that to some degree can be seen to expand on the history of LotR. Unfinished Tales for instance is one of my favorites. You read about Isildur's final days, about the great Steward Cirion and the history of the Rohan/Gondor alliance, there are things about Aragorn's people, what the Nazgul were doing when they looked for the Ring, there is stuff in there about the Palantir used by Aragorn, Denethor, Saruman, and Sauron in LotR, and some First Age stuff with Hurin and Tuor.

In Morgoth's Ring there's stuff about Elvish society, Morgoth's transformation and motives, and some old Edain lore about how they had a dark past with Melkor before reaching Beleriand.

I also like The Lays of Beleriand with the 2 big poems there, another rendition of the Children of Hurin, and one with Luthien.

[Inziladun]

One thing that has stood in my way regarding reading the whole HOME series, is a uneasiness in knowing too much about how the sausage is made, so to speak.

I wonder if enough inside info on the shifting conceptions and ideas Tolkien had for the lengendarium might in time rub off some of the magic of the stories themselves. I know that for a lot of people, that's simply a non-issue. But I think back on a certain movie, where the late, great Robin Williams dismisses an English textbook's author's attempts to rate the quality of poetry but analyzing its rhyme and meter rather than emotional impact. Perhaps that's an imperfect comparison, but it almost feels like the same thing.

[Pitchwife]

Apart from the wealth of new information and background details which Belegorn mentioned, I think the main appeal of HoME for me is the chance to watch a great creative mind working on and reworking a complex subject matter throughout his life, every stage showing qualities which were lost or yet undeveloped in others. From the primitive mythology of BoLT with its unchecked and sometimes tongue-in-cheek joy of invention to the metaphysical depth of the late essays in Morgoth's Ring and War of the Jewels, every phase has its unique charm, and it's great that Christopher Tolkien has made them all available for us to study and appreciate.

(As for the matter of Robbie Williams and literature textbooks vs Walt Whitman, much as I love Dead Poets Society I can't help feeling that the dichotomy it presents there is bogus. Rhyme and metre are only dull if you fail to realize their function in delivering the impact, emotional or other, and pure emotional content without a convincing form has no punch. For me, a poem or novel doesn't lose its appeal by studying how it does its job, I'd rather say I learn to appreciate it on an additional level.)

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

One thing that has stood in my way regarding reading the whole HOME series, is a uneasiness in knowing too much about how the sausage is made, so to speak.
I wonder if enough inside info on the shifting conceptions and ideas Tolkien had for the lengendarium might in time rub off some of the magic of the stories themselves. I know that for a lot of people, that's simply a non-issue. But I think back on a certain movie, where the late, great Robin Williams dismisses an English textbook's author's attempts to rate the quality of poetry but analyzing its rhyme and meter rather than emotional impact. Perhaps that's an imperfect comparison, but it almost feels like the same thing.

On the contrary, being a cook I wanted to know the recipe.

But then, I loved The Silmarillion perhaps more than LotR or The Hobbit. The ancient tales and the eccentric rhythms of Tolkien's "High English" attracted me much like reading Bulfinch's Mythology drew me to the Mabinogi, the Eddas and Le Mort d'Arthur when I was very young. I find the language entrancing and the arcanity of the wording and grammar lends an authenticity to the fiction.

So delving into HoMe was a linguist's labor of love. To appreciate Tolkien is to know that every word has been mulled over and accepted or rejected based on its etymologic significance. To see the building blocks of world creation is fascinating in and of itself, of course, but the added insight into the Istari and various other pieces of archaeological information gleaned while digging through the skeleton of the mythos proved very rewarding.

In regards to how "Robin Williams dismisses an English textbook's author's attempts to rate the quality of poetry but analyzing its rhyme and meter rather than emotional impact", I can only say that I am in utter awe of Shakespeare's ability to create divine and superbly impactful dialogue in iambic pentameter. It is a thing of beauty and incredibly hard to do with such sublimity.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

Some of it is archaic. It is certainly highly redundant. It is long. Many would argue that it is overly scholarly and inaccessible.

I suspect that is part of the reason why I read it.

Like Belegorn I also read it for the insights into Middle earth's history. I am an utter and pathetic sucker for in-world history, lore, and world building. I rate the fiction that I read on the basis of how good the world building is (if there is a nerdier standard than that, I want to know what it is).

Tolkien is at the top in this regard, by a long way in many aspects. Reading much of HoME is just a delight in this regard.

[Elmo]

The Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Morgoth's Ring is a great piece of writing that gives a glimpse on how Elves and Women felt about their different fates. It's such a sad yet beautiful work.

[Galadriel55]

I haven't actually read HOME, but I want to read the First Age volumes - does that count?

I've tried reading the LOTR ones (the only ones I found in my library), but I ended up just skimming them for either bits of story that I like best or Tolkien's own sketches and writing. Basically, I picked out the berries from the pie. Why? Because I like tidbits like that. But I'm not patient enough to go through CJRT's methodical recounting. Some of it is really interesting, and I actually love reading about that stuff when other Downers post about it in their own words, but reading HOME sometimes feels like you're reading an encyclopaedia. This means, it is generally interesting, but often not in the best format.

However, I'm more into the First Age than the Third, and I think it's the Age with more mystery and more corners to explore and stories to fill. I imagine that I would be more interested in encyclopaedically delving into that. Also, some of it is completely unused stuff, either notably different stories from The Sil, or something else entirely. So I would still want to inspect those books.

[Aiwendil]

I'm more or less of the same mind as Morthoron. While I respect the attitude that Inziladun has expressed, and that I think many people would agree with, about 'not seeing how the sausage is made', I must say that to me that is a wholly alien way of thinking. I find that when I like a piece of art, learning more about it can only lead to my liking it more, never less.

For me, the kind of study that HoMe allows only enriches and deepens my appreciation of Tolkien's work. Now, part of that may just be that I like studying things; and undoubtedly part of my enjoyment of HoMe is a kind of academic enjoyment of having a large body of interrelated texts laid out in a clear and scholarly manner. And then there's the (related) enjoyment of studying it as a history - one which has the unusual property of existing in two dimensions of time (i.e. the internal chronology of Middle-earth and the external chronology of Tolkien's life and writing).

But as much as I love it for those reasons, I think the main thing that I prize about HoMe is simply its literary value - or rather, the literary value of many of the texts it contains. Simply put, it contains a lot of great writing: a lot of great characters, vivid scenes, compelling stories, and beautiful turns of phrase. I can see that if one were not interested in it from the academic side, one might find Christopher Tolkien's (excellent) commentaries difficult to get through, but I think that even in that case, there's enough literary value there that it's worth 'picking out the berries', as Galadriel puts it.

Some of my favourite berries:

- The later 'Tuor' and 'Turin' (UT)
- Aldarion and Erendis (UT)
- The vivid descriptions of the Valar and the 'mythological' portions of the Legendarium in the Book of Lost Tales (HoMe I)
- The Lay of Leithien (HoMe III)
- The little poem 'Winter Comes to Nargothrond', which for all its brevity is one of my favourite pieces of verse, ever (HoMe III)
- The Notion Club Papers (HoMe IX)
- The Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (HoMe X)
- 'The Wanderings of Hurin' (HoMe XI)

[Mithadan]

At the risk of sounding old (I'm really not that old... really) Tolkien and I go back to about 1971 when I first read The Hobbit with LoTR to follow shortly thereafter. Of course, back then there was no internet. The publication of The Silmarillion and later of Unfinished Tales received broad press coverage. I purchased each on the days they were released.

I didn't love The Silmarillion at first. It was a bit too much like a history book to me. It took another read or 2 to really begin the appreciate it. Unfinished Tales I liked more. The First Age pieces were more like how I envisioned The Silmarillion to be. The balance was more like a novel than history so I appreciated it more on the first read. I later came to like The Silmarillion as much as LoTR. I had no problem with the shadowy distant history being revealed.

Lost Tales flew under the press' radar, at least so far as I knew. I stumbled upon volume one in a bookstore. I found the style and quality of the prose to be less than Tolkien's later work. I almost didn't buy volume 2, but did and was glad I did so. It was worth it for the fall of Gondolin alone. I also enjoyed the idea of the faring forth and the prophecy of Mandos.

You see, I didn't conceive of Tolkien's writing to be a lifelong effort of editing and rewriting at that point. And I had no real interest, then, in the evolving development of his tales. I liked The Hobbit, LoTR and the Silmarillion at that point and had hoped that Tolkien had more substantially finished work about Middle Earth.

I didn't know anything more about HoME until around 1997 when I stumbled upon a copy of Lays of Beleriand and later The Shaping of Middle Earth at airports. I liked Lays very much, though it was slow going. It showed where Tolkien intended to go with his tales. Shaping I liked less. Again, I was not highly interested in the step by step evolution and found it to be generally redundant. I felt similarly about the Lost Road.

I skipped the History of the Lord of the Rings entirely at that point and moved straight on to Morgoth's Ring. Again I skimmed the early sections about the Annals and the later Silmarillion. However, the Athrabeth and the balance of the book was fascinating to me. It was fresh and new material.

By this time I had found the on-line Tolkien world and this message board. Morgoth's Ring and the War of the Jewels I treated as an education and as material for posts. Peoples of Middle Earth was also a winner for me. Again, it presented new or merely hinted at material. By this time, I had completely gotten over any reservations about "historical" Middle Earth.

I've gone through most of HoME at least twice and my favorite volumes more so. I now appreciate the evolution of Tolkien's writing, though I have given up on achieving any vision of what the final version of The Silmarillion might have looked like. I still keep my eyes open for fodder for posting here (wishful thinking?).

Even now, HoME sometimes surprises me. I mentioned in my opening post in this thread that when I heard that the Downs was going to be resurrected, the first book I picked up was Morgoth's Ring. I read it carefully, not skimming the Annals of Aman and the versions of the Silmarillion and noticed something. The prose, particularly in Annals was beautiful. Much better than the early versions and in many cases superior to what is found in The Silmarillion.

So why I read HoME has evolved over the years. I went from hoping for new stories, to looking for details missing from the published "canon" works, to looking for hints regarding what the Silmarillion should have been, to looking for information to post, to appreciating both the prose and the breadth of Tolkien's conception.