Thanks for the warning, cube.
varg: how does the Fellowship escape from the barrow-downs without bombadil? or did they leave that out, too?
Cubefan,
Tolkien was a linguistic, who was really fond of artifficial languages, and created quite a few himself. The Hobbit, and Lord Of The Rings, and actually the whole Arda mythology was originaly created for one purpose only, that is to create some surrounding, some myth to his languages, and put them to use. He even wanted to write the whole thing in Quenya originaly (if I remember right, but it might have been Sindarin, these are the most detailed languages of his), but of course he realised that only a few could understand it, so he kept using his languages to the maximum which wouldn’t break the story for those who don’t speak them (which is not much unfortunately). However from his works (as there are a lot of them) people were able to reproduce most of his languages. There are about 10 with grammar and words, however only 2 are detailed enough to be usable to some extent. And there are a lot of fictional ones.
This is one point of it’s greatness, and may I add that my nick, Erufailon actually means the same in Quenya as my real life name, directly translated. (Quenya is the Ancient Tounge of the elves, Sindarin is the Noble tounge.)
The other point is he created the whole world with creatures, places, everything. Not only a great accomplishment that it was so detailed, but also that he invented the cratures that you can see everywhere around in fantasy worlds nowadays (Just take the Harry Potter hype, I think there wouldn’t be a Harry Potter - which I highly dislike for it’s lack of originality - if there were no people like J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course this wouldn’t be much loss, but not having the fantasy worlds with trolls, orcs, elves, etc would. Even the world of shadowrun would be greatly different, if existing at all, same for D&D). Some say he was the first fantasy writer. If this is true, we might not even have fantasy (not our fantasy, the genre) now.
Also, it’s so well written, so charming, artistic, etc. So if there is great literature, this one is.
Hope I didn’t make many mistakes, English is a foreign language to me.
I like LOTR. The books and the movies. I think they’re both great.
I don’t like it when people (cough cough cubefan cough) say things like “the film is awful” when they mean “I don’t like the film”. A lot of people like it, you have no right to talk as if your opinion is fact.
That’s a cool idea though, about mixing the imaginations of the audience with the vision of the filmmaker.
Conlangs are really cool… (CONstructed LANGuages)
I have “The Return of the King”, but I haven’t got around to reading it much. From what I’ve read so far though, it’s really good.
I agree.
No need to thank me.
And I think they just get onto some boat to escape the Black Riders. Or were you talking about something else?
mr plant, sorry to tell ya bu they totaly missed them, they went right on to the nazgul.
Cube: if u r able to sometimes make so “acute” (to give it a name) coments, how aren’t u able to apreciatte this incredible book. i think more or less like u on the film, i hate the guy who chose elijah wood to be frodo he sucks. however jackson was able to keep some of the epicism of the book, i sugest u read it fully, there’s no way u r gonna understand the full traumaticness that u get by it untill u read em all. i became obsesed when i read the first only, and i was angrily frustrated when i finished cuz i liked so much the book i never wanted it to learn. his writing skills are impressive. i never read shuch incredible and vivid descriptions, they touched me.
I think the books are awesome. The Silmarillion is ok, you have to read it to find out where my nick came from.
But Dune beat ems all. Not just one of the Dune books, but the whole as a series. The prequels are ok too. Anyone ever read Frank Herbert’s other books? I’m starting The Dosadi Experiment, and it’s pretty good.
i liked so much the book i never wanted it to learn
“Learn?” You do mean “end,” right? Or is this one of those new “intellegent-learning” books?
PS: VK, I tried to read the first “Dune,” and believe it or not, it was too talky for me. Not enough going on to sustain interest for me. Sorry.
LOTR; my interest in that kind of tapered off too.
How far did you get? The beginnings very talky. The whole book might be a little slow for some people with it’s multitude of subplots. Maybe you should check out the prequels. They’re more mainstream. Books 2-6 in the Dune series will bore you to tears if you’re not prepared to REALLY think about what you’re reading. This is coming from someone who didn’t have much trouble at all remembering all the little names and comprehending the Silmarillion.
I loved the dune series, except the last book, Frank herbert died and either his son or housecleaner finished it off on one page, grrrr,
another book series to look for if you like that is Chun Kuo by David Wingrove, Foundation trilogy by Asimov(very “talky” not for ADD sufferers), or Hyperion series by Dan Simmons…
Tolkien based a lot of LOTR on ancient fables and faire tales, this in no way diminishes from his acheivement, bloody fantastic, I too was saddened when I finished the last in the series,I did not want it to stop.
I must say Silmarillion worked my brain, much checking of the glossary
was it Tolkein and a few other professors who sat around smoking pipes and writing ideology and history disguised as childrens books? , C.S.Lewis was another I think? men of learning anyway, … rambling …
CS Lewis was a very good friend of Tolkien’s though Tolkien disliked all of C.S Lewis’s stuff. Mostly because Lewis wrote it too fast. It took Tolkien 14 year I think for LOTR and his whole life for the Silmarillion.
Or look at the Ardalambion’s Quenya wordlist:
Vala “Power, God, angelic power”, pl. Valar or Vali (BAL, Appendix E, LT2:348). The Valar are a group of immensely powerful spirits guarding the world on behalf of its Creator; they are sometimes called Gods, though this is strictly wrong according to Christian terminology: the Valar were created. The noun vala is also the name of tengwa 22 (Appendix E).
And as I remember, in some websites you’re registered as “Valar_king” which makes this even more obvious to see (if you recognize Quenya words)
Wait, addendum - Valatar is a combining form meaning “Valar king” referring to Manwe, Ulmo, Aule, Mandos, Lorien, Tulkas, Orome or Melkor.
ray_theway u shurely like LOTR
I’ve never read the books, although I’m certain they are great, because I’ve seen the movies. Personally, I’m of the opinion that a story should only be brought to life in one kind of entertainment “system”. I’ve never played LOTR games eather. A book should let your imagination go wild, but since I’ve seen the movies, that would always be in the background of my head. The same the other way around: My favorite book(series) of all times is “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. It were amazing books, and you really created (had to create) your own world for them. I would hate to see the books turn in to movies… it would totally spoil the idea I had about it. (I’ve heard there is/was a game in developement about it, and I’m sure I’ll never play it).
Well, Douglas Adams himself created a text-based adventure game. (But don’t quote me on this neither )
Also, there is a 6 part TV series, which is pretty old, but ain’t bad.
text-based is still okay I guess, since you still have to make up the whole world…
but the TV series? I’ll never watch them
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, my first intro to it was as a radio play, being dialog driven it worked well, and still left room for your imagination, funny the things that stick in your mind…