The Lord of the Rings – Appendices – JRR Tolkien

And so begins the first glimpses into the wider detail of the world that Tolkien created. Most authors are content with writing their story, maybe putting an epilogue at the end, and leaving it there (though most have an idea of what happens next in their own mind, though they prefer fans create it themselves). Of course there are then some authors who decide to add on sequels or prequels to further develop the world that they have painstakingly created and invested a lot of their waking hours to.

But Tolkien is in a world of his own when it comes to his mythology and history (I’ve mentioned it before in relation to LoTR itself and the detail contained within, but here I’m referring to everything else additional that Tolkien wrote). Even without going into all the additional works, like The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Hurin, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun and the History of Middle Earth (all 12 volumes of it) all of which were published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien, though most of the foundations of the stories would have already been set down by JRR himself, so I don’t believe Christopher is just making stuff up as he sees fit (even if he was, I think he is more than qualified for the job), there is enough additional information in the appendices to make your head hurt with the magnitude of the Middle Earth. All those other works I will read in due course, but that will take me years, and I’ll fill you in on my progress.

There are 6 individual appendices, each dealing with a different topic. Appendix A is the ‘annals of the kings and rulers’, and goes through striking detail about the history and genealogy of the King of Gondor, Rohan and Durin (dwarves). And it is fascinating, and answered quite a few questions I had about everything, and clarified just who the Numenorean People were and where they came from.

Appendix B is a chronology of the ‘westlands’, and is a dense timeline of the Second, Third and Fourth ages (up until the Fellowship’s story is complete). We don’t get much about the First Age, but we get a lot about all the other ages. It gives so much detail, that I couldn’t keep track of it all, and it would certainly take a few read throughs to get everything sorted. But it also gave us more detail to what else was going on during the war of the rings, including what the people of Dale were doing. In addition it gave a great history of Sauron, the Numenorean and Middle Earth in general. Honestly, LoTR isn’t complete without the appendices.

Appendix C contains Family Trees of Hobbits. And I can’t believe how much detail, yet again, Tolkien included. Honestly, he created 6 family trees (I know Hobbits were obsessed, but Tolkien was too) all with names and dates of the ancestors of Pippin, Merry, Sam and Frodo (plus Bilbo) and even shows who was invited to Bilbo’s birthday party!

Appendix D discusses the various calendars used throughout Middle Earth, and I’m sounding like a broken record, but I was struck that Tolkien decided to layout and create an intricate system of calendars for his world. Who does that? Honestly? I was beginning to think that we should use The Hobbit calendar, because it sounded more intelligent and more logical than ours! Though it was odd to see that they started and ended the year on the same day of the week. He even included leap years, and the rule that leap years don’t occur every century!

Then in Appendix E Tolkien becomes even greater, as he explains the writing systems and spelling of the languages of Middle Earth. I could keep up at the beginning, but then he was using English words I had no idea existed. I know he was a professor of language, and linguists was something he loved (and was amazing at) but just how much work he put into creating the Elven languages (there are two) and Common Speech, and all the rules of pronunciation. It is mind boggling! It is no wonder that you can do degrees in this stuff, because it is so complex. I struggled pretty early on in this, and eventually gave up. I didn’t understand it, and I think you might need a linguists degree to understand the vocabulary Tolkien is using, if you have one, enjoy.

The final appendix deals with the various languages of Middle Earth. From the two Elven languages, to Westron (or Common Speech), even Entish, the Black-speech and Dwarvish get a mention. He has planned out so much, and it is no wonder he spent decades creating the world that he shared just a fraction of with us. It is really fascinating stuff.

All in all, the appendices provide an even more complex picture of Middle Earth. For Tolkien enthusiasts there its invaluable knowledge and intriguing insights into the history of all the races in Middle Earth. Even for novices, like myself, they provide clarification and expiation of the ideas and stories in LoTR. I think if you don’t read at least the first few appendices, where the history is explored, you are missing out, so it is a must!

So concludes my Lord of the Rings journey, but as I’ve said, my journey in Middle Earth is far from over!

The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King – JRR Tolkien

The final volume in the Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, was published in 1955, nearly a year after The Two Towers and I think that was a reasonable time span to have to wait, too much longer and you would have been tearing your hair out wanting to know what happened next. Of course it is the ultimate climax of the story as we enter war against Sauron, and Frodo inches closer to destroying the One Ring. It does not disappoint, and the drama is high throughout the chapters.

Again ‘time travel’ is used wonderfully as we go to yet again more perspectives as the Fellowship breaks up and each have an important story to tell. Once again we don’t hear about Frodo and Sam and their perilous journey into Mordor for the entire of Book Five, except for right at the end when everyone converges on the Black Gate for the final battle (which is really just a diversion to keep Sauron distracted from Frodo) where we have to fear the worst. Sauron’s lieutenant has some of Frodo’s belongings and it really looks like he has been captured and that they have lost all chance at winning, since Sauron himself must now have the One Ring.

Speaking of Sauron, what exactly is he? It sounds like he is almost a wizard (he isn’t one of the Blue who decided to become evil? Like an earlier version of Saruman was he?) but I don’t think so. Looking through the appendices it sounds like he is immortal since he was able to come back to Middle Earth as a spirit. But what was he to begin with? And then I learn in the appendices that he was just a ‘lesser-being’ of evil compared to Morgoth, as he was just a servant. So what the hell was Morgoth? Maybe he was just evil incarnated, like Apophis is the God of Evil. And then I must wonder how on earth does the One Ring work, what powers does it yield that we didn’t even see. What if Gandalf used it, or even Sauron himself? It sounded like Sauron put some of his power into the ring (definitely reminds me of Voldemort putting bits of his soul into various things), so in effect he just weakened himself a bit, though if he wears the ring I guess he is so much stronger and in control of Elves, Dwarves and Men who wear the lesser rings. But honestly I want to imagine what would happen if Sam didn’t take the ring from Frodo, and it was handed over to Sauron. What sort of doom would be unleashed? I know it would be bleak, and everyone would go enslaved, but what exactly would happen (I know that partially this was talked about, but they just said that everywhere including Tom Bomabadil’s domain and Rivendell would be overwhelmed)? How would he be able to unleash doom? Would it allow him to create vast armies? What powers would he have, or would he just be stronger, and could stroll up to everyone and make them be a slave? And what if all five wizards went up against him (even though we have no idea what happened to the two blue ones and was there a female wizard at all?) what would happen? There are too many questions? And I have to laugh forever since Tolkien has given us more information about his world than any other author ever, and still I have questions!

But then I remember that Sauron was once overthrown by Isildur (forgive me for any wrong spellings and complete incorrectness, I’m just a newbie to Tolkien) and his vast armies. I think they had help from dwarves and elves (possibly), but I guess they won just because they had a whole lot more people working together, and they even overthrew Morgoth, who I guess was more powerful. And I might learn more about it when I read more, but still, I wonder.

Thoughts:

• Gondor, more specifically Minth Tirith, sounds like an amazing place. Seven rings, no wonder the enemy couldn’t prevail. But honestly it takes such a long time to get to the top, that it would be a great pain to travel to see the King (who hasn’t been around for ages). But I would have loved to see it in its glory, as well as Osgiliath and Minis Morgul.
• I have to say it is really hard to keep track of all the locations, since they have about 5 different names in all the different languages, and then sometimes they aren’t even on the map supplied (which I turned to constantly)so it is hard to know where they are talking about.
• Sam and Frodo are victorious, but only because of Gollum, he had the final part to play, and cast the One Ring into Mount Doom, something Frodo couldn’t bring himself to do. The passages leading up to it, are heart wrenching, as they try to get to the Mount, but their hope is fading, the get tired, hungry and thirsty, and Frodo’s burden grows heavier.
• The eagles came once again, but only for a moment. I’d like to learn more about them, we saw them more in The Hobbit, and they seemed like an interesting intelligent species with their own king. Hopefully there will be more about them. Again I wonder, what other intelligent species are out there?
• The king is restored to Gondor, and it is Aragorn. And he gets to marry Arwen and live a long life together. Peace is restored.
• The scouring of the Shire is a nice little end of the war of the rings. Even as you pass by Saruman and Wormtongue, you don’t imagine that they can have one last part to play. But it is nice to see the Hobbits rise up and defend themselves, and rid the Land of Saruman (I guess he won’t come back like Gandalf did).
• Then Frodo departs with Bilbo and the elves, off over the ocean to the west, where they will live forever. And I desperately want to go there somehow and see what is there. But I fear that we can’t know. Sam, Pippin and Merry remain and live out their lives, some having children, others not. But I love that Pippin and Merry have grown huge from the ent draughts.

And so ends the Lord of the Rings. I love it, so many others do, and I am happy that I decided to get back into the world. There is a lot more to discover and I am eager to do so, but it will take a long time before I read everything that I can from Tolkien. I’ll share what I can when I get around to them. Tomorrow: The Appendices! The Lord of the Rings is seriously one of those books you have to read at least once in your life!

The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers – JRR Tolkien

The second ‘volume’ of the Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, is the shortest of the there and was published in 1954 just months after the release of the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring. So it wasn’t really that long a wait for the next instalment, as one might have imagined, and this was because the entire story was basically written years before since Tolkien wanted to publish the entire book.

What I loved was the split between the two books within The Two Towers. Obviously Tolkien had planned all six individual ‘books’ carefully, and he had decided to split them up from the beginning, but it works so well. The pacing was fantastic, as we went back in time to see what happened from a different perspective. We do travel through time a little (more so in the next volume) but it was easy to understand where you were placed in the timeline and you didn’t get too confused, if at all. Though it was painful not knowing the fate of Sam and Frodo for an entire book! And then you had to be content not knowing what was going on in Rohan and Gondor with all the other characters for the next book!

With the return of Ganldalf, and the treachery of Saruman, who has fallen into high aspirations of taking over Sauron’s throne, wizards are dominant in The Two Towers. I understand so little about the mythology behind the wizards, you learn a little in the appendices (on which I will have another post on Saturday) about when they came and their purpose for coming, but there are too many questions left to be answered. I know that there is probably more somewhere in Tolkien’s work, but until I read it all, I won’t know. I refuse to search online, because I want to read through everything first and then supplement with the vast knowledge base of the internet and the Tolkien-pedias, which I’m sure have the answers. But I do know that there are 5 wizards, we obviously know of two of them, and Radagast the Brown is introduced in The Hobbit movie, and also in The Fellowship but his tale is untold except he is a ‘queer’ wizard who concerns himself with plants and animals. That much is clear from Saruman’s taunts and the vision from The Hobbit movie (part one). But as for the two others, all I know is that they are blue, and that much came from the recent Hobbit movie, where Gandalf seems to have forgottten their names. How can he do that? Where are these two wizards and what have they been doing? Have they died, but how is that possible when Gandalf basically died? And after Gandalf’s death he just becomes stronger, and takes the place of Saruman as Gandalf the White (clearly the White is ‘better’ than the Grey, which is better than Blue which is better still than the Brown), since Saruman has become multi-coloured, and is no longer serving the purpose he was supposed to. What exactly are wizards? They look like men but they clearly aren’t, the appendices spoke about it, but even still it was vague. And where do they draw their power? Or is that too silly a question since this is fantasy and they can do what they want.

I love all the little pairings that happen in this volume between some in the Fellowship. Their friendship between Gimli and Legolas, Merry and Pippin, and Sam and Frodo are wonderful to see develop. Obviously the Hobbits were friends of a sort from the outset, but it blossoms into something so much deeper than would have ever happened if they didn’t go on this journey. And Gimli and Legolas, a pairing unheard of in Middle Earth, a dwarf and an elf. I do like that we see a bridging between these two races. Sadly we don’t see much of the dwarves in LoTR, in fact we only see the remnants of their power in Moria, and Gimli and Gloin are their only representatives. They were in fact fighting their own battles up north-west with the men of Dale, but that we don’t learn until the appendices. I love the two of them having a competition in the middle of the battle in Helm’s Deep about how many orcs they can slay (something I can remember from the movies), and then they both promise to visit a place of the other’s choosing (Fangorn Forest from Legolas, and the caves near Helm’s Deep from Gimili). It is nice to see that even in such hardship and troubling times, two ‘people’ can become friends, that will last a lifetime (and beyond if I’m not mistaken, do they not both go across the sea?).

Some thoughts:

• ENTS! And specifically Treebeard! How I love them. It is empowering to see them ride up against Saruman, and destroying Isengard. But so sad about the entwives and entmaidens. Have they been lost forever? I hope not, I want to see little entlings!
• Gandalf the white! His return is most joyous. He survived the balrog, and ended up becoming more powerful, taking Saruman’s colour. Without him, nobody would triumph.
• Wormtongue, the slimy, cunning foul man who poisoned the mind of the king of Rohan. His end shall be rewarding
• Pippin and Merry are just great. I’m envious of the time they spent with the ents. But sadly the pair must split as one heads to Gondor and the other must stay with Rohan
• Faramir, one last place of hospitality, food and safety on the road to Mordor, but I can’t help but wonder if Frodo’s deception of Gollum caused him to betray them, or if he already (and I think he did) had imaginings of Shelob
• Gollum. Sam had every right to be suspicious of you, the trap you less then into. But it failed to some degree. Shelob was injured, but Frodo was then taken into the hands of the enemy. Sam well have to work hard to save him. But I’m sure well see you again!
• Poor Sam, after all your hard work, you even decided to go it alone and take the Ring, you find out that Frodo isn’t dead, he was just knocked out by Shelob’s poison, and now he has fallen into the hands of the orcs. You try to follow them, but come up stuck as they go into their stronghold. I do love their suggestion that he is some elven warrior, and he is just a small Hobbit, but as we know, you can’t discount Hobbits.

That’s all for The Two Towers, I think you can tell that this will continue tomorrow. But I ask of you, whose your favourite wizard, and what’s your favourite friendship? Not just from LoTR, but of all time? There have been a great deal of wizards, Dumbledore perhaps (a great controversy of a topic) or Merlin, and there have been countless friendships, so it might be hard to choose from. Again, any memories from reading the book, or favourite scenes depicted in the movies are much appreciated.

The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien

Time for my first review of the epic trilogy (that JRR Tolkien actually wanted as one single book, but publishers said “No, who’d want to buy or read a book that was over 1100 pages long?”, well the answer is, at least 200 million people). I did a review of The Hobbit last month (in time for the release of the movie in Australia), and after becoming captured by Tolkein’s Middle Earth, I had to read more. I read LoTR (yes, Lord of the Rings) many years ago, and I had forgotten most of the details since I was quite young. Of course, I’ve seen the movies (though I don’t believe I’ve seen the extended editions, which is something I must do) and basically, who hasn’t! Peter Jackson did an amazing job of creating an interpretation of Middle Earth (and that’s what movies are, interpretations, not direct replicas of the book). But, the movies, though largely true to the story, left out a lot of details, and that was clear to me, almost immediately.

Pretty quickly you get immersed into a world, whose detail and mythology are so vast, it is daunting. And that I guess is a criticism, especially for those trying to delve into Middle Earth for the first time. You are confronted with a plethora of names, places, things that you don’t understand. And there are storylines that are referenced to, but ultimately never elaborated in this text (and instead are left to the additional, posthumous works published by Christopher Tolkien). That doesn’t mean it is a bad thing, it is just confronting for those who aren’t experts in Middle Earth and its vast history. It just means that for some people, they’ll start to get overwhelmed by all this new information, and will turn off. But for others (like myself) all these additional storylines, snippets of history and references to wars and people, just makes me eager to learn more about Middle Earth. Of course there are some, who think LoTR is enough, and once reading it, won’t continue into the additional texts, and that’s okay.

I guess the other ‘criticism’ that people have, leads on from the great depth of the world of Middle Earth, is the detail that Tolkien includes. It is a dense book (all three of them), and it takes a while to read through it all. I for one, love detail, and don’t mind ploughing through thousands of pages for a story (you might be able to tell that I am pretty verbose myself), but there are lots of people who again would be put off by just how long the story is. Which I guess is why there is a divide between the population of the world, those who have read LoTR and those who haven’t.

One final little criticism for indeed the trilogy, is the endless poems and songs that Tolkien gives us. Now, they aren’t bad, I don’t hate them, I guess struggle through them sometimes. Because, often they don’t make sense, because I don’t know what he’s talking about. Usually they are referring to somebody whose tale is in another book. And sometimes it is just hard to try and read the words, when you know they are supposed to be sung, and you try to put a melody on them, but then it doesn’t work. Which makes me frustrated, and desperate to know what Tolkien was humming when he wrote them. For Tolkien enthusiasts, these songs probably invoke deep emotion, as you can tell is their purpose, but for someone basically going in for the first time, its meaning is ultimately lost. Though, as I started to work my way through the text, I began to enjoy them more (though, they do start to get less common as time progresses, since times are less jovial).

A few things I’d like to comment on specifically about TFotR (The Fellowship of the Ring), and I’ll be commenting on the other two books tomorrow and the next day.

• The prologue. Tolkien, why on earth did you basically spoil your entire book in the prologue! Honestly, some people would be content with just reading that. I luckily, decided against reading the lengthy prologue because I had been informed of just how much Tolkien gives away (which is why I recommend skipping straight to chapter 1, and coming back to the prologue AFTER reading at least The Two Towers, but preferably after the entire thing). But it was very interesting, and makes me love Hobbits and The Shire even more.
• Gandalf! I love that old wizard, and I’ve heard he is immortal, but maybe more about wizards is revealed in other books, so I’ll eagerly await more on him. He is so wise, and knows so much, but even he sometimes fails (I guess like Dumbledore, and there is so much comparison between the two, with those growing up with Harry Potter most likely to love Dumbledore more, and everyone else believing they are fools). His end is bittersweet, for reasons, and he has way too many names!
• Tom Bombadil! How I love this strange man, whose wife is the daughter of a River! Now this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this man, since I read a book containing his Tales, plus a few of Tolkien’s other short stories, and it was a great surprise to see him again, in the forest near The Shire. I guess that my exposure to him, made me love his quirky nature sooner than some other people would have if they didn’t know about him. I do wonder, just exactly what he is. And Old Man Willow, why are you so mean?
• Elves and Rivendell and Lorein. After seeing Rivendell in The Hobbit, it was nice to go back there, and to see Bilbo again! Again another species that is immortal. Why on earth that is I have no idea. I think there is more about them in The Silmarillion, which I will read at some point this year. I just love Legolas, and the stunning natural beauty of their homes makes me want to be transported there immediately.

One final thing, TFofR was published in 1954 (quite a while after The Hobbit, but that was because of the War), and even though Tolkien wanted it as one single book, he did a bloody good job of the splits. TFotR is split up (as are all three ‘books’) into two books, and at the end of both books there is always a cliffhanger (which is why I am glad I have the entire edition, and I didn’t have to wait before continuing to read on). It takes the entire first book for Frodo and his friends to reach Rivendell (with the aid of Aragorn, who has so many names, just like Gandalf). Those Black Riders were relentless. And the end of book two, is where the Fellowship ends (fittingly, where The Fellowship book ends too!).

That’s it, I don’t need to say anything else, but tomorrow with be my Two Towers review. But my question for you, what did you love about TFotR? What do you wish was in the movie? And what was it like to go into Middle Earth for the first time (if you can remember)?