PT Rethink Your Life: The PT Social Thread: Episode III (image/gif-heavy)

Well, I'm gonna wake up in 12 hours probably to like 10 alerts with potentially some serious business I should get to and miss some fun ****

 

Ezon Pin

I keep meaning to say it, but that av looks so familiar to me. What is its source?

 

Isn't it Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh? At least, that's who it reminds me of.

In other news, Darthmaul208, I've decided to buy the Silmarillion, after hearing you praise it so much. I'll also get the Children of Hurin and the Unfinished Tales, because I'm obsessed, and won't feel complete without them.

 

The heatwave is officially over. We have rain!

 

we're usually like two ships passing in the night, but I wanted to fly by and say: hang in there, Ezon

 

Don't be so sure

 

I feel like this is canon

 

(removed gif x2, language)

 

Well it is the greatest book ever assembled!

Speaking of Children of Hurin, the Tolkien "club" I visit were planning on doing a read through. What we do is a weekly meet up in a chat room and talk about something specific.

We were going to start a read through of COH I think either this week or next week. Always on a Saturday but there's a general chat room as well.


Do you want a link?

 

No, I'm going to save the books for when I go on holiday in a fortnight.

Have you read COH or the Unfinished Tales before?

 

I recommended CoH to a friend just the other day.

 

Not yet. COH is half included in the Sil, a slimmer more basic version that is. The book then goes into depth about that particular story from what I understand.

I've been meaning to read it but we've kept putting the read through off for about a year or so but this time we'll finally do it.


I understand about waiting. I've been wanting to read the Malazan series but haven't got round to ordering it.

 

Yes, the tale of the Children of Húrin is part of the Silmarillion, and the published Sil does contain a more condensed version of the story. There is also a more detailed version in Unfinished Tales. The recent CoH book is Christopher Tolkien's attempt to present the tale as an independent story accessible without having to know the Silmarillion as a whole. It is the most fleshed-out and "novelistic" presentation of the story.

 

Well, I have all 3 now, so I hope I don't get sick of the story after reading it 3 times.

What order would you recommend I read them then?

 

Well, you should definitely wait to read Unfinished Tales until you have both the LOTR and the Silmarillion under your belt. Attempting it before then would just be baffling.

Now whether to read the Sil or the CoH first is an interesting question. I think either approach has its merits. I guess it depends on whether you want to read a creation myth, or more Lord of the Rings. If you're up for the creation myth, start with the Silmarillion. If you want more Lord of the Rings, start with the CoH. It would give you some grounding in the sweeping mythic world of the Silmarillion when you do get to it.

These are my recommended Middle-earth reading orders:

Hobbit > LOTR > Sil > Unfinished Tales > CoH > History of Middle-earth

OR

Hobbit > LOTR > CoH > Sil > UT > HoMe

 

What does the History of Middle Earth consist of?

I think I'll try Silmarillion then COH, then Tales. I've read LOTR and the Hobbit before, and I really enjoyed reading the stories of Numenor and such in the Appendices.

 

I haven't read the other two but in my opinion, Sil first, then COH then Unfinished tales.

To fully enjoy COH you probably need a background on everything that has happened in ME so far which the sil provides.

To read Unfinished Tales you need to be intimately familiar with Sil, The Hobbit and LOTR.

 

Good. You're ready for the Sil then.

The HoMe is basically a chronological exploration of Tolkien's writings on Middle-earth and Aman. The first two volumes consist of the Book of Lost Tales, which is an embryonic and veerry different version of the Silmarillion written in a flowery archaic style. Fascinating, but baffling if you haven't read the Sil. Trust me, I speak from experience.
The later volumes go on to show the various rewrites of the Silmarillion stories as they evolved towards their present form. It also contains supplementary things like essays on the races of elves and languages that Tolkien wrote in the years before World War II. Then there's a break in the Silmarillion material and it follows the first drafts of the Lord of the Rings. The final volumes resume with the Silmarillion material by showing the first drafts of the stories of Númenor and Tolkien's final rewrites to the Silmarillion in the 1960s. All of this is with copious notes and commentary by Christopher Tolkien, in the same vein as Unfinished Tales.

 

It would probably take hours just to get through the A's

Also, that is definitely canon

 

Did I share this over here yet?

I will possibly never run out of Futurama dialogue until I've more or less recycled the entire series, I think. It works so well.

 

Silmarillion is to books what ROTS is to movies

 

Full of whiny, unlikable protagonists, loads of fake CGI, and ruins the holy, untouchable LOTR trilogy?

 

Fëanor's turn is totally unrealistic.