4e4114d6
XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: fwbrown@bellsouth.net
In alt.fan.tolkien solar penguin wrote:
>
> You know, that reminds me. I must have another go at trying to force
> myself to read The Silmarillion again. It's been about 12 years since
> I last tried.
I first read it a few days after it hit the bookstores in 1977, and have
re-read it a number of times over the years. My old hardback copy is
looking pretty worn.
>
> Yeah, I know everyone says it gets better after the first few
> chapters, but how many is "the first few"? I think I got to chapter
> twenty-something last time, and it was still no better than the early
> ones. (IIRC it was the bit where Turin or Hurin or someone gets
> released from Morgoth's dungeon after being tortured by being forced
> to watch his son or nephew or someone live out the lead role in a
> third-rate pastiche of a Michael Moorcock novella.)
Wow, this really show how different tastes can be. The first chapters
(Ainulindalė in particular) are my favorite parts!
>
> The problem was, it was all in the tediously overblown, epic style
> that makes so much books 3 and 5 of LOTR so dull that you always skip
> them on re-reading to get back to all the wonderful homespun
> philosophy between the Hobbits. I guess my question is, how many more
> chapters before The Silm's equivalent of Sam and Frodo appear?
That "epic style" is one of the things that is so appealing to me.
It's the "wonderful homespun philosophy between the Hobbits" that I find
less interesting. I like reading about Elves and Valar much more than
about Hobbits, though it's Dwarves and Men (especially Men) that I find
least interesting of all. I always get a bit tired of slogging through
all the stuff about Turin.
--
F. Wayne Brown
Žęs ofereode, šisses swa męg. ("That passed away, this also can.")
from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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